We all entered the highway off of very curvy, unkept, and dangerous roads bound for destruction.

Sometimes I think we believe that the highway will be smooth sailing- that we can just turn on the cruise control, listen to some good music, pass all the best landmarks, and enjoy our air-conditioned, leather-seated luxury car.

For those of us who don’t get trapped in delusion, we know nothing can be further from the truth!

Often times the highway can be filled with accidents and road work, making for delays and causing us to learn to be patient.

There are consistantly exit signs promising cheap gas, delicous food, and exciting adventures tempting us to pull of the highway- just temporarily.

We do have to stay the course, pay attention to the road signs, and learn to drive patiently for our home exit is straight in front of us.

Some of us know these things all too well and we stay in the middle lane on the highway all the way home. But when we do only that, we’re missing something all together. In fact, it’s possible that we were never on the highway home to begin with.

Because on this straight highway that leads us home there are exits, not the exits we are to avoid, but exits that we have been called to take. These exits are usually dark and appear to have very little to offer. But they’re the exits that God has prepared for us to take since before the highway was ever constructed.

These exits have millions of drivers with cars who are desparate to get home. They just need someone to pull of the highway and show them the easy entrance on to it so they can begin their journey home.

If there were no drivers off of these exits who needed direction, the highway would have been much shorter and we already would have been home. You see, taking these exits are not really an option, they are part of this straight highway that lies in front of us. And once you have given directions to these lost drivers off of the dark exits, it’s easy to pull right back on to the highway until you find your next exit, and eventually reach home.

But despite all of the great things available for man to enjoy, and even the deceptively good evil things people still hunger something else all together.

That’s where the Word of God comes in. For something that the world thinks is fairy tale and irrelevant, it’s always amazing to see itself prove true that it will not return void and that is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword!

People are hungry for the Word of God. When someone encounters it, despite their religious background, I believe it cuts right through their heart and reveals itself as Truth. I’ve seen it happen, someone who wants nothing to do with the God of the Bible, once they encounter it are drawn irresistably into relationship with Him.

Salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of God.

And when I stand up to preach and teach the Word of God with passion and humility it is always amazing to see people’s hunger (sometimes one they didn’t even know they had) fulfilled. It amazing to see their eyes opened and to see them absorb God’s Truth into their hearts more exitedly than the would the greatest movie or the most beautiful song.

People are hungry for the Word of God. We as Christians, particularly those of us with the spiritual gift of teaching, must find a way to engage them with the Gospel…and God will do the rest.

There’s nothing we can do to ‘not sin’. We can wear all sorts of masks to make it look like we’ve got everything figured out and put together, but behind the mask we’re still just a sinner bound for an eternal hell.

We can join a religion, work hard, read good books, and do lots of good things but those things will never forgive us of our sins or change the fact that we are sinners.

Our only hope in being acquitted is the just judge who created us and set the rules to begin with. But because He is just, there must be punishment for sin. Because He is holy and blameless those who are sinners cannot dwell in His presence.

So out of His great love for us He sent His Son to live the sinless life that we could never live and to take on the punishment that we deserved to be given: the wrath of God poured out on Him for all the sins of man.

Because Jesus, His Son, took our punishment, we stand forgiven of our sins if we claim and trust in His finished work on our behalf. We no longer are seen as sinners by God. When we have been saved by Jesus. When God looks at us, He sees the righteousness of Christ because that’s what we have been given.

So without Jesus, we go to hell for what we DO. But with Jesus we go to heaven (to eternal relationship with God) for what He DID.

We never go to heaven because of what we do or do not do, it will always be because of what Jesus already did for us.

As a Christian, throughout my life I’ve been taught from time to time (directly or implied) that even if you have been saved, that if you die while in the act of sinning, that you will go to hell. For example, a Christian hits his thumb with a hammer and mutters “dam it” under His breath. Then at that exact moment he has a heart attack and dies, because of saying a ‘cuss word’ at the time of his death he will ‘go to hell’.

This is silly because just as there’s nothing we can DO to get into heaven, because Jesus already DID all that needs to be done, once we trust in His finished work and submit our lives to Him, there’s nothing we can DO to keep us out of heaven.

That being said, as Christians, we don’t have the liberty to sin against God whenever we want because there’s nothing we can DO to keep us out of heaven. Because one who sins whenever and however they feel like it with no concern for Christ’s work on the cross, does not understand the sacrifice and grace of Christ, has not had their life changed by Christ, and according to the ‘fruit’ of their life is not saved by Jesus from hell to begin with!

The purpose of all these seemingly random thoughts? You can’t save yourself! Being a nice guy, loving your family, and believing in God will not save you- ever. The only thing that can save you from the punishment and consequence of what you have done is Jesus Christ’s sinless life, His death for your sins, and His resurrection from the dead. So stop talking about what a good guy you or someone else is because it’s just not true. You are a sinner whose every intention is evil and who is bound for hell without the grace, love, and hope of Jesus!

You must turn from your evil ways and turn to Jesus as the author and the perfector of your faith. And once you have recieved the free gift of salvation from Christ He will change you and you will not want to take advantage of His grace by continually sinning against Him.

Will you still stumble and fail as a Christian? Yes because you still reside in a body ravished by sin. But if you deliberately live a continual lifestyle of sin as if Christ never died for you, you don’t have a sin problem, you have a salvation problem.

2. What you do in life impacts others and changes the world.
You make a difference in the lives of those around you, for the good or the bad. Your choices impact everyone, especially those closest to you. If you think you’re only hurting yourself when you do stupid things, you’re wrong. Because of your birth, the world will never be the same. And because of your death, the world will never be the same.

3. When we cry and mourn at a funeral, we’re not only feeling bad for the one who died and their family, we’re also coming to grips with our own mortality and the mortality of those closest to us. That causes us to mourn even more, and for people (including ourselves) who haven’t even died yet.

4. It can and does happen to you.
Often when thinking of tragedy, people think or say things like,” that could never happen to me.” The death of a friend or a loved one shows that it will. You’re terminal. Surprise! You’re going to die!

5. You could die one second after reading this post.
We, and those we love, are never promised tomorrow. We have to live this day as if it was our last.

6. Without Jesus, you’re going to hell!
Whether you want to believe this or not, I think everyone comes to understand this in some rudimentary way while going through the death of a loved one.

7. Times of tragedy, adversity, and great sadness bring frineds and family close together, but if not intentionally managed can drive families apart after the event.

8. No one grieves the same- period. Don’t judge people according to their emotions or actions shown while grieving.

9. Sharing (publically at a funeral) is just as much about you and the people there as it is the person who died.

10. The physical is temporary.
While looking at a loved one’s dead body, it becomes immediately obvious that (the body) is not the person you knew so well- that the thing (the person’s body) we associated with that person most of all, was only a shell for the living being they truley are. You realize that death is not the end, or the beginning, just a part of life.

I will work hard to stay in shape-
I feel bad for people who completely neglect their bodies. Some people have so much extra weight that they look almost inhuman- especially when their body’s exposed by a swimsuit. It’s sad to see people so unhealthy and so prohibited by the amount of fat they carry around.

On the flipside of that last statement; I learned that losing lots of weight makes swimming a much colder and a much less-boyant experience!

Body hair just really never looks good-
I know this from experience. I have a lot of it. And I’m not ashamed to say that I shave it off. I look much better that way. However, I have learned the purpose for body hair: it really keeps you a lot warmer.

99.95% of people look better with their clothes on. Swimsuit, underwear, lingerie, or naked- most people just look more attractive with some clothes covering some things up. This goes for highly attractive men and women just as equally with the not so attractive men and women. The airbrushed perfectly sculpted/posed bikini models probably don’t look as good when they’re not in front of a camera either.

99.95% of women look better with makeup. Sorry girls, it’s true- REALLY true. What’s strange is that it was men who originally wore makeup. I wonder if people thought they looked better with it than without back then.

And finally, for now; if you’re going to charge $19 for an all-you-can eat buffet, it better be dang good! If Izzy’s can serve a bomb buffet for $11, anyone else can for $19.

Customers come in to Starbuck’s to have intimate conversations, read, play games, conduct meetings, study, relax, work…and oh yeah, drink coffee.

Starbuck’s has somehow created an atmosphere where people feel comfortable, safe, and at home. I’ve heard people have very intense personal conversations and conduct very serious business meetings all while at Starbuck’s with strangers sitting all around them. How does Starbuck’s pull this off at a coffee shop when some people can’t even pull that off in their own home?

And while I don’t have the answers, I want to know how this could be implemented at a church. I would love to see the Church (its buildings and its people) become neighborhood community centers.

Imagine people swarming to a church to have serious conversations, conduct business, meet new people, listen to music, study, write, and play games with others from their community regardless of the religious or spiritual differences. Yeah, there could be coffee too.

But coffee is not the common thread in the Starbuck’s experience. In fact, I’m not really even sure what is.

The thing the Church would have as the common thread would be the grace, love, and hope of Jesus. People would come in for the same reasons people come in to Starbuck’s: community. But people would hopefully come out having experienced Jesus in some way- just as someone cannot come out of Starbuck’s without experiencing coffee in some way.

The only hurdle for the Church to jump over is the Church. People are happy to come in to Starbuck’s under the banner of coffee, but people at usually not happy to come into the Church under the banner of Jesus because the Church has done such a poor job of being His Body and representing Him well.

So let us dream up ways for the Church to become a neighborhood community center just as Starbuck’s has. Let us think of new and exciting ways for the community to feel comfortable walking into our doors so that they can encounter Jesus.

Do I have the answers? No. But I can dream.

I spent approxately 24 hours of time preparing the message and several more hours studying and tweaking what I had prepared.

I was ready to give the message, but on the way to church God said, “no.”

But I didn’t know what to speak on if wasn’t going to speak on what I had prepared.

So God miraculously led me to speak on the story of Naaman and Elisha in the book of 2 Kings.

The main point of the message was that God is always in control and doesn’t always show up like we expect Him to. The application of the message was to search for God in monotony of life, because it is often there where we find Him. It’s not always in the biggest church, the most radical revival, or the most supernatural miracle; it’s often in the drive to work, the chair at school, or on the bottom of your bathtub.

And even though I didn’t want to change my message, I believe very strongly that God met His people who were there and spoke through His Word.

Where will you see God show up this week?

I went to be there for this family. I had no words to say. All I had was the Holy Spirit living within me. That’s always more than enough.

It is a wretched horrible things to witness the tradgedy of death as a family mourns their loved one.

It is inconcievable for man to have to bury his own child. It is not the way things should be.

I was strong. I don’t let things like this effect me too much when interacting with survivors.

But it is draining emotinally, physically, and spiritually beyond belief. And I’m just a distant freind. The family goes through a warzone as they grieve and mourn their loss.

When I returned home, I lifted my son out of his sleep and held him tightly as if he belonged to me and that I could protect him from the evils of this world. And I prayed.

But as I awoke this morning I realized that I did not want to wake at all. It was pouring down rain outside. The sky was dark. And the world’s darkness showed us ugly face the night before. I did not want to face this world.

Today was running day- Uuugh!

My body ached and told me not to go, that it wasn’t worth it. But as an act of reluctant worship to my body’s Creator, I did it. And it hurt!

Never has a run been so hard for me. Joints that never hurt every other day as I run this same path were throbbing in pain. The rain and the wind seemed to curse down on me especially hard.

Oh my hip! Something was wrong. Every ounce of my being screamed at me to STOP!

That’s what death will do to you, tell you to give up and to throw in the towel.

But deep down within my soul, the Spirit of God reminded me that this life is not about death, pain, and destruction. He reminded me that I have been called to be light in dark places on His behalf. He reminded me that life was a gift and that I needed to live it.

So as my hip grabbed and lunged at my mind I screamed, out loud, “I WILL NOT STOP!”

I didn’t care who heard me. This wasn’t about me choosing not to stop a rum. This was about me choosing to live and to ‘be right here, right now, present in this time and place.”

I was literally running and death wanted me to stop. But this is a race. And at the finish line is such a glorious prize for my Savior and I.

You see, “Stopping…is NOT an option.”

But the Lord is the One Who gives.
The Lord is the One Who Takes away.
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

And at the end of the day, we have fallen short.
This is how it will end for almost every last one of us.
We all take a last breath.
We all experience one final beat of the heart.
We all have one last synapse fire through our brain.
We are all returned to the ground.
We all know death all to well because it lives right next door.
And someday were moving into that house.

But death is not the end.
The One who took is from the dust and returned us to it will enact justice on all.
So don’t tell me that life is not fair because all die for our transgressions.

Life is better than fair because the One who took us from the dust became dust Himself.
He did not turn away from the Master plan.
He became our sin.
He bore all of the justice and wrath on Himself.
He returned to dust.
The dust could not hold Him down because what happened to Him was not fair.

He rose from the dust a second time.
If we trust in Him,
That He has everything in control,
That His death made us right with Him,
That through His resurrection we can live again-
Forever.

Because Death is Not the End.

One day you will slip fatefully into the dark.
It will be fair, righteous, and just…
…Even though it feels like anything but.

Today is the day of salvation.
Have you called upon the Name of the Lord?

Almost all scientists agree that our overall avergae global temperature is rising and that polar ice caps are melting at alarming rates, but many die-hard anti-global-warming advocates even deny the facts.

For the most part, the argument is not really about ‘whether or not’ the globe is warming, as much as it is about ‘why’ the globe is warming.

Global warming proponents mostly agree that the main reason our temperatures are rising is because of increasing carbon emissions by power hungry mankind.

While global warming opponents, who believe that the earth is indeed warming, mostly believe that the warming temperatures are a result of natural warming and cooling cycles that the planet goes through every several thousand years.

Warming opponents who see the trend as being caused by natural cycles tend to scoff at any attempt to reduce carbon emissions because they think we have no control over it.

All the arguments aside; there’s other huge issues that the global warming opponents are basically ignoring all together- Pollution! Stewardship! Conservation!

Whether or not our pollution causes global warming is not the only issue at hand. I enjoy living in a clean world with clean air and clean water. A polluted world leads to tremendous health problems and dramatically decreases the natural beauty of the world around us!

Even if logging, and drilling, and damming don’t cause global warming; we still have to be good stewards of the creation God has given to us.

Over-logging causes erosion and dirty water, not to mention countless other problems.

If drilling doesn’t cause warming, it does up the risk of an oil spill which ruins water quality and only adds to our expensive oil-based economy and smog that can cause major breathing problems and even death.

Even if damming doesn’t contribute to global warming; it destroys the beautiful natural flows of our rivers, along with land both up and downstream of the structure, and can have huge effects on the fishing industry of a local economy.

With a few of the issues associated with pollution and stewardship mentioned, one of the biggest issues being ignored by warming opponents is Conservation.

Our pollution, our logging, our drilling, our damming, our urban sprawl, our farming, and our fishing, if not extremely mindful of the natural cycles of nature, will radically reduce the habitat of our animals and/or will cause health problems with them or their food sources.

We only get one chance with the animals God has made us vassals of. Once they’re extinct, they’re gone forever. It is our pleasure to watch and care for these God-created creatures, why would we want to lose any of them? Most of these creatures have been here (on earth or in the areas we live) much longer than us, what makes us think that they’re lives or not valuable and that these creatures don’t have the capacity to feel and the will to survive?

So the biggest issue I have with the right-wing anti global warming crowd is that they’re not thinking of the future; particularly the future that our children will inherit. Why should we care about what benefits us and makes our lives more convenient if it’s at the cost of our offspring’s future?

The patriarchs of the Old Testament lived for their promises to be fulfilled through their descendants, nut we’re to greedy to even look a few years into the future.

I want children and my grandchildren to inherit a clean world with innovative power solutions and the opportunity to witness wildlife while it is still alive and well.

I choose to look to the future. And however this whole ‘new heaven and new earth’ thing pan out, God’s mandate for us to be good stewards of this unique planet hasn’t changed; and certainly His love and affection for life of all kinds has not either- afterall, His eye is on the sparrow.