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Sunday Scriptures

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. ~ Ephesians 4:31-32

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Life is a Long Race

Having done one marathon and watched a couple, I’ve seen people who gave up on the race. They gave up when they had made it 20 miles. They only had 6.2 to go, but they just couldn’t make it. It was too hard.

I think many people do the same thing, in regards to their lives. They make it 50-60-70 years following Christ, staying faithful to their wife/husband, loving their children, etc. But they gave up. They hit the wall. In marathon running the 20-21 mile mark is often called the wall. It’s when your body no longer has anything left in it. Your body uses up all the glycogen(energy) stored in the liver and muscles and begins to start burning fat.

Life is the same way to a certain extent. People hit that mid-life crisis. They were running on their own strength and it ran out. Maybe they haven’t made enough money, they haven’t traveled enough, they haven’t lived life to the fullest, at least not up to their standards. And so they leave their family, or they just live their sins in secret, etc.

I pray that myself and none of you will be these people. This race is long. The way is narrow. There are many turns off this narrow pathway. It will not be easy. As CS Lewis said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

And this is another thing I’ve been learning more and more. You cannot depend on your own strength. It will fail you. You have to turn to Christ and he is the one who will uphold you. Cling to that rock. Don’t allow yourself to think you can conquer sin on your own. You can’t. Christ has though. He has conquered sin and has crushed the head of the serpent with His heel in His laying down His life for us.

This life won’t be easy. There will be plenty of pathways that look prettier or easier. But they won’t lead to heaven. There is only one way to heaven and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not through you or your works. 😉

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Life is a Long Race

Having done one marathon and watched a couple, I’ve seen people who gave up on the race. They gave up when they had made it 20 miles. They only had 6.2 to go, but they just couldn’t make it. It was too hard.

I think many people do the same thing, in regards to their lives. They make it 50-60-70 years following Christ, staying faithful to their wife/husband, loving their children, etc. But they gave up. They hit the wall. In marathon running the 20-21 mile mark is often called the wall. It’s when your body no longer has anything left in it. Your body uses up all the glycogen(energy) stored in the liver and muscles and begins to start burning fat.

Life is the same way to a certain extent. People hit that mid-life crisis. They were running on their own strength and it ran out. Maybe they haven’t made enough money, they haven’t traveled enough, they haven’t lived life to the fullest, at least not up to their standards. And so they leave their family, or they just live their sins in secret, etc.

I pray that myself and none of you will be these people. This race is long. The way is narrow. There are many turns off this narrow pathway. It will not be easy. As CS Lewis said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

And this another thing I’ve been learning more and more. You cannot depend on your own strength. It will fail you. You have to turn to Christ and he is the one who will uphold you. Cling to that rock. Don’t allow yourself to think you can conquer sin on your own. You can’t. Christ has though. He has conquered sin and has crushed the head of the serpent with His heel in His laying down His life for us.

This life won’t be easy. There will be plenty of pathways that look prettier or easier. But they won’t lead to heaven. There is only one way to heaven and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not through you or your works. 😉

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Relationships – Real Life

I’m coming to the point where I want to have real relationships. I want to talk to people. I want to get in awkward situations. I want to not know what to say. I’m getting tired of the fake personalities of the internet where people act smarter than they are, post quotes that nobody would want to hear in real life, and put together perfectly thought through/witty thoughts. 

I want to talk to people and begin to become a better friend. I’m bad at it, but I shall try. ^_^
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Sunday Scriptures

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. ~ Psalms 100:4-5

Sorry no book report on Saturday. :-/ Was tired from some long days at a conference we were at and didn’t have a clear mind. :oD
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All About You

What is life about? Is it all about you? Is it all about how you feel? Is it all about how you prosper? 


Or is life about others? Is life about seeing others grow in Him? Is life about edifying others to be more like Him? I’ve found when I stop focusing on myself I work more. I stop clinging to my sins. I begin to cling to Christ. I begin to realize that I can’t serve others without Him. I can serve myself all day long without Christ. But when I have to turn from being selfish to unselfish it doesn’t come naturally without my doing it for Christ and because of my love for him he gives me the strength to love others.


We need to be laying down our life for others. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” ~ Matthew 16:25 We need to be laying down our lives for Christ.

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Head in the Clouds?

People like to have their head in the clouds. See themselves as bigger than they are. They want to be the big movie star. They want to be like a movie character. They may dream about being married. They may dream about traveling the world.

The thing is, dreams don’t get you places. Doing stuff gets you there. Dreams are good in the context of giving you an idea of what you’re trying to get done. But they don’t get you places. If you want to do something go try it. If you’re terrible at it, then you know you are. But if you just talk about it you’ll never know if you’re gifted in that area. You’ll be stuck with your head in the clouds.

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Sunday Scriptures

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. ~ Mark 8:34-35
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Book Club – Who’s In?

Lately I’ve been doing lots of Objective-C programming. And when I say lots, I’m referring to browsing through google for hours upon hours. But I have to admit, I enjoy certain aspects of it. It’s creating. I enjoy jobs that are about creating something new. Some way that no one else has done it. I love learning new things. I like perfecting an art. But once I hit the end of the learning curve I tend to get bored and hate it. I don’t think that hating things when they get boring is good, but I do think all of us should love to learn new things. I perceive too many people to be sedated in a job where they are not doing anything new and learning new things. Many people go to work, let’s say at Walmart, they stock shelves, they drive home, they eat dinner, they turn on the their television/computer and enjoy their entertainment, and then go to bed and repeat the process the next day. They aren’t trying to learn. They’ve become happy with a fairly lethargic look on life. They don’t have a vision for growing because they aren’t learning. Learning will keep your vision on and about life constantly growing and expanding.

I have a challenge. It’s for myself as well as you if you care to join me. I’m going to try to read a book a week till the end of the year. 
I’ll probably read short books most weeks while working through a long one at the same time. I don’t have a ton of time, but I’m going to try to commit 30 min – an hour per day in reading besides the Word.
I’ll post about the book I finished on Saturdays and if you’d like, go ahead and let us know what you read and some thoughts about your book in the comments below.
I’m going to start J.C. Ryle’s book “Practical Religion” and probably run my way through one of Shakespeare’s tragedies. 
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Babies

You know, I really like babies. They help me understand that as we grow up we become more complex. We don’t look at life in as much wonder.
They bring me back to the idea that my job as I grow older is to create a world that will give the generation after me a more beautiful life. A life where they can even more easily grow up and worship God. Rather than creating a world that revolves around me, instead I look toward a world that will go on generation after generation, long after my short life is over.