The Two Faces of Two Face

As I have told you (I think I told you) I was in germany for a while. While I was there I heard a sermon on hypocrisy that brought something to light. Normally in my christian circles when I think of hypocrisy I think of a person who acts christian till he’s eighteen and then shows himself for who he really is and becomes a part of this world. This the first face of twoface. Someone worldly who looks christian/good but really has a different heart and uses his ‘goodness’ for his own gain. But there is more. Hypocrisy in essence is pretending to be something you are not. Which means that someone can believe and yet not act on it. This little reference in the bible shows the other side of hypocrisy. Go read it.

2 Peter 2:6-8 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

We see a man here vexed (annoyed) by the sins around him, but the bible never really shows him standing up to those from Sodom and Gomorah. Annoyed deeply but mostly action less. How often are we the same, we believe one thing and yet we do another. Let me give you a modern counterpart, the guys will probably understand this the best. How about absolutely hating the corrupt filthy locker room talk but participating in it.?Or how about hating it when you waste your time, but doing it anyway? We like to say “Hey, but my intentions were good” but isn’t this just hypocrisy? You might ask yourself, “Well, if my heart is right why does it matter what I do?” Let me answer with two passages. The first one is Jesus talking to the Pharasies.

Mathew 23:27-28 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

These two verses come from a passage where Jesus condemns hypocrisy like nowhere else in the bible. The entire chapter is dedicated to showing hypocrisy. If you want to fully understand how much Jesus hates hypocrisy, go old fashioned and read the chapter yourself. God hates a heart and life not fully dedicated to him. This next passage illustrates both faces for us.

Jas 2:17-18 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, you have faith, and I have works: shew me your faith without your works, and I will shew you my faith by my works.

Our faith is useless if we don’t live it. Both faces are equally bad. Here they are presented side by side. Faith by works = face one. ” I don’t love God, but I’ll act like it so I can go to heaven.” Faith without works = face two. ” I love God I just don’t live like it.” I challenge all of us (yeah, me too) to examine our lives for hypocrisy. Every single time I look at myself I find bits of both. As we are all human, I think that if you look earnestly you ‘ll probably find a face or two of two face in your life.

Live your faith.

Daniel

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is a movie behind the hit song also called,  Amazing Grace. It takes place in 1700’s where William Wilberforce is trying to stop slavery. He runs into some people and some problems, but he keeps on trying to stop slavery. It is a very touching movie and an even more touching song. Of the song, my favorite part is this-

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine
You are forever mine

It says that this world and everything in it will perish and the sun will no longer shine, but God will be reigning forevermore. He will be your light in heaven. I hope you have made the decision to follow Jesus and make him the center of your life. I have. And if you haven’t, I encourage you to very, very much.

~Lili

http://www.titletrakk.com/movie-dvd-reviews/amazing-grace-review.htm

Can You Match GOD?

Hope you don’t mind me telling a bit more about the GC (Grand Canyon). Cause I will.

Psalm 19

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

So, when you’re in the GC, the first thing you realize is that you’re in the middle of a bunch of rocks and just about nothing else. No phone service, no internet, no modern form of communication. So those rocks become cool, but the coolest part is night. When it gets dark out, it gets dark out, no city lights, no flashlights, nothing but starlight. You can see fairly well just by moonlight and starlight, but best of all, you can see the stars. Lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and( open brackert, infinite lots, close bracket) of stars. The beauty would almost compell me to be an astronomer. Now think of David, living in a time when night ment bedtime, so that every night he saw all these stars. The result is stunning. Many of you know the verse in romans that states that God is self-evident, if you will only acknowledge him. Here it is.

Romans 1:19-20 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

God is a matchless god. He made the stars, all of them, in one day. He made this planet in one day. He made man, and all the animals, in one day. He made all the matter you see with a thought. God is matchless. Can you make the trees, the grand canyon, the stars, the animals, and all else you see? No I didn’t think so. It is self evident from this creation that there has to be a creator, God is this creator, this originator. But, man has ignored him, has decided not to acknowledge his presence. It’s not that man couldn’t see him, it’s that men have blinded themselves so they can’t see him. Notice what psalm nineteen says.

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

Take out the Italics( they were meant as grammatical help and put there in translation) and you’ll get a whole new meaning

no speech nor language, their (nature’s) voice is not heard.

Many people have shut their eyes to God’s ‘book of nature’ it’s voice is not heard, this is almost a prophesy. Despite the fact that God is evident, that nature speeks of his power and majesty men have ignored him. They try to become like God ( not much different than adam and eve ) but they can’t, because God is matchless, no one is like him. Now this is where this truth applies to you. Man has closed his eye to nature, they don’t see God there, but God’s word is powerfull and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of bone and marrow. The Bible is still open for Man to see God there. But how are they to hear without us bringing them the knowledge? For the sake of brevity I will conclude with this statement. GO! Tell others about GOD!!!!!!!!

dks

Intersting fact: the astronomer in our group is a professor, he got pulled over for being barefoot before. If you want to hear more about post it in the comments.

Who am I?

Who am I? That is a question we ought to ask ourselves regularly. I would almost suggest, daily.

Psa 51:9-12 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

David realized something, his heart was his real problem. As a king he had great influence and power, he was able to cover up sin with his wealth and money, he basically had the run of the mill. He could look good to his people, but he realized that God saw him as he really was, and that thought scared him. I am who I am in secret, that is what David realized. I am the person who I really am when I am alone with limitless internet. I am who I really am when there is not a eye to behold what I do. I am the person I really am on my phone, and on facebook. When we are ‘goody two shoes’ every time someone is watching, then you get your reward, but let me tell you, it’s not a heavenly one. Since the rise of technology, e-mailing, texting, facebook, twitter………. No one has had a hard time developing a split identity. Never before has it been easier to cover sin in a flurry of activity. And yes this may just sound like spiritual re-hash. But, then again, God never changes does he? Have you ever realized that the ‘cool’ christians are very ‘spiritually minded’ when the pastor is around, and laugh at the crudest jokes when he’s not around? Everywhere I look around me at church I see a group of young people casted to fit a mold they don’t like, I see a group of people that look like angels. Then they graduate…. but what is the authorities’ reaction when teens don’t fit the mold? “Oh, we need to get them back into the mold” Have you realized that it’s really hard to turn a caterpillar into a butterfly? It doesn’t work. You have to wait, and all the shoving in the world won’t help. In the same way we must wait on God. And yet we must strive to truly be christians ourselves. We need to strive to be christians when all the pleasures of this world are holding us back. When cloth is soaked in water the water permeates the entire cloth, unless there is scotch gurad. The problem is that spiritual scotch-guard is coating many christian hearts. So, what do we do? Fix ourselves first! An unlit torch can’s start a fire! We need to stop feeling good about ourselves and break down weaping before God. The scotch-guard of sin needs to be removed before we can soak in God’s grace. Until we ask forgiveness and stop looking forward to indulging our sinful pleasures we can’t serve God. The best thing a man can do is love God, the second best thing he can do is to hate himself.

So who are you really? Permeated by God and a realization of your own sin, or repelling God’s love and feeling good about yourself?

dks

8 Reasons Why I Can’t Share My Faith

I watched a video earlier that listed the top 8 reasons why I can’t share my faith. Here is a summary of it-

8. I might get beat-up. Now, that one caught me off-guard. Getting beat up? It could happen, so I went on

7. I am afraid I won’t make sense. Now, I can understand that. What if your words over-cross? So, I went on.

6. I might get made fun of. Now, that is a reason that I could most imagine happening. A kid going to tell his friends and suddenly, everybody makes fun of him. So, I went on.

5. I don’t know how to start. Now, I can imagine a lot of people doing that. “How do I start? Well, I don’t know so I guess I won’t”. Next,

4. I’ll be a bad witness. This one really caught me. I never imagined somebody as a “bad witness”. So, I thought about it and then went on.

3. I’ll say the wrong thing. Now, that one sounds like above. You say the wrong things and then you think you are a bad witness.

2. I’ll be a Religious nut. That’s what I think most of society is like. They want to be the “It Things” and the “It Things” don’t believe in God, so most just keep it silent.

Now, drum roll, the number 1 thing is…

1. I don’t know enough! That one was surprising for me. I mean, I never thought, not once, about not knowing enough about Christ to share your faith. I never thought about if somebody asks me a question and I don’t know the answer. I just never worried about that.

Now, look back at what I just told you. What do all those have in common? They are all excuses, not reasons! Now, I want you to think, are these your excuses?

~LB.

My First Shower Nearly Killed Me, A Clip From Do Hard Things

 

I still remember my first shower. It was a horrible experience. I was eight years old and all I had ever known was baths. Baths were neat and tidy ordeals where the water flowed in from below my head and – provided I didn’t splash too much – stayed below my head.

I found showers to be an entirely different beast. The water, rather than flowing as a solid stream that was easily visible and avoidable, sprayed out as nearly invisible and unavoidable droplets that seemed to have a magnetic attraction to my eyes.

I did not ask to be promoted from Junior Bath Taker to Junior Shower Taker, but my parents had set the date for my graduation and protesting made little difference. It didn’t help that my twin brother Alex loved showers and had taken one earlier that week.

Before I could draft my formal petition, let alone get anyone to sign it, I found myself staring up at the dreadful shower head just as a brave soul stares down the barrel of his executioner’s gun.

However, once the trigger was pulled and the shower head began rumbling and hissing, my courage melted away, and I was screaming before the first drop hit me.

You see, in my mind there was no moral difference between making your child take a shower and stripping that same child naked and locking him out of the house during a thunderstorm. It was abandonment. I wasn’t a Water Nymph. I wasn’t a shower person. I was a bath person and I was happy that way.

The funny thing is that this morning, nearly ten years later, I took a shower and didn’t think twice about it. I even purposefully let the water spray on my face! It is incredible that what then seemed to be an impossible hurdle is now part of my everyday routines.

~Brett Harris, Do Hard Things

I encourage you to read the book and become a member of their forums, which can be found www.therebelution.com

Please leave a comment if you have questions or comments about the site or join the site. We would love to know!

Also, just so you know, the picture of the girl above is not the author.:)

~CTL

P.S. The pic came from here-http://www.therebelution.com/about/

2012 Dove Awards

 

The 2012 Dove (Christian Music) awards were pretty plain. I think wait, I know, they could have done better. But, the one good thing that happened was listening to Jamie Grace’s award speech. She won “New Artist Of The Year” and as she went up in tears, had an awesome speech. She listed how she “wants her dad to take her to Chick-Fil-A the next day”. It was just a awesome time listening to her speech! After that, they did some performances by Mary-Mary and  Donnie Mcklurkin,  but nothing beats that wonderful speech!

~Lilian B.

P.S. This awesome pic is from http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/jY6KvYBB52u/43rd+Annual+Dove+Awards+Pre+Show/mYSX0M2Fn_K/Jamie-Grace

G.G.G.

No, I am not stuttering and I am not going to speak baby language. Thank you very much. (not)

Psalms 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalms 31:19 Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!

Psalms 65:4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!

Psalms 145:7 They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

God’s great goodness. Have any of you ever tasted it? Seen it? Felt it? Looked over it? Missed it? God’s goodness is one of those things that are matchless. Something that I can never forget. Once I tasted it my world changed and the things of this world tasted like cardboard, baloney, junk. It’s like eating a stale piece of bread after tasting your favorite food. But what do I mean by God’s great goodness, particularly as of right now I am not talking about your house or your food or anything like that. No, I’m talking about something different. God’s spiritual goodness, his joy, his peace, his forgiveness. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I can’t explain it to you. I’m not into the second salvation thing at all but, when one is a christian spiritual things happen more. Harmony and peace in God become more than just a catch phrase, they are real. Like, real, real. They no longer are what your pastor talks about on sunday, but they are what you experience Monday-Sunday. I want to share a part of song called ” Come thou fount of every blessing ” Read it as your own prayer, from your heart to God’s.

Oh to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

I am a debtor. Please say this hymn verse out loud, like I just did, so that people can hear you, show some courage. And think each line thru, and think of God.

In debt

dks

Courage

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

I am not ashamed. Do you know what that means? What is the Gospel? The Gospel is many things, salvation, christ, God’s love to man, etc… In essence the core beliefs of christianity. The only problem is that too often we are ashamed. Too often we don’t want to talk about christ with others. Often courage is lacking in such a big way that we can’t even begin to turn a conversation to God. It is as if christ doesn’t totally empower us to do all things. Christians so often lack backbone, they laugh at That’s what she said jokes, they endure lockerroom talk, they enjoy crude talk. Speak up! Pick up your trembling heart and say something. Christians don’t need to be goody two shoes, but they ought to stand up to wrong, even when that wrong comes from a friend. Think of a friend, any friend, and make a mental note of correcting them next time they say something inappropriate. And then do it. If your friend is christian then he or she will appretiate it, but if he or she is not a christian, then why are you with them? The time to act is now, not later. You’ve got one life, and one judging session with God, act now and speak up.

dks

GnM

GOD ! not ME ! this phrase has a duel meening. One, life is about God and not about Me. Two, when God looks at me he sees jesus not me.

Matthew 5:38-42

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Your life as a christian is about God and not you. I already expounded on this saturday so I will not take too long on it, but I will point out four things. 1: christians are to give up own dignity. A slap was the equivilent of spitting someone in the face but worse and was fineable by up to a year’s ( yes year’s ) wages. (oww) 2: christians are to give up own legal rights. A cloak served in many ways as a credit card, an insurance of payment. Christ tells us to be willing to give up even that much. 3: christians are to give up personal freedom and time. Romans had the habbit of forcing jews to work without pay, we as christians ought to be more than willing to do this. 4: christians are to give freely of themselves.

Now I want to spend the rest of this devo on the other part. God has imputed christ’s righteousness on us. When God sees us he no longer sees a dirty rag, he sees a bleached cloth. When God looks at us wordlians he through christ, instead sees christians. Your sins are covered in Jesus’ blood and his perfect life. It is his life that is now in you, not your own. Christ has filled you with a new purpose and made you new. It is like taking a debet and then crossing it out in red. The debt is cancelled. God has freed us from sin, we no longer need to give in. His righteousness is our righteousness. His strength is our strength. His life is our life. His love is our love. His home is our home. We just need to transition. We are adopted as his children, and we ought to live like his children too. Pray that God’s strength flow thru you and that you may live in him. God, not, Me. GnM.

dks