After being out all last week on vacation visiting the vacation mecca of the known world, Disney World, I needed something extra to get going this morning and this video was there waiting for me. I will post about the vacation later but this video is priceless and kinda like Pringles, once you pop you can’t stop. Seriously, try to watch it just once, you can’t. You have to watch it at least twice and by then its too late, the song is stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Enjoy!
This video and story is about a young adult that grew up in a family of a very high ranking Hamas leader. His story of redemption from that darkness is amazing. Watch and then read the interview. There is little doubt he has met The God of this world and his life has been turned upside down.
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?
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.
I was reading Michael Kelley’s blog this morning, trying to get going here in the office, and his morning thought got me thinking, “What are different ways we disguise our judging?” For me I think I call it people watching. On those days when I am trying to survive the mall, one of my favorite things to do is watch people. I am always intrigued by the people I see around me. I try to figure out how they are connected to the people they are with and whether or not they realize how ridiculous they look. Things like, “Is she his daughter or his newest trophy?” “How in the world did he end up dating her?” or “Does that little nerd realize wearing shorts down to his ankles and his hat kicked to the side have absolutely no way of making him cooler or earning him any street cred?” “Does she know those knee high furry boots look silly when its 95 outside?”
Until this morning, I think I thought this was just a way to pass the time stuck in the first layer of purgatory known as the mall. But now I am fairly sure it is simply judgement wearing one of those little fake noses with the mustache attached to it. So that thought got me thinking, I wonder what other sins disguise themselves as harmless critters, such as the wombat, when in fact they are deadly viscous creatures. Check my previous post about these critters.
What do you think? How have some sins inserted themselves into your life wearing a clever disguise? It seems tough enough to deal with the sins we recognize yet still fail to deal with properly without these disguised sins coming to light. It makes Christ’s death and His righteousness even greater and more necessary.
