The Jesus Storybook

By far the boys favorite Bible story book.

Why I am so selfish?

Man doth usurp all space,

Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face.

Never yet thine eyes behold a tree ;

'Tis no sea thou seést in the sea,

'Tis but a disguised humanity.

To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan ;

All that interests a man, is man.

Henry Sutton.

I am totally into me. I see myself in everything. I barely take the time to rip myself away from myself. Even when I serve I tend to evaluate the serving from the perspective of how it changed me, not so much how it changed another. Yet even with all of this I also feel a sense of joy.

The joy comes from knowing I won’t always be a self centered creature. Someday Jesus will come back and put away my selfishness. He will give me a new way to see myself and the world. I will be able to understand the sea for its true beauty. I will be able to enjoy the rock, bush, and river for what it truly is. The gospel empowers us to be free from ourselves, and instead rejoice in deep joy.

How can I experience some this today:

1. Recognize your selfishness. I am not ever in this lifetime going to remove every aspect of my selfish nature. I will struggle with selfishness, but recognition of this selfishness draws me to the joy of a future rescuer.

2. Recognize Jesus lack of selfishness. I know of the life of the one who was selfless. I know Jesus who risked all so I could become all of who I was meant to be. He did this not for any gain of his own, but out of a pure selfless love.

3. Strive after Jesus. Focus on the effort not the destination. Allow yourself to be refined by the life of Christ. Let the refinement take shape today, let him who began a good work in you complete it.

what passion looks like

I am not a political junkie in any way shape or form. I don't like this because of the political nature of it. I enjoy Chris Christie because he knows what he believes and he pursues it with passion. I don't have renewed hope in American government because of Chris Christie, but I do enjoy understanding his perspective without having to wade through the jargon. I don't necessarily agree with his politic, but I appreciate his clarity.

I pray for the constitution to have this kind of clarity, but maybe with a little less pride. :)

New Beginnings

I am a Leukemia and Lymphoma board peeper. I go to this site because it is like visiting an old friend who walked me down a lonely and difficult road. There is something very unifying about this site because it draws people together through the intensity of life. We are awoken from the haze that says, "Tomorrow is guaranteed". Instead we learn these days are precious, even the difficult ones. Those of us who are Caregivers learn how precious our hurting loved ones truly are to us.

When my wife was diagnosed early on I choose a date five years out to celebrate her recovery. One of the difficult aspects of making it through the chemo/ radiation/ Bone Marrow or other linty of poison they call medicine (choose your flavor) is when it ends. Because it ends for everyone except you. You are left with this journey into the unknown. Where every time you cough you wonder if it has come back, or if your throat is a little sore should you get tested. I often contemplated if I should tell my wife I thought she should get tested, and she wondered if she should share with me that she had got tested. These are the mind games you play in year 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in recovery. So we choose a date to celebrate and prayed that date would come.

We were blessed by God to experience that date. We gathered about 125 of our friends and celebrated together. We renewed our vows, shared stories, celebrated past victories, and enjoyed future hope. This is a portion of that video we showed on that evening. It features our adopted twin boys, our church family that truly defined Christ like living, and my wife who bravely fought this terrible disease.

A brother Jogging

did Jesus vote?

Jesus didn't live in a democracy so no he really didn't vote. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't and it doesn't mean he didn't have something to say about politics.

I suffer from what I like to call the Reagan/ Clinton effect when it comes to politics. In my formative years Reagan was president and I learned that presidents are figure heads (like actors on TV) and their is a world of people behind them pulling the strings. Clinton was president in my college years and from him I learned that the figure head gets to define the world pretty much the way he sees fit and it is mostly about benefiting himself. This left me jaded.

I love being jaded, because it helps me understand the GenXer side of myself. It allows me to understand how this world is not completely for me and how I am really stuck in between two realities. There is the physical world in which I must work through politics and their is the spiritual world that has the greatest political solution of all time.

Three Things I Learn from Matt. 22:15-22

I. Jesus cares about Politics and I need to as well.

Jesus says his famous line, "Render Unto Caesar the things that are Caesar". Notice he doesn't say, "It's no big deal do what you want" or "Don't bother me I just care about me" or "Run, flee from all things political." Instead he is saying pay attention. Examine the currency, look at the issue, think through it, and determine the best way to handle it. Don't put me in a box and don't put yourself in a box either. You are not a Democrat, Republican or Tea Party Member. You are a free thinker who needs to understand the gospel implications of the issues before you. Don't run and hide like the Essenes, don't wage war like the Zealots, and don't conform like the Pharisees and Herodians. Think Gospel-mindedness!

2. Jesus wants our politics to focus on driving us towards the gospel.

Jesus talks about image (not politics), people are God's coin. God doesn't need silver, gold, or platinum to reveal his likeness because we are his likeness. For Jesus, politics is just another distraction that can rip us away from the Gospel. Instead he wants politics to drive us towards the gospel as we seek him to meet our needs, and the needs of the community.

Questions I think about:

What does it look like for us to be involved in politics (voting, running for office, getting involved), not so much the way Jesus wants us to vote, or the way that will benefit us the most, but in a way that will make us lean more on His understanding? What does it look like for us to move away from our familial political background and shift a little bit in one direction or another? What does it look like to experience someone else's politic and see how Christ might work through it? Everyone's politic has brokenness mixed in with goodness, if you can't agree with this then their is a hardness in your heart that might need to be moved.

Don't Send Bad Email

This is so valuable. Good words about not making mistakes with email.