Category Archives: Christianity

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Rending Your Clothes

King Josiah by Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld

King Josiah by Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sorry it’s been so long; I’ve been busy with special meetings at church and have had problems with Wi-Fi. Anyways, I just want to share something from my Bible reading today. I was reading in 2 Kings 22, and I noticed something in verse 11: “And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law[the part of the Bible that they had], that he rent his clothes.” So why did the king rend his clothes? In Bible times, you would rend your clothes to show great sorrow and/or consternation. It was also a sign of repentance. King Josiah rent his clothes because he was shocked at what the Bible said and how well it applied to his people. He realized it was an indictment against his kingdom for the sins of the people and was saddened at what their punishment was to be. He wanted to show God that he was sorry for the way the Israelites were acting and asked for forgiveness and deliverance. Then I thought about myself; what do I do when a hear a sermon or read a verse that convicts me? Do I do as King Josiah? Do I just ignore it, or even worse, pretend that I am sorry to try and fool God into forgiving me(tip: it doesn’t work)? God forgive me if I ever do anything other than truly repent and get right; that is the only way I will hear something like what God tells the king in verses 19 and 20: “Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the LORD.
Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.”

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Did You Wash Behind Your Ears?

Neon Toothbrush LightThe other day, while I was brushing my teeth, I thought about the study about how cleaning your mouth reduces your risk of disease, besides gum and teeth diseases. If that is really the case, it’s sad to think that people who otherwise take care of their bodies can still end up with heart disease or arthritis simply because they didn’t take the time to brush their teeth. The same point can be made about many different things: If you don’t take care of wounds you can get infected, If you don’t regularly bathe you can end up with skin problems, stay out in the sun too long without protection and you will get sunburned and possibly, down the road, skin cancer, etc. What’s worse is that many Christians make the same mistakes in their spiritual lives. All too often, we neglect something in our daily “hygiene”. Prayer, reading and meditating on the Bible, and other things are all necessary; stop doing one of them and you will be “overtaken in a fault” (believe me, I know it). It doesn’t matter what else you are doing and taking care of, if you don’t take care of everything something will go wrong. Other times, we get an “injury” or an “illness”. If we ignore these problems they will eventually catch up to us, even if we are healthy in every other area; Steve Jobs proved that. Proverbs 4:26 says “Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.” Once you neglect part of your daily hygiene routine or get hurt or ill, your feet start going down a different path, away Jimmy Reading the Biblefrom the Great Physician. Please take a spiritual physical; if you don’t pass make an appointment with the Doctor.
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Friday

Ah! Another Friday. That means CHOICE! This is the first time we’ve been able to go this month; it was good to see my clubber again. We had a good time and memorized and learned about Ps. 32:7: “Thou art my hiding place, thou shalt preserve me from trouble, thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.”

That’s not all! Friday was the Father and Son Night at our church. We heard a short message from Mr. Glu paralleling sports with the Christian life ( mainly teamwork, and coachableness {a new word!?}), had pizza and pop (what else? :)), and then played games.

Mr. McCracken about to hit the ground

Mr. McCracken about to hit the ground. Look at Dave's face!

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How to be Saved Page

All along, I’ve meant to add a page presenting the gospel. It’s been about three months now. “But it takes time and effort to come up a good presentation, it’s not something to be taken lightly!” God says, “Yeah, but how much time has it taken you to get your blog the way you like it; to add widgets, links, photos, and posts about coffee mugs and the weather? I thought one of the main reasons for this blog was to glorify me? Sure, you wrote one post about a Biblical principle with a Scripture reference, but how can you really glorify me without telling of my love for man and what I’ve done for him? Besides, what do you do all day?” As soon as I heard that I did what any sane person would do – I went and wrote it.

The morals of the story? Always surrender to God; it will go much easier. Always do what you say you will do. Glorify God in all that you do.

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Leadership

Leadership is a great and serious responsibility, that is why God set strict standards for leaders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. “A bishop then must be blameless…patient….not a novice…must have a good report…” “Likewise must the deacons be grave…faithful in all things…” Failure to measure up to those standards can have serious, far reaching consequences. The reason is because as a leader you are a role model for everyone who is following you. Esther 1:10-18 The king commanded the queen to come out so everyone could see her beauty, but she refused. What was so bad about that? Something was very bad about that; every woman in the kingdom looked up to the queen. As soon as they saw that she totally refused to follow her husband’s wish and got away with it, they would be doing the same thing. “The queen can do it, why can’t I?” This was not the way it was supposed to be; the king had to do something about it. So what was the end result? The queen lost her position of authority. The king found a new queen. When a leader seriously fails, he loses the respect of all his followers and ends up finding a new job.

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Two Great Forces for Good – Jim Elliot

Here is a quote from Jim Elliot’s journal:

December 1. “In reading the Scriptures I find a great moral power. Therein I am made aware of twp great forces for good in human experience: the fear of God and the grace of God. Without the fear of God I would not stop at doing evil: the fear of God restrains. Without the grace of God I would have no desire to approach positive goodness. The one is a deterrent from evil; the other is an encouragement to good. ‘Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?’ – not so much make up for what is past, but perfect what is future-‘by taking heed thereto (from now on) according to thy word. ‘These things write I unto you, that ye sin not.’* the Scriptures were written to this very intent: to be a means of grace in struggling against sin. Would that Christians read their Scriptures. We should have a holier band for it.”

– Shadow of the Almighty

*He did not use the KJV here, so I substituted.