Missions Minded

http://derik100.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=348890

The above link is to a podcast from a message I delivered earlier this year for our Youth. The message was interconnected with missions which seemed to be our focus this summer. Our students traveled all the way to Jamacia and gave of themselves to further the kindom. We need to make our workplaces, schools, and our neighborhoods our mission field. This is what God has called us to do.

"Whom shall I send? Who is sufficient? Such a degree of courage for God and concern for the souls of men as is necessary to make a man faithful, and withal such an insight into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven as is necessary to make a man skilful, are seldom to be met with. Such an interpreter of the mind of God is one of a thousand. None are allowed to go for God but those who are sent by him; he will own none but those whom he appoints. It is Christ's work to put men into the ministry. Here I am, send me! Lord, give me commission and full instruction; send me, and then, no doubt, thou wilt stand by me.” - Matthew Henry

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)

Spot Festival

Today I am going to go to the NC Spot Festival. I am excited about eating some good fish. As I was looking on the website about it I saw this. (Local lore says that spot are the fish that Jesus used when he fed the multitudes with loaves and fishes. The actual "spot" on the fish is supposedly where Jesus left His fingerprints when distributing the fishes.) Now keep in mind this is only lore, if fact a very good friend who will remain nameless said this was crap. All the same how cool would this be if it were true. The aw and mystery of God! The questions that we ask do not always have answers. I will reply with more later!

"Reimage"

Well let me explain this "reimage" thing. As most of you know I am techy. Well last week at work I was given a palm to use. This not only works for me in the techy world, but it also meets my OCD standards for being more organized. So anyway I went about hooking it up and installing the software. It was funny everyting came up fine on the computer and fine on the palm, but it would not "hot sync". This is what the two devices do to talk to one another. Well I tryed everything I could think of, short of throwing it. I even called the tech Queen at our School, and she could not get it either. We both knew what this meant, in our little world this means there is a glitch and the only fix is to "reimage" it. This means everything I had installed would be gone, start from scratch. Here is the thing I was reluctant to do this because I didn't want to give up all that was already installed and start over. Even though the reward for doing this was great, by getting the palm. In the end I did it and lost it all, and started over.

What is my point? Well I know that was a long explaination to get here, but I wanted you to understand the sacrifice and reward involved. I think this is the same strugle many of us have in our lives with Jesus. We spend all of this time trying to hold on to parts of our lives that we don't want to give up. The reward for being a Christ follower is greater than all of the sin we continue to endulge in, yet we hold onto it and tell God we are not ready yet. We make excuses about why we are not ready. This is preventing us for "hot syncing" with God. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Mat 10:38 I read a great little book several years ago called "my heart in Christ's home". It talks about your walk and how it is broken up into rooms of the house. I won't go to far into this, so you can read it for yourself. The point is that we need to give God all of the rooms in our house and follow him. So in my techy world I would say God wants to "reimage" us. He wants to clean out all of those files and have us give them all to him as a sacrifice, and the rewards are growth in our relationship with him. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. Isa 40:28

Knight Rider

Tonight I had to stay home from church because Jenilee had a fever (Jenilee is my daughter if you didn't know). So since I was at home on a Wednesday night for the first time in a while, I decided to see what was on TV. I watched a couple episodes of the Andy Griffith Show. Man I love that show, because everything was so much simpler then. After that was over I figured I would flip back to Fox News and go do a few things. Then I remembered that I had set the DVR to record the new Knight Rider. So quickly I flipped there very excited about the show that I loved as a kid. Let me tell you if you did not see it that it was great. I will be recording the whole series to watch later since it comes on on Wed. night. As I was watching and loving the cool graphics that the old one was missing. I wondered does this make it better than the original? Well, the answer is no! Because the original has been around since the 80's and it had the Hoff. I must admit it was rather flashy and I was quite drawn in to it, but it still doesn't stack up to the original.

I think sometimes in our pursuit of the flash and bang that draws people in soetimes. What they really crave is the original Gospel. Lived out and breathed through us the congregation of believers, this is most relevant way to share the Gospel! For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Rom 5:10)