A Superhero for Me

The other day I was flipping through the TV channels and came across the ending of the first Ironman. The movie had kinda slipped my mind but I remembered how much I enjoyed it. Actually, it reminded me how much I enjoy any movie about superheroes. It seems to me that most of the public enjoys movies about people who can perform acts that defy nature and go around saving people from imminent danger.

 

Ironman: party boy turned hero

Ironman, a classic story of how the unlikeliest person, a party animal with an id the size of the Chrysler building, could turn into a man who’s goal is to defend the helpless. The reason I love the story of Ironman is because he was one of those people we all read about. Someone who never thinks of others, someone who everyone basically hated because he never did anything good. Then, through an incident that involved Tony Stark (a.k.a. Ironman) being captured by a group of terrorists, he realized that life is not just about girls and money. That we need to stand up for the things we believe in, protect the ones we love, fight against the forces of evil.

 

Superman: protector of the weak and the innocent

Without a doubt everyone has heard of Superman. The classic superhero can withstand mighty temperatures, bullets, explosions. This amazing protector of the weak and innocent does not seek to earn praise, he instead chooses a humble life as a reporter named Clark Kent, however his actions as a superhero are loved by about all. He can fly, lift buildings, can burn or freeze anything, and most importantly of all is invincible. Well, he’s almost invincible. Though this man of steel can withstand a nuclear blast he is weakened just in the presence of Kryptonite. To humans this rock is completely harmless, yet it is deadly to this hero of the innocent. I love the story of Superman because he can do just about anything, yet he does have a weakness. It’s such a classic reminder of how we need to protect the innocent even though our weaknesses are out there.

Heroes: They can surround us every day

Now on to a show very few people have probably seen, Heroes. One of my favorites, this show highlights the lives of ordinary citizens who discover they have special abilities. None of the characters would seem the superhero type, they’re just ordinary citizens. Whether it’s a newly discovered ability to teleport and freeze time, the realization you can now fly, turn invisible, shoot bursts of radiation, and bolts of electricity all because you can absorb the powers of others. The knowledge that you can regenerate and heal yourself, or that you can paint the future. This story tells the hidden lives and conflicts all of these people have due to their powers. I love this story because it shows that a hero can come from anywhere. A citizen passing on the street, while probably not able to fly, can easily help another in need.

 

This is by no means complete, but such a list would be extremely long after you get through:

Spider Man, Superman, Batman, Hulk, Magneto, Storm, Flash, Wolverine, Thor, Captain America, etc…

There’s simply too many. These I’ve shown are some of my favorites and the reasons for them.

 

Ciao!

Nick

A Friendly Sort of Love

I know I haven’t posted on here in forever and you’ll have to wait a bit longer, because I know all of you are just dying to read my blog…. Yeah. Anyway I’m stealing (with permission of course) some words from a friend. The following is written by Aspen, whom you all may or may not know, and is very good in my opinion on having a friendly type of love.

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I love photography, almost as much as I love burritos. Some of my guy friends love football, others baseball. My girl friends say they love dancing, others love singing. Love. It’s an interesting word, isn’t it? It can be used to measure how much you like your favorite food or how much you care about another person. I love your shirt, but I also love my parents? The English word ‘Love’ is so over-used that we often forget its original meaning and intent. Some dictionaries define love as, “an intense feeling or emotion”. This, however, is extremely vague.  Love should be characterized, not only by feelings, but by actions that meet the needs of another. Several of my friends, that are close to me in age, are in dating relationships. On Facebook, and in person, I often hear them tell their significant other, “I love you.” To the teens of today that are in relationships, ‘Love’ is often described as holding hands, going out on dates, Valentine’s day and even kissing. This is a distortion of love. Don’t get me wrong, these actions result from love, but are not love themselves. Today, we’ll be taking a deeper look into what it means to love someone. We’ll first look at today’s culture and see their definition of love. Then, we’ll look to how love should be defined and how we can apply the new definition to our own lives.

Let’s start by examining the problem. Our culture defines love as self-fulfillment, or satisfying ones personal desires, “Making me ‘feel good’”. A widespread epidemic that has rooted itself deeply in our society is dating. People from ages 12 years old and on play this dating game. It’s the next step from, “I like you and you like me . . . so now what?”.  Although dating is what we see often today, lets trace the initial reasoning behind dating. Ultimately, putting yourself first leads to dating and thinking you’ve “Fallen in Love”. Hoping, wishing or praying that somehow someone will love you, too, so that you can feel good. By staking a claim on a person by calling them your boyfriend or girlfriend, makes you feel good because you have a sense of ownership in a way. They are yours and therefore you are entitled to their love. In the end, people usually date because they are tyring to fill a selfish desire.

Granted, there are those who date or court purely to see if something could work. Today’s youth, however, date mainly to make themselves ‘feel good’ or satisfy some personal desire. Whether it’s an insecurity issue or some other negative experience, teens that are in dating relationships rely on the other person to increase the quality of their life. Music and movies and the media as a whole, are great examples of these traits. One of the most famous Pop artists of this decade is the idolized, Taylor Swift. One of her most famous songs, You Belong With Me, came in at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2008. This catchy, semi-country song, tells the story of a young girl and her nameless male friend. As the song title indicates, the girl singing believes that he not only isn’t a good fit for the girl he’s dating, but that he, “Belongs With Me”. Don’t misunderstand me, I like Taylor Swift, but what exactly are her songs, and other artists’ songs, promoting? In this specific song, the young girl is not thinking about what could best for her friend, but she wants to satisfy some personal desire. At the end of the music video, the two friends meet on the dance floor of their High School’s prom and realize that they love each other.  Cute, isn’t it? Unfortunately, none of us live in Swift’s perfect world and we must come to the realization that love should never be selfish. There are plenty of other songs, that I’m sure we can all think of, that support the idea of doing anything to make yourself feel good. Today’s culture defines love as something to make you feel good or to satisfy some personal desires. Many teens today are looking for something to make them feel good or to satisfy some personal desire. This something is dating. The harm in dating comes from the most likely outcome: breaking up. This leaves the two broken and relationships damaged forever. This is not the way we were intended to love at all. As Christians, we are called to treat everyone like a brother or sister and dating completely undermines this.

So if we’re not going to date, how can we love our brothers and sisters? Before we address this important question, we must ask ourselves, who are our brothers and sisters? The answer to this is simple. Everyone. We should treat our friends, co-workers and neighbors as brothers and sisters. But how can we possibly love these people without the romantic aspect? Granted, there are people we can easily love without romance, especially if we’re related to them. But I want to encourage my generation to consider this question seriously. How do we love people our age without the risk of romance or people “getting the wrong idea”? In the Bible, the book, Song of Songs is nicknamed, “The Love Book”. It talks all about the relationship between a man and a woman. Not only the romantic side of that relationship either The Bible was not written in English, but in Hebrew and in Song of Songs three Hebrew words are given for the one English word: love.

Raya, Ahava, and Dod, are three words translated into English from the original Hebrew text. Raya is the companion love, or friendly, brotherly love. Ahava is deep affection or commitment. The final word for love is Dod, or “Passion”. Rob Bell, author of the Nooma Video Series, describes Raya as, “Raya would be translated, literally, as ‘friend,’ or a ‘companion’ – somebody you hang out with.” Today, we’re going to put Ahava and Dod aside, focus on the Raya-love, or the companion-love. Earlier I asked the question, how can we love people without the romantic aspect? The first step is to force our minds to consider everyone as a brother or sister. Like I mentioned earlier, dating is a hot topic among my peers, and I want to encourage them not only to save their heart for the future but to protect themselves aswell. We’ve seen that today, love’s definition is satisfying some personal desire. I’d now like to present a definition that surpasses the satisfaction of fleeting desires: Love is not only a feeling, but  the actions that meet the needs of another. Love is putting someone else’s needs above your own.

1 Corintians 13:4-7 says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Love is not self-seeking. When we truly love someone we put their needs and desires above our own. Loving someone should be a selfless act, but again, practically, what does it mean to love someone selflessly? The main way that I would recommend is to observe and recognize the Love Languages of those close to you. In his book, The Five Love Languages, author Gary Chapman, presents five ways in which people feel loved or cared about.

The following are listed in no particular order. Words of Affirmation, the first Love Language, is where the person feels most loved by having others verbally communicate with them. Saying, “I love you,” means the world to the Words of Affirmation person.

Second, comes Quality Time. With this person, the way they feel most cared about, loved or appreciated is through time or having undivided attention even for a few minutes.

Third, Receiving Gifts. This person, isn’t materialistic, but they feel especially loved when a thoughtful item is given to them.

The fourth is Acts of Service. This person feels most loved when another person does something for him or her. Anything from helping with the dishes to running an errand makes them feel loved.

The final Love Language is Physical Touch. This person feels the most cared for or loved when hugged or kissed. Holding hands or a simple hug will make this person feel the most loved.

Most everyone should fit beneath at least one of these five Love Languages. After taking an assessment test on 5lovelanguages.com I was able to discover that I am mainly Quality Time, but I’m also Acts of Service.  I feel most cared about when someone takes time just to spend time with me and get to know me. I would encourage you to observe family members and friends or have them take the test in order to learn their Language so that we can better serve and love them according to how they need to be loved. In order to love someone selflessly, we need to speak their Love Language to communicate that we care. In my family we have a variety of Love Languages. My mom is Words, sister is Touch, dad is Time and my other sister is a little too young to tell. I often show my sister that I love her by taking her shopping, spending time with her, or making her breakfast-in-bed, doing something kind for her. But if you notice, both of those are my Love Languages. We’ve had conversations and my sister will tell me that those things I do are nice, but don’t make her feel loved. To me, this is shocking! She doesn’t feel loved the same way I do? No, she feels loved by physical touch, which, by the way, ranked last love language on my personal list! I have to learn to show my sister love in her Language, so she knows that I care. This requires me to go outside of my comfort zone and put her needs above my own. If we return to our definition, that love is more than mere feelings, it’s actions, we need to show others love through their Love Language.

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I hope you guys enjoyed this just as much as I did. Thanks for taking the time to read it! I’d encourage you to figure out your love language, might help explain why you feel or respond a certain way.

Your brother,

Nick

Light Up the Sky

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of helping at the Rock and Worship Road Show and with a few good friends bought 3 different CDs by “The Afters”. After listening to the CDs a number of times I’ve found my new favorite artist. Seriously these guys are amazing and their songs just seemed to fit what I needed to hear at that time. For instance,

The Afters – Tonight

When tomorrow comes we’re gonna feel alive
Somehow forget about the tears we cried
There’s so much more we have to gain than we could ever lose

A perfect reminder of how even though we have and will fail we can put it behind us and carry on with our life. Songs like,

The Afters – We Won’t Give Up

We won’t back down
We gotta take our best shot
Give it all we got now
We won’t back down
They say we’ll never make it
But we’re gonna take it all the way

show just how we need to continue and persevere, even if others try and push us down.

Last, but not least, is the song they are most known for.

The Afters – Light Up The Sky

When stars are hiding in the clouds
I don’t feel them shining
When I can’t see beyond my doubt
The silver lining
When I’ve almost reached the end
Like a flood You’re rushing in
Love is rushing in

Even when we may feel like we are all alone, or even when we have no one else there, we have an almighty Father; a comfort when we need Him, a strength in times of our weakness. The Son of God came down in the form of a baby boy, He then lived among us, talked like us, walked like us. His greatest work, and also God’s greatest gift to us, was His sacrificial death upon the cross. Christ Jesus took the wrath of God upon Himself that we may experience freedom and salvation, thus being given eternal life.

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

~Romans 3:22-25

This is life. In our daily activities may we strive to share that same light that we have received. Let us show others how Christ can light up the sky.

Your brother,

Nick

My Amazing Lil Sis

Ok I’m not normally one to brag (or make random posts for that matter) but I just have to do one on the best 3 year old in the world, Grace. Seriously if you haven’t met her you’re missing out… She can always change your mood and it’s so amazing watching her grow up. Even though she still is learning to speak well she can always make herself understood.

 

One of the most amazing things ever are her faces! She comes up with some crazy ones and also some hilarious “moods” or “moves”.

 

You can tell she’s been raised in a house with 6 other boys because she is always running to do whatever her brothers are doing…. Even if it includes swinging from a 50 foot high tree! We’re always calling her back because she thinks that she is about 10 or something.

 

Case in point. Baseball! (With about 13 other boys)

 

When it comes down to it she is an amazing light in dark days, a bright spot in a gloomy day. I’m blessed to call her my sister and to those of you who want to adopt her? Sorry! But you can still hang out with her & enjoy her like us

 

Nick

Love isn’t a 4-Letter Word

Thank God for friends! Without them I’m not sure who, or where, I’d be. One of my friends let me borrow a book yesterday and I immediately was drawn to it. The book (in case you’re wondering) was by Erwin Raphael McManus. Kinda cool I think. The title and subject of the book is “Soul Cravings” which is very interesting. I’d never heard it put like that before or read a book like it.

 

Photo Courtesy Erwin Mcmanus

The book is broken down into 3 different parts: Love, Destiny, and Meaning. Each part has different chapters or “Entries”, just like a journal. In fact the book reads like a journal of advice and of his thoughts on each of these subjects. My 2 favorite entries were Love, Entry, 11 and Destiny, Entry 12.

 

One of my personal beliefs (as you’ve seen if you’ve read any of my other blog posts) is that the Church is misinterpreting the love of Christ. It’s simple, it’s free, it’s needed by us.

In the end all religions misrepresent God. They either dictate requirements for love or simply become a requiem for love. I think many of us have rightly given up on God on this basis alone. We’ve been told that God is a reluctant lover and that His standards must be met before there can be any talk of love. this is lunacy. Love exists because God is love. Our souls will never find satisfaction until our hearts have found this love that we so desperately yearn for. ~ Love, Entry 11

The most creative entry of all is displayed below. Nothing is more is needed.

Truth? Yes.

Have you ever had the fear of being alone? I have, and often it feels just like this.

You can’t give up on hope and go on with life. Without hope your life may not come to an end, but it does come to a stop. It is when we are hiding in a cave that we desperately want someone to call us out and cause us to believe there is still a life to be lived. ~Destiny, Entry 12

The solution? For me it is to surround myself with friends and believers, friends who are believers, family, God’s word, etc… The feeling of being alone is not a pleasant one so if you have the choice don’t go down it. It’s full of uncertainty. Instead trust in God. If you are truly alone and have no one else to turn to you always have God. God has created everything and knows loss. After all He gave His only Son to die for a bunch of sinful people.

Some girls want flowers; other,s chocolates; others, meaningful conversation; all different way sof trying to get to the same place-to be loved, to find love. So some people pray five times a day facing east; others bring offerings, light candles, memorize incantations; all for the same purpose-to gain acceptance from their Creator. Really it’s absurd to think that any “religion” would somehow get you to God….We want what we do not give. We long for what we seem incapable of producing…if God’s love is immeasurable and unending, as the Hebrews describe him, how deep and profound must His sense of sorrow and rejection. If anyone knows the pain of a love unreturned, it must be God. ~ Love, Entry 10

Our souls crave to be loved but often we forget that we are loved, unconditionally, and we are never alone. If you ever feel like you need someone to talk to I’ll be glad to lend an ear.

Your brother,

Nick

We’re Too Good?

Something that has really been on my mind for the past year, but especially in the past few weeks, is how the church is seen by the world. Does the church see the world as a tool of Christ? An extension of who He was and what He believed? Or are we seen as people who are critical to just about everything?

People outside of the world do not like us. Plain and simple. They don’t like us not because we believe in Christ, but because we have skewed their view of what a Christian is. We have become defined by what we are against rather than what we are for. Ask anyone what a Christian is and they’ll most likely say Christians are anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, anti-big government, etc… Heads up? That’s Not Right! Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be pro-choice, etc. but I am saying that we need to be defined for something, not just have a laundry list that goes with the label “Christian”.

“The first-century world was amazed by Christ because of what He did: Healed the sick, loved the poor, touched the leper, stood up for the down-and-out, forgave the sinner., condemned religious hypocrites, dined with prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors, challenged the wealthy and powerful, fought for justice, defied His culture. These actions-from one man-changed the world. These same actions, when carried out by His followers, still change the world today.” ~The Hole in our Gospel

We need to have the courage to stand up for the most important Christian principle, love. God tells us over and over again to “love our neighbors as ourselves”, that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us”, etc. Christ has shown us love and we are mandated to show it back!

“This is my commandment that you love one another that your joy may be full”

Unfortunately we do not love anymore. We hide in our own little bubbles watching the world fly by us, hoping we don’t get dirtied by it. Our final commandment from Christ however was to go into all the world, baptizing and preaching in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Walls are created that we do not pass, ever. The cause is that we don’t know the Gospel and have thus forgotten how to love. The Gospel is “good news”, God came as man, He died to release us from bondage, and He rose again on the third day. It’s a simple message of love that God has shown us. We are free! We do not need to be in bondage to sin any more!

“One of the underlying keys to reformission is knowing that neither the freedom of Christ nor our freedom in Christ is intended to permit us to dance as close to sin as possible without crossing the line. But both are intended to permit us to dance as close to sinners as possible by crossing the lines that unnecessarily separate the people God has found from those he is still seeking.” – Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission

We need to stop saying, “If you don’t watch ‘R’ rated movies then you’re a Christian” or “If you only read Christian books then you’re not sinning”. Seriously? These rules are not anywhere in scripture but are instead thought up by people and then applied to everyone else who is a Christian as well. The Bible is what rules our lives. As a friend and I were talking they told me,

“We all get saved because of love, yet somehow we think no one else deserves it. How dare we? As if the Lord made us better than the rest?! That’s just insane.”

God doesn’t hold a ruler and say, “Ok your sin was bigger than theirs so you’re going to go to hell!” all of our sins are worthy of eternal death, but God in his infinite love and grace has saved us. Please join me as I try to live up to this standard that Christ has set for us in his word, to show love and grace to the world, saved and unsaved.

In Christ’s Love,

Nick

Lack of Grace, Love, & Whatnot in the Church

Ok. It’s been a while (almost a month) since I posted on here meaning two things. 1st, I need to write more. 2nd, I owe you my speech. I mentioned I was writing a speech and would post it when I got around to it so here it is. I competed with it last week and found some areas that need some work but here’s what I’ve got so far.

 

 

“We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord. And we pray that our unity will one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” (Jars of Clay) These words from the Jars of Clay song “They’ll know we are Christians by our Love” are one of the clearest reminders to me of how we are distinguished from the world. Unfortunately some churches today have lost what it means to love. Love. What does that word mean? Love is the response of a heart changed by grace. I’d often used the term flippantly but did I really know what it means to love as Christ loved? Today I want to share with you how God loves us, how we are supposed to love, and finally how the church loves today.

We are all sinners and no one disputes the fact that they have sinned; God is holy, completely. God is so untainted by sin, time and anything unholy that it makes no sense to our minds that His Son would come to earth to die for us as a one-time sacrifice. This is Crazy Love, to borrow the title of Francis Chan’s book. In it he states,

“The very fact that a holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, fair, and just God loves you and me is nothing short of astonishing. The wildest part is that Jesus doesn’t have to love us. His being is utterly complete and perfect, apart from humanity. He doesn’t need me or you. Yet He wants us, chooses us, even considers us His inheritance.”(Francis Chan)

Our love should reflect God’s grace. The grace of God has been poured out as a ransom, a payment of debts to sin past, present, and future. As John Piper said, ” Jesus came to “give his life as a ransom for many.” He came. He did not come to be served. He came to give his life a ransom for many. Let’s think about this act of service.” (Piper) Now since we have experienced the life-changing grace of God it is only natural that we should return the favor. In fact it is not only natural, but commanded of us by Christ when he said, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”(NIV). This leads us to how we are supposed to love.

 

We are involved in a battle during our lives on earth; no I’m not talking about one with guns or swords, but a spiritual battle. Mark Driscoll in his book, “The Radical Reformission” says, “Faithfulness [to God] requires we wage our war against the world with the gospel weapons of grace, love, and truth, which the world does not have access to.”(Driscoll) We have the perfect example in the life of our savior, Jesus Christ. God’s own Son came down to earth in the form of a man. He didn’t come down as some righteous king but as a lowly infant. After He had started His ministry He didn’t go and sit with the kings of the world or the leaders of the Jewish faith. Christ set an example for us by eating with tax collectors, laborers, and fishermen, people who otherwise would have been looked down upon or even despised by leaders were important to Christ. His kingdom is not of this earth and as such our earthly status does not matter to Christ. He doesn’t let us in only if we become extremely rich or important, He looks at our hearts because man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Sometimes we can think we are so much better than the world that we should avoid it whenever possible. But that is not what we are called to do. We are called to be in the world, but not of it; we are supposed to evangelize the world. A pastor that I know says, “God is looking for Godly men and woman who will get close to that grey area between worldliness and salvation. Those who are willing to reach as far over the line as possible without crossing it to drag sinners to our righteous Savior” (Stevenson) This is how we are supposed to love, but how are we actually loving others?

 

I’d like to share with you the following story. “A prostitute came to me homeless, sick, and unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter… …I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story… …I had no idea what to say to this woman. At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shocked that crossed her face. ‘Church!’ she cried. ‘Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.” This story is just one of many that have surfaced in recent years, but is this the message the body of Christ should be portraying to the world? We need to work together, not against each other in order to triumph over the world. As Ephesians 4:2-3 says, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (NIV) In some instances where it is not a matter of sin and is simply a matter of personal preference regarding someone’s lifestyle we are called to leave these by the wayside.  As servants of Christ we are called to spread his message throughout the world and not exclude ourselves from it. The message Christians are currently sending to the unsaved is the wrong one. Mark Driscoll again said, “Sadly, many people despise Christianity because all they have known are arrogant, self-righteous, and judgmental people claiming to be Christians, who avoid them as if they were infected and do little more than yell at them to be moral when they should be explaining to them how to be redeemed.” (Driscoll) How can we expect people to turn from their wicked ways when all we do is condemn, judge, and ignore them? The answer is we cannot. I have discovered that love is the crux of Christianity and if the church continues down the current road we will loose what it means to love completely, thus ending Christianity as Christ meant it.

 

From what I’ve observed the church has lost what it means to love. We focus on appearances, making sure that we all look the same, listen to the same music, watch the same movies, when we should focus on those who are not yet saved. I’d like to close with some words by Philip Yancey’s book “What’s so Amazing about Grace”, “When I am tempted to recoil in horror from [complete] sinners I remember what it must’ve been like for Jesus to live on earth. Perfect, sinless, Jesus had every right to be repulsed by the behavior of those around them. Yet he treated notorious sinners with mercy and not judgment.” (Yancey)

 

If you know of any good resources or have any ideas on how to improve this let me know please!

Your brother,

Nick

 

~Photo of the Week~

 

 

A slap in the face….

Pride is something I struggle with daily even if it is unintentional. A witty retort or snide comment can easily portray a proud face. Take something any of who who read my last post will know for example. I pledged to post “at least every week” and went so far as to imply I would post more than once per week. But even though I didn’t see this a proud when I wrote it God knew it was tied to something deeper. Not only did I not post the week after I pledged to, but I haven’t posted for 2 1/2 weeks or so. God looked at me, a human, a speck of dust, a nobody, saw that I was pledging to write my thoughts… Dumb, right? Well He gave me a much deserved slap in the face by using the other events of my life to get show me I can’t do well in everything.

 

Debate and Speech have been taking up all of my free time, so when I finish my speech I’ll post it on here because my only point for writing it is to expose as many people to the plight of the Church. My life from the past month can basically be summed up here Nicholas Kjeldgaard – Stoa Rankings. Anyhow the point of this post was to apologize for my failings and to acknowledge that I am definitely a human in desperate need for a savior! As Romans 3:23 rightly says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!”.

 

Photo of the past few weeks:

Your brother through Christ,

Nick

Jesus wept…

God.

When this word crosses your mind what do you think of? Ask this question and you’ll get many different answers.

• Omnipotent (all powerful)
• Omnipresent (everywhere)
• Just
• Creator
• Savior

Et Cetera…

Often we put “Loving” or “Caring” further down on the list for one reason or another. Most of the time we think of a God who is unapproachable, because he is; but he is more than a God who sits above us, ignoring us, leaving us to work it out. God sent down His Son, Jesus Christ, to Earth to die for us.

Now all of us as Christians should strive to become more like Christ but we need to know God before we can be like God. However we cannot fully know what He is like or what He can do.

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?

~Job 11:7

God, as a gracious God, has revealed some mysteries of His nature to us.

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed.

~1 Corinthians 4:1

What do we know about God? God is Just, Loving, Caring, Jealous, and has many more attributes as well. Now look at the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, title of this post. This short verse is probably up among the best in the Bible in my opinion, at least on a words-to-impact ratio. Why do I want to pull out this famously short, and seemingly insignificant verse? Because it illustrates another aspect of Christ and, consequently, another aspect we must strive for. The aspect? Tenderness. Thesaurus.com lists the top 9 synonyms as:

affection, benevolence, compassion, goodness,

kindness, love, lovingness, sensitivity, sympathy

We, as Christians, should be all of the above. Jesus said the highest commandments were to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. And your neighbor as yourself.”

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible says:

Jesus wept – It has been remarked that this is the shortest verse in the Bible; but it is exceedingly important and tender. It shows the Lord Jesus as a friend, a tender friend, and evinces his character as a man… …We have here an instance of the tenderness of the character of Jesus, The same Savior wept over Jerusalem, and felt deeply for poor dying, sinners. To the same tender and compassionate Saviour Christians may now come Hebrews 4:15; and to him the penitent sinner may also come, knowing that he will not cast him away.

 

As a Christian I know I strive to live this out in my life every day, failing of course. I can never be as “good” as Christ but I can, and am commanded to, strive to be like Him.
Just a thought for a week!

Nick

A Purpose…

I’m a guy who doesn’t do things the normal way… Take this blog for example. Most blogs start off with a post on either who the person is or why they made a blog, I just started with a post. Finally I answer the question most people do at the begining, “What is the purpose of this blog?”. Well I have created it to share thoughts I have, either about God or about life, and to share my photography, which I’m recently interested in.

For the rest of the year I hope to post at least once a week. Not some post where I’m saying, “OMW this is soooooo cool” or anything, but a post where I hope it gets you thinking a different way. Expect two more posts before the day is out. One on my thoughts during youth this morning, and the second being a photo of the week.

 

Striving to be more than an OMW blogger,

Nick