Stuff to think about:
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Give this Thanks
I've seen it everywhere.
"Give thanks for all the blessings you have"
"make a list of all the things you're grateful for this year"
"Your blessed so much. Think of all those kids in India who don't even have water"
Hm.
If you're like me, most of that blows right past me. I've never made one of those lists. I think about Africa sometimes, but I don't really think to much. For me, Thanksgiving is a passing holiday. Here today, gone tomorrow, half the time, I really don't even consider my "blessings."
But sometimes...you have to think about things.
To bad most kids I know think they can go through life not thinking about much, or at least through their highschool years. The truth is, that's not how to live. You cannot live your life without thinking. It becomes just a waste of time. If we seek to do things with our lives, we must think.
One of the things we need to think about, especially in this particular season is how much we have. You've probably heard that a million times, but how many times have you thought through the implications of it. How many times have you thought through the crying out to God these men and women in third world countries are doing every second of their lives as they live in such horrendous conditions. And there are people there who don't know Christ, imagine living your life in such conditions with no God to fly to.
I go to the gym *almost* everyday. Most of them have no such option.
I have what they call "meat" on me. Those kids down there are sticks because of hunger.
I have clothes...yeah the list goes on and on.
And it's not like this has no effect unless I compare myself to other people. The fact is, flat out, we are God's people right? We are his? He is our God. We belong to him. We have ties with him that are amazing, different from any other relationship, and he wants to hear his children's gratitude and praise. We owe it to him too.
So,
Think
and
Think again.
That is reason to praise.
"Give thanks for all the blessings you have"
"make a list of all the things you're grateful for this year"
"Your blessed so much. Think of all those kids in India who don't even have water"
Hm.
If you're like me, most of that blows right past me. I've never made one of those lists. I think about Africa sometimes, but I don't really think to much. For me, Thanksgiving is a passing holiday. Here today, gone tomorrow, half the time, I really don't even consider my "blessings."
But sometimes...you have to think about things.
To bad most kids I know think they can go through life not thinking about much, or at least through their highschool years. The truth is, that's not how to live. You cannot live your life without thinking. It becomes just a waste of time. If we seek to do things with our lives, we must think.
One of the things we need to think about, especially in this particular season is how much we have. You've probably heard that a million times, but how many times have you thought through the implications of it. How many times have you thought through the crying out to God these men and women in third world countries are doing every second of their lives as they live in such horrendous conditions. And there are people there who don't know Christ, imagine living your life in such conditions with no God to fly to.
I go to the gym *almost* everyday. Most of them have no such option.
I have what they call "meat" on me. Those kids down there are sticks because of hunger.
I have clothes...yeah the list goes on and on.
And it's not like this has no effect unless I compare myself to other people. The fact is, flat out, we are God's people right? We are his? He is our God. We belong to him. We have ties with him that are amazing, different from any other relationship, and he wants to hear his children's gratitude and praise. We owe it to him too.
So,
Think
and
Think again.
That is reason to praise.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Beaten,broken,and put back together.
Just like a board after a few hits it breaks just like I fall apart after being hit a few times. I use to think that after the pain subsided I would be numb and I would no longer feel the pain but the truth is the pain it doesn’t go away. So you may be broken and beaten having fallen apart. So what’s next? Well its time to seek God and that’s something that will happen over and over again. You got to die to live and live to die to fight sin. So you die to sin and are alive in Christ but you can also look at it as living in sin and dieing so you can live to serve God. So you might be thinking of why I am writing this to you. Well I’m writing to whom it may concern and apparently that includes you since you are reading this. Being put back together is a painful process. It is like welding two pieces of metal together. A flame melts the metal and as the medal dries it becomes solid and the two pieces become one again. I use metal because its stronger then wood. Your heart may be broken but when a friend helps you its like your heart is medal and is no longer easily broken. Then when you have God your heart becomes like a diamond nothing can break a diamond but a diamond. So your life is good for a while and then all the sudden something terrible happens. Now that diamond heart is shattered like glass. It takes time for your heart to heal but it does. Like the song Broken Wing from a Thousand Foot Krutch says “you’re a broken wing, not a broken thing, you can heal in time, if you try.” All it takes is one prayer. No matter what you’ve done, are doing or are going to do God will forgive you all you have to do is ask. He will forgive you. Look at the word forgiveness. If you look at the middle of the word you will see that give is ion the middle of For-give-ness. Forgiveness from God is God giving you His love and acceptance. As God’s adopted son or daughter you can come to God because of what Christ did for you. He’s your father so as the Bible says “ Let the little ones come to Me.” That in itself is amazing being able to come no matter what.
From Your Brother in Christ who are Believer’s in the One True God.
Daniel
P.S. If you every need someone to talk to I’m here for you.
From Your Brother in Christ who are Believer’s in the One True God.
Daniel
P.S. If you every need someone to talk to I’m here for you.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Saturday Stuff (on Monday...November 15th)
I seem to have a problem with getting Saturday Stuff...posted on Saturday, but nevertheless, here it is.
I don't know this person, but she writes wonderful songs.
I don't know this person, but she writes wonderful songs.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Complacency
I find myself at a loss. I'm a contributor to this blog, which is about worship, yet I find myself complacent every Sunday when the time comes to worship. My heart just isn't in the right place and I find myself mouthing the words. My mind is running a hundred miles an hour about worldly troubles and I lose myself in them. I'm not sincerely giving thanks like I should.
Now, how would I overcome this? I really don't know. Like I've already stated, I'm at a huge loss. How can I be so focused on the most menial of troubles and not be focused on how great God is? This puzzles me. I can't understand. I don't think anyone can. When we even get a glimpse of how huge God is (and we by no means can come close to understanding even a fraction of a percent of that) our worldly troubles don't make any sense.
Maybe I just stumbled upon the secret to bucking my complacency. I'll have to pray about it just like everything else. One thing I do know for certain, although I often forget this, is that God is always there by your side. I pray that you would remember that fact if you're hitting a rut in your worship. God is good, God is great, God transcends any superlatives that we can conceive. God is indescribable.
May the Glory of God be with you now and forever, Amen.
Causes
Today I wrote love on my arms to raise awarness for the cause To Write Love on Her arms which is about sucide, depression, and other stuff like that. Tomorrow I'm doing The World Vision Thirty hour Famine to raise awareness for the hungry. Causes like these are a great idea and so I would like to challenge you to support a cause if you havn't already done one or helped support one this year.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Heh...
I felt really…awkward I suppose, putting up that last post, just because it was talking about how between each Sundays we have had 7 days for God to lavish his grace upon us. However, it just so happens that yesterday, Tuesday, November 4th, Democrats dominated the senate, congress, and even the White House. For some of us, that might be a good thing, but for some of us, it isn’t.
I probably don’t have to tell you my personal beliefs, and I think there are many in the same boat. One friend commented on the results:
“Millions will die, America will fall, socialism will rise....
...But we're all winners! :D”
I have to agree with his first part there…yes it will probably happen, but another friend gave a more mature answer:
"Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." - Psalm 55:22
As the election results roll in tonight, I suggest we remember this verse. Let's put our trust in God, not in our fellow citizens or our elected leaders. No matter what the results are tonight, if this is our attitude, we cannot fail.
"One and God make a majority." - Frederick Douglass”
I really appreciated what he had to say because it made me think a lot about how it doesn’t even really matter, to some extent. A president, here for 4 years, does not eliminate God’s presence, or God’s will being carried out.
And just because we have elected a man half of us wish wasn’t elected, that doesn’t mean we become bitter and rot inside because of it.
Some verses I found really, well, comforting at this time were these:
Romans 13:1 "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."
1 Peter 2:13-14 "Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good."
Psalm 121:1-2 "I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."
Romans 8:38-39 "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
So, no matter who’s sitting in the Oval Office, God’s sitting way higher, on His throne in Heaven. And, just to let you know, the Throne inn Heaven is much more powerful, rules so much more, and is capabale of things Barack Obama couldn’t even dream of doing.
Keep your eyes on Heaven. Remember that God is still here, Barack was put here by God, and soon, it won’t matter who was president in 2008.
So remember this when we worship. God is still here, his gift of life didn’t suddenly vanish, His son’s work on the cross wasn’t magically erased. Obama can’t do that with his tiny packet of power that God gave him. This is a reason to give glory to our God.
I probably don’t have to tell you my personal beliefs, and I think there are many in the same boat. One friend commented on the results:
“Millions will die, America will fall, socialism will rise....
...But we're all winners! :D”
I have to agree with his first part there…yes it will probably happen, but another friend gave a more mature answer:
"Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." - Psalm 55:22
As the election results roll in tonight, I suggest we remember this verse. Let's put our trust in God, not in our fellow citizens or our elected leaders. No matter what the results are tonight, if this is our attitude, we cannot fail.
"One and God make a majority." - Frederick Douglass”
I really appreciated what he had to say because it made me think a lot about how it doesn’t even really matter, to some extent. A president, here for 4 years, does not eliminate God’s presence, or God’s will being carried out.
And just because we have elected a man half of us wish wasn’t elected, that doesn’t mean we become bitter and rot inside because of it.
Some verses I found really, well, comforting at this time were these:
Romans 13:1 "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."
1 Peter 2:13-14 "Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good."
Psalm 121:1-2 "I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."
Romans 8:38-39 "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
So, no matter who’s sitting in the Oval Office, God’s sitting way higher, on His throne in Heaven. And, just to let you know, the Throne inn Heaven is much more powerful, rules so much more, and is capabale of things Barack Obama couldn’t even dream of doing.
Keep your eyes on Heaven. Remember that God is still here, Barack was put here by God, and soon, it won’t matter who was president in 2008.
So remember this when we worship. God is still here, his gift of life didn’t suddenly vanish, His son’s work on the cross wasn’t magically erased. Obama can’t do that with his tiny packet of power that God gave him. This is a reason to give glory to our God.
We, who were called to be your people...
Revelation 4:6-11
“In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." 9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11"You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being."
So, obviously, these four creatures and elders had a reason to worship God…they felt something tugging at them. I mean, God wasn’t threatening them in any way “say I’m holy or I’ll blow you up” or anything like that. They did it all by themselves. As soon as they saw God, bam…they knew they were in the presence of their LORD.
It’s funny though…I don’t know why but the situation is just slightly different at my church, at my youth-group, at our little home-group session...in the car with Chris Tomlin CD playing. It seems so strange…I don’t know what’s going on.
As hands+tears, we are talking about how worship is not just happening on Sunday, but your worship service shouldn’t be then, completely ignored. So, I’m gonna talk a little bit about the musical aspect of worship.
Some might say, well, it’s different. I mean, seriously, those creatures were like, in the presence of God, y’know, I mean, it wasn’t hard to worship because they had the Creator Himself, like, right there man. You don’t get that at our youthgroup meeting. I mean, dude, our band needs help and we sing the dumbest songs ever. And Christian Music man, well, that stuff is like Secular Music rejects. They need help. It’d be different if I was like, actually in heaven, y’know. Right man?
Well…no…actually…not right. Trying to condense this into one post will be interesting.
So…what is worship anyway? If it isn’t just what happens every Sunday where we sing happy songs about the cross, then, well what is it? Personally, I like Bob Kauflin’s definition. (whoah, all of our three readers are dropping their jaws, Jo likes Mr. Kauflin’s definition of worship, dude, I think she like…worships Mr. Kauflin himself…” Well no, I’m not as bad as that :P)
It goes like this: Christian worship is the response of God’s redeemed people to His self-revelation that exalts God’s glory in Christ in our minds, affections, and wills, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then all our three readers are going…whoah whoah, wait, I didn’t know all of that was going on when I was sitting there in church. It just seemed like a buncha peeps singing to me. And in truth, it might not be happening in your church in some of the people’s hearts, but this is what worship should look like. So let’s break this down a little.
Christian worship is the response of God’s redeemed people.
Ok, already we’ve hit something. It’s the response of God’s redeemed people. That’s a big concept right there. What comes into play right here is our knowledge about propitiation which is and awesome thing. As Christians, we should all be familiar to this to some extent. Now the first thing we need to do is build that knowledge, because the more we know about it, the more amazed we will be. But we are singing for a reason. We aren’t just blathering away, alright, Sunday seems like a good day to sing, we’re Christians so it seems a good idea to sing about God, hm maybe throw in some biblical stuff in the lyrics, sounds good to me.
No, not at all. We sing because we can’t help it. Every week we’ve had 7 days for God to lavish his grace on us. Just this past week, God comforted me when I was feeling depressed about our family’s financial state, and that made me want to sing a little bit louder. I was feeling worn down with a lot of different personal matters, but I read in Psalms about how God is triumphant always in the end; I raised my hands. We sung the song “God Over All” published by Sovereign Grace Ministries. I wanted to jump up and down by the chorus. Why? Because I had something to sing about. Because I had an amazing god to sing to.
But why aren’t kids doing this now? I’m not putting myself out as any example, because there have been way to many times where I have not felt like worshiping. I am just to depressed, these songs are just to boring, I’d rather think about my new iPod I just got, or the painting we have to do in our house. How come this is happening? One of the main reasons is:
it’s just not cool.
I mean, seriously, like how many people are watching me right now? They might think I’m a freak.
Well, the thing is, when we realize how amazing God is, when we know how wretched and small we are, when we realize that an awesome God wanted to save some puny people from sins they utterly and completely deserved punishment for, other people’s opinion’s just seem to slip away. I want to worship God, because He is so good to me.
It may not be cool to fall down on your face
But it isn’t worship to mumble.
That’s why we need to SING OUT to our God, not cross our arms and just kind of mouth the words here and there. The elders in Revelation didn’t care what other people thought, they knew they owed their lives to this awesome God. They faces fell to the ground.
“In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." 9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11"You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being."
So, obviously, these four creatures and elders had a reason to worship God…they felt something tugging at them. I mean, God wasn’t threatening them in any way “say I’m holy or I’ll blow you up” or anything like that. They did it all by themselves. As soon as they saw God, bam…they knew they were in the presence of their LORD.
It’s funny though…I don’t know why but the situation is just slightly different at my church, at my youth-group, at our little home-group session...in the car with Chris Tomlin CD playing. It seems so strange…I don’t know what’s going on.
As hands+tears, we are talking about how worship is not just happening on Sunday, but your worship service shouldn’t be then, completely ignored. So, I’m gonna talk a little bit about the musical aspect of worship.
Some might say, well, it’s different. I mean, seriously, those creatures were like, in the presence of God, y’know, I mean, it wasn’t hard to worship because they had the Creator Himself, like, right there man. You don’t get that at our youthgroup meeting. I mean, dude, our band needs help and we sing the dumbest songs ever. And Christian Music man, well, that stuff is like Secular Music rejects. They need help. It’d be different if I was like, actually in heaven, y’know. Right man?
Well…no…actually…not right. Trying to condense this into one post will be interesting.
So…what is worship anyway? If it isn’t just what happens every Sunday where we sing happy songs about the cross, then, well what is it? Personally, I like Bob Kauflin’s definition. (whoah, all of our three readers are dropping their jaws, Jo likes Mr. Kauflin’s definition of worship, dude, I think she like…worships Mr. Kauflin himself…” Well no, I’m not as bad as that :P)
It goes like this: Christian worship is the response of God’s redeemed people to His self-revelation that exalts God’s glory in Christ in our minds, affections, and wills, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then all our three readers are going…whoah whoah, wait, I didn’t know all of that was going on when I was sitting there in church. It just seemed like a buncha peeps singing to me. And in truth, it might not be happening in your church in some of the people’s hearts, but this is what worship should look like. So let’s break this down a little.
Christian worship is the response of God’s redeemed people.
Ok, already we’ve hit something. It’s the response of God’s redeemed people. That’s a big concept right there. What comes into play right here is our knowledge about propitiation which is and awesome thing. As Christians, we should all be familiar to this to some extent. Now the first thing we need to do is build that knowledge, because the more we know about it, the more amazed we will be. But we are singing for a reason. We aren’t just blathering away, alright, Sunday seems like a good day to sing, we’re Christians so it seems a good idea to sing about God, hm maybe throw in some biblical stuff in the lyrics, sounds good to me.
No, not at all. We sing because we can’t help it. Every week we’ve had 7 days for God to lavish his grace on us. Just this past week, God comforted me when I was feeling depressed about our family’s financial state, and that made me want to sing a little bit louder. I was feeling worn down with a lot of different personal matters, but I read in Psalms about how God is triumphant always in the end; I raised my hands. We sung the song “God Over All” published by Sovereign Grace Ministries. I wanted to jump up and down by the chorus. Why? Because I had something to sing about. Because I had an amazing god to sing to.
But why aren’t kids doing this now? I’m not putting myself out as any example, because there have been way to many times where I have not felt like worshiping. I am just to depressed, these songs are just to boring, I’d rather think about my new iPod I just got, or the painting we have to do in our house. How come this is happening? One of the main reasons is:
it’s just not cool.
I mean, seriously, like how many people are watching me right now? They might think I’m a freak.
Well, the thing is, when we realize how amazing God is, when we know how wretched and small we are, when we realize that an awesome God wanted to save some puny people from sins they utterly and completely deserved punishment for, other people’s opinion’s just seem to slip away. I want to worship God, because He is so good to me.
It may not be cool to fall down on your face
But it isn’t worship to mumble.
That’s why we need to SING OUT to our God, not cross our arms and just kind of mouth the words here and there. The elders in Revelation didn’t care what other people thought, they knew they owed their lives to this awesome God. They faces fell to the ground.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
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