I am a Christian (yes, dorky, even), husband to my beautiful wife & best friend of TEN years and father of three adorable children. In my spare time, I like to play guitar and coach little kids' baseball.
I use this website to log my thoughts, happenings & whatnot. Sometimes my posts are work or web-related & sometimes they are family-related or just random.
I produce creative design and code for a living at Visual Notion.
Men, notice the last portion of this verse (emphasis mine).
"Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." — 1 Peter 3:7 (ESV)
There are two reasons for this: 1) For her good and the good of your relationship, 2) so your spiritual growth isn't hindered.
Psalm 25:4-5 (ESV)
4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
I was thinking about adoption this morning. How, as Christians, those who acknowledge and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that we have been adopted by the Heavenly Father; that is, God.
The Bible spans approximately 4,000 years of human history and God's interaction with mankind. We have a written account of God's character which remains consistent from one book to another while being written from the perspective of 40 people that penned 66 books that make up the Bible as we have it today.
"4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,[a] Father." 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." — Galatians 4:4-7 (NIV)
We have a Heavenly Father that has adopted us as sons and daughters through the final payment for our sins through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. We have a God that has taken the time, over thousands of years, to get through to mankind; to tell us that He wants a relationship with us.
Don't you think that a God pursuing you and making every effort to get through to you is worth responding to?
Please don't spend all your time waiting for God to "call your phone", so to speak. He already has. He's just waiting for you to respond.
If you just need to respond more often, read your Bible, pray and get involved in a local Bible-studying church.
Just respond.
My son has a sweet tooth. Okay, he has a full set of Sweet Teeth. I warmed up the remainder of the baked cinnamon and cream cheese bread breakfast dish my wife makes that we love to eat. My son had eaten his portion, but my daughter, our middle one, hadn't eaten all of her's and said she was finished. My son knew this was a great time to offer to take care of that for her.
It has always bugged me that the verse in Matthew 7:1 is often misquoted by people. Here's what it says: 1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged."
Then they conveniently ignore or purposefully leave out the context of verse one by leaving out verses 2-5 as they provide more insight and practicality:
I gave the "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" speech to our oldest children this morning when they wanted to pick at their breakfast instead of eat it. (It's frosted mini shredded wheat. What's not to like?)
My proud speech: "Do you know what the most important meal of the day is? Breakfast. You need it to get you going in the morning and help you make it through the day. It will give you energy to run, play, and think. It is very important."
My wife and I got the kids ready and I dropped them off for school as is our priority most mornings. I knew I needed to read my Bible this morning and spend some time with God. In that still quiet voice that he used with Elijah on the mountain, He kept reminding me: "Spend some time with me."
We had some good discussion going on last night at the Disciplines of a Godly Man study about Taming the Tongue. One of the things that came to mind towards the end (but I didn't have time to share) was this:
As men, we like to laugh and cut up and have a good time. However, we must be careful not to overdue it and I think guys are notorious for this (myself included).
Dr. Tim LaHaye (yes, the Left Behind author) was preaching at Southcrest this morning and tonight.
Dr. Tim LaHaye's comments about the blind man blew me away, this morning. I always wondered why Jesus made mud and rubbed it on the blind man's eyes. Dr. LaHaye said, when he traveled to India, there were a lot of people that simply had no eyeballs at all.
God rejoicing over me with gladness in His heart and quieting me with His love, despite who I am and no matter how down or frustrated I may be, is a powerful reminder for me and difficult for me to fully comprehend.
“The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17
Studying Jesus' words on hell and the parable of The Rich Man & Lazarus (the begger) has always been very telling about what hell is like. I've always found this parable to be fascinating especially as God showed me, over time, new things about this parable I hadn't noticed before.