stick online

Happy Fourth Of July

2010-07-04T16:00:00.003+02:00

This came out back in February, but it was so good, I felt it needed another showing.

I'm A Truck Kinda Guy

2010-05-20T06:11:00.009+02:00

I've got a truck just like the one pictured. It's a 2001 Chevrolet Silverado 1500HD Crew Cab with a six liter V8 and a sprayed-in bedliner. It's got 110,000 miles on it, a brand new set of Wildcat tires, and a window decal that reads, "Real Men Love Jesus." It's the only vehicle I've ever owned. That truck may as well be my identity.

But I'm going to have to sell it. My wife and I are moving to a large city where it won't be possible for me to park, and with gas prices on the rise, 13 MPG just isn't cutting it. I never thought it would be difficult, but man, that truck just feels right to drive. It's perfect. In the Truck I Trust, you know?

Psalm 20:7 says, "Some boast in Chevrolet and some in Ford, but we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God." It's so true. If you're a gun guy, it says some will boast in Springfield and some in Glock... or if you're a gadget guy, some will boast in Android and some in Apple. The bottom line is, even Chevrolets will get rusted and worn out - even Glocks will jam and fail - yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength (Isaiah 40:30-31).

I think that's the biggest struggle for all of us who aren't worried about being able to eat tomorrow. We trust in the stuff of This World(™), and it rarely lets us down. We trust it sometimes to the point that we get attached to it. Like if God put me in a place where I couldn't wear jeans all the time anymore, I'd feel awkward. Because man, jeans are awesome. They're me. God is awesomer. There's a song by LeCrae called "Don't Waste Your Life" where he mentions Luke 12:15-21. He sums it up as follows:

Forget the money, cars, and toss that ice;
The cost is Christ
And they could never offer me anything on the planet that'll cost that price.

As one of the comments on the YouTube video says, James 5:1-3 tells us exactly what's going to happen to our money, cars, and ice... it's gone. Christ is worth so much more. My possessions don't make me a man. Christ made me, loves me, and gave Himself for me. I can no longer live a life based on the Truck, but I must live by faith in the Son (Galatians 2:20).

The Point

2010-04-03T16:34:00.004+02:00

On Thursday, I wrote that there was something terribly wrong with my ministry: it was about me getting credit with people. But I knew something was missing. This video, from Chuck Wood, asks the fundamental question that I wasn't asking myself.

Chuck says that we need to ask those we're discipling, "How are you becoming more like Jesus?" If someone had asked me that two months ago, I might have said all kinds of things, but today I'd probably tell you that I hadn't become any more like Jesus in a long time. I was doing all the stuff, because that's just what you do. Because I was supposed to to it. I don't even know why I was doing it. But it made other people think I was good, and that made me feel good about myself.

So now, my Sabbath is over, and I want to get back to serving Christ through ministry. But I want to become more like Jesus as I do it, and that makes it more difficult, because I can't just rely on others' perceptions of whether I'm like Christ or not. I have to actually learn and apply His word and His ways to my life. Because He is the Way (John 14:6).

2010 Resolutions?

2010-01-03T22:06:00.012+01:00

I've struggled with this post (and it's a couple of days late) because I really don't know what to do for resolutions this year... 2009 was the first year I ever made resolutions, and putting them online turned out to be pretty good motivation, so I wanted to do it again. But I have no idea what to resolve for 2010. I could go the comedy way, but I want to actually accomplish something. So I've searched teh Interwebs and taken whatever I can find.

Squidoo comes up first on a Google search for 2010 resolutions, so I checked their article. 2010Resolutions.org has the same ten resolutions in a different order, so I figure they're pretty good ones. However, I'm a non-smoker with no weight to lose and a healthy, organized, and enjoyable lifestyle, so the only one of their resolutions is worthwhile for me.

Resolution: Get out of debt. My wife and I completed Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University last year, and we've been steadily chipping away at our two $30,000 car loans since we started the program in February. By the end of 2010, we'll be debt free.

CNN.com has 10 travel resolutions. Again, most aren't all that useful to me, as I have a passport and I've spent the last couple of weeks doing almost nothing but relaxing. But there are two items that I'll put on my list.

Resolution: Get a new digital camera (and use it often). CNN's actual resolution is "Take better pictures," but to do that I need to at least have a camera. I'm not talking DSLR here; I just want a camera that will survive my lifestyle. An Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 looks fantastic to me.
Resolution: Travel. Take my wife to Italy. She's wanted to go ever since her high school Latin class trip was canceled due to September 11th. Sounds like a great idea to me! Maybe I'll visit Spain again as well. This resolution may be in direct opposition to getting out of debt (since we'll be pouring money into two pits), but I think we can do it.

On TechRepublic, I found one geek's resolutions. One that sounded good to me was to write more. The author made that resolution because he gets paid for the things he writes. While I don't, there's a lot to be gained for me from simply putting fingers to keyboard.

Resolution: Write an actual, thought-required blog post at least twice a week. Make at least one every week related to my Bible study or quiet time.

PasteMagazine had an article titled "Fifteen Musical New Year's Resolutions for 2010," but they were just the average resolutions (see Squidoo above), but based on pop songs. But a good resolution that I thought of when I saw "Musical Resolutions," was to actually spend some time enjoying my own musical ability.

Resolution: Play cello, outside of group rehearsal, practice, and performance, just for my own enjoyment, for at least an hour a week. Maybe even remember what it's like to hear J.S. Bach's Six Suites for Cello Solo come from my own instrument.

Lastly, I found this post on the Gospel Coalition Blog. It's based on the book The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards, which is based on the seventy "Resolutions" written by Jonathan Edwards. I may review some of the seventy resolutions in a future post (or series), but for now, I'll sum them up: as John Brookes wrote in Manliness (1875), "Openness to the Light and Love of Jesus, and resoluteness to follow them promptly, constitute Christian Manliness."

Resolution: To spend at least an hour each day (maybe not all at once) either reading the Bible, studying the Bible, or praying. In short, I want to take my quiet time to the next level. I want to start putting into practice all the things I learned last year about prayer. I want to learn and follow His ways.

Final 2009 Resolutions Update

2009-12-31T22:05:00.003+01:00

1) Read through my Bible this year before I get married May 23 this year; the entire thing, cover to cover, reading at least a chapter every single day.
I did it.

2) Use my credit card whenever possible but never carry a balance.
This worked great. I highly recommend it.

3) Contribute the maximum amount to my Roth IRA account.
$5,000 in. Good to go.

4) Build a three-month emergency fund.
Done.

5) Get my two mile run time under 15 minutes.
14:33 on the treadmill last week, since it was too cold to go outside. That doesn't really count, but in the end I took more than two minutes off my two-mile time this year. That's pretty good.

6) Finish the Navigators' "Design for Discipleship" series of Bible studies.
Yeah, this should get done sometime in March, maybe, depending on how fast I finish book six and get into book seven.

7) Blog at least once a week, plus a monthly update on my resolutions.
I posted nineteen times in December. Admittedly, most of the posts were short "found" blurbs that were originally posted on Tumblr and got migrated over when I closed my Tumblog (seriously, what is a Tumblog?), but it was nineteen posts.

Done

2009-12-14T19:09:00.005+01:00

I finished the Bible last night.

Yeah, you read that right. Frontal assault style, Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, straight through, do not pass go, do not collect $200. It took me 347 days, but I did it. Do I recommend it? Yes, but just once. Because it's definitely not the most efficient method of reading in terms of Christian growth*, but you gotta do it, if only so you can say to your friends, "Yes, I've read the Bible, the whole thing, straight through." Because a direct answer is a lot more helpful than saying, "Well, yeah, I've read it all, I think, but never all at once or straight through, mostly just the parts I liked because the story moves or the characters are interesting...."

So yeah, I've read the Bible straight through. The picture above and left is the best I could get for the Bible I carry with me, and it's just the packaging, but the point is that the particular physical book doesn't matter. Reading God's Word is what matters. I've read the Bible straight through and I don't remember most of it and what parts I do remember I don't completely understand, and I won't ever get to the point of knowing and understanding it all, but I want to know my Lord and Savior as much as I can, and reading the Word is the only way to do it.

*If you're wondering, I think I'm going to concentrate on the Gospel of Mark until New Year's, and then I'm going to start the Cornerstone method - I'll post it later this week.

November Resolutions Update

2009-12-01T20:55:00.003+01:00

1) Read through my Bible this year before I get married May 23 this year; the entire thing, cover to cover, reading at least a chapter every single day.
I have exactly ten pages of the Bible left to read in December. I'm in Revelation 5, when a bunch of seals start getting opened. Talk about some crazy stuff.

2) Use my credit card whenever possible but never carry a balance.
Once again the budget saved us. Aside from having four people over for Thanksgiving (plus ourselves!) we upgraded our media center and paid almost $400 dollars to fix the truck again after the front part of the starter fell off and broke into a bunch of tiny pieces inside the flywheel housing. But it all got paid without touching our emergency savings. Hooray budgets!

3) Contribute the maximum amount to my Roth IRA account.
Done for the year, $5,000. A penny saved is a penny earned?

4) Build a three-month emergency fund.
Done.

5) Get my two mile run time under 15 minutes.
So, at the end of last month, I wrote that I was in the 15:30 to 16:00 range on my two mile. Not so, as I found out. Apparently the two mile course I'd measured out with the odometer in my wife's Subaru was not, in fact, two miles. I ran my two-mile on an actual two-mile track on November third, and I ran a 16:49. Way off. But I threw myself into it, and yesterday morning, on the same track, I ran a 15:23. I'll be under 15:00 by New Years, definitely.

6) Finish the Navigators' "Design for Discipleship" series of Bible studies.
I'm a little bit into book six (somewhere in chapter two of five), and I'm sorry to say that this goal isn't going to happen. Book six takes a lot of thought, time, and effort, and I know book seven is going to be even more challenging, so there's no way I can devote enough time to them to finish by January first and get anything out of the best two books in the series. I certainly could have made it to my goal, but I just didn't put enough time into it early on.

7) Blog at least once a week, plus a monthly update on my resolutions.
So I posted four times this month. That's technically once a week, I suppose, but it's pretty lousy. And my resolutions update is late. Shows how much thought has gone into the blog. Life just eats away at your time, you know? Hopefully I'll have more time to put into it this month since we're having a quiet time here for the holidays.

November Eighth

2009-11-08T15:00:00.005+01:00

October Resolutions Update

2009-10-31T17:03:00.002+01:00

1) Read through my Bible this year before I get married May 23 this year; the entire thing, cover to cover, reading at least a chapter every single day.
In all of October, I've read just 14 pages (to page 916) but that's included Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews 1-4. Partly it's also a symptom of the fact that these books are so packed with knowledge and insight into our lives in Christ, but two verses came together this morning to make it clear: I need to consider Jesus (Hebrews 3:1) and pay much closer attention (Hebrews 2:1). Still very much on track to make my goal, but I want all my reading to be worthwhile - for it to bear fruit that remains (John 15:4-5).

2) Use my credit card whenever possible but never carry a balance.
Thank goodness for budgeting and saving. One window in my truck broke, and my wife's Subaru came up on some serious preventive maintenance, so we ended up spending $1000 out of the maintenance account this month. Pretty significant spending, but because we had a budget, it didn't even touch this month's income!

3) Contribute the maximum amount to my Roth IRA account.
Too easy with automated transfers.

4) Build a three-month emergency fund.
Done.

5) Get my two mile run time under 15 minutes.
Ran a lot more often this month, but had to cut back a bit because of my knee again. Still in the 15:30-16:00 range, but feeling okay about it.

6) Finish the Navigators' "Design for Discipleship" series of Bible studies.
See resolution one. I haven't worked on the books in two months now; book six languishes on my shelf. That needs to change.

7) Blog at least once a week, plus a monthly update on my resolutions.
Fifteen posts this month, up from last month's ten, but not as much good content as I'd like. Still, this blog is a pretty low priority, so I'm pleased that it's worked out as well as it has.

Virtus (Manliness)

2009-10-28T00:48:00.007+01:00

This is the final post in a series explaining my five core values.

Manliness is a hard thing to define. If I wanted to construct it in depth, it would take volume upon volume and double the size of the internet. Manliness is like beauty... you just know it when you see it. It makes you pause for a second or two; it makes you wish you had ...whatever it is. Like when you see a John Wayne movie, or the look on Bruce Willis' face during that one scene in Armageddon. Godfrey and Balian, in Kingdom of Heaven. King David.

Nope, he's not a movie character, but he's pretty manly. Even before he's King of Israel, David gets a pretty glowing description: I Samuel 16:18 calls him "a skilled musician, a mighty man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech, and the Lord is with him." Whew. He's musical, valorous, courageous, martially accomplished, and in control of his tongue. Who wouldn't want to be him?

The Israelites and other ancient cultures admired martial prowess and courage, as we do today in men like GEN Ray Odierno or GEN David Petraeus, or any of the thousands of soldiers serving our nation. The Romans had a word for manliness - virtue. In its Latin form, virtus, it generally meant being a man who was upright in society, based on four distinct characteristics. In Rome, these characteristics were prized for their contribution to the Republic, but they are applicable still today.

Fortitudo (Courage): Martial courage and personal courage are both included. A man must not shirk from defending his family and nation, and must also possess the fortitude to do right in his daily life.
Iustitia (Justice): Doing the right thing, based on truth.
Prudentia (Prudence): Sound judgment and reasoning. A man must be logical and practical, and knowledgeable about the world around him.
Temperantia (Self-Control): The part of discipline that means we govern our own actions, for our own good and (more importantly) for the good of others.

John Brookes wrote in his book Manliness, published in 1875, that “Openness to the Light and Love of Jesus, and resoluteness to follow them promptly, constitute Christian Manliness.” I am in accord with Brookes and with Stu Weber in my belief that there is no other kind of manliness to be had. I believe that the most manly man is the man most like Christ. Courage to put Himself in harm's way for those He loved (Mark 10:45). Self-control to give up His ultimate power and live as a man (Philippians 2:6). Knowledgeable to answer every question with scripture (Matthew 4:3-10). Justice to love sinners (Luke 5:30-31) and cast out thieves from the Temple (Matthew 21:12-13).

I cannot define manliness beyond this: that a man should be as much like his Lord as he can be (Luke 6:40).

Five Core Values: Christ, Truth, Personal Responsibility, Perseverance, Manliness

Take Heed

2009-10-02T04:13:00.005+02:00

Colossians 4:17 is an exhortation from Paul to Archippus, but it's valid for each one of us:

Take heed of the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.

I wish it was rendered with an exclamation point! How painful it will be on judgment day if the Lord of Hosts says to me, "Stick! You wasted your ministry! You received it from Me and you didn't fulfill it!"

Now, I know that God doesn't need me (Romans 11:34-36), but He desires that I work for Him, that I minister on His behalf to His people (John 21:15-17). "Do you love me?" "Tend my lambs."

I wonder what I'd do if someone told me, "Take heed of the destiny you've received from God, and go win the Super Bowl!" What if they said, "Take heed of your destiny, and go cure cancer!" Maybe, "Take heed of your destiny and visit the Moon!" I'd be pumped - I'd want to go out and fulfill that! Those things are all really cool and awesome - and temporal. We all know that the temporal won't matter a thousand (or ten thousand) years from today, but the eternal will. God expects each one of us to take heed of an eternal ministry - of the destiny of sharing His love, of being His love to the world. It's even more awesome than being the highest-paid player in sports or inventing the internet. Regardless of what you do, you have a ministry to fulfill. You are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).

I don't care who you are, God wants your life (Romans 12:1) for His glory. That's your ministry. Take heed, and fulfill it!

September Resolutions Update

2009-10-01T01:01:00.002+02:00

1) Read through my Bible this year before I get married May 23 this year; the entire thing, cover to cover, reading at least a chapter every single day.
I've just finished Colossians, page 902. 47 pages to go this year.

2) Use my credit card whenever possible but never carry a balance.
The wife and I barely bought anything this month aside from groceries, so this was too easy.

3) Contribute the maximum amount to my Roth IRA account.
Yep.

4) Build a three-month emergency fund.
Done.

5) Get my two mile run time under 15 minutes.
Down around 15:30 on my last run. Not too bad for me, but I've got a ways to go. Here's to running!

6) Finish the Navigators' "Design for Discipleship" series of Bible studies.
Haven't started book six yet, but should get to it this week. Book five review is up, and book two.

7) Blog at least once a week, plus a monthly update on my resolutions.
This continues to get harder and harder but I did post ten times this month, twice as often as my resolution. Still trying to keep it up to every other day. Part of that is that I haven't posted much from my quiet time lately; I need to do more of that.

Perseverance

2009-09-26T16:45:00.014+02:00

This is the fourth post in a series explaining my five core values.

Matthew 24:13 and Mark 13:13 are two of my favorite verses. They're two of the hardest verses to live with. He who endures to the end shall be saved.

If you read my Father's Day post, you'll remember that my father once told me, "Never, never, never give up." A paraphrase from Winston Churchill, it's an incredible statement of character. I don't even know what to write about it. Perseverance is the act of faith. It is the fight in the dog, but also the quality of commitment in a man who goes to work every day to provide for his family. Perseverance is Thomas Edison's 1,000 ways not to make a lightbulb. Perseverance is why the astronauts of Apollo 13 survived. Taken with self-control and intentionality, perseverance is the root of discipline.

The U.S. Army recognizes perseverance as one of three defining qualities in their Warrior Ethos, four lines from the Soldier's Creed.

I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.

Stu Weber writes about perseverance in Tender Warrior. He calls it "staying power," and as far as he's concerned it is one of a very few things which distinguishes a true man. If we never overcome failure, if we never begin again, we make no progress. We change nothing. Someone said that nothing worth doing is easy. Anything worth doing requires perseverance. Our hopes are hopes precisely because they are not easy to fulfill. Perseverance is the part of our nature which allows us to reach them.

Romans 5:3-5 reminds us of the unfailing nature of our hope, because of God's great and enduring love for us. Pray that we may have the perseverance to follow that hope.

Five Core Values: Christ, Truth, Personal Responsibility, Perseverance, Manliness

DFD 5 Impressions

2009-09-14T15:00:00.010+02:00

This is the third post in a series where I'm reviewing each of the Design for Discipleship Bible study books.

Page five of Foundations for Faith begins

In this book you will explore these five areas:

Who is God?

The Authority of God's Word

The Holy Spirit

Spiritual Warfare

The Return of Christ

Those are some pretty weighty areas of study! Who is God? Pretty deep. The actual questions are deeper than those of the earlier books as well. Each chapter ends with a blank page for you to outline/summarize/paraphrase its most important points. Sometimes it takes a while - chapter one took me a month!

One thing that clicked for me in chapter one that I'd never really understood before was jealousy. I always thought of jealousy as pretty much like covetousness - like I'm jealous of the one guy down the street who just bought a brand new Camaro. That's not what it means when the Bible says God is jealous. It means that He wants back what is rightfully His. You married dudes are jealous for your wives, right? You want to be the only, only, only one for her, and be her everything, right? That's the jealously God feels. He is jealous for us, and for good reason... He is our Creator, Redeemer, Lord, Savior, Healer, etc. etc. etc. He's supposed to be our everything. Why would we worship anything else?

Chapter two is a really good study on God's Word because it points out Jesus' total confidence in the Scriptures. He built that confidence on two things: His knowledge of the Scriptures and their fulfillment, and His knowledge of God (see chapter one above). If we know that God's word has proven true (Proverbs 30:5-6) from before creation (John 1:1) until now, why would it change? If we know that our unchanging God (Malachi 3:6) is the author of His Word (II Peter 1:20-21), how could it change? Christ's confidence in the Scriptures was so absolute that He doesn't hesitate a moment during His temptation in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). He knows the Word of God, and He knows that it is absolute.

My most profound epiphany in chapter three, "The Holy Spirit," was that every single believer receives that Spirit (Romans 8:9). You're thinking, "Duh," but it was a big revelation for me. In any case, it's interesting to juxtapose that free gift with Ephesians 5:18, which tells us to be filled with the Spirit. So there is responsibility on our end to be seek the Spirit and allow it to fill us, but we can't get it on our own. God has given it to each believer... what will we do about it? Will we ignore it? Or will it fill us and overflow so that we "[speak] to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," and give thanks and praise to God (Ephesians 5:19-20)?

Chapter four, "Spiritual Warfare," is pretty interesting. I don't ever really think about Satan being in control here on Earth, but that's the picture that the Bible paints. Our adversary has temporary power in this world. Note the italics - that means the word temporary (there they are again!) is important. The real take away, however, is that Christ wins in the end. It's not like football season, where every newspaper has a list of predictions every week. We know who wins (Revelation 20:10). I don't know about ya'll, but I prefer betting on the winners.

I'm not really into eschatology (study of the end times), so I didn't really expect to get much out of chapter five, "The Return of the Jedi Christ." I tend to just let I Thessalonians 5:1-2 remind me that "the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night." However, there is a dynamic of our view of His coming that I find very interesting. II Peter 3:9 tells us that God wants all to come to repentance, and II Peter 3:15 says to regard God's patience as salvation. Seems pretty simple, right? We should want God to wait until as many people as possible have come to know Him, then He can go ahead and destroy the wicked. But do you really want to wait forever for Heaven? In Philippians 1:21, Paul writes that to die is gain - and that means Heaven. The eternal Kingdom of Glory. I don't want to wait another second for it to arrive - I bet it's even better than having a Camaro! Those two ideas taken together mean that we ought to be "looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God," (II Peter 3:12) and sharing Him with everyone (Matthew 28:19-20).

What will we do when the day of the Lord comes? Will we know Him, through the Spirit and His Word? Will we have resisted the evil of this world? Will we be alert to His coming? All I want to hear on that day is Jesus' voice saying to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master."

Personal Responsibility

2009-09-11T00:12:00.009+02:00

This is the third post in a series explaining my five core values.

Personal responsibility is the single biggest problem with our culture.

We sue McDonald's when the coffee is hot - we ordered hot coffee. We (continue) to sue tobacco makers when our loved ones die of lung cancer - they smoked every day, they knew it was bad for them, and we never pressured them to stop. We sue our alma maters when we don't get jobs - we graduated with low grades and no drive. Our parents pay for us late into life, and even find us jobs and negotiate our salaries - we would rather let them rule our lives than face the world on our own. Don't even get me started on Social Security (I'm entitled to retirement!), health care (I'm entitled to... well, I don't know, but ya'll should pay for it!), or federal bailouts (I'm entitled to do stupid things with my money and make you foot the bill rather than facing any consequences!). If I were a fact-checking editor for the Bible, I'd have to rewrite Proverbs 19:15.

Laziness casts into a deep sleep brings me welfare money, And an idle man will suffer hunger live off your taxes.

Isn't that sad?

Personal responsibility is the basis of trust. For me to trust you, I need assurance that you'll be responsible with whatever I'm trusting you with - my money, my data, my truck, my future plans. Anyone want to take a guess as to how a relationship is formed? It's by the repeated exchange of trust and responsibility. I go to the same jeweler here in town every time my watch needs a new battery or I want to buy a gift for my wife. I do this because he has proven in our past interactions to be reliable... meaning he has discharged his responsibilities to me in a satisfactory manner. His personal responsibility has brought about our (limited) friendship and economic rapport.

In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus explains these workings of trust. Luke 16:10 tells us what everyone knows - if you do the right thing in the little things, you're much more likely to do the right thing in the big things. It's something that every member of the human race values dearly - the ability to trust someone outside yourself. We'll never find anyone (or anything) that we can trust perfectly except God, since everyone is human and will fail sometime, somehow, but we still all want to do it.

That's why every society has valued personal responsibility. I can't put my finger on exactly where the modern world lost track, but I think we're forgetting how important it is. I know a lot of military people, and from them I can tell that our military men and women feel something called duty. What is duty? It's personal responsibility taken outside of oneself. We feel duty to serve our country in war, or to call the police during a robbery, or to rescue a woman from a burning car or a child from a swift river current. We feel duty to provide for our families. We feel duty to share the Gospel. Personal responsibility is the thing inside us that makes us respond to that duty.

Personal responsibility is what gives us intentionality and self control... two-thirds of discipline. I'd argue that they're almost the same thing, since if we have those two blocks, then perseverance - the third block - will come pretty naturally. As I've written before, discipline is one key factor in success in this life and the next. That's why I value personal responsibility.

Five Core Values: Christ, Truth, Personal Responsibility, Perseverance, Manliness

Guard Your Testimony

2009-09-06T19:40:00.005+02:00

I heard that phrase today for the first time. It's a new one for me, so I decided I'd explore it a bit and share some thoughts here. What does it mean to guard your testimony?

John 17:16; John 18:36; Romans 12:2
We are not of this World, just as Christ and the Kingdom are not of this world. If we let ourselves become conformed to the world, what's the point of our testimony? Your witness is that you are different.
I Peter 3:15
Each one of us needs to know why we are who we are. What is the reason for the things that we do? Your testimony is pretty weak if you don't really have any reason for anything, if you're just a Christian because "that's where my parents went to church," or "all my friends in high school went to Bible study on Tuesdays."
II Timothy 2:15
Know the Word of God, and through it know God Himself. You can be the most unconventional and moral person ever, but if you don't know Christ, you won't be able to make Him known to the world. That doesn't mean just listening to the preacher on Sunday morning, or even just doing your homework for Sunday school. It means being in daily communication (at least) with Christ - having a personal relationship with Him.
John 18:20; John 17:15
We must be open with the world. Jesus' prayer for us is that we are protected from evil, but not that we are taken out of this world. How can we witness and testify to the truth of Christ if we never interact with people who don't know Him already, or if we only interact with them on a superficial level?
Matthew 10:16
Innocent as doves - if your testimony to Christ crucified, Lord and Savior, is paired with consistent sin and no spiritual growth, then you're not doing much for the Gospel. No one will take you seriously. They also won't take you seriously if you're a bumbling fool, if you have no idea what's going on, and if you aren't awake and alert to the world around you - shrewd as serpents.

What do you think it means to guard your testimony? What specific things are you doing to protect your witness?

Trustworthy

2009-09-05T06:25:00.003+02:00

Men, this one is for us.

I Corinthians 4:1-2

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.

Think about all that you are a steward of:

Your own body (I Corinthians 6:19-20)
Your wife (and children) (I Peter 3:7)
The world around you (Genesis 1:26)
The mysteries of God (II Timothy 2:15)

Here's a quick refresher on the word steward: a person who manages another's property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.

Everything we have is "on loan" from the Creator. We're going to give an account (Romans 14:12) of everything we do with anything... and something tells me we won't be pulling the wool over God's eyes about the times we were short with our wives, or lived double lives, or didn't pay our tithes - He knows it. Paul writes in the passage above that stewards are required to be trustworthy. That means that we have to be truthful with ourselves when we take action. We remind ourselves that none of this is ours. It's His, to His glory (Romans 11:36). God has trusted us with His very image and His whole creation - let us spend our lives (Romans 12:1) to make that trust worthwhile.

August Resolutions Update

2009-08-31T23:03:00.005+02:00

1) Read through my Bible this year before I get married May 23 this year; the entire thing, cover to cover, reading at least a chapter every single day.
I'm now on page 863, Romans 8. I've read every chapter in Romans two or three times - I'd forgotten how long it's been since I've read the New Testament. There is so much more to God and the Gospel that I've been missing! Romans 3:10, for example. 86 pages remaining, but a lot of meaty stuff (Hebrews 5:14). What are you reading? How do you divide up the Bible for reading? Why? What are you getting out of it?

2) Use my credit card whenever possible but never carry a balance.
If you have no idea where your money is going, or if you're struggling with debt, or if you just want to get a leg up financially, I'll refer you over to Dave Ramsey. Seriously. It makes a HUMONGOUS difference in every part of your life. My wife and I are completely free from money worries... this is one step that helps us out a lot. Our credit card bill pays itself every month and we just watch what we spend... perfect.

3) Contribute the maximum amount to my Roth IRA account. Bingo! Hooray for online banking with recurrent automatic transfers!

4) Build a three-month emergency fund.
Done.

5) Get my two mile run time under 15 minutes.
Ooooh, ouch. I'm in the gym more now, but my two mile time is still over 16 minutes. Cardio needed.

6) Finish the Navigators' "Design for Discipleship" series of Bible studies.
Seriously people, Book 5 is incredible. Look for a review in the next week or so.

7) Blog at least once a week, plus a monthly update on my resolutions.
Thirteen posts, three of which were found blurbs, plus this update for August. Well beyond my New Years' expectations, but short of my peak months in May (19) and June (24). Posting every other day seems to be a pretty good goal for my schedule, so I'm endeavoring to be content with my scant 24 hours a day. Anyone know where I can apply to get a few more? Luke 14:28 does not cover one of my strong suits.

Drop the Phone!

2009-08-30T03:42:00.008+02:00

Look, I don't care who you are, there is no reason you should be texting while driving. Your life will not end if you put the message on hold long enough to pull over, but you might end someone else's life (or your own) if you take your eyes off the road! Texting is worse for you than alcohol, where driving is concerned, and I'm all for the legislative efforts to kill the combination. I'm tired of idiots on the road who are alternately speeding and dropping well below the speed limit, weaving erratically, and generally making life a (dangerous) pain because they think that the world revolves around their cellphone. DROP THE PHONE AND DRIVE!!!

Here's a list of resources to convince you if you disagree.

(Also) A Stickler For Handwriting

2009-08-24T22:07:00.002+02:00

This post was spawned by this article from Time Magazine, wherein a 15-year-old is allowed to use a computer on standardized test, since his handwriting is so bad. I say fail him. If he can't read and write, then he doesn't meet the standard. Especially considering that the reason he can't write is that he likes the attention of being "that kid with really bad handwriting."

An open letter to that kid's mom: Child-whacking sticks are on sale wherever wooden spoons are sold.

Truth

2009-08-22T16:40:00.011+02:00

This is the second post in a series explaining my five core values.

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
John 8:32

I value truth because there is no point in knowing something that is not true. There is no point in being something that is not true. Who wants to live a lie?

One of the best proverbs regarding truth is Proverbs 23:23, "Buy truth, and do not sell it; get wisdom and instruction and understanding." How many thousands of dollars do we spend in our culture trying to learn? I was talking to a friend today and he told me, "You never get out of school. I'm 30 and I'm still doing it!" He hasn't literally been in a classroom his entire life since preschool, but he's always been trying to learn something. We all have to, if we want to grow or progress, either in careers or in relationships or in our selves. Everyone wants to have the best teacher, too. You know what makes someone (or something) the best teacher? They get across the most truth.

And that's just human advancement, to say nothing of interpersonal relationships. What is the defining characteristic of relationships? Trust. What's trust built on? Truth: honesty, integrity, honor, and openness. Why is it that schools try to instill honor codes in their pupils? How does something like a lie or even just a lack of openness break up so many marriages? It's because the truth is valuable. Matthew 5:37 adjures us to say what we mean and mean what we say... be truthful.

As I wrote earlier this week, I'm a stickler for grammar, because language (words and their arrangement, otherwise known as diction and grammar) is the most accurate method humankind has of transmitting truth. Music or visual art may help to communicate depth or degree of feelings for which there are no words, but the precision of the spoken or written word is too valuable to discard for lack of motivation to use accepted standards. Language is valuable because truth is valuable!

Any way you look at it, truth is essential. If there is no truth, we may as well not even bother with anything. Thankfully, there is truth. Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6). So TRUTH is the second of my five core values.

Five Core Values: Christ, Truth, Personal Responsibility, Perseverance, Manliness

I'm A Stickler For Grammar

2009-08-18T14:45:00.005+02:00

I abhor lolspeak.

Seth Godin wrote a while back that he finds bad punctuation "distracting." I'd say that's entirely too kind a characterization. Maybe we blame the terrible American public schools, or maybe we blame mobile phones and the internet, or maybe the ubiquity of spell check. I don't really care. My hammer of judgment falls (figuratively) whenever I accidentally view comments on YouTube.

Anyone want to venture a guess as to why language developed? I'm going to claim that communication was up there on the list. Perhaps too much staring at computer code has wired me to be easily annoyed by deviation from the standard. But the communication that exists between a human programmer and a computer is the most demandingly (spell check says I made up that word) standardized interaction that comes to mind. Strongly typed programming languages - and I mean strongly typed like ADA - make this a little easier by checking at compile time that all the rules have been followed. Kind of like having an English teacher follow you around.

That doesn't happen in human language. There is no compiler... or is there? Every time someone speaks to me, or writes something that I read, my brain parses, compiles, and assembles their words (along with nonverbal cues or punctuation as appropriate). If I don't follow the same standards and use the same definitions as whoever I'm interacting with, I'm liable to misunderstand. Now imagine that they have no standard. I cannot possibly hope to understand them. At that point, language has failed its only purpose, and I gain nothing. New policy: failure to follow correct language standards (within a small margin of error) will result in being ignored since my time is too valuable to waste trying to puzzle out what "teh hizoase IZ burn!" means.

That may be a pretty severe example. I Corinthians 14:7-9 is Paul's charge to a church that they use language as it was meant to be used - for communication. Edifying others by passing on your own knowledge. (Now imagine if I'd written, "Edifying others buy passing on you're own knowledge." You have my permission to scream in rage.)

I could write many, many more pages on this, but I think you get the point.

Not a Spiritual Gift

2009-08-17T01:22:00.008+02:00

Want to share a thought...

People like to talk a lot about spiritual gifts, doing what you're good at - what God has made you good at - for the good of His kingdom.

Filling pews is not a spiritual gift.

Romans 12:6-8, I Corinthians 12:8-10, I Corinthians 12:28-30, and Ephesians 4:11 make up a pretty decent laundry list of spiritual gifts. Here's a gee-whiz table to show them off:

GIFT	NUMBER OF TIMES MENTIONED
Prophecy	4 - ⚫⚫⚫⚫
Apostleship	2 - ⚫⚫
Healing	2 - ⚫⚫
Miracles	2 - ⚫⚫
Service	2 - ⚫⚫
Teaching	2 - ⚫⚫
Tongues	2 - ⚫⚫
Administration	1 - ⚫
Evangelism	1 - ⚫
Faith	1 - ⚫
Giving	1 - ⚫
Knowledge	1 - ⚫
Leadership	1 - ⚫
Pastoring	1 - ⚫
Wisdom	1 - ⚫
Pew Filling	0 -

If you're not convinced, do some looking yourself - God doesn't want us to be pew warmers. He wants us to be actively involved in ministry, either at church or outside it or both. I Corinthians 12:11 says each believer receives a spiritual gift. So if you've received Christ, you've received a spiritual gift. I guarantee you that yours isn't "making the pastor feel better by keeping church attendance up." That's not in there.

There are a lot of spiritual gifts mentioned in the Bible - like in I Chronicles 25:1, where some King David sets aside some dudes to prophesy with musical instruments. Or Luke 10:38, where Martha (who gets a pretty bad rap for some very understandable frustration) opens her home to Jesus and the disciples. If you read the whole Bible, and talk to the believers around you, I'm sure you'll find a spiritual gift that requires more of you than sitting (somewhat) quietly for an hour on Sunday morning. If you can't think of anything, email me or leave a comment and I'll point out a few you've missed.

INAGOTABLE,
Stick

Christ

2009-08-13T01:20:00.005+02:00

Two months ago, as part of the 30 Days to a Better Man project, I posted my five core values. I've decided that they're one subject that could do with a little more explanation. So here's value number one: Christ.

"And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life."
I John 5:11-12

Want to be a man? Get a life. I'm serious. What's your purpose? What drives you? What is life all about? Even aside from Christ, I've never met a real man who didn't have a sense of purpose about him. Think about your friends who are playing video games every spare minute and don't ever do anything productive without someone standing over them. You know what I say to them? Get a life.

Want to be a real man? There's only one life worth getting, and that's the one that comes from Christ. God is the ultimate source of manhood, and His life is eternal... and He's made it available to us. There is no other way to be a real man than to follow Christ and live the will of the father. II Samuel 14:14 tells us that we're all going to die, but if you're living in Christ, John 3:16 says you have eternal life!

John 1:1-5 tells us that life has been in Christ - the Word - since "the beginning." It tells us that all we are, all we see, all that we touch and smell and taste, was created in Christ. It came into being through Christ. Colossians 1:16 tells us that not only was everything created by Him, but that it was created for Him. So if we are to live out the true purpose of our lives, we must live out Him. "To live is Christ," writes Paul in Philippians 1:21. Galatians 2:20 says, "the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God," and John 3:30 tells me, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Christ is our creator, our life, our purpose.

What do you get without Christ? Romans 3:23 tells us we all sin; Romans 6:23 tells us that because we sin we'll die. No life without Christ. John 17:3 says that eternal life is to know Christ, whom God has sent.

I won't claim to always hold true to my first value. I'm a man - read Romans 3:23 again. But I will worship Him with all my might (Matthew 22:37) and give my utmost to live according to Him (Romans 12:1).

Five Core Values: Christ, Truth, Personal Responsibility, Perseverance, Manliness

A Simple Challenge

2009-08-11T03:30:00.012+02:00

Say "God Bless" fifty times this week. And next week. And the week after....

Say it to the people who check your ID when you go into the security area at work. Say it to whoever is left in the office when you leave. Say it as a closing in your telephone conversations. Sign off from email and IM with those two words.

The only reference I have for this is Numbers 6:24-26, but I still think it's a good idea.

Oh, if you want to be really cool, say "Dios te bendiga"* if you get a good chance and then explain what it means and that you went on a cool mission trip to the Dominican Republic** and that reaching out is the duty of every Christian.

INAGOTABLE***,
Stick

*Substitute whatever language rendering of "God Bless You" is appropriate
**Substitute whatever place you were in when you used aforementioned rendering
***I get extra points for using a phrase that doesn't even mean God Bless but leads me by a meandering route around to the fact that God is AWESOME. (And also INEXHAUSTIBLE.) The point is reach out and be a talker.