There Are Heroes Yet Today

    When I was a young lad, I had all kinds of heroes.  The Incredible Hulk, the Lone Ranger, G.I. Joe, and the guy that lived next door that was in the Vietnam war.  As time went on, some of those heroes lost their quality.  They faded into a state of semi-retiredness, a state in which their greatest accomplishments were already completed and no zenith lay before them.

    There was one hero, though, that for some reason still amazed me, that kept me on the edge of my seat.  A seemingly obscure person thrust into life with no survival knife, no super power, and no flair for the theatric.  One single motivating factor…never accept defeat.  Surmounting unbelievable obstacles while at the same time protecting the innocent stander-by, my hero never falters, never waivers, never gives in.  I am 32 years old, and I still have a child-like anticipation of what my hero’s next adventure might be.

   My hero is my mom.

   Who is your hero? 

The Faith of a Child

Our friends have a 3 year old little girl named Jayma, and she is so incredibly intelligent, we are sometimes taken back.  She went on a walk with her mom, and they came across a bunny that had been run over in the road near a stop sign.  This is her version of the story:

    “The bunny was hopping like this….(she illustrates by jumping up and down, bright eyes roaming and brighter teeth flashing a big smile, while light brown locks of shoulder length hair jostle for position behind her)…and he didn’t stop at the stop sign!  Now, the mommy bunny was telling the baby bunny to stop, but he didn’t listen.  A car came and, WHAP! hit him and all his blood squooshed out and he died.  Then Jesus came and took him to heaven (her tiny arms fully outstretched are lifted in a quick motion, with a small jump included for emphasis) where Jesus put him back together, squooshed all his blood back in to him, and made his fur white again.  Then, he put him back down on earth again (tiny arms once again on the move, this time in the opposite direction).” 

   We were dumbfounded.  Pretty Biblically sound, if you ask me….and she can barely read.  So, if you happen to be looking up one day, and see Jesus coming on a white horse, keep looking.  Somewhere near there is going to be a white bunny with an attitude looking for a certain SUV.

   Do you believe that somehow children have a supernatural sense or knowledge that is lost as “carnal knowledge” is gained?

Jesus Wants to Have a Beer With You Part III

    Have you read the first two parts?  If not, please scroll down and do so now, or else this will make absolutely no sense to you.  Go ahead, it won’t take long….

    Jesus came to do much more than “save us from our sins”.  The most powerful force ever known to man, the most awesome of all beings, the most infinitely wise mind from the beginning of time, Who in all things embodies what is true, selfless love, has done everything that He has done for one reason alone….to have a beer with you.  Sound silly?  Sound a little theologically off?  It’s true.

    The one thing that God wants is to know you.  He wants to know you like a friend.  What does a friend do if he or she wants to get to know the real you?  They come to you, in your element.  They may even have a beer with you.  God does not demand that we “clean ourselves up” in order to be accepted by Him.  He comes to us in our present state.  If we are demanded by a person, pastor, church, or denomination to “clean ourselves up”, or to act a certain way, or to refrain from certain activities before we can have a relationship with God, they are WRONG.  God wants you just the way you are.  IF God wants you to change something, He will deal with your heart on His own time, in His own way.  He will come to you in your environment.

    He came to Zac and wanted to hang out with him, at his house, with his family, his friends, none of which were Christians.  Jesus even went as far as to say “Today has salvation come to this house”.  What, no altar call, no sinner’s prayer, no ceremony?  All Zac did was to allow Jesus into his life.   Sound cliche?  When you “ask Jesus into your life”, you are simply allowing Jesus to see who you really are, where you really live, and entrusting Him with your vunerability.  

    Salvation is instantaneous, change is gradual, and God knows this.  If change was instant, we would not need a Saviour.  Relax.  So you have some issues to deal with.  Who cares.  Just love Jesus.  In this, you will become who He wants you to become.  Who is to say what is sin?  Alot of it is baloney anyways.  Let God deal with it through prayer, going to church, reading your Bible, or talking to someone whose spirituality you trust.  The Ten Commandments were taken down a long time ago…by God Himself.  All the “do not’s” were replaced by two things, love God, love people.  Everything else will fall into place. 

    I welcome and encourage your thoughts, good or bad.   Your won’t hurt my feelings.  Promise.  Have you had a beer with Jesus?     

Jesus Wants to Have a Beer With You Part II

Ok, before I start, if you have not read part I, please scroll down and do so now.  It’s ok, I’ll wait……………

    Ready?  Here we go.   I read in the Bible (Luke 19:1-10) about a little man named Zacchaeus.  Since his hame was difficult to spell, and kids made fun of it in school,  he preferred to be called Zac.  At the time, Zac was pretty high up in the IRS, which naturally made him a bit wealthy.  He loved to spend his wealth on celebrity and sports memorabilia, and he had alot of it.  It fact, his den walls were lined with the weapons of the baddest gladiators, autographs etched in stone of the popular play actors and singers, and he even had a picture of himself shaking hands with the king at the king’s secluded ranch in the desert.  In the garage he had a sweet chariot with 60″ rims and all chromed out.  With four horses in front of the hood that bad boy would straight up get it, but it was just a toy.  He had another sport utility chariot he used for work, and that was no slouch either!

    Anytime a famous person was coming into the bustling metropolis of Jericho, Zac would take every pain to get close to them, to even meet them, and so when he heard that the famous evangelist Jesus Christ was coming into town, he called in sick and went to try and check it out.  As Jesus came into town with his entourage, the crowd got thicker and taller, and being vertically challenged, Zac looked around for the closet thing that would get him a little higher.  A tree.  Ok, a little childish, but it seemed to be right in the path to where Jesus was going.  Up Zac went, closer Jesus came….eye contact!  Zac’s body went numb, his face got hot, and he almost let go of the branch, almost.  “Hey Zac!  Come on down here!  Were going to your house to have a beer!”  Zac came down, as the Bible says, “joyfully”.  I’ll bet that was an understatement. 

    This is the offer that Christ makes to all of us today, “hey (insert your name here), why don’t we go get a beer?”  You see, when you read the Bible, you have to understand the time and culture in which it was written.  We love to keep those two aspects intact when we are reading it, but then it actually begins to convey a traditional, story-book, does-not-relate-to-today, seemingly false message.  So what we have to do, is put today into that story.  This is not “adding to or taking away” from the Bible.  Believe me, I am not cursed for my little story.  To test this theory, I am going to pause here for a week.  If I am not dead, I am going to come back and show you how this all ties in to the message of heaven and a Savior that loves us enough to have a beer with us.  Oh, and I will also address the aforementioned “seemingly false message”.  Heresy?  We’ll see.  Be back in a week.

 

Jesus wants to have a beer with you.

What, you don’t think that Jesus is personable?  You think that He is some unreachable, traditional, religious icon Who is worth some attention on Easter and Christmas?  A romantic story of love that took a man to His death? 

I’ll bet you left your curiosity of the most powerful Man in the world right there, and didn’t even realize that Jesus is real, both in the tangible sense, and in the “keepin’ it real” sense, and He wants to have a beer with you.  Heresy?  If you think so, you need to get you head out of the 1990’s holiness movement, and get back in the game.  Holiness is not about what you do or don’t do, it is all about what He did.  It just feels better to know that you are earning heaven, doesn’t it?  Let’s set ”religion” and ”churchianity” aside for a minute and talk about this.  Jesus and beer.  Maybe even a tattoo.  It’s your ticket to heaven. 

 More to come….

Animal Cruelty?

We had a cat that got out and rolled around in the mud.  What to do?  Step #1  Washing machine!

Step #2:  Since the dryer would not be fun for him, I put him by the fire to dry.

Nice and clean, huh? 

Questioning God

If you could ask God one question with a guaranteed answer, what would it be? 

If you could ask God to do one thing for you with a guaranteed result, what would it be?

Redemption

Redemption 

This path is dark and dreary,

And I am cold and weary.

But I walk this path not fearing

When I have Your light. 

When darkness closes in

And Your light is blocked by sin

I cry out for you again

Then love scatters the night. 

Your Word was birthed in my heart

By Your sweet Spirit from the start

And when I take the path not marked

I hear the Shepherd say 

“Come back, my love, come back to Me.

That path is wrong, but you can’t see,

You’ve wandered away from the Mercy Seat.

Let me take those blinders away” 

So I make my way back up that hil

Where the blood stained cross is standing still.

Although empty now it once was filled

With all my shame and guilt. 

And just beyond that cross now stands

The eternal reward of Your Father’s commands

An astoundingly indescribable land.

That your nail-pierced hands have built.

 

Hypocrite

Hypocrite  

The dark ones climb their ivory towers

Unconscious of the powers

They hold against me. 

Like a catapult of the tongue,

Words are pulled back and flung,

Striking the heart instantly. 

In a life giving manner

They hoist their evil banner

And move their agenda ahead. 

They flash their pearl white grins

At me again and again

All along wanting me dead

Just like them.
                        

Certainty

Certainty 

Certainty in uncertain days is a beautiful thing.

Shrouded in the complexities of life,

It is revealed to only the most diligent of seekers.

How long do I seek? Where do I look?

The reflection of a father in his child’s wide eyes?

The hopeful mourning of a dove when her soulmate dies?

I need to go back to the beginning, when what was true was true.

The older I grow, wisdom evades me

Like the fox that the hound chased, but never found.

The more I seek, the less I find.

I look to the gods, but some cannot speak, and most are dead.

I look to the stars, and they tell me nothing

But the story of their creation, and how they kept watch over nations,

And that little boy that was me.

This is certainty.