In His Image

My mother often told me, "Never go grocery shopping when your hungry, everything will look good to you and you'll end up with a lot that you don't need or is good for you!" I must admit that she is right! At my job, I get a hour long lunch break and that is often when I do the grocery shopping for us since we live 30 miles from town. Some days I have been in to much of a hurry to eat my lunch first and get to the store still hungry. Bad move!! I end up spending about twice what I would have needed to! (but the Cheetos's, pop, chips, and chicken wings were very good! :-) On Sunday we had all the youth at our house due to us having A/C and the youth leaders did not. It was 95+ and quite sticky so they were all glad to come over. We had supper and then a time of sharing. It was during this time that God used something that Dawson said to really stir me, it's not what you don't eat that makes the difference, but what your filled with that counts! I ...

Just a thought; When a husband and wife have a close, intimate relationship, children are one of the natural outcomes of it. We as Christians, are the bride of Christ. If we are in close communion and fellowship with Him, will not new babes in Christ be one of the natural outcomes of our walk with God? Secondly, we would never say that we do not want another convert so soon after the "first" one, yet we do that with our children. Marriage was not created just for our enjoyment, but as a reflection on what our relationship with God should be like. Thus, is it an error on our part to try to limit God's hand in either area, because we don't know if we can handle it, or whatever excuse we so often come up with?

Are you a “horse” Christian or a “mule” Christian? What’s the difference you may ask? Your right, they both eat the same food, they both do the same kind of work, the both live in the same kind of place, they look very similar, they even sound somewhat alike. What is the difference? The horse can reproduce, the mule cannot! Jesus said that every branch that beareth not fruit will be cut down and throne into the fire and burned. What kind of Christian are we? So often I can get caught up in “my” life that I forget I gave it away to Christ. What does He want me to do with it. One thing that He has made abundantly clear is that I am to tell others about His love and coming judgment. I am to bear fruit!! But do I?! Am I willing to sacrifice my time, my reputation to my customers, my easy life to tell others of the right way to walk? Many times I have to answer “No.” When we looked at going to Thailand in mission work, a great Brother, Luke Kuepfer, talked about a paradigm for church planti...

Though relatively new to the world of blogging, I see a pattern and it is often mirrored in our lives. If I were to sum it up it would be this, "Talk, rarely turns into, Walk." We can spend so much time talking about issues, analyzing them, defending them, justifying them, rationalizing them, and yes, attacking them that we never step back, look introspect, and ask, "Does this need to change in my life?" If we never ask this question, or worse yet, if we ask it and never are willing to deal with it, we are only filled with so much hot air and will never amount to much. Let me back up a bit and ask is discussion and debate even necessary in the church? I will answer with an unmitigated "Yes!" We are told by Paul to "...contend for the faith," by Solomon, "as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of a friend." What happens when you sharpen something, there is friction, there is heat, and yes there is pain when sp...