In order to make up for my previous post, I found this story this morning. It sounds like one of those terrible movies that you can find on the Sci-Fi channel on Sunday afternoons like, Rattlers, Rats, of Cats. You know those movies that are about us, humans, running into a group of unusually evil creatures. They come out of hiding and begin to take over the closest town and then a guy traps them in a house and blows the joint up. His family which is badly beaten and bruised is not sure if he survived and after a few seconds of them screaming for him, he emerges from the wreckage, clothes charred but alive. Well, I think a new one is being written as I write this post. Maybe I should not write this and start the movie script and get paid. Nah, I don’t like the Sci-Fi channel. Anyway here is the link to the story that will inspire a made for TV movie entitled, “Hunted:The day the Predators became the Prey.”
After reading this story about the bears that attacked this remote area in Russia, I had to look up what type of bear it was and what would a ten foot tall bear look like. I have saved you the trouble of doing it and found this picture of the type of bear reportedly responsible for the attack. This bear pictured is over ten feet tall.
You can read about the hunt here. I can’t wait to not watch the remake of this story!
Today Amy and I drove separately and as I was leaving work in our Honda Odyssey the radio station was set to the channel Amy was listening to becasue she drove the van in this morning. So as I pulled up to a stoplight right downtown I noticed there was a woman wearing scrubs riding a Harley. She looked real tough and I am sure I would not want to fight her even though she was wearing scrubs. At that very moment I realized I was singing along to “The Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts, I hate admitting to that but it is what it is, while driving a mini van and here was a lady in scrubs riding a big bad Harley. There was just something terribly wrong with that whole scene. I immediately switched stations to the Sports talk channel I usually listen to and tried to erase the whole Rascal Flatts thing all the while saying out loud that my other vehicle is a truck.
The leader of our rogue movement known as Threads is Jim Johnston. He is a figure much like Batman that hides in the shadows and encourages and helps us to minister to churches trying to minister to young adults. Jim is a great guy with a great heart and I am proud to be part of this team. With all that said, I want the world, or more accurately my 6 readers that did not see my site by searching for a Google image of a wombat, to get to know him and check out his blog. Click here to see his take on the world, church and baseball. Show him some love!
This video teaches a very important principle, “Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it!” Here the wrestler needed a chair to finish the match and some lovely fans decided to help him out.
WE have not officially made the move to join The Journey, but we feel like we already have. This month has been an amazing and challenging month for us. I am having to get adjusted to convicting teaching coming from the pulpit, even though Erik doesn’t use a pulpit. I have just grown used to not being challenged on Sunday mornings and things are different now. This sermon series about spiritual warfare has been simple, yet profound. When reminded of the enemy’s tactics, it becomes much easier to recognize them at play in my life. I did learn one very important thing this weekend, when you are having a “discussion” with your wife, you can’t really deal with it as spiritual warfare at the time. There is no way for, “You are being used by satan to tempt me into anger” to come out well. I wish there was some way to incorporate that into a “discussion” but I have serious doubts the outcome will be anything positive. Afterwards though, you can easily see how satan can use simple disagreements to cause more trouble than they deserve.
Thankfully, we studied how to deal with the tactics of the enemy this Sunday. This is one of those areas you already know the answer to, but we easily forget the basic truths. Preparing for battle can’t be a one and done type of thing. Spending time with God each day and staying connected to His heart is the only way to stand firm in the midst of difficulty. This was a welcome reminder and it sufficiently kicked my butt this weekend. It is easy for me to replace time with God with time reading the Bible. I have to read the Bible everyday at work and this can appear as time with God, but it isn’t. So this week, time with God is going to be at the front of my mind. I can’t expect to be a godly husband and father if I am not being connected to Him every day. What about you? How are you connecting to the Creator of the Universe? How are you preparing to face the enemy? The sad truth is that if you are not actively preparing, you very likely are already losing ground.
Click here to read about Josh. His story is just amazing and I could read it everyday. I nearly tear up reading certain points, but if you mention that I will deny it. This story is great because it is basically him just telling his story. I remember reading this story last year in my ESPN magazine and just hoping he would continue on and do well in baseball. Well and year later he is the story of baseball. The events of the Homerun Derby will not soon be forgotten.
It is passages like these, Revelation 19, that cause me to cringe when I read about how powerful Christ is and how wonderful His love is and how unworthy I am to receive that love. These verses describe a rescuer descending from Heaven with all the armies of Heaven following behind. The images of white horses and warriors clad in fine white linen makes for some pretty incredible imagery. I can’t help but thinking about Gandolf and his armies from Lord of the Rings, obviously on a much smaller scale but you get the idea. Just the idea that such a great price has already been paid, Christ’s death, and that He has secured such a wonderful victory already even though it has not yet happened I am embarrassed by the way I live this life.
I just gave my wife a Pandora bracelet, guys if you don’t know what this is you should so look it up, and two charms for her birthday. It was the really big birthday in between 20 and 40 but I will let you guess the exact number. It was not a huge gift by any means, but for me it was pretty big. She is totally excited about it right now, but how would I feel if in three weeks I find it laying around the house and she has tossed it aside for something else? Very angry I can promise you. I would probably take it away and sell it on E-Bay or something. Yet everyday I do things that must look the same way to Christ. I have received a wonderful gift, the most wonderful of all possible gifts, and yet it gets overlooked everyday. I recognize I can’t live perfectly, but there are so many areas I find lacking. And yet I read these passages and I see my Savior coming down again to receive His bride. He has rolled out all the stops. His love knows no bounds, His grace is unparalleled, His mercy unlimited. Just seeing how far He has gone to rescue fallen humanity is humbling because I am part of that group. This lesson is part of a cumulative effort lately but God is definitely drawing me into a deeper relationship with Him. He desires more than a passing fist bump and He deserves my entire life. Lessons like these definitely bring all these issues to life for me. They are tough to process and painful to study, but worth every moment. At the end of the day, are you living with the end in mind? Do you actively think about what Christ really did for you? What he really offers a dead and decaying corpse? Its not only life later on, its real life right now. Join me this week in examining your walk and relationship with the Rider on the Pale Horse, the Savior Warrior Jesus is. Where is your life not living up to the price paid for it? How can you live each day differently knowing the ending to the story, your story?
I am fairly sure this is not real but it is funny. I do know I will be keeping my cell phone on my desk and greatly reduce the time it spends in my pocket!
Do you know who Josh Hamilton is, besides my new hero? Well you should. Last night I watched one of the most amazing displays of God given ability I have ever seen. Watching Jordan fly through the air and battle through sickness and any other force that came against him to win was memorable even as a child. Watching Tiger just knowing his victory will be the outcome still baffles me. With both of those as examples, they still fall short to Josh Hamilton. For Josh’s story, read this article.
Last night during the Homerun Derby, I saw someone living the life we all are supposed to be living. I saw a man doing what God had created him to do, all the while acknowledging Christ’s influence on his life. God created Josh to play baseball and to honor Him through that ability. On the biggest stage in America last night, Josh did that. Watch ESPN today, hear what they have to say. Last night, they were bewildered by what Josh could do and was doing. Each swing of the bat a miracle in itself. In almost a cartoonish fashion, the cracks of the bat louder and the ball flying higher and farther. Professional athletes in awe. Regular men, like me, mesmerized. 28 home-runs later, the New York crowd some 50,000 strong chanting his name. From nights spent sleeping next to crackheads to a night in Yankee Stadium no one will ever forget.
To hear a man like that, doing something no one else has ever done, say, “I just want to thank Christ and I hope that everything I do will continue to bring glory to Him.” That is not the abused God nod so many people like to do. Josh, at every given opportunity, used the stage to tell people about Jesus. With every question he exampled a life saved and hope restored. He is a man worth watching. A man to put in front of your teenage boys. A man using the gift he has and unashamedly blaming it all on Christ.
When it was all over last night, the story was Josh Hamilton, even though he did not even win the whole thing. It seems kinda fitting to me that God stole the show and did it His way. If I had written the story Josh would have hit 10 HR’s in the final and walked off a champion, but in God’s story Josh already was. I love God’s story so much more than mine!
Watch this clip and see something amazing. Listen to the crowd as he hits ball after ball into the bleachers.
The Beast from the Sea. 666. The Antichrist. The Rider on the White Horse. That’s right – get ready for a series in Revelation. Though it might appear we saved our Revelation study for the summer months because the attendance is lower than at any other time, it’s not true – I promise! I do know that studying Revelation can be a daunting task but do not pass up this study in favor of a book study or something else just yet. While this study is not going to walk through the whole book (Revelation in four weeks?), we are going to hit a few hot areas throughout this book. The deal with the title is that we wanted to explore the end times(eschatology) and see what the Bible teaches and compare it with what we see around us presented by pop culture. On your drive to work alone you may run across one or all of the sayings we chose as lesson titles. I assure none were made up by us, they are all actual bumper stickers or billboards or slogans. The idea being that every day pop culture tries to teach us about the end times and often gets pieces of it right, but they miss so much of the story. So this month, fasten your seat-belt, ok I admit that was cheesy but I couldn’t help it, and lets take a look at what the Bible says about the end times.
This week we’re going to take a closer look at Jesus. Of all the titles this month, this one bothers me the most and also expresses how so many people truly feel. Guess what? Jesus is absolutely not the copilot. In our culture we’ve relegated Him to that seat, the seat where we ask Him to take over so we can take a bathroom break or grab a cup of coffee. Or maybe if things are going bad we may ask for a bit of help, but overall, we are OK if He just sits there until we need Him. It’s this view of Christ I don’t understand. If He is not THE pilot, we are all in trouble. The fact that He allows us into the cockpit at all is truly amazing. I remember my first time on a plane and the pilot letting me see the inside of the cockpit and then giving me those cheap plastic wings. I felt privileged that the pilot had let me in to see what the others were not allowed to see. How crazy would it have been for me to say, OK Capt. Bob, thanks for the tour. I think I can handle it now. I’ll let you know if I need anything. But how often do we see that taking place in our lives and in the lives of other Christians around us. I could teach a whole lesson just on the title alone!
These verses in Revelation show the glory and majesty of Christ. They depict thousands and thousands of thousands bowing before His throne worshiping Him. They reveal Him to be the only One worthy to open the scrolls and turn us, Christ followers, into royalty. He is the One who created the universe. He is the One who died and rose again, and He is the One who allows us to have life. Where in there did we get the idea that He would be OK with the copilot’s seat? I can only truthfully speak for myself, but as I survey the state of the church around the country, I don’t think I am wrong in this. We need to take our relationship with Christ very seriously. It is not a casual fling, a summer romance, or a childhood friend type relationship. It is the Creator and createe (I just made that word up), the King and the servant, the Father and the child type relationship. The imagery of Him being worshiped by “every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them” truly boggles my mind. And to think He, the One worshiped by everything, wants to know and relate to me—that’s a very humbling thought. It is even more humbling when I think of all the times I relegated Him to the passenger’s seat. This week just focus on the idea of Him being who these verses describe, because He is. It’s time we started responding accordingly. It may begin with a bowed knee and a quiet prayer, or it may be a beautiful song sung along with the countless choir in heaven. I’m not sure what the response will look like for you, I just know this lesson has definitely reminded me of who He really is and who I am, and I don’t want to fly the plane anymore!
You can read about the hunt here. I can’t wait to not watch the remake of this story!
