Today we celebrated Eli’s first birthday. His actual birthday is not until April 30th.

Valeria and I are so blessed to have Eli as our son and JJ his brother.  Many friends came out to enjoy this occasion with us.

We believe that children are a gift from the Lord, and we pray for grace in raising them up to honor and follow Christ with their lives.

This morning in our Men’s Bible Study we began a new focus.

We looked at Matthew 7 where Jesus is saying that when we are judged it will not depend on what we have done so much, but rather on whether we knew God, or better were known by Him.

Our study of the “Fundamentals of the Faith” is to lead us to know God in a deeper way.

check this out! if you like it, there are many more on youtube.

Jesus as our substitute is such a heavy doctrine.

We must believe in it.

There is absolutely nothing good in us. Jesus took our sins and was slaughtered by God for them. We deserved it. Jesus took it. He is our substitute. In exchange, we got His righteousness.

Do you believe this? If you don’t, you are not saved. There is no way. Your sins havent been dealth with.

Trip Lee says “he doesn’t love me because of me, no He loves me because of Him.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”

Do you ever use the word “substitute” when speaking of your Lord or your faith?  Please begin to. Be a light to the world that you do not count your life as having any value except in Christ.

The doctrine of substitution places all of the emphasis on Jesus and NONE of it on you. Thats glorious!

Bob Kauflin  Shai Linne

Revelation 5 describes an amazing picture of everything (creation & the church) falling down and singing “a new song” to the slain worthy Lamb of God, namely Jesus.

Some people may read that text and wonder what “the song” was like. We have the lyrics in that text. They are all about Christ’s redeeming work for His people . But some may wonder about the style.

They shouldn’t. We shouldn’t.

Wednesday night while at a worship service, I heard Bob Kauflin (40 or 50 something year old gray headed man on a piano) lead a large congregation in worship singing some old hymns. The very next song (Kauflin didn’t even leave the stage or the piano), Shai Linne (20 something year old long haired man with a microphone in hand) comes up and leads the congregation in worship with two rap songs.

Both mens’ songs had the lyrics on the screens. Both mens songs were all about the redeeming work of Jesus.

Both mens’ songs did the exact same thing for me… lead me to worship Jesus.

I’m 30 years old, and I sincerely loved both. Either one is fine with me… its the subject not the style.

This week I attended the ‘Together for the Gospel Conference’. It is a pastors’ conference. There were 7,000 pastors there this year.

It was great. I enjoyed it. God grew me through it.

Here are a few reflections from what God taught me/ showed me at the conference:

1)     I have a lot to learn. That was/is obvious. I pray for continuing grace to help me become a better shepherd. I love the people of Fairdale with such a passionate commitment. I am eager to be back spending time with them.

2)     Justification by Faith Alone is so so so so so sweet and precious. I knew that before T4G. I know it better now.

3)     I need to read more. Books were everywhere.

4)     7,000 men of God singing worship songs together is so awesome and humbling.

5)     I love for God to use me to help others love Jesus more and love themselves less. I pray God will continue to give me people who want to hang out with me a lot and that God will cause that to cause them to love Jesus more.

6)     Some people need to love studying less and pray to love investing in others more.

7)     I am very humbled at the way God has used John Piper to teach and mold me into Christ-likeness. This conference was an extension of that.

8)     Jesus is all I have. Jesus is my life.

9)     The 4 point gospel is so helpful.

10)     I love my wife Valeria so deeply. ( i missed her a lot while at the conference.)

11)     I love my sons so very much. ( i missed them so much.)

12)    As much as I truly love discipling young guys, I want to disciple my sons JJ & Eli the most. I want God to use me to make them into faithul sincere men who love Jesus.

There are more I am sure. But these stick out so clearly. God’s grace to shape me this week was mighty.

I am not sure if you have seen this picture or not.

But I absolutely love it. This is my second son, Eli.

Grace is often described as “getting something that you do not deserve.”

There is so much in me and Valeria’s lives that fits that category. Right now, we have two awesome little boys. JJ & ELi are so cool and fun to be raising. It seems too good to be true that I am the dad of two little happy boys. They look up to me. Its amazing!

But we really do not deserve them. We thank God for giving us them.

With that said, Valeria is pregnant again. We are so humbled and happy. God is giving us another child. Valeria is almost 13 weeks and her due date is October 18. I am hoping for a third boy and that way we will only be two short of a basketball team.  Thats partly a joke, we would be thrilled to have a girl or a boy.

God’s grace continues to abound in our lives. We do not deserve it. Please pray for us and this pregnancy.

While preparing for this series on Ecclesiastes, I came across this great quote in John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life.

“the world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain.”

AFV (America’s Funniest Videos) continues to be the most hilarious show on TV in my opinion. I am thankful that it comes on so often because that means I can find it on TV most anytime. I will never get tired of seeing people crash on bikes, faint during weddings, or get hit by baseballs.

Last night while watching, the host said “it seems that many people are getting involved with this ‘Save the Planet’ movement. After these next videos, I think we need to concentrate more on saving the people.”

I could not agree more. Its not our planet that needs to be saved. It is us… the people. We need to be saved. Our hearts are far from God and we need God to save us.

I want to work hard to see people saved, not the planet.