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Book Review: Jesus Loves You

August 24, 2009 in Me and JC, bookswith 0 Comments

Jesus Loves You

By: Craig Gross & Jason Harper

Craig Gross and Jason Harper aren’t your typical ministry leaders. They have dived into a world that would scare most Christians, the world of pornography. Craig is the founder of XXX Church a ministry that reaches the people who live and work in the porn industry. I’m sure your thinking that is just crazy and probably a waste of time but somebody has got to do it. Craig and Jason’s mission is simple to show people that Jesus loves you.

That is the motivation behind their new book Jesus Loves You This I Know.  Don’t let this simple, almost childish title fool you, this book takes you deep into the idea of just how much Jesus loves you. Throughout the book you are taken through the lives of different people that most would say, Jesus doesn’t love them, but he does. We meet the bitter and betrayed, the disconnected, the broken, the forgotten, the skeptic, the glutton, the crook, the outcast, the porn star, and the religious. I’m sure you can find yourself relating to one of those groups, I know I did.

If you have ever wondered if Jesus loves or why would Jesus spend time loving someone, a screw up, like me. You have to take time to read through the innovative book with an old and simple message, Jesus Loves You. Your life could be very different if you only live life knowing Jesus Loves you. Go pick up a copy today.

For more info about the pick visit: http://www.jesuslovesyou.net/

Henri Wisdom 3

April 14, 2009 in Me and JC, lifewith 0 Comments

Laying Down Your Life for Your Friends

Good Shepherds are willing to lay down their lives for their sheep (see John 10:11). As spiritual leaders walking in the footsteps of Jesus, we are called to lay down our lives for our people. This laying down might in special circumstances mean dying for others. But it means first of all making our own lives – our sorrows and joys, our despair and hope, our loneliness and experience of intimacy – available to others as sources of new life.

One of the greatest gifts we can give others is ourselves. We offer consolation and comfort, especially in moments of crisis, when we say: “Do not be afraid, I know what you are living and I am living it with you. You are not alone.” Thus we become Christ-like shepherds.

I love this. I want this to be a way that my life is described. That I layed my life down for my friends in such away that it glorifies Christ. 

Beauty in a Broken Mirror

April 1, 2009 in Creative Release, Me and JC, photoswith 0 Comments

I was challenged this week to be creative and to find create something that represents me. This challenge got me very excited because I love to be created and to find ways to release my creative side. However, as the week went on I just could not think of what to do. As usual it came down to crunch time to finish my creative challenge. 
Here is how my thought process worked at 4:30 AM yesterday. Got home from hanging out with my friend Mike and was very tired. I entered my bed room and saw the broken mirror on the floor that I had broke last week. (I was so mad at myself for breaking it, I just left it.) Hmmm, wonder if I can do something with that. Then I turned and saw my Nikon D40 on my dresser. Hmmm, wonder what kind of pictures I could take with a broken mirror. I began to play around with different ideas and well none of them worked that well. Since it was like 6:00 AM I decided to go to bed. (if you didn’t know, I work as a night auditor at a hotel so I stay up all night all the time.)
I woke up took my shower and then it came to me. 
Even though the mirror is broken it can still reflect beautiful things. 
Here is what came out of that. 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
How do these pictures represent me? Well, to me, these images are a view of how my broken life reflects the beauty of Christ. Even though a mirror is broken doesn’t mean it stops reflecting what’s in front of it. As long as I keep Christ in my view, leading me, I will continue to reflect His beauty, love and sacrafice.

Henri Wisdom 2 and Football

February 8, 2009 in Me and JC, lifewith 0 Comments

About a month ago I was shown a news article about the weirdest football game ever played. The other day I stumbled upon a video of the news report about the game. Then todays devo from Henri Nouwen Society addressed caring for others. I feel that the devo and the video go together really well. The devo explains how care for one another can be a cure. The video shows people caring for people in action and you get to see the true results from their care. 
 

Care, the Source of All Cure
 Care is something other than cure. Cure means “change.” A doctor, a lawyer, a minister, a social worker-they all want to use their professional skills to bring about changes in people’s lives. They get paid for whatever kind of cure they can bring about. But cure, desirable as it may be, can easily become violent, manipulative, and even destructive if it does not grow out of care. Care is being with, crying out with, suffering with, feeling with. Care is compassion. It is claiming the truth that the other person is my brother or sister, human, mortal, vulnerable, like I am.

When care is our first concern, cure can be received as a gift. Often we are not able to cure, but we are always able to care. To care is to be human.

New Faces of Taylor Young Life

January 20, 2009 in Me and JC, Young Lifewith 0 Comments

God still has big plans for Young Life at Taylor. He answered some big prayers that we’ve had for sometime now by placing two new volunteer leaders on our team. Josh and Kelly fresh out of new leader training from the University of Cincinnati are now part of team Taylor. The team is the biggest its been in years with six leaders, 3 guys and 3 girls.

I’m so excited to have them join our team. Every time we get new leaders its like a boost of energy. They are always so eager to get out there to be with kids and love kids for Christ. After leading for five years I will say there are days where its hard to go to the school with a smile on my face, but with new leaders I get this renewing of my passion for students and their relationships with Christ. Their excitement poors into me, and not only am I excited for them but I become excited for the ministry.

I wonder where God is going to have us go or what He will have us do with our new team. I think we’re on the verge of taking the Three Rivers community by storm. However God works in His own time, maybe we are still preparing the way for the greater things that will come. Either way I am thankful to be apart of this ministry and to be apart of this team. 

Henri Wisdom

January 14, 2009 in Me and JCwith 0 Comments

I get daily emails from the Henri Nouwen Society. They are like small devotionals and I find most of them to have some good nuggets of wisdom in them. I thought I would share this one with you. 


If you like you can subscribe here http://henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

From Unceasing Thinking to Unceasing Prayer

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is “unceasing.” Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love.

Let’s break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the center of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds.

More is Never Enough

January 11, 2009 in Me and JC, Pondering It All, Theology Stuffwith 0 Comments

I heard this said that having more is never enough. This hit me hard. I say to myself all the time that if I could just have more of ______ then it would be all I need, it would be enough. I have slowly realized that more never becomes enough, it never becomes satisfaction, it never becomes contentment. Have you ever thought about what makes you content? Have you ever said if I achieved this I would be content? Why do we have the idea that being content is something we have to obtain or earn. Can’t we just be content. 
In Phillippians Paul writes about his contentment;
11I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

 There is something different about how Paul addresses contentment than how we typically hear contentment talked about. Paul writes that he has learned contentment. He has learned the secret of being content. Paul recognizes that being content is not something he earned or obtained, but rather something he learned. It is almost like a skill that can be mastered. We may never experience what it is like to be content if we do not know how to be content.
 
This leaves me to believe that Paul learned to be content through everything by learning to rely on Christ through everything, by realizing that Christ is more than enough for any need we may ever encounter. Paul says he can do everything through Christ. If we can do that, then we may learn what it is to be content. 
More is never enough, but Christ is more than enough. 

Chasing the Wind – Meaningless

January 10, 2009 in Me and JC, Struggles, Theology Stuffwith 0 Comments

Is everything I do meaningless? Is the life we live like chasing after the wind, a task so pointless its hard to imagine? There are many moments that I find myself giving into this idea that I live a truly meaningless life. The author of Ecclesiastes addressed this feeling to in chapter 2:10-11.

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
       I refused my heart no pleasure.
       My heart took delight in all my work,
       and this was the reward for all my labor.
 11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
       and what I had toiled to achieve,
       everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
       nothing was gained under the sun.

Thinking this way begins to truly scare me. We must see that God gives meaning to our lives, that he provides the delightment of our hearts, not the labor we toil over. Our meaning can be found in God, we are told so in Ephesians 2:10 

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Our meaning is found in doing the good works Christ has prepared for us. I would say that if we continue to find no meaning in what we are doing, then we may not be doing what Christ has prepared for us in advance. The meaning could also be lost be cost we do not know our own identity and purpose. I do not know where to find those except for in Christ. Who we are in Christ is a life lived to the full, a life of meaning and purpose.

Book Review: The Pursuit of God

December 23, 2008 in Me and JC, Theology Stuff, bookswith 0 Comments

The Pursuit of God
By: A. W. Tozer

I received this book as a gift for graduating from college last year. When I got it I will admit that no excitement crossed my face. It has been on my bookshelf since then and almost daily it would catch my eye. So I decided to give it a try.

The pace was a change for me because many of the last few books I have read have been by modern day pastors and theologians. Once I slowed down and started to take it seriously I began to connect with Tozer’s thoughts and passion right away. I did not want to put it down.

In The Pursuit of God, Tozer address’ the never ending cycle of men searching for God. He describes our search as a type of bankruptcy or void that we so long to fill. He goes on in an eloquent manner through scripture describing how our search does not have to be so hard if we realized that God is here.

“The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And he is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And this we call pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice.”  Tozer, The Pursuit of God, pg 67

I love this! It was so refreshing to hear. God is pursuing us! He is calling to us more than we have ever called to him. If only we could take the time from the stress and speed of our lives that we whine about so much every day our search could be over. Why, because we will not have to search anywhere but right here and God will find us. Oh! How simple this seems yet I can’t even imagine how I will do this. I’ve heard it said so many times that God is near and that He calls to us, but never as Tozer puts it.

I highly reccomend this book. It may have an older tone to it, but the passion and ideas of it are so true for the world we live in.
Here is one last quote;

“God Wants the whole person and He will not rest till He gets us in entirety. No part of the man will do.” Tozer, The Pursuit of God, pg 101

 Go and search for God by letting Him find you!

Book Review: Back to the Basics of Young Life

December 6, 2008 in Me and JC, Theology Stuff, bookswith 0 Comments

Back to the Basics of Young Life
By: John Miller

The ministry of Young Life has been effectively reaching teenagers for Christ for many decades now. John Miller was there almost right from the begining of Young Life’s journey into figuring out just how to become so entrenched among the lives of so many teenagers. Back to the Basics is John’s account of this faith testing start and how the minsitry shaped his family and so many others.

John recalls his first interactions with Jim Rayburn the founder of Young Life and how he heard his call into the uncharted waters of the Young Life ministry. He explains the sacrafice and faith that went into following the call of God into this new profession. Along the way John discusses the underlying theology and ideaology of why Young Life is the way it is.

If you are in Young Life now you need to read this book. It will give a glimpse of the big picture that you are apart of and just how important your role is to the ministry. For those of you who have never done anything with Young Life, I highly suggest giving this book a read over. I believe once you are done with it there will be no way you won’t want to get involved with Young Life and it’s simply radical ideaology for reaching youth for Christ.

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