Pressing On

Philippians 3:13-14
13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Today, when I was at the park, this scripture kept popping up in my head, and I think there are some things I learned while joggingh and meditating on the above mentioned passage.

1. You have to press on even when you don't feel like it. Each time I run, there comes a point when I want to stop. This point is always long before the distance I want to run. I have a choice to make, I can give myself credit for how far I have run and quit, or I can forget about what I have done so far, and keep moving to the goal I set when my run started. (sometimes, I press on, sometimes I quit). As we walk with God, the same thing happens. We are going to have tough times where we just aren't "feeling it" and the choice will come to I quit, or do I press to the High Calling of God

2. You must forget those things that are behind, but you also must understand that those things in the past affect your current situation. For example, I normally run a little over 7 miles 2 or 3 times a week. Well, for the last couple of weeks, I have had a pulled hamstring. Therefore, I have not been running for 2-3 weeks. Well, today the result was that I could not near as long as I normally run. This application makes sense spiritually too, for when I take a week or two away from God's word and prayer, then it makes my spiritual walk that much harder for me.

Overwhelmed

The following passage overwhelmed me on Saturday as I was reading along

Lamentations 3:21-26

21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. 22 The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness. 24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. 26 It is good to wait silently for the salvation of the Lord.

The above is one of the best reasons to read the Scripture and be enlightened on a regular basis.
This was written by Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations, or book of Lament as some call it. It is something that the Jewish people will read to be reminded of the utter destruction of their city. If your read the prior book, Jeremiah, you will see that Jeremiah is calling the people to turn from their wicked way and to be obedient to the Lord. The message throughout Jeremiah is to choose life or to choose death, and the people continually disregard the message of Jeremiah that he is given from the Lord and choose death. Due to their constant rebellion and disobedience God allows Jerusalem to be overthrown. The following book is Lamentations and in it you find the above nugget.

How does this apply to us? Well, our God is so good, that even when we are constant rebellion and disobedience to Him, he offers his mercy every morning. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. If you read along in the book of Jeremiah, you can see that God was really giving every opportunity for the people to turn to God and follow Him, but when they did not, they chose death. Even when they made this choice God was telling them to accept his mercy and wait patiently for Him. So, for us here is some great news.

1. In life we have a choice, it is life or death. Life is to follow God through Jesus, death is to ignore Him and live life your own way.
2. If you are far from God and think that you are so far against Him that you can never turn to Him, you are wrong. The people of the above mentioned passage openly disobeyed and basically mocked God. How did God respond? He said his mercies are new every morning. I would encourage you to carefully consider continued disobedience, because the people went through a really hard time because they were so disobedient, but in the end God was still there.
3 No matter how bad any situation is, we have hope because of our Great God!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a great God we have
He died for us when we were totally in rebellion to Him, and often times continue in Rebellion against Him. I still can not comprehend that a man, who was also God, would come to Earth and die for each of us knowing that so many would reject Him, but his Mercies are new every morning. I can not comprehend how he continues to pursue a relationship with each and every one of us in spite of the fact that we are so quick to forget about Him. His mercies are new every morning. I can not believe that God continues to work on me in spite of the fact that often I am a miserable failure at what he is instructing me in. His mercies are new every morning. I can not believe that God put my sins and your sins on a very bloody cross knowing that we would continue to rebel against Him. His mercies are new every morning. I can not describe how unthinkable it is to know that Jesus is right now preparing for me and for you a place to dwell with Him forever. His mercies are new every morning.

Looking for......

I am reviewing some things I wrote a few years back today and I came across what I was looking for in a wife a few years ago (I am still looking, and I think these are some good guidelines)

1. A Dedicated Christian
2. Willing to do whatever God leads
3. A sweet spirit
4. A great witness for Jesus Christ
5. Willing to stand up for herself

Poems I wrote A long Time Ago

A few years ago, when things were not going as well as I hoped I wrote the following:

A new Day arrives
Hope is no longer Alive
For All that I strive
The goal now has become to survive

A prayer or a wish
He no longer makes
He used to be willing to
do whatever it takes
Now is interest is
only what he makes.

He laughs out loud if
only they knew what was
under the clouds.
Everythig is a secret among a crowd.
Can a heart cry out loud?

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Some wear smiles
Some wear frowns
Each one hoping they do not drown

The lake of trouble arrives.
Each must decide.
To Endure or Overcome.
To Concede or Retreat.
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A year has gone by
and I have made many cries.
Time seems to fly
and nothing seems to happen.
Patience is fleeting.
Desire is burning
to serve Him is my deepest Yearning
With many things I have been flirting
but I believe
this year I will serve Him more
and help me fulfill this yearning.

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I am waiting on You
I put my hope in You
You died for me
May I live for you
Make my satisfaction in you
You are the light of the World.
Light my path, just so I can see you.
Make your name the only thing that matters.
Make yourself my only joy.

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LOST

This is not about a TV show. This is actually about the most important thing that can be determined in your appointed time on earth. I once was lost, but now I am found. If this is confusing to you, keep on reading. Currently, I am reading a book called, "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn. I would encourage all Christians to read this book. Sometimes, I think we dont really understand how amazing Heaven is. The briefest of summaries would be as follows: "Heaven is a lot like earth, just remove the sin and add the physical presence of God incarnate, which is Jesus Christ." If you need more detail, please read the Bible and the above mentioned book which is about 500 pages long.

The reason for the introduction about Heaven, is because I want to write what you must do to obtain citizenship in Heaven. (I find it a little bit humorous how theologically accurate that old song "Heaven is a place on Earth actually is, but I digress). In our society, what I am about to write will not be regarded as politically correct. (See my other blogs if you think I am concerned with being politically correct.......I am not).

The first thing that I must say, is that not everyone is going to Heaven. This is heart breaking. The reason for the heart break is that if you are not going to Heaven, then you are going to Hell. Now, I have some people say they would rather go to Hell with all of their friends and have fun. Unfortunately, in Hell you will not know your friends or God. It is a place of utter torment. Also, a lot of people do not think Heaven will be fun, but we can not even begin to imagine the joy we will experience when we are in Heaven, it is not something you want to miss. There are many misconceptions about Heaven and Hell, I will not address them today, I want to address only what it takes to get there.

If you are like me, (Hopefully, for your sake you are not) you have to plan everything. If you are going to plan a road trip you must have everything mapped out. A couple of years ago I decided to take a trip to watch several baseball games. I was going to leave Grapevine, go to Cincinatti, St. Louis, Kansas City and Oklahoma City to watch baseball games (I have a sickness). Well, before I left I google mapped the directions to every stadium and Motel 6 (They said they would leave the light on) so I knew exactly where I was going. It would seem a little silly to me to try and take a trip to a known destination without any known directions. I mean I could have headed north and I may or may not have made it to Cincy, but thanks to the map I got right where I needed to go. The directions led me to the destination. Well, in the same manner, God has given his recorded Word to lead us to his destination. His destination is his house, which is Heaven. In the following paragraphs, I would like to try and make those directions as clear as possible.

1. We all must recognize that we are lost, and without direction we are not going to make it. What does it mean to be lost? It means you are searching for a destination but you do not know how to get there. Some people are lost and don't care, some are lost and just don't know it yet. I have driven a long way down a highway before I realized I was going the wrong way a time or two (I was a teenager, give me a break). In the Scripture, lost means to be seperated from God. How do you become seperated from God? Well, the easy answer is sin. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's standard. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were created and had the ability not to sin, but in their free will, they disobeyed God and sin began. Every person that has been born since, was born into sin. There is one exception, but that will be discussed in a moment. If you say you have no sin, then the Scripture says you are a liar. To have no sin, you could never have lied, not even once as a child, never been angry without cause, never had a lustful thought and the list goes on and on. I have met few if any people who did not realize that at least one time in their life they did something wrong. Therefore, based on God's standard to enter Heaven we are all out of luck. The only way you can get to his house is to be sinless.

This poses a great dilemma, because the only way to get into Heaven is to be sinless, but it is impossible to be sinless. Well, when I said that no one who has ever been born without sin, I did mention one exception. That exception is Jesus Christ. This is why the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is of utmost importance. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, then there is no way to get to Heaven. Fortunately, he was, so there is. Jesus was born of a virgin, and then for about 33 years he lived a sinless life. The most amazing thing is that he was subjected to all of the same temptations that we are, yet he lived without sin. Although, he lived a sinless life, he was sentenced to death without cause. He was executed on a wooden cross between 2 thieves. Now, there are a few who say He didn't actually die, but you might want to go study how efficient the Romans were at execution. He was certainly dead, He died in my place and in yours. It was done by proxy, which is to say in the place of. I can only get to Heaven on the basis of the death of Jesus Christ.

If you are wondering about how that works......Well, he didn't stay dead, on the 3rd day, he got out of the grave victorious over sin and death. How to you acess Heaven? If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and belive in your heart that Jesus raised in from the dead you will be saved from the penalty for sin. This is why we can say, "Oh, death where is your sting, o grave, where is your victory?"

Chocolate Coffee???

Chocolate coffee is a liar. I hate coffee......I know most people love it, but not me.
I love chocolate, a whole lot. You can persuade me to do most anything with a chocolate chip cookie.
Today, at work, it was really cold and the sign said chocolate coffee. I thought to myself, well, I hate one and I love the other, mix them together and the coffee should be okay.
Chocolate coffee does not taste chocolate at all. It just taste like coffee. Chocolate coffee is a liar.
I shall now resume my lifetime boycott of any substance that is known as coffee.

Psalm 127.....Part II

1 Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to [a] those he loves.3 Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth.5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.

Please see the above mentioned highlighted part of the PSALM. I would like to address something that seems to be Anti American. Just so you know, I don't consider myself an American, but a Christian who lives in America (Phil 3:20, I will expound later), I am aiming to bring that perspective to this writing.

I am absolutely certain that God instituted marriage and family. The reason I am so certain for this is because it is the practical illustration of His love for His people. There is oneness that can only be found in family that represents the oneness we can find in Jesus Christ. The Hebrew text indicates that marriage is a completion or making one whole, or complete. Therefore, marriage is supposed to make you feel complete or one as much as possible on Earth. Don't worry Single people like me, marriage is the illustration, we are totally complete in Jesus Christ with or without spouse.

Today, I want to focus on what it means to have children and why American Christians should probably have more than the 2 they average. Lets think about the illustration of family. If God is building a kingdom, and He is, then He would want as many people in it as possible. This is why he has given us the admonition to be fruitful and multiply. If God is building His kingdom, why wouldn't we build the Kingdom he is allowing us to manage?

In the current time, it seems that the heritage that we claim is from the Lord is to find a job we love, save a lot of money and then retire to do whatever we want to do. I would challenge someone to bring me a biblical example of this lifestyle. Retirement is an American concept, not a Biblical one. (Full disclosure, my current employer is a retirement company.) This is one of the main reasons that people do not have as many kids these days, it reduces the American Dream. How can I travel the world in my RV when i am 63 if I have kids and grand kids to take care of?

Why is it important to have kids? Well, it is clearly stated in the Word of God, that if you have a lot of kids, you are blessed. I don't recall a scripture that says if you retire, enjoy your work and have fun you are blessed, but the Psalm indicates that if you have children, you have a heritage from the Lord and you are blessed. Let me pose the following question. At the end of your life, do you want to be known for the career you pursued, the vacations you took, or the Heritage you have in the Lord. You answer.

If you are wandering how many kids I think a Christian family should have, let me answer that.
I would say a quiver full, how many ever the Lord puts in your quiver. A quiver is what a warrior keeps his arrows in. I don't think there is a certain number, but the more you have the more blessed you are......even if you have less money. Which reminds me, children are never an expense or a punishment. Children are 100% of the time a blessing, no matter the circumstance of their birth.

I have a dream, that one day we stop thinking of kids as expenses and mouths to feed, but as on opportunity to raise in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I hope that one day Christians everywhere celebrate the heritage that our Lord has provided. I am concerned that my generation is going to get old and regret that we have pursued our selfish interests and our heritage for the Lord will be minimal.

To my married friends, if you have 2 or 3 kids, you do not have a lot of kids. You are blessed, but please consider the Psalm and the blessing of a quiver full. Also, consider those who are physically unable to have children and how it must make them full if you decide that you only want a kid or two.

To my single friends........don't have any kids until you get married, but I am going to address the growing trend of delayed marriage soon.