Road Rage

One thing you have probably said to yourself is "I would enjoy driving if it wasn't for all the other people out on the roads!"

I have had to confront this over and over, I get really frustrated on the roads and it can boil over.

I throw my hands up in amazement at the violations of basic courtesy on our highways. It's an epidemic! I scratch my head at the behavior I see. BUT...

I forget that those people have lives and situations that are different. Sometimes those other people just can become faceless and anonymous. It's easier to get mad at them that way! But is it really worth it?

No.

We all have to learn this, I am first in line to the class.

When we are on the roads we can transform into the most critical person can't we?

If the mask were off and we could see the actual people and not the car, then what?

Sometimes when your driving past someone you're a little upset with and you sneak a glance to who has been causing you so much heart ache, and lo and behold it's someone you did not expect!

(Granted, there are some who are just uncaring)

Mostly people just want to get from point A to point B. They want to get there fast.

It's pointless to stress out over the antics of drivers who choose to set aside the rules. It won't change things.


My Prayer: Lord help me be at peace with all men....even on the 400!

Dig In!

Here's why it's so important to not only read the bible to but to study it...

Have you noticed that you're different after learning what's been written in it's actual context? We have a way that we interpret biblical words in the 21st century, but when it was written the words had unique applications, and it has extra meaning if you dig a little bit.

For example, reading in Ephesians you come across the word "grieve" (To grieve the Spirit of God through your actions or attitudes). We would normally think about that word in the context of losing a loved one and the feeling of emptiness after, but it really means more the feeling of betrayal that a spouse would have after discovering their partner had been unfaithful.

Here is the devotional that I was reading that got me thinking about this, it's from, Rick Renner...

Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit! And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. — Ephesians 4:30

Many years ago, when I first studied the word “grieve” in Ephesians 4:30, I ran to my bookshelf and pulled out my Greek New Testament to discover exactly what the word “grieve” meant. I found that this word was taken from the Greek word lupete. This surprised me, because the word lupete is from the word lupe, which denotes a pain or grief that can only be experienced between two people who deeply love each other. This word lupe would normally be used to picture a husband or wife who has discovered his or her mate has been unfaithful. As a result of this unfaithfulness, the betrayed spouse is shocked, devastated, hurt, wounded, and grieved because of the pain that accompanies unfaithfulness. This tells us, first of all, that the relationship that exists between us and the Holy Spirit is precious! The Holy Spirit is deeply in love with us. Just as someone in love thinks about, dreams of, and cherishes the one he loves, the Holy Spirit longs for us, thinks about us, desires to be close to us, and wants to reveal Himself to us. But when we act like the world, talk like the world, behave like the world, and respond the same way the world does, we cause the Spirit of God to feel shock, hurt, and grief. You see, when we deliberately do what is wrong, we drag Him right into the mire of sin with us, because He lives in us and goes wherever we go. The Holy Spirit convicted us of sin and brought us to Jesus; then He indwelt us, sanctified us, empowered us, and faithfully remains alongside to help us. So when we deliberately enter into sin, it grieves Him. Just as a husband or wife would feel who has just discovered that his or her spouse has committed adultery, the Holy Spirit is shocked when we dishonor His Presence in our lives. One scholar has translated Ephesians 4:30 in the following way: “Stop deeply wounding and causing such extreme emotional pain to the Spirit of God, by whom you have been sealed until the day of your redemption.” We need to realize how precious the Holy Spirit is in our lives and honor Him by making sure we live holy and upright lives. If our behavior has been wrong, we should confess our sin and receive cleansing by the blood of Jesus so we can be restored to fellowship with the Spirit of God. So before you get started with your daily duties today, stop and ask, “Holy Spirit, is there anything in my life that causes You grief? If there is, please reveal it to me so I can change.”

So, now you can clearly see that adds a new meaning to that verse that's life changing if you're a Christian! If you read that and understand it, you're a changed person!

So get out the shovel and dig a little deeper into the bible for all the GOLD!

P.S. I would highly recommend getting this devotional in your daily e-mail! http://www.renner.org

Christmas 2015

The family out for a Star Wars viewing!

Christmas is weird for a lot of reasons.  Honestly a lot of the traditions don't make a lot of sense if you think about them.  We bring a tree indoors, put lights on our houses and eat too much.  How did the celebration of the birth of Christ turn into this?  I am not sure.

Anyway, here's the great thing about the holiday...I get to see my kids and brother and sister in law and my niece, and spend time with them and do fun things!  If we had no other attachments to the Yuletide, this would be worth it to me!

Rose and I tried to raise our tots with an appreciation for God and faith and I love that we can get together and thank Him for all that we have.  My kids are a blast to be around and we always have fun and there is no real drama.  I think they enjoy being around us to, so that's awesome.  My brother and his family are always a good time and since we live closer it's great seeing them more often!

This year we all headed out to the cinema to take in our traditional Christmas movie "The Force Awakens".  It was a second viewing for all of us but my son...we had to keep spoilers at a minimum!  I liked the movie better the second time around!  Great film, fun for all!

We got to play Aggravation and a new game called "Exploding Kittens"...it's a card game, so no animals are harmed!  We watched movies and played video games and ate too much!  Now they have all gone back north and the house is quiet again.  Ahhhh

Good times!

 

Checkmate, Satan!

The other day I was at a friends house and they had a nativity scene on their coffee table.

To me it looked like a chess set!  

When I was younger, my friends and I were chess freaks!

My parents got me a chess set for Christmas one year and I joined the chess club at school.  I would lay in bed and imagine strategies before drifting off to sleep.  I even had a chance to play a Russian Master!  He came to our local library and played about 20 of us all at once.  He would make a move on one board and move to the next, all while chain smoking!  I was fifth to the last to be eliminated.  It was because I was not paying attention, I was chatting with my friend and I looked up and The Master was waiting for me to make a move, I made one real quick without thinking it through and it was all over!  I had no long term game plan and I got distracted!  That's why I lost.

Getting back to the Nativity scene.  Imagine the game!  Wise man takes Joseph, Mary moves two spaces and this Camel is now in trouble... 

It's a funny thought, but there is a real deep truth to it.  Just like chess, the plan of human redemption took a long time to play out and was planned well in advance.

For Jesus, the Savior to be born, a lot of different elements had to come together at just the right time. All the pieces had to be in place, the strategy had to be worked in just the right way.  

Amazing!

Here is another thought...

When I would play chess with my friends, we had a rule that if you moved a piece you could keep your finger on it until you were sure that was the move you wanted to make.  I feel like God has His finger on us sometimes to.  Only we are the ones making the move!  He holds us and says "Are you sure you want to do this?".  It's nice to know that as we play this game called life, that the Master has his finger on us while we move across the board.  

There is a game plan for our lives!

Christmas Changes

Jasmine and Brett

Alex and Jess

Victoria and Jay

It's a weird year.

This will be the first Christmas for Rose and I where all the kids don't live with us.

Sure, they are coming over for the holidays and there will be lots of fun, but afterwards everyone will go home again.

It's odd.  It makes you remember all the times when they would tear around the house and open gifts!

Good times.

I am glad that they are out there, making their own way in the world.

I am glad when they come back to!

Can't wait to see you guys!

Would Jesus "shun" someone?

I have a question about a scripture, it's Matthew 18:15-17

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Jesus speaks here about relationships where one person does something clearly wrong.

There is a process explained where the issue gets worked out, but if it doesn't, it says you are too treat that person like a pagan or tax collector.

Most times I have heard that scripture talked about, it was strongly implied that we are to totally cut ourselves off from that particular person. In other words to "shun" them.

I was reading this Sunday morning and something occurred to me. Jesus would never advocate for us to hate anyone or to ignore anyone using the "silent treatment". 

So what did he mean?

I was thinking about this and then I realized that Jesus was KNOWN for hanging out with "pagans and tax collectors"!

Luke 15:1
Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.
Matthew 9:10
Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.

Interesting eh? Then I saw THIS ONE:

Matthew 9:11  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?"

Seems to me that Jesus was not "shunning" them. It WAS a different kind of relationship, but it was not one of exclusion. It was not "I'm holy and you're dirty rotten sinners."

It has made me re-think how the church is taught about relationships where someone does something wrong.

I know some of you reading this will immediately start thinking about the situation in Corinth. (1Cor Chapter 5) 

 I thought of that to. 

 
How does this relate to that situation and what are YOUR thoughts on this?

Leave me a comment!

Church History

Above is a picture of my church.  It's Bradford Community Church.  It's great.

I have been going to Bradford for about a year and a half.  What happened on the way there is the subject of my blog for this week...

Let's start with a joke...

There was a man who was stranded on a desert island for many, many years. One day, while strolling along the beach, he spotted a ship in the distance. This had never happened in all the time he was on the island, so he was very excited about the chance of being rescued.

Immediately, he built a fire on the beach and generated as much smoke as possible. It worked! Soon, the ship was heading his way. When the ship was close enough to the island, a dinghy was dispatched to investigate the situation. The man on the island was overjoyed with the chance to be rescued and met his saviors as they landed.

After some preliminary conversation the man in charge asked the man on the island how he had survived for so many years.

The man replied by telling of his exploits for food and how he was able to make a fine house to live in. In fact, the man said, "You can see my home from here. It's up there on the ridge."

He pointed the men in the direction of his home. They looked up and saw three buildings. They inquired about the building next to the man's house and he replied, "That's my church - I go there to worship on Sundays."

When asked about the third building, the man replied, "That's where I used to go to church."

Maybe you can relate.

I was raised in the Catholic tradition.  My parents were catholic and that's just what we did.  Mass was on Sunday morning and we three brothers tried to sit still through it all.  We had almost the whole ceremony memorized, because it did not change much from week to week.  

Our church was Holy Family Catholic Church on Murray Street in Wallaceburg.

When I reached an age where I made a decision that Catholic church was just not for me, it caused quite an uproar in our household.  I felt bad about it but, when you're a teenager, you are starting to make life decisions on your own, and for me that was one of them.  If I had to turn back the clock, I would have done things differently and been more respectful to my parents, but it is what it is.

I went to several different churches in Wallaceburg, Baptist, Anglican, Pentecostal, United.  I never really settled into just one.

When I left the small town for the big city of North Bay to go to Canadore College, I was supposed to go back to Catholic Church because I lived with my Aunt and Uncle and they were Catholic.  It was respectful thing to do since I was under their roof.  It lasted for a while, but again my young and foolish ways caused a big stink.  I found another church I wanted to go to and made my decision known.  A line was drawn and I ended up moving out on my own!  Oh the memories!  My mom on the phone, begging me to stay put, me "making a stand".  It was not fun.

The church I went to in North Bay after that, was to me, the best thing ever!  The people were friendly and really loved the Lord.  Their music was lively and exciting.  We would pray every morning.  Church was Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night to!  There were home groups, outreach nights on the streets and even a Saturday night coffee house!  Church activity soon took over all my spare time and my studies suffered.  I left the dream of working in Christian television and instead threw myself into whatever the church had going on.

This part of the story is a cautionary tale about church and church stuff.  Some things that are good can turn bad.  This is what happened to me.  In my eagerness to be the best Christian I could be, I surrendered certain areas of my life over to a very strong and narcissistic form of leadership within the church and the larger fellowship it was a part of.  It was only after I began to question the things I was a part of, that I realized there was a lot of manipulation going on and not much Christian ministry.  Sadly these things happen out there and the more you do your homework, the more protected you will be from going through anything like this.  That's a whole other blog topic for another day...

My family and I eventually left that organization and were without a church for a bit.  We DID have a home bible study in our home with a few of the other families who were also hurting from spiritual abuse.  That bible study grew into another church in North Bay.  Our building was a movie theater downtown!  It was fun times!  

Eventually (and I am skipping a lot here) we ended up in Sudbury, where I began to attend another great Church called All Nations!

The All Nations Dome

The pastor is Jeremy Mahood, who has an amazing story and a rich heritage within the community.

Pastor Jeremy Mahood

All Nations is currently building an amazing domed church!  All Nations has a great congregation and does so much for the city.  Every year they put on the Living Nativity on the grounds of Science North, with the final performance on Christmas Eve, complete with fireworks as the angels sing Hallelujah!

And now that we are in Barrie, I am blessed to be part of Bradford Community Church where some wonderful friends of ours go.  It's a church that values relationships and reaches out to the city in unique ways!

I pray you find a caring group of believers to link up with!