Fan Catches A Baseball 454 Games In A Row

Opening Day video #2 -- Are you this passionate about anything you do in your life?

Bugs Bunny - True Classic

I'll be posting baseball videos this weekend in honor of the new season. You don't get much better than this classic.




Bugs Bunny - Baseball Bugs - Click here for more home videos

How to destroy a 1.2 million dollar car

Ferrari Enzo Crash - The funniest movie is here. Find it

The most dangerous sport in the world

Ok moms and dads; If you had to keep your child from playing a sport due to fears of serious injury what would it be? Football? Hockey? Ultimate Fighting? shuffleboard? How about cheerleading! The New York Times is reporting that cheerleaders suffer more "serious" injuries than all other sports combined. ARTICLE

BONUS Game of the Week - Home Run Derby

In honor of the opening of baseball season I'll add this game from Candystand


HONE RUN DERBY

Game of the Week - Crash Course Football

Miniclip is the site that provides this wee's game. A combination of soccer and demo derby. You can't go wrong!!!

Crash Course Football Football gets automotive in this bumper crunching game.

Play this free game now!!

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 11

• The best news of the Christian gospel is that the supremely glorious
  Creator of the universe has acted in Jesus Christ’s death
  and resurrection to remove every obstacle between us and himself
  so that we may find everlasting joy in seeing and savoring his infinite
  beauty.
• Beholding the beauty of God has always been the supreme desire of those who
  know him best.
• We love the praise of man. It feels good. Praise is to the ego what
  sex is to the body. It just doesn’t get any better—as long as we are
  spiritually dead.
• If God can be seen as the enabler of their self-exaltation,
  they will be happy to do some God-exaltation. If God is mancentered,
  they are willing to be, in a sense, God-centered.
• whole systems of imitation Christianity can be built on distorted images of the love of God and the gospel of God. Jonathan Edwards learned this to his own
  heartache as he studied the permutations of hypocrisy in the fallout
  of the Great Awakening.
• So it is possible even to see God as “in a sort, lovely” when we are
  not even genuine Christians. If he can be seen as a servant of our selflove,
  then we can see him as lovely. If he will make much of us, then
  we will be willing, up to a point, to make much of him.
• Conversion is the spiritualdiscovery that being loved by God is not the divine endorsement of our passion for self-exaltation. In fact, being loved by God is the
  merciful destruction of that passion. And the destruction is not an
  end in itself. It is to make room for the supernatural experience of
  truly being loved by God—that is, being enabled by him to enjoy
  God-exaltation as an end in itself. Spiritual God-exaltation is not a
  means to the pleasure of self-exaltation.
• heaven is a world in which all created things have become mirrors, and all of them are tilted to a 45 degree angle. Everywhere we look—in every creature—we see
  the reflection of God.
• First, in letting Lazarus die in order to raise him from the dead
  his aim is to show the glory of God the Father and God the Son.
  Second, in this costly revelation of his glory he would be loving this
  family. From this I conclude that the primary way that Jesus loved
  this family was by doing what he must do to display to them in a
  compelling way his own glory.
• Love is doing whatever you need to do to help people see
  and savor the glory of God in Christ forever and ever.
• Jesus is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the highest virtue and the most loving act. He is God. Therefore the best gift he can give is the revelation
  of himself.
• The love of Jesus drives him to pray for us, and then die for us, not that our
  value may be central, but that his glory may be central, and so that
  we may see it and savor it for all eternity. This is the greatest good
  in the good news of the gospel.
• Do we feel loved by God because God makes much of us or because God, at great cost to himself, did all that needed to be done through Jesus Christ so that we
  might enjoy making much of him forever? It is a telling question.
• A finite mind cannot fully know an infinite mind. Our finite capacities for pleasure cannot fully know all the joy there is to be had in an infinite fountain.
• Consider some attributes of Christ that we might pursue,
  and ask these questions:
  • Do I want to be strong like Christ, so I will be admired as
  strong, or so that I can defeat every adversary that would
  entice me to settle for any pleasure less than admiring the
  strongest person in the universe, Christ?
  • Do I want to be wise like Christ, so I will be admired as wise
  and intelligent, or so that I can discern and admire the One
  who is most truly wise?
  • Do I want to be holy like Christ, so that I can be admired as
  holy, or so that I can be free from all unholy inhibitions that
  keep me from seeing and savoring the holiness of Christ?
  • Do I want to be loving like Christ, so that I will be admired as
  a loving person, or so that I will enjoy extending to others,
  even in sufferings, the all-satisfying love of Christ?
• The question is not whether we will have all this glorious likeness
  to Christ. We will. The question is: To what end?
• God is glorified in us when we are satisfied in him. Externally, Christ-exalting deeds flow from this enjoyment of Christ.

The Church You Know

I found this site by chance. They take a creative spin on the NBC "The More You Know" PSA spots in order to garner some discussion about issues in the church. Well worth a few minutes of your time to check them out.

King of the Hill- Church!

This brings a lot of thoughts to mind. Is this what it is like for newcomers trying to find a church? It's also hard to believe, but not unbelieveable that people will leave because of a pew.

Don't know What Ya Got 'Til It's Gone

So tonight I hop online with my usual intent of a perusual through the blogosphere. I quickly found out that Bloglines, my personal choice for feed managment, is down for some type of maintenance. Going from site to site manually hoping to find some new content is truly a pain. The picture of the plumber is cute, but I want my feed list back! Please Hurry

Give me Jesus -- Jeremy Camp

can't say it any better than the words

Baseball practice #2

After practice was over I thought to myself; "sure is fitting that that was practice #2". We were missing 4 kids, it was raining/muddy, the boys were distracted, I had no one else there to help me run drills, I hadn't prepared, they boys couldn't even get hits off my slow pitching, the list could likely go on. Then I thought about it and came up with some things that I should have been focused on. I would have had to change hands with my wristband if it had arrived yet. There is even a blog. With a little perspective, here are things that I should have had in mind:

• My mission is greater that winning baseball games
• 8 kids DID show up in the rain to practice
• it was after all only the 2nd practice
• I get to spend time with my boys
• the guys are fielding better than I expected, we can allocate more time to hitting in the coming practices
• we practiced, it could have been a washout
• we still have a month until opening day
• the chattyness of the boys is actually good; they are bonding into a team

There, a little perspective makes me feel a bunch better... I love baseball!

REMEMBER... To Fast

Lifechurch.tv is familiar to many. I have been following their messages for a few months now and have been greatly blessed. They offer their materials opne source to churches and people around the world.

You can view the messages streaming at their site or through audio and video podcats at itunes. Their current series, Remember, is focusing on sacraments that the church has mininized in recent history. This week's message on fasting really resonated with me. Slide on over and check it out.

Oh yeah... there are also two of the pastors blogging at Swerve. Excellent blog.

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 10

• One of the strongest biblical warnings not to use the God of the
  gospel just to get his gospel gifts comes in relation to prayer.
• Merciful answers to prayer are blood-bought gifts
  of the gospel. Hebrews 4:16 teaches us that we can “draw near to
  the throne of grace” with confidence and “find grace to help in time
  of need” because “we have a great high priest” (v. 14).
• Answered prayer is based on Jesus’ priestly intercession for us,
  and that intercession is based on the blood he shed to remove our
  sins and release the flood of prayer-answering grace.
• Why does he call us “adulteresses” when we pray? It’s because
  we ask God for things to indulge our desires that are not desires for
  him.
• What we learn is that the aim of the gospel is not mainly to give us God’s gifts,
  but to give us God. All his gifts are good. But in and through them
  all, the aim is to see more of God’s glory and to savor more of his
  infinitely beautiful moral perfections displayed in the gospel.
• gratitude that is pleasing to God is not first a delight in the benefits God gives (though that will be part of it). True gratitude must be rooted in something else that comes first—
  namely, a delight in the beauty and excellency of God’s character.
• Perhaps you have heard people say how thankful we should be for the death of
  Christ because it shows how much value God puts upon us. In other
  words, they are thankful for the cross as an echo of our worth. What
  is the foundation of this gratitude?
• It is a shocking thing to learn that one of today’s most common descriptions of the
  cross—namely, how much of our value it celebrates—may well be
  a description of natural self-love with no spiritual value.
• The creation of the material world, including our bodies with all five senses, was God’s idea. He did not do it mainly as a temptation to idolatry, but mainly as a display of
  his glory.
• The reason that God created what is not God is that this was the best way for God
  to display his glory to beings other than himself. His motive in this
  was simultaneously a love for them and for the display of his glory.
• The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and,
  if necessary, at the greatest cost, to the least deserving.
• The danger of eating is that we fall in love with the gift; the danger of fasting is that we belittle the gift and glory in our will-power.
• It is inevitable in a fallen material world that tests and temptations
  will abound.
• Like all God’s gifts, signs and wonders witness to the nature and
  character of God, especially his grace. But, as with material gifts,
  miraculous gifts may lure our hearts to themselves and not to God.
  This is why we must keep emphasizing that God is the gospel.

FPU Week 7

Week seven is in the books. The numbers were a bit low; I think Spring Fever caught a few people. It was the lesson on understanding insurance. Now that's an area that I know very few people can explain. Can you pull out any of your policies and explain what they mean? If not, you are violationg one of the biggest rules of money:

If you are spending more than $300 for something you need to know and be able to explain how it works.

If you just apply what is learned in this lesson it could literally save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.

I am excited to see how some in our class are doing. They are excited that they get to get their debt snowball rolling and I am excited for them.

Hummus Blog

Did you know that there was a hummus blog? Some of you may even be wondering what hummus is. You will find far more information about this food than you will ever need at this site. Grab some toasted pitas and check it out.

In the news...

I found both of these artices thanks to the great blog work done over at Bag of Nothing . The first one deals with the last WWI combat vet passing away. It is the passing of another era in history. I can vaguely remember when I was younger hearing about the passing of the last of those who had been involved in the Civil War. It makes you wonder/ hope that someone took the time to listen to their stories so that they can be passed along for others to learn from.

The second article is about the completion of Tolkien's last book by his son. From the article it would seem that at least some think the main motivation was movie right and more money. I sure hope not. I am excited to see what comes of it.

Practice Time & Day off

Wel as long as the weather holds for a few more hours it's gonna be a busy "day off"...

• first LL practice


• carnival @ kids' school


• kids help cousin with school video


• finish SS lesson and graphics for worship


• hope to catch some of the BB games

Cultural Relevance -- Has the Church gone too far?

I guess what I'm looking for here is some thoughts and discussion on the topic. I realize how important relevance is. The "all things to all people to reach some" idea is clear. But what about the "in the world and not of it" concept. ? A few questions to throw out:

• Is this just a case of the pedulum swinging too far in the direction of relevance?
• Is the idea of relevance just a convnient excuse for the church to attept to have it both ways by spiritualizing the things of the world?
• how else do we reach our culture if not through relevance?
• Does the attempt to be relevant in some cases overshadow the message?

Casting Crowns - Does Anybody Hear Her

Are we too busy doing church to see the needy world around us???

Random Thoughts

1. Could we have asked for or have been given 4 better NCAA tourney games Thursday night? Is there any way Friday or the weekend can be as good?
2. The Wrigley Kings fantasy baseball draft was another great one. 14 teams, all with good talent. It's going to be a great summer of fantasy baseball.
3. Speaking of baseball; I pick up my equipment later today and have my forst LL practice on Saturday morning -- Go Reds!
4. Just talked to an old friend for about 20 minutes on the phone. It was great to hear from him. I need to be more active at keeping in contact with people.
5. I am excited to hear what pastor Bud has to say on Sunday
6. so many good blogs, so little time...
7. Time to get back to work.

New Numa - The Return of Gary Brolsma!

He;s baaaaack! Not as good as the original though.

Fantasy Baseball begins

Less than 48 hours to this year's draft. I love fantasy sports but baseball is my favorite because you are forced to stay on top of your team and transactions nearly every day to be successful. The league I play in is pretty tough with 14 teams. I love the challenge and distraction that it provides. Gotta get some more homework done before draft time.

FPU Week 6

As we hit the halfway point of FPU we went through the "Understanding Investments" lesson. I love to have a lesson where you see the "light go on" for people. This one is always one of those. My hope is that people will take the knowledge and use it for their benefit.

The challenge: Can you explain how a mutual fund or an annuity works??? If not you should be looking for an FPU class near you.

These Thousand Hills - Third Day

I've been looking at a lot of videos of late. I'll be posting some of them on this blog. Especially those that help us turn our focus to Christ as Easter approaches. Hope you are blessed by these.

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 9

• all the gifts of God are given for the sake of revealing
  more of God’s glory, so that the proper use of them is to rest our
  affections not on them but through them on God alone.
• The spotless lamb, Jesus Christ, who was slain for our sins, was foreknown before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:20). Because of this, God gave us grace
  in Christ before the ages began (2 Tim. 1:9). Therefore, Paul says,
  “God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5).
  This predestination was God’s purpose to adopt us and make us
  holy and blameless before him in love.
• The glory of grace is the glory of God acting graciously.
• The ultimate aim of the incarnation was that through Christ people would see the
  Lordship of Christ and the glory of God. The whole story of Christ’s
  incarnate life and death and resurrection was the brightest beam of
  glory that has ever shone down from the brightness of God.
• The focus of reconciliation is that we now may enjoy the presence of God without
  condemnation.
• Whether one thinks of the work of Christ as accomplishing reconciliation
  or propitiation or penal satisfaction or redemption or justification
  or forgiveness of sins or liberation, the aim of them all is
  summed up in the ultimate gift of God himself.
• There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart just because we want to escape hell. That’s a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to
  want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s
  wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable
  without any spiritual change. You don’t need to be born
  again to want these things.
• It is not wrong to want them. Indeed it is folly not to. But the evidence
  that we have been changed is that we want these things
  because they bring us to the enjoyment of God.
• The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s
  life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will
  make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy—namely, himself.
• There is an ironclad connection between Christ’s victory over death and our victory
  over death. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
  dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give
  life to your mortal bodies” (Rom. 8:11). “God raised the Lord and
  will also raise us up by his power” (1 Cor. 6:14; cf. 2 Cor. 4:14).
• “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). Notice the
  present tense. We have, not just will have, eternal life. This is real and
  precious and permanent. “I give them eternal life, and they will never
  perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).
• The gospel has unleashed the omnipotent mercy of God so that thousands of other gifts flow to us from the gospel heart of God. I am thinking of a text like Romans 8:32: “He
  who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will
  he not also with him graciously give us all things?” This means that
  the heart of the gospel—God’s not sparing his own Son—is the guarantee
  that “all things” will be given to us.
• God takes “all things” and makes them serve our ultimate good. It doesn’t mean we get everything our imperfect hearts want. It means we get what’s good for us.
• The gospel gift of God’s love is better than life.
• I take him (Paul) to mean that because of the truths
  of Romans 8:28 and 8:32 God takes every hardship and makes it
  serve us, including death.
• This is all very strange. Because of the gospel, God promises to “give
  us all things” with Christ (Rom. 8:32). The “all things” turns out to
  include not just pleasant things but terrible things like tribulation, distress,
  persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, and death.
  These are all gospel gifts purchased for us by the blood of Christ.
• The aim of the gospel is not an easy life. It is deeper knowledge of God
  and deeper trust in God.
• This goal is not our ease or wealth or safety in this age, but our dependence on Christ and our delight in his glory.
• Faith is not saving faith if it tries to trust Christ for the wrong things. So this makes
  clear that trust per se, without reference to what we trust him for, is
  not the essence of a saving relationship to Christ. Something else
  must be present in faith if it is to be saving faith that honors Christ
  rather than just using him. Saving faith must have a quality to it that
  tastes what is Christ-exalting and embraces it.

Finally... Jack is on a roll

Is it just me or is the season finally going somewhere? Up until now I kept feeling like it was just a rehash of previous seasons. Some of the characters are coming back to life. The question of the day: Is Audrey really dead????????

1984 - Obama vs. Hillary

And so it begins...

Video

Have you wadded up your NCAA bracket yet??

With March Madness in full swing it seems that everyone gets into the spirit and fills out at least one bracket. I managed to get 12 of the 16 remaining teams right. How many do you have left?

What happened to the Holy Spirit?

There is a great post over at Cerulean Sanctum about the loss of the Holy Spirit in the conversations and teaching of the church. It has me thinking about the practicalities involved. Good stuff for the mind. But like everything else, if there is no application there is no real usefulness. I need to ask myself if I am truly living in His presence and under the direction of the Spirit. Read the original post HERE

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 8

• One surprising way to see that God is the gospel is by penetrating
  into the soul of gospel-awakened contrition. Those who have
  dealt deeply with their own sin in relation to the gospel know the
  paradox that the good news of forgiveness awakens the pain of
  remorse as well as the joy of release.
• Only an artificial joy does not pass through sorrow for sin on its way to the thrill of being
  forgiven.
• One of the reasons that many Christians seem to have no thrill
  at being forgiven through the gospel is that they have not been brokenhearted
  over their sin. They have not despaired. They have not
  wrestled with warranted self-loathing. They have not grieved over
  their sin because of its moral repugnance, but have grieved only
  because of guilt feelings and threats of hell.
• God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.1 Which means that
  you never have to choose between your greatest joy and God’s greatest
  glory.
• If the great good of the gospel is savoring the glory
  of God in the gospel, how can it also produce sorrow? By asking
  this question we put our previous conclusions to the test. If we are
  on the right track about God and the gospel, the result should be
  confirmation.
• True sorrow over sin is shown by the gospel to be what it really is—the result
  of failing to savor “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”
  (2 Cor. 4:6).
• The sweetness of seeing God in the gospel is a prerequisite for godly sorrow
  for so long scorning that sweetness.
• One of the reasons for dealing in this chapter with the nature and
  foundation of Christian contrition is that it enables me to caution
  against triumphalism. I am aware that when I use the language of
  prizing and treasuring and delighting and cherishing and being satisfied
  by the glory of God in the face of Christ, it could sound to
  some as if all brokenness and suffering and pain and sorrow have
  been left behind. That is not true.
• The Christian never gets beyond the battle with indwelling sin.10 Life is not all joy above sorrow; life is a battle for joy in the midst of sorrow.11 The banner that flies
  over my life and over this book is Paul’s paradoxical maxim in
  2 Corinthians 6:10, “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”
• In fact, God is so intentional about revealing the glory of the crucified
  Christ in the gospel, and producing Christians who are conformed
  to Christ’s self-emptying love (2 Cor. 3:18), that not only
  does he make the cross the central revelation of his glory in this age,
  but he also leaves Satan in the world to magnify the power and wisdom
  and beauty of meekness.
• Have you ever wondered why God does not simply snuff Satan
  and his demons out of existence now?14 It is strange that God, with
  total sovereign rights over Satan, his archenemy, would allow him
  to do so much harm. God has the right and power to throw him into
  the lake of fire. God will one day do away with Satan altogether
  (Rev. 20:3, 10). That will be no injustice to Satan. Nor would it be
  unjust for God to do it today. So why doesn’t he, in view of how
  much misery Satan causes?
• Why then does God tolerate Satan? We find the key in remembering
  that Satan hates the gospel. “The god of this world [Satan]
  has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing
  the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). This is a
  clue to why God gives Satan so much leash. God’s aim is to magnify
  the glory of Christ through the gospel.
• If Christ obliterated all demons now (which he could do), his sheer power would be seen as
  glorious, but his superior beauty and worth would not shine so
  brightly as when God’s people renounce the promises of Satan, trust
  in Christ’s blood and righteousness, and take pleasure in the greater
  glory of Jesus revealed in the gospel.
• So let us preach and live the gospel so as to display Christ. Let
  us take up arms and defeat the devil by being bold and glad in the
  superior glory of the Son of God! I do not say it is easy. It is very
  costly. The path of love that leads from the cross of Christ to the
  glory of Christ is a road of sacrifice. Christ’s superior beauty over
  Satan and sin is seen best when we are willing to suffer for it. One
  of the greatest blows against the power of darkness comes from the
  blood of martyrs. “They have conquered him [Satan!] by the blood
  of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not
  their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11). This is the kind of life that
  grows from seeing God as the gospel.
  

Day Off Blog

Haven't spent much time in the blogosphere the last couple days. But needed to keep my commitment to ny day off blog. Nothing fancy for Friday, but kept my commitment to no "work".

• nap after work
• finalized some paperwork for Caleb
• family time/ watch NCAA tourney
• boys wrestling meet
• dinner with boys/ Micki @ Hacienda
• more NCAA BB
• a good night's sleep
• Men's prayer breakfast

As of now it's back to work...

Game of the Week - Meal or NO Meal

In a great spin on the hit TV show this game gives you food offers with money values from a chef. I took the final tray and got eyeless fish ($200). See how you can do.

MEAL OR NO MEAL

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 7

• One of the most simple and profound descriptions of the gospel
  in the New Testament occurs in 1 Timothy 1:11.
• the glory of God is not marginal or dispensable but is
  essential to making the good news good.
• An essential part of what makes the gospel of the death and resurrection of Christ good news is that the God it reveals is infinitely joyful. No one would want to
  spend eternity with an unhappy God. If God were unhappy, then the
  goal of the gospel would not be a happy goal, and that means it
  would be no gospel at all.
• The happiness of God is first and foremost a happiness in his
  Son.6 Thus when we share in the happiness of God, we share in the
  very pleasure that the Father has in the Son. Ultimately this is what
  makes the gospel good news. It opens the way for us to see and savor
  the glory of Christ. And when we reach that ultimate goal we will
  find ourselves savoring the Son with the very happiness that the
  Father has in the Son.
• Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in
  this world. One is that nothing here has a personal worth great
  enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts. Another is that
  we lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum
  worth. And the third obstacle to complete satisfaction is that our
  joys here come to an end. Nothing lasts.
• We must make plain to people that if their hope stops short
  of seeing and savoring the glory of God in Christ, they are not fixing
  their hearts on the main thing and the best thing Christ died to
  accomplish—seeing and savoring the glory of God in the face of
  Christ with everlasting and ever-increasing joy.

Stuck in a rut...

Seems like I've been moving at 1000 MPH for the last several days but not getting much done. Think it's time to shake things up a it to gather some personal focus. Not much on the schedule for today so I'm looking forward to getting proper TAWG, getting some reading done, and watching a little BBall. What things do you do to kick yourself out of a rut???

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 6

• The greatest good in the gospel is the gift of seeing and savoring the glory of
  God in Christ forever.
• The holiness of Christian people and the conversion of perishing people hang on seeing and savoring the glory of God in the gospel.
• it is crucial for evangelism and missions that we
  understand that true saving faith is grounded on a spiritual sight of
  the glory of God in the gospel. This will have a huge impact on the
  way we think about missions and evangelism. The primary impact
  will be to make sure that the missionary and the evangelist are spiritual
  people who see and savor the glory of God in the face of
  Christ.
• The Spirit and the Word are both essential. The
  story of Christ must be told, and the Spirit of Christ must be triumphant.
• Understanding the decisive purpose of the gospel as the revelation of the glory of Christ is
  the biblical key to Christian holiness.
• It shows how Christ-exalting the Holy
  Spirit is. He will not do his sanctifying work by the use of his direct
  divine power. He will only do it by making the glory of Christ the
  immediate cause of it. This is the way he works in evangelism, and
  this is the way he works in sanctification.
• The work of the Holy Spirit in changing us is not
  to work directly on our bad habits but to make us admire Jesus
  Christ so much that sinful habits feel foreign and distasteful.
• And as we behold the glory of Christ in the gospel and savor his
  purity, we come to see sin as repugnant, and salvation as magnificent

FPU week 5

It was another good night. The lesson on Dumping Debt. It is great to see familes get excited about the prospect of getting out of bondage. So many of us have lived with the myth/ lie that we will "alaways have debt" that we never even entertain the thought that they coud be financially free. This lesson gives that hope and a plan to get there. It's time to build some debt snowballs and create a freakin' avalanche! If you or someone you know needs finaincial peace, CLICK HERE

A few of my favorite blogs..

I've been meaning to get around to this for a while. But as they say, better late than never. Here are links to a few of the blogs that I read regularly ( thank you Bloglines). I track quite a few more, but these are some of my current favorites.

Wineskins for Discipleship
Tony Morgan
Swerve
JosephSangl.com
Evotional
ESPN
CRMC Campfire
Corey Mann
Confessions of a Small Church Pastor
Between Two Worlds
Bag of Nothing
AvClub
Army Renewal
Amicus Dei

Daylight Savings Time -- Don't forget to change the clock

Just a reminder that the clock "Springs Forward" at 2 AM this Sunday. That means that Sunday School starts at what is now 8 AM. Make sure to change your clocks Saturday before bed (unless they automatically adjust).

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 5

• Sometimes when we hear that the Holy Spirit enables us to believe the gospel,
  or that the Spirit bears witness to the truth of the gospel, we have
  the notion in our minds that the validity of the gospel depends on
  new information given by the Spirit. But that is not what is meant
  historically by the internal testimony of the Spirit.
• The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as
  God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word
  will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the
  inward testimony of the Spirit.
• The answer is not that the Spirit gives us added revelation to
  what is in Scripture, but that he awakens us, as from the dead, to
  see and taste the divine reality of the glory of Christ in the gospel.
• Therefore illumined by [the Spirit’s] power, we believe neither by
  our own [note this!] nor by anyone else’s judgment that Scripture
  is from God; but above human judgment we affirm with utter certainty
  (just as if we were gazing upon the majesty of God himself)
  that it has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry
  of men.
• In other words, by the Spirit we are enabled to see what is really there in the gospel. There is real light and real glory, and it is manifestly divine. It carries its
  own authentication.
• many people profess faith in Christ in this way. It is not a faith founded on the
  glory of Christ himself but on tradition or education or other people’s
  opinion. If that is the case, the faith is not saving faith.
• Therefore, the glory of God in the face of Christ—that is,
  the glory of Christ who is the image of God—is essential to the
  gospel. It is not marginal or dispensable. Paul calls the gospel “the
  gospel of the glory of Christ.” This glory is what the events of the
  gospel are designed to reveal. If a person comes to the gospel and
  sees the events of Good Friday and Easter and believes that they
  happened and that they can bring some peace of mind, but does
  not see and savor any of this divine glory, that person does not
  have saving faith.
• A professing Christian can have many right words but no spiritual fruit. What is wrong?
  The supernatural change from darkness to light has not happened.
  The blinding effects of sin and Satan have not been lifted. The eyes
  of the heart are still unable to see and savor the glory of Christ who
  is the image of God.
• It is true that all the Scripture has the mark of God’s glory on it, since he is its theme
  and author. But in the gospel events of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection—
  the terrible and wonderful events of Good Friday and
  Easter—the glory of God shines most brightly
• The importance of seeing the glory of Christ in the gospel will
  become clearer and more urgent if we ponder how this truth affects
  the task of evangelism and missions and the manifold ministries of
  the church in trying to change people’s behavior.

New CRMC blogs

There are two new blogs dedicated to the ministries at California Road MIssionary Church (CRMC). I am hosting one and our youth pastor, Matt Maloney, is hosting one just for the youth ministry. I am excited about the possibilities of these blogs for communicating with current, potential, and future attenders. Here are the Links.

CRMC Youth Blog

CRMC Campfire

Game of the Week -- Neon

Another game I found over at Fetchfido... Neon. A new twist on Asteriods. Just good old fashioned space destruction.


NEON

Piper's dad goes home -- a lesson for us all

I had to post this link to the blog/ journal entry made by John Piper after the passing of his father. It reminds me of when my grandpa passed away several years ago. There is no sadness for the loss of life for these great saints as they go home; rather just the sorrow of the tempoary separation and the effect of not having their leadership, friendship, and godly example before us. It reminds me:

1. this is not our true home, there is so much more beyond our few years here
2. I want to live a life that may someday have even a small chance of being remembered this way
3. I need to honor my own parents and the lives of my elders as they live out their examples before me. And pass the importance of this on to my children.

Here are a couple of quotes from the post that truly hit home.

That’s it. I rose and waited. Will he breathe again? Nothing. Fifteen or twenty seconds, and then a gasp. I was told to expect these false endings. But it was not false. The gasp was the first of two. But no more breaths. I waited, watching. No facial expressions. His face had frozen in place hours before. One more jerk. That was all. Perhaps an eyebrow twitch a moment later. Nothing more.
I stroked his forehead and sang,
My gracious Master and My GodAssist me to proclaimTo spread through all the earth abroadThe honors of thy name

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you for sixty-one years of faithfulness to me. I am simply looking into his face now. Thank you. You were a good father. You never put me down. Discipline, yes. Spankings, yes. But you never scorned me. You never treated me with contempt. You never spoke of my future with hopelessness in your voice. You believed God’s hand was on me. You approved of my ministry. You prayed for me. Everyday. That may be the biggest change in these new days: Daddy is no longer praying for me

It was 12:55 as I walked out of room 4326. Just before the elevators on the fourth floor in the lounge, a young man in his twenties was sitting alone listening to his iPod with headphones. I paused. Then I walked toward him. He stopped his music. Hello, my father just died. One of the greatest tributes I could pay to him is to ask you, Are you ready to meet God? “Yes, Sir.” That would make my father very happy. You know Jesus is the only way? “Yes, Sir.” Good. Thank you for letting me talk to you.

Day off Blog

This wasn't scheduled to be a day off but I worked the vening shift on Tuesday due to some training. It comes as a blessing because my scheduled day off (Sat.) will be wall to wall on the go leading to a busy Sunday. I tried to take advantage...

• let kids sleep in, took them to school
• a little web surfing/ couple blog posts
• went to the library
• did a little reading
• took a nap -- that may have been the best part of the day
• went to wrestling camp
• took Caleb to get a haircut -- had a fiscussion with his stylist about psychics.
• a little family time/ TV (Idol, Criminal Minds)

FPU Week 4

Monday night was week 4 of FPU. Just wanted to post some highlights/ wins from the session.

• the lesson was "Buying Big, Big Bargains". I love this lesson because it is both fun and practical. Let's face it, we're gonna buy some stuff. Why not at least get a deal!!
• we celebrated a birthday
• some great discussion on what happens when the budget doesn't work like we planned or an unexpected large repair, etc. comes up. Especially when we are starting out.
• one family has found a great deal on getting a $2000+ car for $1000 off. Now thats a deal!! and they will be paying cash.

It is never too early or too late to start taking charge of your finances. Why naot get started today?

God is the Gospel -- Chapter 4

• In other words, in the ministry of the gospel through
  Paul the eyes of the spiritually blind are opened, light dawns in the
  heart, the power of Satan’s darkness is broken, faith is awakened,
  forgiveness of sins is received, and sanctification begins.
• God uses weak, afflicted clay pots to carry “the surpassing power”
  of “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
• More than any part of the Bible that I know of, the connections
  between 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 6 shed light on the ultimate
  meaning of good in the term good news.
• The gospel would not be good news if it did not reveal the glory of Christ for us to see and
  savor. It is the glory of Christ that finally satisfies our soul. We are
  made for Christ, and Christ died so that every obstacle would be
  removed that keeps us from seeing and savoring the most satisfying
  treasure in the universe—namely, Christ, who is the image of God.
• Satan is not mainly interested in causing us misery. He is mainly interested in making
  Christ look bad. He hates Christ. And he hates the glory of Christ.
  He will do all he can to keep people from seeing Christ as glorious.
  The gospel is God’s instrument for liberating people from exulting
  in self to exulting in Christ. Therefore Satan hates the gospel.
• Thus 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that Satan blinds people to keep them
  from seeing “the light of the gospel.” He has more than one way to
  do this. One way, of course, is to prevent the preaching of the gospel.
• But in 2 Corinthians 4:4 the way Satan keeps people from seeing
  “the light of the gospel” is not by preventing preaching, but by preventing
  spiritual perception. The words of the gospel are heard. The
  facts are comprehended. But there is no “light.”
• If you are blind, someone may persuade you that the sun is bright.
  But that persuasion is not what Paul is talking about. When your
  eyes are opened—that is, when God says, “Let there be light”—the
  persuasion is of a different kind.
• But the point here is this: the glory of God in Christ, revealed through the gospel, is a
  real, objective light that must be spiritually seen in order for there
  to be salvation. If it is not seen—spiritually tasted as glorious and
  precious—Satan still has his way, and there is no salvation.
• The glorious person who once walked the earth is now unseen.
  All his decisive acts are in the invisible past. We do not have any
  videos or recordings of Jesus Christ on earth. What we have linking
  us with Christ and with his cross and resurrection is the word of
  God, and its center, the gospel.
• Therefore, when the gospel is preached in its fullness, and by
  God’s mighty grace Satan’s blinding power is overcome, and God
  says to the human soul, “Let there be light!” what the soul sees and
  savors in the gospel is “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
  That is the aim of gospel preaching.
• So we must hold fast to two truths, not just one, even if they
  seem to be in tension. First, we must hold fast to the truth that the
  spiritual light Paul speaks about in verse 4 actually streams from the
  events of the gospel of Christ. The other truth is that God creates
  this light in the heart. It is not caused by human preaching. It is
  caused immediately by God.
• The real, bodily face of Jesus matters. It signifies
  that he was a real human being and that he was a person
  revealed in real, historical, physical life.
• His glory is the glory ofGod because Jesus Christ is God. The glory of the only Son—not the creature-sons, like us, but the divine Son—is the glory of the Father
  because they are of the same essence, the same divine Being.
• There is a glory of the Father and a glory of the Son, but
  they are so united that if you see the one, you see the other. They
  do not have the same roles in the work of redemption, but the
  glory manifest in each of their roles shines from them both. No one
  knows the glory of the Son and is a stranger to the glory of the
  Father. And no one knows the glory of the Father and is a stranger
  to the glory of the Son.
• Confessing Christ, the Son of God, results in God the Father’s coming to us and
  manifesting himself to us.
• There is no possibility of knowing God or having a saving relationship
  with God without knowing and trusting the Son.
• The gospel is the light of the glory of Christ who is the image of
  God. It is the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. This is
  what makes the gospel good news. If the glory of God in Christ were
  not given to us in the gospel for our everlasting seeing and savoring,
  the gospel would not be good news.
• Calvin says it with the kind of amazement it
  deserves: “They do not see the midday sun.”12 That is how plain
  the glory of God is in the gospel.

Zambrano makes bold predictions

Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano made a couple of bold predictions on Monday. He says that not only will he win the Cy Young but that the Cubs will win the World Series. I'll give him credit; if youre gonna swing you might as well go for the long ball. He even uses the dreaded guarantee word. An article can be read here.

Holy Water in a bottle

In some ways this is just funny. In others it is sad. The fact that bottled water is being blessed and marketed as holy. Make up your own mind. You can see the slideshow here.

Poor dog

The best caption for this photo is "You want me to do what?!?"

Sometimes you have to ask tough questions

Craig Groeschel posted this last week on his blog. The jist being the three questions:

1. If you weren’t on staff at your church, would you worship there?
2. If you didn’t know ANYTHING about Jesus, what would you know about him after a normal weekend at your church?
3. If you had a loved one who didn’t know Christ, and they had one week left to live, would you take them to your church or another?

I have challenegd myself with these questions and I think that we all would be wise to do so. Are you happy with the answers that you give? Make you feel uncomfortable? My main thought is that if we are unhappy with any of these we should not just sit on our hand and complain about it. It is time for action. We need to have an active role in our local body becoming the kind of church it should. My 2 cents...

Jesus' Tomb - the documentary aftermath

The guys from Pulpit Magazine have posted a great compliation of responses to the documentary and the "discovery" in general. A great read. HERE

God is the Gospel - Chapter 3

• Preachers can say dozens of true and wonderful things
  about the gospel and not lead people to where the gospel is leading.
• God is the gospel. That is, he is what makes
  the good news good. Nothing less can make the gospel good news.
  God is the final and highest gift that makes the good news good.
  Until people use the gospel to get to God, they use it wrongly.
• We are not capable of changing God. We cannot pay our own debt.
  “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his
  life” (Ps. 49:7). Therefore, in his great mercy, God intervened to put
  Christ forward as the propitiation of God’s own wrath (Rom. 3:25).
• Thus justification has these two sides: the removal of sin because
  Christ bears our curse, and the imputation of righteousness because
  we are in Christ and his righteousness is counted as ours.
• Every person should be required to answer the question, “Why is it good news to you that your sinsare forgiven?” “Why is it good news to you that you stand righteous
  in the courtroom of the Judge of the universe?”
• if God is not treasured as the ultimate gift of the gospel, none of his gifts will be gospel, good news. And if God is treasured as the supremely valuable gift of the
  gospel, then all the other lesser gifts will be enjoyed as well.
• Forgiveness is simply a way of getting obstacles out of the way so that we can look at each other again with joy
• Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing
  and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if
  Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to
  get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It’s a way of
  overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don’t want
  God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel.
• morally we are not good enough in our fallen condition and would be consumed
  in the fire of his holiness if we saw him fully for who he is.
• Created beings simply cannot look on the Creator and see him for
  who he is.
• What I am trying to express here is that the glory of Christ, as
  he appeared among us, consisted not in one attribute or another, and
  not in one act or another, but in what Jonathan Edwards called “an
  admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.”
• The glory of Christ is not synonymous with raw power. The
  glory is the divine beauty of his manifold perfections. To see this
  requires a change of heart.
• The ability to see spiritual beauty is not unwavering. There are ups
  and downs in our fellowship with Christ. There are times of
  beclouded vision, especially if sin gets the upper hand in our lives for
  a season.
• You can’t see and savor God as supremely satisfying
  while you are full of rebellion against him and he is full of wrath
  against you. The removal of this wrath and this rebellion is what the
  gospel is for. The ultimate aim of the gospel is the display of God’s
  glory and the removal of every obstacle to our seeing it and savoring
  it as our highest treasure. “Behold your God!”

Will Quinn be #1? -- He'd like to think so

According to this article posted at ESPN. Brady Quinn would still like to think he is the #1 pick. 100+ people attended the ND pro day. I'm guessing for the most part no to watch the linemen. The only things that crossed my mind were wether he is going to start his career with a rep for being injury prone. We all know he is tough but if he had to have his knee drained twice in 2 months that should place some question marks in people's mind; especially those teams that play on turf.
Side note: Isn't it amazing that the NFL can stay on top of the headlines 12 months a year?

God Is the Gospel -- Chapter 2

• many true and precious aspects of the gospel can be
  affirmed, and yet the final and greatest good of the gospel be missed.
• Interestingly the Bible
  (including the Greek Old Testament1 and New Testament) uses the
  noun “gospel” (eujaggevlion) seventy-seven times and the verb for
  “preach the gospel” (eujaggelivzw) seventy-seven times. In the vast
  majority of these uses the meaning is assumed rather than defined.
• There simply can be no good news without a living God who
  created the universe.
• In other words, the reign of God has broken into this world to set things right for the sake
  of his people; therefore repent and believe this good news. In fact, if
  you do, you are part of his people. In a world so full of brokenness
  and sin, there simply can be no good news if God does not break in
  with kingly authority. If God does not come with sovereign rights as
  King of the universe, there will be only hopelessness in this world.
• when he sheds his blood, it will be for others, and it will obtain the longpromised
  “new covenant” that promised, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34). That much Jesus made plain.
• The Holy Spirit is the down payment,
  a guarantee of the fullness of joy we will know in the perfected
  fellowship with the Father and the Son in the age to come
  (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).
• The trouble here is that we need to distinguish the experience of
  salvation in particular persons and the promise of salvation through
  believing in Christ. The actual experience of a particular person’s
  being saved is not part of the gospel. But that experience happens
  when the person believes the gospel, and part of what they believe
  is the promise that on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus
  they will be saved. So the way we should say it is that the promise
  The Gospel—The Biblical Scope of Its Meaning 31
  of salvation is part of the gospel, but the actual experience of salvation
  in particular persons is not part of the gospel, but the result
  of the gospel.
• The King must die before he reigns. Otherwise the
  justice of his reign would only bring judgment and not salvation. So
  all the kingdom blessings demonstrated in the Gospels had to be
  purchased by the blood of Christ. This is why the cross must ever
  be the center and foundation of the gospel and why the blessings of
  the gospel should only be called gospel in relation to the cross.
• The actual salvation of the nations comes
  through the blood-bought promise of Gentile salvation in the
  gospel. If the gospel were parochial, it would not be the gospel.
• The death of Jesus in our place was the act of God’s grace that makes all acts of grace righteous in God’s sight.
• every blessing that comes to redeemed sinners
  comes on the ground and by the power of God’s grace. By grace God
  sent the Son to die, and by that death everything we need in order
  to be eternally happy in God is ours. “He who did not spare his own
  Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously
  give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). The gospel is the good news
  that because God did not spare Christ, he will not spare any
  omnipotent effort to give us everything that is good for us.
• But for the most part the good things mentioned in this chapter
  as essential parts of the gospel are not the final good of the gospel
  and would not prove to be good for us at all if the unmentioned
  supreme good were not seen and embraced. That good is God himself
  seen and savored in all his glory.
• If you embrace everything that I have mentioned in this chapter about the facets of the gospel, but do it in a way that does not make the glory of God in Christ your
  supreme treasure, then you have not embraced the gospel.
• They have come for one great reason: that you might behold forever the glory of God
  in Christ, and by beholding become the kind of person who delights
  in God above all things, and by delighting display his supreme
  beauty and worth with ever-increasing brightness and bliss forever.

politics, draft picks, parents, ... it's all for the kids

We had week one of our Little League (LL) tryouts today. Here are a few radom thoughts on the day and LL in general. FYI, I am managing a majors division baseball team, will help with my daughter's minors softball team, umpire at least my fair share of games, and work the concession stand. I'm not even on the board (only because of the threat on life and limb that my spouse has wisely set before me.)

• I love baseball and I love the ballpark.
• what an awesome opportunity it is to interact with people in this environment
• I need to remember what an opportunity it is
• having kids stand in line to field balls and hit in front of adults with the hopes of being picked is an awfully intimidating thing
• give me a good attitude, heart and supportive parents over pure talent any day
• new pitching rules are really going to put a premium on kids that can throw strikes!
• sometimes I wish that we lived in a part of the country where baseball could be played more than 3-4 months of the year
• keeping the Kingdom in mind while doing all things LL is important
• moving up to a more competitive level will likely cause some challenges for me; I am competitive by nature.
• I need to find good ways to deal with some potentially problem kids/ parents that I know already that I will have.
• I can't wait for the snow to melt so we can get on with practices
• there will be some "good" players that don;t make it into majors this year
• did I mention that I love baseball?!?!?!?!

God Is the Gospel -- Chapter 1

I've decided to read this book, broken into parts as a portion of my TAWG (time alone with God). I will then post the notes and any thoughts I have accompanying them by chapter. This will officially be listed as book #5 in my 2007 reading list. Here is chapter 1.

• gospel means good news. Good news is for proclaiming—for
  heralding the way an old-fashioned town crier would do.
• It is easy in our day to lose the sense of wonder and amazement
  at the news quality of the gospel. If we would feel what the good
  news of the New Testament really was, we should not forget the way
  it was announced in Luke 2:10-11: “The angel said to them, ‘Fear
  not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for
  all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a
  Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’”
• The war will be over soon, and there is no longer any doubt as to who will win.
  Christ will win, and he will liberate all those who have put their
  hope in him.
• The good news is not that there is no pain or death or sin or
  hell. There is. The good news is that the King himself has come,
  and these enemies have been defeated, and if we trust in what he
  has done and what he promises, we will escape the death sentence
  and see the glory of our Liberator and live with him forever.
• But the gospel is not only news. It is first news, and then it is doctrine.
• When the gospel is proclaimed, it must be explained.
• Our question is not merely, what is the gospel? Our question is: What is the ultimate good of the gospel that makes all the aspects of good news good? What is the goal of the
  gospel that, if we miss it, takes all the good out of the gospel? What
  do we mean when we say God is the gospel?
  

Game of the Week - Kitten Cannon

A long time favorite. This one never seems to drop off the top 10 list at Addicting Games.

KITTEN CANNON

Whats your best score? Mine was 421 on about 5 tries tonight.

Free John Piper Book -- Yes I said FREE

You can get a PDF copy of John Piper's Book God is the Gospel here. Free books are good. Free books from well respected writers who challenge our thought patterns are great. I just started going through it and the following excerpt from the Introduction has me thinking, convicted, wondering, hoping, and provoked. It might take me a while to get through this one.


The sad thing is that a radically man-centered view of love permeates
our culture and our churches. From the time they can toddle we
teach our children that feeling loved means feeling made much of.
We have built whole educational philosophies around this view of
love—curricula, parenting skills, motivational strategies, therapeutic
models, and selling techniques. Most modern people can scarcely
imagine an alternative understanding of feeling loved other than
feeling made much of. If you don’t make much of me you are not
loving me.
But when you apply this definition of love to God, it weakens
his worth, undermines his goodness, and steals our final satisfaction.
If the enjoyment of God himself is not the final and best gift of love,
then God is not the greatest treasure, his self-giving is not the highest
mercy, the gospel is not the good news that sinners may enjoy
their Maker, Christ did not suffer to bring us to God, and our souls
must look beyond him for satisfaction.
This distortion of divine love into an endorsement of self-admiration
is subtle. It creeps into our most religious acts. We claim to
be praising God because of his love for us. But if his love for us is
at bottom his making much of us, who is really being praised? We
are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man-
centered. We are willing to boast in the cross as long as the cross is
a witness to our worth. Who then is our pride and joy?

Cars I've owned

I've been checking out the CARS series from NewSpring Church . It got me to thinking about the vehicles that I have had. Here's my list. What's yours?

• '85 Honda Spree
• '81 Chevy Malibu
• '85 Pontiac Grand Am
• '79 Kawasaki KZ750
• '92 Dodge Dynasty
• '99 Dodge Caravan
• '87 Jeep Comanche
• '93 Ford Aerostar

Finding purpose in 2 conversations

Two things I was reminded of this evening while at wrestling camp:

1. You often never get to the things that you plan
2. We need to be ready at all times for an outreach conversation

I had planned to sit back, watch the boys wrestle, and read/ take a few notes from one of my current books. Turns out, that lasted for about 5 minutes. I had one conversation regarding the prioirty that sports (specifically wrestling at this time) has in our lives. I was able to talk about how we have established church as a priority the majority of Folkstyle tournaments are out of the question for us, because they are on Sunday. Not because wrestling or a tournament on Sunday is necissarily a bad or sinful thing; but because if we chose that we would be choosing to miss our worship service for approx. 8-10 weeks in a row. Good conversation.

Next thing I know, a dad from Little League (LL) slides up next to me. We spent the next 40 minutes or so just talking LL, kids, life stuff in general. No blatant spiritual connection; just getting to know one another better. This is a man who I have talked to several times in the past few years. Never worked directly with him, kids never on same LL team, or anything, just an aquaintance. It struck me that it might not continue to be that way, God seemed to show me that he may be someone I will have coninued contact with. Time to help scatter seed, throw a little water and aee what grows under the direction of the Holy Spirit. It really is fun when God lets you in on the things that He is working out in other people.