MOVING TO WORDPRESS!!!

i am officially moving to wordpress.  check me out there! (http://simplyjy.wordpress.com)

i have started a new strand of post about Haiti.  Stacy is headed there in a medical mission trip and as i study more about country i will document my findings.  

the cross

Stacy and i were talking this morning (it was more her talking and me listening)...

first, i have to note that nothing brings me more joy and excitement then when my wife is growing in Christ.  she loves Jesus with all her heart and is always growing and pursuing Christ.  she is simply amazing.  with that i have to note that over the past few months i have seen something different...something good...something Christ.  Praise God!  i love and cherish her with all my heart

...in talking about some random things this morning, she mentioned that she has struggled in the past, as a believer in Christ, hearing the gospel message over and over again.  she raised the struggling question, "is it necessary for us as believers to need to hear that message over and over again?"  her point is, we know the message, do i need to re-hear it?  

her next words were so profound.  in her thought process, she mentioned some things that she has been reading and has been challenged with.  she answered her own question by saying...absolutely i do.  she has been reminded, and challenged me to remember, that the cross is the crux of our faith.  the cross is where joy is found.  the cross is what leads us to repentance.  the cross is what makes me a new creation...the fulfillment of all things built in Old Testament history.  

may we never loose sight of the cross.  

The "holiday" season engulfs my 5 year old

in our recent move to the northwest Stacy and i decided that we would not put our oldest son, who turned 5 on September 1st, in kindergarden.  because of his late birthday (and a few other reasons...one not being because he wasn't ready...he's freak'n brilliant) we decided to hold him back and put him in a preschool again.  he loves learning and interacting and it would almost be a slam to his 5 year old mind to not put him in a learning environment. 

he has been in Christian preschools for the past 3 years but this year we put him in a school where one of his friends goes.  they are not Christ centered.  they are a great school and Austen's teachers love him dearly.  

this holiday season hit's the reality for Stacy and i that he is not in a Christian preschool, and it's scary.

Stacy and i have purposely chosen (up to today's date) to place our kids in public school.  it is a strong conviction of ours (for us) that the school will not be the sole educators of our kids.  also the church will not be the sole educators of our kids.  Stacy and i have been given the responsibility to raise our kids, to praise our kids, to teach our kids, to discipline our kids, and to grow them up in Christ.  

we want them at and early age to understand what it means to be a light in a dark place.

THIS IS SCARY!

Austen's class is focusing this holiday season on Hanukkah.  each class has a responsibility to teach a different viewpoint of holidays and because his teacher is Jewish, they are focusing on Hanukkah.  

Another class is focusing on Kwansa and another on Christmas.

They will come together and present the different views of Christmas in his "holiday program" on December 13th.

here's the question:

how do you teach the plurality of God in our fallen world to a 5 year old?     

i guess it begins and ends with Jesus. 

his foundation is being built and we have to trust God (and Christ in our lives as his parents) that his heart is being protected.

i do trust God in where He has us, in where He has Austen, and i pray constantly that the one true God would rescue his heart.  

God protect him.  God preserve him.  build him up for the day he surrenders his life to You.  rescue his heart.  give Stacy and I the perseverance, wisdom, and sense of urgency we need to be a home that glorifies Your name forever.  i praise You for his life and let me treasure him for the time You have given him to me.  i love You.  i trust you.  and Austen, you are everything to me.  Amen.  

Back off Tony Romo

check out this article from the Dallas Morning News.  what a swell guy!!

By TIM MacMAHON / The Dallas Morning News
tmacmahon@dallasnews.com

A homeless man who goes by Doc was cashing in change at a Cinemark theater in Dallas when a guy walked up and offered to pay his way into the movie. Doc, who planned to spend his day passing out flyers for a few bucks, accepted a rain check before realizing that he recognized the generous gentleman.

"Was that Tony Romo?" Doc asked the kid behind the counter.

It sure was. Doc hustled across the street to the consignment store that paid him to occasionally pass out flyers and requested the day off. By the time he got back to the theater, "Role Model" had already started.

Romo, who confirmed the story but didn't want to elaborate, waved Doc over to sit by him and his buddy. Doc sheepishly mentioned that he hadn't showered in a few days.

"Don't worry about that," Romo said. "I'm used to locker rooms."

And so the $67 million quarterback and a man who doesn't have $6.70 to his name sat next to each other and shared laughs for 90 minutes or so.

For Romo, who made news by changing a couple's tire on the side of the road on the way home the night of the season opener, it was just another kind gesture to a random stranger. It meant the world to Doc.

"For me, it was a blessing," Doc said. "It came at just the right time. It gave me some encouragement and faith in mankind. I just wanted to say thank you."

Theology pt. 5

remember: i am not posting these blog's as fact but as discussion starters to help form and solidify my (and your) theology. i love hearing all points of view and having good healthy discussions (feelings aside). leave me comments. molding my theology is my life long process so let's get started.

this question was proposed to me tonight and i had to ask: "does God have free will?"  

here's another, "can God sin?"

why or why not?!

prayers

what are the types of prayers have you prayed most recently:

(don't over spiritualize...there is no alternative motive...just curious)

• help me..
• heal him...
• protect me...
• save him...
• send me...
• change me...
• give me...
• ???

i am thinking through how prayer fits into my theology.  i am curious all the prayers that are prayed.

theology pt. 4

remember: i am not posting these blog's as fact but as discussion starters to help form and solidify my (and your) theology. i love hearing all points of view and having good healthy discussions (feelings aside). leave me comments. molding my theology is my life long process so let's get started.

Can you change God’s mind?

I have heard the term fundamentalist Christian used frequently and I don’t quite grasp the term fully. I understand that a fundamentalist is someone who upholds the belief of the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible. Apposed to someone who believes the Bible to be figurative or allegorical I consider myself to be a fundamentalist. But in reading passages like Exodus 32 the literal can be that you can change God’s mind.

At points you have to look beyond literal and see principle. That is important Bible study methods.

Can you change God’s mind. No! God raises questions and situations to bring you into conversation with Him. God’s omnipotent power does not stop with us; meaning it’s wrong to think that if we don’t ask then God wont act. Our silence does not stop the power of God (this idea gives us more authority than God and ultimately makes us greater than God). It raises a good question to think, what if Moses would have agreed with God that Israel should be destroyed and that God should start over with him? Would God have destroyed his chosen nation?

By no means because of the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Moses was confident in who God was/is. He knew what God’s promise was. His confidence superseded his insecurities. His response was not specifically on behalf of Israel but on the reputation of God (among Egypt and among the rest of the world).

God desires for us to have communion with Him. He desires to bring us into His glory. If we abstain from communion with Him then we are forfeiting the glory of God (Romans 1:23). God has choses those who are to be saved but brings us into His glory by using us; by praying for their salvation of the lost and having conversation with them. Peoples fates are not in our hands but God moves us into conversation with Him so that we may know His power. To think we have the power to change lives is to “exchange the glory of the immortal God” for worship of created things (us).

In this truth I still believe that we are held accountable for our “worship” of God. Worship meaning the offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. In worship we commune with God. In worship God directs us. In our abstinence of worship (specifically communion), we sin. Ultimately forfeiting the glory of God.

What do you think?

Genesis 18:16-21 - God engages Abraham into the a conversation with Him in His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham enters the conversation and pleas for this city.

Exodus 32:7-10, 11-14 - The people of Israel under Aaron’s leadership made the golden calf in Moses’ absence. God told Moses about it on the Mountain and in his reveal He tells Moses that He is going to destroy this nation and raise up Moses and make a great nation of him. Moses pleas for God’s mercy and reminds Him of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then the LORD relented from the disaster he spoke of.

Numbers 14 - Israel cries out to the LORD after the report of the spies that the land to too great for overtake. Their hearts to do not believe the LORD and grumble about why He took them out of Egypt. God told Moses that He would destroy them and make him (Moses) a great nation. Moses pleas to God on behalf of Israel and God relents his wrath and says that this nation will not enter the Holy Land except for Caleb.

Christmas

what did you get for Christmas last year?  if you can remember, where are these "gifts" right now?  

i am genuinely asking this question?  i am not being a consumer hater but just following a thought process.  

i was reading online today that we spend (as americans) on average $450 billions dollars a  year for Christmas.  There is an estimated 305 million people in the US today...counting everyone...even my one year old daughter.  if that figure is correct then that's just over $1,475/person spent each year on Christmas...including my one year old daughter.  point being is that we spend a lot of money for christmas.

as i am typing this blog post i just realized that i am using the computer that my wife surprised me with last year for Christmas.  i am even wearing the pajama pants that she got for me too.  consumerism isn't all bad, just out of control in my mind.  

what were the menial gifts you received last year that you returned, lost, broke, or forgot about?  i am not really meaning this to be rhetorical.  i am genuinely curious.  

check this out:

ditching the glasses

today i joined the "contacts" club.  THERE FREAK'N AWESOME.  i've been wanting to ditch my glasses for a few years now and today i did.  it's so strange not having the glasses on my face and still being able to see.  

surprisingly...learning how to put them in and take them out wasn't that difficult.  

Seahawks Fans SUCK

i hate seahawks fans!!! they suck this year and they play this game over the Cowboys. these people need to know when to give up!!!!

got kids?

how is it that three of my kids (all weighing less than 50 lbs each) can make me lose my salvation in the morning and become satan?

this morning i had an amazing time in the Word and amazing time praying. when my family got up this morning i felt i had an extra kick in my step. i felt like a kiddish school girl.

an hour later was a different story.

The best $90 I have ever spent

tonight was the greatest night i have had since we have moved to Vancouver.  it involved a date night, my first experience with sake, and ice scream renaissance. 

 

nights like tonight remind me how much i love being with my wife.

New Church

Stacy and i have found a new church that we like a lot.  i hate "church shopping."  we don't know everything about this place yet but the people are warm, the spend a lot of time serving outside the four walls of the church, and they love Jesus.  all things that are very important to us.  

if you have read my past blogs then you know that Stacy and i have a heart for the children and people of Haiti and guess what, this church does too.  we could never understand why God would, over a year ago, place Haiti on our hearts.  since we have wanted to visit so bad but never perceived the oportunity would be there outside of a Young family mission trip.  this shows how little my mind is compared to the hand of God.

i am not saying that this is the greatest place on earth or that this is where we will be for the next 100 years but for today...it seems perfect.  

it's called Mosaic.  check it out here.   

In response to Theology pt. 3

SSU has been leaving comments on my last post about her beliefs about the question i raised.  things have been absolutely crazy lately with our move across country and i have not been able to respond to her thoughts.  i have thought about it a lot and have come up with many biblical backings to defend my view. i love God's sovereignty in protecting me of looking like a fool (which i do often) in diverting my attention till now.  

in my last entry i raised the question of our salvation being for our ultimate gain or God's ultimate gain.  i made the comment that i believe that it is contradicting of itself to say both.  this is why i make very clear that what i say is NOT inerrant, NOT biblical fact; just something i am wrestling with.  thanks SSU!!!  

the reason i said what i did in my original question is because of the aspect of scripture that calls, after salvation, for us to die to self (which is all over scripture).  with this fact alone, it makes no sense if salvation is for OUR ultimate gain.  

(but this fact has to play into all the other facts of scripture.  scripture works together as God's spoken word.  i sometimes fail when it comes to putting my interpretations into the context of scripture as a whole.)    

as i have been reading, praying, reading some more, praying some more...in seeing scripture as a whole...it seems our gain/happiness/blessedness and our sacrifice both work together to bring glory to God.  it seems that our ultimate happiness and God's ultimate happiness are the same; us sacrificing ourselves for the glory of God so that God may bring us great joy.

our salvation is to be used by God for His glory to bring us satisfaction...of us having more of Jesus.  

i guess i get so confused when i look at the christian community and see how there is a great number of people using their salvation as a stepping stone in life but are missing God all together.  in my eyes, it seems that their salvation stops at their salvation experience.  that's where the heart of my question was raised.  (today) it seems pretty evident that ALL of God is for our happiness/blessedness (check out the sermon on the mount of Jesus sake...literally (specifically the beatitudes)).  it seems you can't separate out our ULTIMATE happiness vs. Gods ULTIMATE happiness...their one thought. 

theology pt. 3

remember:  i am not posting these blog's as fact but as discussion starters to help form and solidify my (and your) theology. i love hearing all points of view and having good healthy discussions (feelings aside).  leave me comments.  molding my theology is my life long process so let's get started.

salvation:

do you think that salvation is for our ultimate benefit or to ultimately benefit God?  i use the word ultimately purposefully because my thought initially fall's under both categories but i think the ultimate purpose of salvation can only fall in one of these categories without contradicting each other.     

3 for 3

Saturday i finished that last wedding that i was officiating this summer...it just so happened to be my mother-in-laws wedding.  it was beautiful.  this was the final thing we had been looking forward to before we focused on our move to the Portland area.  with this down...things are about to get crazy. 6 days till our move. 

here are some picture from this weekends adventures.

Stacy and I at the rehearsal dinner  

Stacy and I "hot stuff" at the rehearsal dinner

Stacy, her mom, her mom's mom

Noelle, her mom, her mom's mom, her mom's mom's mom

(4 generations)

Stacy's brothers and Aunt Sara

Uncle Matt and Aunt Sara with Noelle

Think'n about bust'n into a rap

yeah, my hands on her butt

my amazing family

all the family is gone and it's time to get to packing.  SSU:  i owe you a response to the comment you made on "theology 1"...it's coming soon.  i can now focus on the scriptures that you gave me in response to that entry.    

creating monsters

today felt like the perfect day to introduce the time wasting game of paper football to my boys.  they began to building their skills for when they begin grade school they will be one step ahead of the competition and be able to destroy any one that stands in their way.  

we also decided to bring in one of our neighbor friends.

if your kid will be around my kid...tell them to watch out!!!

(notice that i had to put their first initial on their football so there would be no fighting...and yes that is  a "L" for Landon...not a "V")

theology pt. 2

remember:  i am not posting these blogs as fact but as discussion starters to help form and solidify my (and your) theology.  i love hearing all points of view and having good healthy discussion (feelings aside).  leave me comments.  molding my theology is my life long process so let's get started.

the sinful nature.

in my journey to understand reformed theology the question of our sinful nature kept coming up in my mind.  i know full well what James 1:13-15 says, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown gives birth to death."  temptation and sin does not come from God.  the question kept raising in my heard, how does this fit in the theology of a sovereign God...a God centered life...a God that has total control over ALL things?

just like every one of you, i know my weaknesses and it seems there is one sin more than any other that i struggle with.  if God has complete control why doesn't He take this from me?  i have begged Him over and over again to rid my life of this filth and i keep coming back to it.  does He allow me to struggle for a purpose?  does He hold me in my filth to keep me humble? 

if this were so, this would contradict every thing i know God to be...a God who HATES sin...a God who turned His sight from His Son because He became sin on our behalf on the cross...when Jesus prepared to go to the cross in the garden of gethsemane, with the knowledge of becoming sin (and its consequences...separation from God) brought Him to blood sweat tears.  it does not make sense that God would keep us in our filth to teach us a lesson (though, for those who love God, all things work together for good...Romans 8:28).

the apostle Paul struggled through this in Romans 7:7-25.  we are able to see his struggle of "understanding his own actions" (v. 15).  he see two opposite worlds at war within him.  good and evil, righteousness and sin (he also talks about this war in Colossians 2:13-15 and the victory we have).  he continues and describes this battle within as "he does what he wants but (what he wants) is the very thing he hates" (v. 15).  he then confesses that nothing good lives in him, in his flesh (his natural state without Christ).  he says that he has the desire to do what's right but not the ability to carry it out  (v. 18).

this is my struggle.  i have the knowledge of what's right but i can not carry it out (in my own power).  i do not have the ability to choose right (apart from the Holy Spirit of God).

in my own struggle and my knowledge of Scripture it seems to make perfect sense that the only ability i have within me...in my own power...is to choose sin.  my flesh fights against (resist) the things of God.  the Holy Spirit then brings me back to repentance.  in a round about way...i can choose to sit in my filth because that is in my ability (in my fleshly state which is constantly at war with God)...but to choose God is outside our will.  

Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."  

to choose righteousness is Christ (and not our choice at all)...to choose sin is the flesh.  these two will war (even in our hearts) till Christ returns.  But remember...we are not slaves to sin because we have power outside our strength (Romans 6:17-18).           

your thoughts?

 

caption please...

my wife and i were hanging out with some friends last night watching the olympics.  while googling some stuff we found this picture...

leave a caption:

i'm thinking one of these posters...

...with the caption: COMMITMENT: never give up no matter the cost

theology pt. 1

i have not blogged near as much recently because i have been spending a lot of time in my Bible, journaling, praying, and reading.  i have been battling through the southern baptist theology that i was brought up in.  i guess you can call me a recovering baptist.  simply put i am thinking a lot through reformed theology.  

it's hard to struggle through something like this in the sight of the world (on the www) (as someone who has worked in the church for 9 years) but it may be the only way to come to great conclusions.  i formed this blog as a journal for my thoughts so here they are...raw.  please feel free to comment your thoughts on my thoughts and check back to see my response.  

i will try to keep these post simple and clear.

this thought process starts off with the question of how much choice do we have in this world with a supreme and personal God?

i am coming to the conclusion that we less choice than i ever thought before.  we make choices ever day...some good...some could be better and that makes this process hard.  in Romans 3:9-10, the apostle Paul says that no one is righteous, no not one.  he also say is Romans 7:18 that "i know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh."

first, you have to define flesh.  our flesh is our natural state apart from the work of God's Spirit.

to get to the point, i am coming to the realization that the only choice we have as humans is to resist Christ...the sinful nature...our sinful desires.  our natural bent, that no one can argue with (who believes in the Scriptures), that our natural state, from day one, is sinful.  we are born to resist God.  Therefore, our natural state is the only freedom of choice we can possibly have.  The only choice we are capable of making is sin.  

John 6:65 says, "no one can come to (Jesus) unless it is granted him by the Father."  the choice of us "choosing God" is not our choice to begin with.  if we are able to "choose" any good, it's because of God.  John also say in chapter 1:13, "to all who did receive Him, who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  

conclusion: we have no will to choose God or to choose righteously. 

your thoughts???