Page 58 of 82

Posted on

My Re-Birthday

Yesterday was Pi day. Yet before I knew that magical, irrational number, March 14 was the day on which I was baptized. I guess I was in 5th grade back in 1999 when I made the decision to obey in faith the gospel which I had been taught.

It’s interesting to me that I could quite calmly make the biggest decision of my life as an 11 year old. But now that I have been a Christian longer than not, I look back and realize that in the last 12 years, I have sinned WAY more than in the first 11.

That brings me to this song. I have been a big Relient K fan ever since their first album. They put out a single a year or two ago that I just recently started paying attention to. It’s called “Forget and Not Slow Down.” The chorus is a great reminder of the fact that on our journey to follow God, there will be many times that we fall down, turn aside, or just lose track of where we are.

But God will always be there to “resurrect the saint within the wretch.”

“But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son continually cleanses us of all sin.” 1 John 1:7

And since I’m on the topic of baptism, here’s “Rebirthing” by Skillet. I personally think we should blast this song over the PA system whenever someone is baptized.

Posted on

Easy Green Tip of the Week

Water-Saving Shower Heads

I love a nice, steamy shower almost any time of the day. However, apartment living has basically forces us to endure small, inefficient water heaters. So a couple weeks ago, we decided to upgrade to this:

It’s the EcoFlow by WaterPik. It has several different settings, including a “Water Saving Trickle,” which actually has more pressure behind it than our old shower head. On the “trickle” setting, it sprays 2.0 gallons per minute (gpm). That’s down from 2.5 gpm with our last one.

It may not seem like that great of a difference, but over a 10 minute shower, you end up saving 5 gallons of water. Since both my wife and I take showers almost every day, that turns into a 10 gallon savings each day. This quickly adds up to 3,650 gallons of water per year! This $20 shower head should pay for itself in no time.

But if you want to save even more on your water and electric bill, there are shower heads that shoot as little as .5 gpm! I haven’t seen a detachable head with that low of a flow, but there are plenty of options out there.

In fact there are so many options available, I don’t know why you wouldn’t choose a low flow shower head! I love it when you can save some green by going green.

Posted on

In the Garden

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve probably noticed that there is a big push to “Go Green.” Environmentalism has entered into mainstream pop culture. Now with oil prices on the rise and sky-high energy prices, more and more people are jumping on the eco-train. And why not? Using less energy = saving more dollars.

What’s more, Americans are becoming more aware of the long-term environmental impact that everyday decisions can have. Global warming has become a household term and a serious concern for many people. We understand now that if we continue on the same track, there won’t be much of an earth left for our grandchildren to enjoy.

This is all good in my opinion. The only unfortunate part about this whole green revolution is that it has begun and is primarily sustained from a secular angle.

Let me explain. In response to the whole global warming issue, I’ve heard many Christians scoff, brush it off, and say that it’s all bumpkis. I’ve heard things like, “The earth can correct itself,” or, “Humans can’t destroy the earth. That’s up to God.” Then there are those who think that Jesus is going to come back and destroy the earth sometime in the next century, so it doesn’t really matter how we treat the earth.

Think about it. When was the last time you saw recycling bins in a church building?

Creation-care has not been the top priority of the church over the last couple centuries. If anything, it has been a passing thought or a footnote. But should it be that way? Should God’s people keep focusing on everything besides the environment? Or should the church be at the forefront of this environmental revolution?

I think it helps to look at God’s intended plan for His creation. In Genesis 2 we see God’s original intention for His prized creation. Just after God made man, He placed him in the Garden with a job.

“The LORD God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.”

The first job mankind ever had was tending to, working, and caring for God’s creation.

So you tell me. Does creation care matter? Can’t God just clean up the mess that humans have made of this world? Or is it up to us to take care of the earth, take responsibility for the mess we’ve created, and take measures to correct it?

From the beginning, God has left it up to us to make use of the land and tend to the land. The earth takes care of us, and we take care of it.

Posted on

High Five Thursday!

Spring is just around the corner. As we get ready to lose an hour of sleep, adjust to bipolar weather patterns, and suffer through yet another round of sinus infections…..Here’s my top five things to do in the Spring!

Top Five Things to Do in the Spring!

Grilling out

Or for you Northern folk, “barbecue-ing”. Although any true Southerner can tell you that barbecue is something you eat, not something you do. But anyway….I absolutely love firing up the grill. In my opinion, a charcoal grill sprinkled with hickory chips is the best way to cook any piece of meat. Not to mention corn, potatoes, etc. If I had the time, money, and energy for it, I would light up the coals every night from April to September.
_____________

Opening up the windows

I love it when God sends us that weather where the temperature hits that magical 72 degree mark and the clouds take a hiatus. At that moment, the thermostat is set to “Off,” all the light fixtures are off, and our apartment is bathed in sunlight and fresh air.
_____________

Busting out the sandals

When the weather is warm, I would rather wear my Chacos than any other pair of shoes. There’s just something about the freedom from socks and laces that I love so very very much. Or for dressier occasions (church and whatnot), I will dawn my Greek sandals. Whatever the case, I try my hardest not to wear shoes during warm weather months. Sandals all the way.
_____________

Gardening

Pretty much anything that gets me outside and working with my hands is an activity worth doing. I’m really enjoying working on the grounds crew at Harding. It’s getting time to see the fruits of all our labors during the winter as everything starts to bloom out and sprout up. There’s nothing better than stopping to smell the roses you took the time to prune just a couple months ago.
_____________

Walking/Running/Hiking

Going on a walk, a run, or a hike on a clear, warm Spring day relaxes me like just about nothing else. It gives me a chance to get my blood pumping and my mind thinking. Sometimes, I just clear my mind and take in the beauty in the world around me, whether on a mountain or in a neighborhood.

Posted on

Dirt

Yeah, can you believe someone actually made a movie about dirt? I started watching it the other day, but didn’t have time to finish it. The filmmakers and the interviewees shared some very interesting insights about the ground beneath our feet.

Did you catch the one guy in the trailer who said, “We are dirt”? As a matter of fact, fertile top soil contains pretty much all the building blocks of human life–carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, water, and various other elements and minerals. When any living organism dies, it is broken back down into these fundamental elements to become…dirt.

[This is where I’ll throw in this week’s eco-tip: Composting! Is simple, it’s green, and it will help replenish parched dirt or fertilize your own gardens. For some helpful ways to get started, check out these websites: howtocompost.org; composting101.com; compostguide.com]


When God made humans, Genesis 2:7 says that He formed man out of the dust of the earth. When a person is dead, they are molecularly the same as when they were alive. Yet, the moment their heart stops beating, their bodies begin the decomposition process, which turns them back into dirt. It’s really the breath that makes all the difference.


God formed the first man from the dust of the earth, and then He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Breath. It’s a simple, unconscious action that we take for granted. We can live without water for a few days and without food for a few weeks. Yet we can only live a few minutes without breath. That breath you just took is the most essential thing we take into our bodies.


Okay….duh? So what’s the point?


In nearly every ancient language, be it Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, etc., the word for breath is the same word for spirit. English has two different words – spirit and breath. Yet to ancient peoples, spirit and breath were the same. When a person died, their spirit and their breath had departed from them. We think of it as a double meaning, yet to them, it was the same. It is the spirit that sustains life. Our physical bodies cannot survive apart from our spirits.


So what is it that separates us from dirt? Our spirits. The breath we just took is a taste of the divine, it is a gift from God. It is a physical manifestation of our spiritual reality. Apart from God’s Spirit, we have no true life in our bodies. The same held true in the valley of dry bones found in Ezekiel 37. And again, the same language is used in Acts 2 when the Spirit of God fills the room like a violent wind.


Breath is essential for our bodies to survive. But it is just as essential that our lives be filled with the breath of God. If not, then “all we are is dust in the wind.”

Posted on

Jesus Knows Me

I saw this wooden wall plaque on Etsy. I think it is so cool. We talk all the time about how Jesus loves us, but it seems so philosophical. This twist of the familiar children’s song reminds me that to be loved is to be known.

Jesus knows me personally, intimately. And I love that.

Posted on

High Five Thursday!

Interesting turn this week. Here is my list of my

Top 5 Not-So-Preachable Bible Verses

WARNING: Reader discretion may be advised.

Genesis 1:29-30
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Wait…so, every animal was originally created to be strictly vegetarian? Apparently so. I guess this means that in God’s original design, humans were not encouraged to eat steak, hamburgers, or chicken nuggets. I suppose this also applied to lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

A world in which every creature is vegetarian, thus eliminating the need to kill any other living being. Try preaching that right before the monthly pot-luck!

Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Angels came down to earth, had sex with human women, and those women gave birth to what some interpret as “giants”?? Some even go so far as to say that Goliath descended from these Nephilim. I challenge you to try and find a way to preach this verse without sounding completely off your rocker.

Exodus 4:24-25
At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said.

First of all, why would God set out to kill Moses, whom He just commissioned to lead His people out of Egypt? Secondly….eww? Of all the severed body parts to have pressed against my foot….gosh.

Judges 19:29
When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.

This just sounds like straight up inspiration for a horror flick. The priest lets his mistress get gang raped, and then he hacks her into pieces, inciting an all out civil war. Yes, folks. This is in the Bible.

Ruth 3:8-9
In the middle of the night something startled the man; he turned—and there was a woman lying at his feet!
    “Who are you?” [Boaz] asked.
   “I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.

To be honest, I have heard lessons on Ruth before. But for the most part, the preachers/teachers try to skirt around the issue. But I think any average reader would automatically assume the implications of “lying at his feet” and “spread your garment over me.” Well, whatever Ruth was trying to do, I definitely did not get this type of dating advice from any trusted Christian source….
Posted on

Imago Dei, part 2

There is so much more to this thing about “being made in God’s image” than I really want to take time to discuss. All I want to do is share some thoughts from a few different angles.

Found this picture. Had to add it. 😀

Last time we looked at the job that God intends for his image bearers to carry out – tending to, caring for, and ruling over the rest of creation. This is the first and foremost responsibility given to human beings. That word “responsibility” will come into play several more times.

So here are some more thoughts on the Imago Dei. I’ll try and keep it brief.

1. All humans are created in God’s image. That’s right. All humans bear His image – male and female; red, yellow, black, and white; rich and poor; slave and free; alcoholics, homosexuals, and devout Christians. We have a tendency to place people into various categories when we encounter those different from ourselves. We see a middle-aged, black female who is a single mother living on welfare. Judgments are made, and stereotypes are created.

But when we let the truth of Imago Dei really sink in and take root in our own lives, we will begin to see everyone around us as fellow image-bearers. Prejudice and discrimination have no chance to manifest themselves. Hatred, bigotry, and oppression cease completely. Everyone is made in the image of the same Creator, and that Creator loves each one of us.

2. The image has been tainted. Each one of us has vandalized the very image of the One who created us. Although we have been given this great privilege, we have thrown it back in His face. We think things like, We never asked for this! We never wanted to live up to the standard which God has set for us! It’s not fair. It’s too much responsibility. I just want to live my life the way that seems best to me.

And we just go our own way, minding our own business, not giving a second thought to the honor bestowed upon us.

This type of thinking then leads to a radically individualistic mindset. The product of which is the type of justification for sin that we see all around us. Lady Gaga even puts the justification to song and dance with her new hit “Born This Way.” If we reject the image of God for our own image, then we have no responsibility other than to ourselves. It comes quite naturally, then, that we were hardwired from birth to make certain decisions with our lives: be it alcoholism, drug addiction, habitual lying, homosexuality, or any number of lifestyles which are considered sinful in Scripture.

3. The image can be restored. God has taken it upon himself to provide a way for his tainted image to be made clear again. He did this by coming down to earth as a man, living from birth to death as one of his own imagers. He showed us what it meant to be human, to be the image of God in this world – and we killed him for it.

Yet, through his resurrection from the dead, we, too, can have true life once again. By his blood, we are made clean. By his wounds, we are healed. By his sacrifice, humanity can be set right again, and we can all get back to bearing proudly the image of the One who made us and then re-made us.

Posted on

Imago Dei, part 1

Why are we here?

This is a fundamental worldview question with which mankind has wrestled since the beginning. Although we ourselves are mammals, and although we share many similar qualities with certain other mammals, when I look around, I can tell there is something unique about human beings. I have heard people say that the only characteristic separating us from the rest of the animal kingdom is our intelligence. Yet there are animals that are extremely intelligent and community oriented, just like us. (And according to others, humans are only the third smartest race on the planet…)

So what is it that really separates man from beast? I believe the answer to this question is also the answer to the original question: the Imago Dei, or the Image of God for you non-Latin speakers.

It is true that humanity is closely linked with the rest of the animal kingdom. Mammals and humans were created on the same day. Genesis 1:20 even says that all the animals have the “breath of life” in them – the same breath given to Adam.

The real difference comes when God says, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.”

Ok, so humans made in the image of the Creator. This is something new, something special. God actually stepped back for a moment, looked at all He had created, and decided to create beings to bear his image to the rest of creation. Well, why?

Apparently, being one of God’s mini-me’s comes with a job description: “They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground”…Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

I chose the New Living Translation for this passage. Unfortunately, the job description/blessing given in these verses has been misinterpreted and abused. People used to understand “rule over/have dominion over” as permission to do with the earth and the animals as we saw fit…and we see how well that worked out. The world is not ours to do with as we please. As the NLT puts it, we are to reign over and govern the rest of creation.

Think of it as a prime minister/ambassador/vassal king position. We are ruling, watching over, and tending to that which ultimately belongs to someone else. We have been given the charge to participate with the Creator in the creative process by tending to, caring for, and governing the rest of creation.

There are other aspects to the Imago Dei which I will explore later, but first I wanted to address the most obvious side of the image of God. Each and every one of us continues to bear the image of the Creator to the rest of creation. Are we making every effort to live up to that image? 
Or are we living as though we have no responsibility to the world around us? Are we healing or destroying? Are we creating or killing? Are we caring or exploiting?

In every aspect of our lives, we should be striving to bear proudly the image of the One who lovingly created it all.

Posted on

Easy Green Tip of the Week

Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs)


Over the past couple years, we have been switching out every single incandescent light bulb for the newer, more efficient CFL bulbs. While they do cost a bit more on the front end, the savings in your wallet and in the environment are huge over the long run.


Think about it. A 13 watt CFL produces the same (if not more) light as a 60 watt incandescent. By using 4 CFLs, we are still using less energy than 1 incandescent (13×4=52 watts).



In our apartment right now, we have 16 CFLs between 10 and 13 watts each. That means we are using roughly 200 watts to light up most of our apartment. With traditional bulbs, we would be using 960 watts!


According to cflbulbs.com:

Replacing a 75-watt incandescent bulb with a 20-watt CFL will reduce your consumption of electricity by roughly 550 kilowatt-hours — over the life of that bulb. In relation to a coal-fired power plant, this amounts to nearly 500 pounds of coal (about the size of a couple garbage cans) that didn’t need to be burned to power your bulb. That reduction translates to 1,300 pounds LESS carbon dioxide and 20 pounds LESS sulfur dioxide released into our atmosphere. This is one bulb. Multiply this by all the bulbs in your home, then by all the homes in your neighborhood — think of the savings. You’ll see how small, easy changes, can make a huge difference in the future of our planet.



Hesitant to make the switch? Well, the government is actually following in the footsteps of many European countries by phasing out the production and sales of incandescent light bulbs.


http://eplayer.clipsyndicate.com/cs_api/get_swf/3/&pl_id=20010&wpid=9604&page_count=5&tags=CCTVI_NEWS_LINKS&windows=1&va_id=2200652&show_title=0&auto_start=0&auto_next=1


It is important to remember that CFLs are not the savior here. Really, they are just a stepping stone towards the LED bulbs which are even more efficient. LED bulbs can produce the same amount of light on just 2.5 watts! There are still some kinks to be worked out, and they are still extremely pricey (between $20-40 per bulb). But they contain no mercury (one drawback to the CFLs), and they can last for nearly 25 years!


As soon as they come down a bit in price, you can bet we’ll be switching over to LED. But for now, we can do our part by waving good-bye to this Edison-era relic.