Choosing your personality like choosing the clothes you wear

Confession time: I have no style. Clothes, style and I do not mix. Anybody who knew me in high school knew I didn’t where jeans. I mostly wore jogging pants and baggy t-shirts. It was not a style anybody repeated. I choose to wear what was comfortable and sometimes ugly at times. Some of the pants where really cheap and made an swoosh sound as I walked. A couple of my friends would say you know when Joel was coming because you could hear the swoosh. Life is full of choices.

We choose what clothes we where and we can choose what personalities we show. Paul talks about different qualities we can choose to have or cloth ourselves with in Colossians 3:12-14…

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Choose the right attribute for your life. Paul talked about compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. The word bear in the original Greek scripture means to be patient with or to have patience in the sense of enduring possibility. When becoming a Christian, we are told what we can wear in regards to different characteristics. It’s our choice what clothes we wear just like it’s our choice what we choose to show to other people. We have the choice to show these different traits.

Instead of focusing on clothes you want to wear or what you are wearing focus on what traits you choose to show. We have the ability to show compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. Today, what is a trait you can focus on? How can you show people this today?

Have a great day.

Robbed before opening Christmas presents

Ripping open presents is fun except when it’s your presents and someone else did the opening. When I was in middle school, we were in the process of going to my dad’s for Christmas. We arrived at the house to find a window open and all of our Christmas presents open and all the presents were gone. Christmas was stolen from us. It was a life long memory I will never forget. I will admit it was a tough day. As tough as it was for us, in the grand scheme of things it was so small.

 

 

Many people all over the world don’t get Christmas presents. They don’t get the experience of Christmas. A chunk of the world is happy just to survive the day or have food to eat in a day. We have so much to be thankful and can help others. This is what the Apostles told Paul in his ministry…

“Continue to remember the poor, (Paul responded) the very things I had been eager to do all along.” – Galatians 2:10.

Paul understood the point the Apostles wanted to share with him. Give to the poor. Every church gets called with people looking for meeting the basic needs everything from gas to paying bills to a place to stay at night. The church is meant to help those in need. You could be a blessing to someone else.

We had insurance and a little while later we got the Christmas presents that were taken from us, so many won’t get a Christmas present, this could change. There is an organization with this goal in mind. To bring Christmas to kids all over the world and you can help.

Samaritan’s Purse has a project called Operation Christmas Child. http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/

You can bring Christmas to someone else in the world. They take the Gospel message and present it along with your gift to people all over the world.

Every year I have our middle and high school students from my church do this ministry. They partner, bring money then go and buy Christmas presents to share with people all over the world. Each box needs $7 for shipping and we have a blast giving a present to someone that wouldn’t get one.

Paul calls us to take care of the poor. You can do this. You can make a difference help your community and help those in need. Check out this ministry and see what you can do to help. We might have had Christmas present stolen from us but at least we originally had presents waiting for us. Help someone else enjoy a Christmas present.

Have a great day.

Go Daddy….Calvin Klein…seriously?

In Rome they asked if sin glorified God statue, so why not go on sinning? If God created what is sin and what isn’t, by us sinning we lift up how God is awesome compared to us. Some people would continue to sin. Wrong answer.

Sin shows us we are people of mistakes. We struggle and fall short of people, but there is nothing about following God and sinning on purpose. We lift up God with our lives and try to glorify him. When we watch commercials that I would relate to watching softcore porn, is that lifting up God? Now I am not saying we should tear these companies apart, but it might persuade you  not to purchase their products and say it’s because of values God set for us. Christians try to do the good things God did for us. Grace, forgiveness and compassion and we can still have that for companies, but when you don’t look at what you are doing as wrong, that is between you can God, but I don’t have to purchase what you are selling because you are selling sex.

Have a great day.

Final moment

A moment comes when life ends for us all.

I feel like talking about death has main my main focus lately.

With the students at Union Christian we have went through two series, Hell and Heaven.

Through this I have focused a lot of my study time focusing on scripture with these two focuses along with reading a couple of books…

Heaven is For Real

Erasing Hell
90 Minutes in Heaven

As I wrap up this series I have been reading through the end time of Christ.

It’s sad to read through and hear all of the pain he went through.

At the end there was a special Sabbath, so they tried to speed up the killings on the cross.

In order to do this, they broke the legs of the people.

They broke the first two legs of the people, when they came to Jesus, this was written in John 19:33-35…

“But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.  The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true.  He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”

Jesus died.

This is huge because certain people/religions claim it wasn’t Jesus or he wasn’t killed.

In order to make sure Jesus was dead, they pierced his side.

This went along with scripture written much earlier (Exodus 12:46, Num. 9:12 and Psalm 34:20) about a sacrifice in which Jesus was for each one of us.

Death is crazy and interesting.

I mourn a little every time I ready the crucifixion and death story of Jesus.

I believe it to be true and make be a little sad with the fact he died and was a sacrifice for my sins and struggles.

How many people would die for you?

Maybe some family and friends would step up.

In Jesus’ case, he died for each and every one of us, suffered a painful death for our sins.

Reading through scripture on death, Heaven and Hell, open me up to perspective.

Jesus died for me and he died for you.

First thought in my mind is why would Jesus die for someone unworthy as myself?

This is where grace steps in.

Even though we make a ton of mistakes, Jesus forgives and loves us.

He did this by dying on the cross.

When we recognizes this have faith and live our lives for Jesus we are given eternal life.

What a gift for some unworthy people.

As much as I mourn and feel guilt for Jesus dying for a sinner like me, I rejoice and praise God.

I know I am going to heaven because of Jesus, that is such a relief.

Do you know if are going?

Do you know that Jesus died for you?

Have a great day.