Sermons and What Not

Thursday April 11, 2013     12:29am        God's forgiveness, where do we even start to describe the mercy God has for us as sinners. i guess the best place to start would be in Genesis. We can all recount the story of the fall of human kind, but can we see God's forgiveness in it? The first thing that we learn in our Bible classes is that God's redemption plan was started the moment of the fall. As we see God does not leave His creation alone, He seeks out Adam and Eve, He doesn't abandon them despite having the knowledge of what they had done. When God finds them He has to punish them by removing them from His presence, but He doesn't just leave them to fend for themselves He gives them clothes made from animal skin, what a lot of people would consider the first sacrifice for sins, and He puts angels to guard the way to Garden. That verse in itself is interesting. I have been told by people a lot smarter than me that the phrase literally means to keep t...

Saturday March 2, 2013     5:05pm             Here recently i have been very discontent with my current situation. Long have i been trying to find the source of the issue. i thought it could be my work load, so i started taking less classes and working a little less. It didn't help out. Maybe it was my friend group, so i started hanging out with some different people. That didn't help either. i got lots of new friends, but still found that something still didn't feel right. Perhaps it was my attitude, so worked on changing my attitude. Although it's helped me to understand things in a new light, it didn't help my discontentment. Maybe it was my teachers, so i started listening more and thinking more about what they had to say. Turns out i don't agree with them as much as i used to, but i still feel out of place.             What was going on? i had change everything i could, i changed my friends, i changed my men...

Tuesday 02/26/13      11:17 pm            Well when i got ready to post today i wasn't sure what to talk about so i asked a floor mate. He stated that i should perhaps talk about the advent of goldfish, however i think i will talk about a spike in certain types of discussions i've seen here recently. Over this past weekend a Facebook page has opened up. It was a confessions page, this page allows students of my school to post "confessions" to a Facebook page anonymously. The ability to be anonymous makes people really open about their feelings, and this page has been a breeding ground for this very idea.             Before you start thinking i'm trying to dog on the Facebook page i'm not trying to do anything like that. In fact i like the page, i think its a great opportunity for students to post their issues. This page has brought to light many issues that i honestly did not know we had much of on campus. So ...

Monday February 25, 2013           7:25pm         Well it's been a while since i last posted, but i'm back now. Over the past ten or so days since my last post i've seen and experienced quite a few things. First off i made it known to my church that i'm going to follow God's call to preach in some way or form. Basically i'm just going to try to follow God where He leads me. Secondly i was told that i could go to a certain school for free. This got me to thinking a lot. Here recently school has become more of a hassle than a joy. i'm not sure if this is because i just don't like school, which wouldn't be abnormal for me, or if there's something bigger at play.          Knowing that i could be going elsewhere without paying has caused me to really step back and readjust my view on my current situation. The school i could be going to is actually somewhere i have attended for a short time and i ran into a few doctrinal...

February 14, 2013 12:45am           First off, happy Valentine's Day everyone! Secondly comes the main topic, on a day like today when love is being emphasized everywhere, what does love really mean and what all does it entail? i may say i love my mom (which i do) and i might also make the statement that i love that pizza i just polished off. For us to use the word love in such ways really begs the question what does love really mean?           In the New Testament there are a few different Greek words that are translated as love. These are eros, philos, mania, storgy, and agape. Mania is the word more for obsession than anything else, eros is the emotional love, stodgy is the love one has for a family member (motherly love), philos is of course brotherly love, and agape is unconditional love. Sadly we only have one word in English to describe our feelings towards people and things. So sometimes we use adjectives to help. We may say "...

February 6, 2013 6:55 pm           As i look back over my life the one thing that sticks out the most is how fast it has went by. i may still be young (turning 21 at the end of the month), but what i have experienced seems to have happened in the blink of an eye. i'm around a quarter way through my life and people say that it's only go by faster from here. Honestly that scares the daylight out of me. It already seems like i haven't really done much yet and now with this crossroads in front of me i'm ready to start doing something. i'm ready to make the most of my life, but i feel held back. How do i feel held back? Currently it's school, age, and mindset.         School seems to be a big factor in my life currently. i'm on my junior year of the worship arts and youth ministry degree at my school. i'm so close to being done and yet i feel like i should be doing things right now. Part of me thinks i'm already prepared and for what i'm really...

Feb 3, 2013 11:08 pm         To start off i will admit i was partially rooting for the Ravens to win. Really the only reason i was going for them was because the 49ers are from San Francisco and that's where the Giants (MLB) are from, and after they beat the Rangers in the playoffs. So i've just decided that nothing good can come from sports in San Francisco. i say "sports" from San Francisco instead of "everything" because i like the band Train. You might be asking what this has to do with where the blog is going and the truth is that it really has nothing to do with it.         So, now to actually begin. i would like to pose a question. Why are we so enthralled by sports? It could be that we live vicariously through the athletes we have come to know and love. Maybe it's because we were raised up around it. Perhaps it's because a person who is playing is a personal friend. It could be a number of things, in fact i can relate to all those reaso...

Feb 2, 2013 11:08 pm         In today's America the view has been extremely shifted from one side of the spectrum to the other. We have gone back and forth in our values with no signs of ever stopping, but now we have the chance of a lifetime to make an amazing breakthrough.         American culture began during the Enlightenment era where people had began to "see" that the world could be explained through science instead of having to rely on the mysticism of the former generation. As people began to view their world as explainable, Christianity had to change its tactics in reaching the lost. Christianity was the major driving force of the previous generations, but now science had begun to take Christianity's place as authority. During this time frame Christianity began to put aside the mystery of God and tried to rely more on scientifically proving the Bible.          As Christianity is trying to prefect its tactics i...