One of the books that I am currently reading is Our Covenant with Kids by Dr. Timothy Sisemore.

I am really enjoying the book. If you are passionate about wanting God to use your parenting to help your kids love Jesus, then I highly recommend this book to you. Here is an excerpt from the book (page 73):

“Drawing from the biblical evidence, I venture to propose the following goal for Christian parenting: to raise children through guidance and discipline to faith in Christ, so that they glorify him in every area of their lives, eventually passing the faith on to their children.”

Last night at church we discussed this quote from Anselm:

“If hell were on one side and sin on the other, I would rather leap into hell than willingly sin against my God.”

This quote raised a good discussion. We had a few people quickly say they didn’t like it. They had good motives. They replied by saying they dont like sin or hell. Thats good!

So I clarified. If we define hell as “eternal suffering” and we define sin as “disobeying God”, which would you choose?

That put it into a different light.  I like the quote. That is the type of Christian I want to be. That is the type of Christians I want to lead our church to be.

• God hates sin, so I should too.
• Sin is not whats best for me, so I should pursue something better.
• Jesus died for sin, so I should oppose it.

Loving Jesus and Hating sin are two sides to the same coin. How much do you hate sin?

Our church is continually getting stronger and stronger in the area of Short-Term Missions Trips.

For this reason, I thought you may like this article coming out of some research done at Baylor University. This article is “Researchers study return on short-term missions.”

It is enough to make me want to go more. Here is an excerpt:

“Research has revealed students who participate in short-term mission trips tend to have lower levels of materialism, greater appreciation for other cultures and a better understanding of missions as a lifestyle,”

As followers of Jesus, we should all like lower levels of materialism, greater appreciation for other cultures and a better understanding of missions as a lifestyle.

My good buddy, Josh Honeycutt, has another great post here about the ending to the two books of Kings. You will like it.

Here is an excerpt:

“I don’t believe in randomness in the weaving together of the grand biblical narrative so when something seems out of place that to me is a tell-tell sign that it is important and should be emphasized.”

As of Sunday evening, late, the whole world knew that the U.S. was announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.

Just about as quickly as that news came, it appeared to me that most people were ready to announce via facebook, twitter, text, etc. their own opinions and comments about this historical moment. As I trust that you have already seen, some people celebrated, some were saddened, some doubt that it is true, some see it as a political move, some see it as a work of God, some it as saddening to God, some see it as good for the whole world, and so on and so on. There has been so much talk about Bin Laden’s death.

But as I have been following this huge news release, I found myself thinking about James 1:19 “be quick to hear, slow to speak”. Before we immediately get to commenting on it, Lets listen for a while to those who know and understand more about the whole situation.

This is a huge deal for America. This is a huge deal for Al Qaeda. And I think it is a pretty big deal for everyone in between.  And I realize that some people need to be speaking about it or else I/we would not have a way of being informed about it. But for many of us, I think the best option would be to take it all in, think well about it, pray about it, and then try to draw some good understanding and conclusions about it.

Perhaps there has never been a greater and more clearer statement about the Gospel/Christian ministry than what Paul writes to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4:5:

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves”

Now that is absolutely a loaded statement. Think about that for a while.

Again, there may have never been a better statement ever about the Gospel ministry.

This past Sunday I preached on Luke 5:1-11. You can listen to the sermon here.

As we are walking through the Gospel of Luke, Sunday after Sunday, we are really beginning to see what Luke meant in 1:1-4 when he tells Theophilus that he is writing this to him as “an orderly account” of the life and ministry of Jesus.

So in chapter 5 when we read (Luke writing to Theophilus) that Jesus is calling his first disciples, there is such a nice context. And there is such great detail to help us understand what discipleship looks like and where discipleship comes from.

Here are my 6 observations from Sunday’s sermon from Luke 5:1-11:

1. “Pressing in… to hear the Word of God”   vv.1-3
2. Obedience   vv.4-5
3. Reward   vv.6-7
4. Humility & Recognition  vv.8-9
5. Fishers of men   v.10 (also check out Jeremiah 16:16)
6. Followers   v.11

Followers of Jesus are not following Jesus blindly. Not at all. Followers of Jesus (disciples) are following Jesus because they have come to know him and understand him as the most awesome and satisfying there is. They see His worth, and so they follow Him.

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not; As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above. Join with all nature in manifold witness To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide; Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning  new mercies I see; All I have needed Thy hand hath provided, Great is Thy faithfulness! Lord unto me!”

This short little video helps you see how grounded Lecrae is in his faith.

My great friend Travis Jones.
http://youtu.be/XEfl-8hQKvM
You may or may not know Travis. You may remember him as “Larry Jones.” Either way, he is pursuing a career in Sociology and Public Speaking. This video is an attempt to be invited to an awesome conference called TED Full Spectrum. Please check out the video. Link to it on your facebook. And encourage other people to view Travis’ YouTube video.
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