Sunday, February 26, 2012

Why it's mentioned as "To the Jew First"

When you take a deep look at the Bible, one will see many times, repeated over and over again, the phrase "To the Jew First". This is an example of what it is like to have a heart for the people that are after God's heart. The Jewish people are incredibly sacred to God. He made a covenant to protect and watch over the Jewish people, and to ensure that they survive.

In Ezekiel 37, God makes a pact to revive the people who had been wiped out, and bring them into a new land. Specifically verse 14 says that God will "breathe" his life back into the people and bring them into their own land and then they will know that he is the Lord. Modern day Israel is a total restoration moment in which God demonstrates how he truly loves his people. In 1948, Israel became a nation, and as a result, God's promise to the people made in Ezekiel 37 came true.

Our job as believers today is to make the Jewish people say that their searching for a Messiah is futile because Jesus has already come and is coming back.

Meditate on this thought today.
GRACE AND PEACE!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Life is Stressful...deal with it.

Okay honestly, I wish I didn't have to say something like this. But this really is the bottom line of reality. When you are married, in school, working, doing whatever, life gets so busy, you shouldn't feel stressed, feel blessed.

Yeah, today was one of the busiest days I have had in a long long time. Being overwhelmed doesn't even begin to cover it, but my life can have a song playing in the background. "This is your life" by Switchfoot. Yeah, I wish that the words would say "This is my life", but I go about eh day by day trying to keep my head above water. God give me strength

Monday, February 20, 2012

All in this amazing Lone Star State I call home. God bless Texas!
My life is insane! But I am
So blessed to have a loving wife at my side
Working 32 hour work weeks
Working out 4 days a week
Walking dogs late at night.
Learning about the Apostle Paul and his connection to Rome
Writing papers and sermons
I have a crazy life...and it's blessed. Busy with school as always

Friday, February 17, 2012

Boiling Point

Okay, reality is, I ahve reached a point where I need to do a retrospective, looking back at stuff in my life and how to fix it. I don't know where I went wrong with my friendships, or how to even fix them, but the point is, I am tired of wondering. How am I going to get over myself? Do I just stop talking and pray that people will come to me, or do I make a human honest to goodness effort to not be an obsessive friend who always wants to be around the same people, time and time again. I didn't always act so clingy and attached to friends that I have, (you know, like the limited number of friends). There actually, believe it or not was a time where I could embrace friendships from every possible angle of my life and accept it for what it was. I didn't care about making bonds, because I was on my own, and I didn't have a care in the world.

I must go on a journey within my own soul and figure out what it means to really be a friend. I have blogged about it before, but something has just been haunting my mind over and over again, and i just can't figure it out. What should I do? I don't know if I just back off and quit altogether or what, but I'm tired of spending all of my time wondering if I did anything wrong. Satan gets me down and makes me feel like I have to please people, I have to hang out the same people all the time, and I always get bent out of shape whenever I don't hang out with people. Something in my mind is not adding up because I know that I am a better person than this. I have been told by people in my life that before. When things got bad, I could always look to God, and say "I'm a better person than this!"

For now, I need to call it quits, I am overwhelmed, but at the same time, pouring out what is on my mind, onto a blog post helps me.

GRACE AND PEACE

Monday, February 13, 2012

Routine has set in...
Understanding the craziness of a new life now that I'm married

Extreme Faith

Here I sit, in the middle of Texas, mid-February, and it's finally snowing. Last year (2011), I remember being out of school for 3 days (early Feb) and now, there's just starting to be signs of winter, snowing and sleeting out. Hoping that there is a chance that it will stick to the ground and I could have a day off to do my school work and prepare my sermons. Here's hoping and that hoping that God will step in and do something.

Today we took a great look into the book of Hebrews 11/12 at church. My pastor definitely helped me comprehend a great deal of people's lives and look into what its like to have extreme faith when everything around you seems crazy and hopeless.

Jesus died for us to have eternal life, and we see the lives of those that lived thousands of years before us and we are thrilled at what we see. Noah survived a flood, a mighty nation rose up and was delivered from slavery. People were thrown to the lions, and survived, all because of the faith that they have in the great God of heaven. We rejoice in our faith, and we are able to live the day to day life because we have the faith we have because of Christ's sacrifice. Crazy day.

GRACE AND PEACE!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

What it means to be a Friend



You may be thinking…why is there a picture from Digimon on my blog? Okay, first off, don’t knock anime! I lived in Japan and grew to love that culture, so I had to relate this to what I am dealing with right now in the most profound, Aspbergers related way possible.

This is Matt, one of the Digidestined kids from seasons 1 and 2 of Digimon with his Digimon partner, Gabumon. Matt was the Digidestined who carries the Crest of Friendship. Right now I feel like I am meant to carry that crest, and I will explain.

Back in September, I had that massive fallout (That I created) with my old church. I was selfish, and I was dumb. I didn't want to take to heart what people were telling me, I just wanted to do things my way; no matter what happened, it was always, always, always about me. But still, after I got back from the event where the fallout happened, one by one, I sat down with 3 of my closest friends in seminary and heard from each of them what God should do in me, and I started to break through what was happening in my life.

As time went on, I realized what I had done and spent months and months and months wishing I could go back and relive my life through that point over a million and one ways. But I couldn't.

I still have trouble with friendships because of my Aspbergers, but I don't let it slow me down, I just keep learning how to live life. Friends to me had to have this in them to be my friends. We always had to be hanging out. I know, its unrealistic, but still I feel that way about people and I just keep on going by hoping that they'd understand how i feel, but then I came to the conclusion (like a few weeks ago) that I have to be silent in some circumstances. There are things I said, things I did to my friends, and I know that God has forgiven me of those things, but I pray that if they read this, they see how sorry I am, and hope that they forgive me for any wrong I have caused them.

Now, this past week, I heard of hurts in my friends' lives, and I finally got a deeper sense of what it means to have the Crest of Friendship. You have to be there for them too. Friendship is such a serious matter, take it seriously, and learn to back off every once in a while, hanging out or not, have faith in your friends, because Christ gave you life, and you live your life with them by your side. And if Christ is in them too, then you have eternal friendships, because you will walk side by side next to the savior on the other side of glory.

*Experimenting with a new closing statement...

GRAB THE KNIFE, SPREAD THE CREAM CHEESE, EAT IT UP, GRACE AND PEACE!
-Joel

I'll post this a few times just to see how I feel about it.