Camping with God

What did you just say Jeremy?  You went camping with God?   Actually I went camping with a couple of students from Sunday Night to Tuesday Morning and I believe that God was at work and present with us.   Let me tell you some pretty cool God stories.

1. Monday morning during our time of devotions, prayer and sharing God spoke to the students hearts and they shared openly about what God was doing in their lives.  It was awesome to hear them be real before their peers.  It was awesome to see them pray for each other.
2. We went hiking Monday afternoon and ran into a guy, from Reading PA, that was in the mood to chat, and we had a chance to pray for him and his wife.
3. Monday Night we had new neighbors who were having trouble finding dry wood for their campfire.  We had extra wood that I was able to give to them.  This simple act ended up being and hour long conversation where I got to talk about the Bible and the need to know Jesus.  I was then able to pray with them.
4. While I was talking with our new neighbors 4 guys were praying for me and my conversation!
5. While talking to our camping neighbors 4 guys talked about the student ministry and subjects like: student leadership, students wanting to attempt big things and their willingness to fail, the church becoming one, and the Student Ministry being to dependent upon ME. I have waited 2.5 years to hear some of the things that were brought up.

I believe that God was with us the past two days as we went camping and it was awesome.  God you are good and I am so thankful for the way you worked as we simply got together and camped.  God, as we do normal tasks throughout the week, may we recognize your presence in every day activities.

The Bible is about God?

I dont know about you but often I try and find myself inside the pages of the Bible.  I want a life verse that I can live by.  I want the truth of God for the situations that I am dealing with.  But I think sometimes we can miss the big picture when all we do is look for ourselves.

Let me try and sum up what I have read in the first 20 Chapters of Ezekiel in a couple of words.  “That you will know me.” For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile this post is going to sound like a lot of other post that I have written based upon what God is teaching me.  I am seriously blown away at how Ezekiel communicates Gods desire to be known.

I believe that Ezekiel 18 communicates repentance (turning from sin) in an amazing way. God desires to have a right relationship with man, He wants to forgive our sin, yet He wants and demands Obedience and Faithfulness. Ezekiel 18 also answers the question of how a loving God could allow a person to go to hell.   Check out these verses.

Let me encourage you that if you have not repented of your sin to do so now.  If your not sure how, leave me a comment and I will call or email you.  God will one day judge you according to your own ways.   Get a new heart by giving your life to Jesus Christ. Repent and Live!

In chapter 20 God is frustrated with Israels sin to the point that He says “I threatened to pour out my fury on them to satisfy my anger while they were still in Egypt.” Wow!  God hates sin. Here is where it gets interesting.  He only threatened to pour out His anger. He did not do it.  Why?  I find verses 9 and 14 to be verses that could change the way you view your Bible and life.

“9 But I didn’t do it, for I acted to protect the honor of my name. That way the surrounding nations wouldn’t be able to laugh at Israel’s God, who had promised to deliver his people…. 14 But again I held back in order to protect the honor of my name. That way the nations who saw me lead my people out of Egypt wouldn’t be able to claim I destroyed them because I couldn’t take care of them.”

Are you kidding me?  God who is just and true could have acted.  He could have punished Israel for their sins. But He did not? He did not punish them because He wanted others to Know and Trust HIM!  WOW!  God used a sinful Israel to allow others to see HIM.  I believe that God can use a SINFUL me to allow others to see HIM.

Listen- Its not about you or I.  It is about God’s word being true.  It is about a God who loves us and wants to be known by us.  Really the Bible is all about GOD.  He desires a personal relationship with you.  He desire for your life to have a purpose.  He desires for you to be a witness to others for His name sake.

Waterfalls are cool

NYC now has waterfalls.   I think this project is neat and I want to relate it to our spiritual life.

Sometimes in our spiritual life we can feel all dried up as we seek to quench our thirst from the wrong sources.

The waterfall in NYC are not natural. The designer understood that if he plugged into the right water source, allowed the pump to take in water, he could then the pump water from the pump to the top of a tower which would create a great flow of water.

If you are feeling dried up in your spiritual life, maybe its time that you plug into the right water source.  Maybe its time to take in the love of God which satisfies your thirst.  As you take in Gods love all it to move through you creating a flow around you that others will want to see.

Check out these passages.
Psalm 107
John 4
John 7
Rev 21
Rev 22
Ezekiel 17

To learn more about the NYC Waterfalls visit newyorkcitywaterfalls.com

Thinking deeper- my thinking can be worship

When I first started this blog I was challenged by Greg- who is now living in the world of “God where do you want me and what do you want me doing for your Glory”- to use blogging as another way to do ministry.  I started simply writing what God was teaching me, what I was thinking, how my own personal walk with God was, and my desire to see God Glorified.
Some how in the midst of the blog explosion I started getting caught up in the blog numbers.  I became more focused on ways and techniques of attracting a crowd then on my Original Purpose.  I did not add twiter, nor did I develop a target audience.   But I did not focus on my thinking as worship.

So from today forward, I will be focusing on what God is personally doing in my life.  I will be sharing my devotional thoughts, thoughts from being a youth pastor, husband, and simply a man.  I will be simply sharing with you what I am thinking.

My desire is that my thinking may be worship.  I am going to think deep as I drink deep of God’s love and hopefully His love will flow through me, my thoughts, and my blog to touch your life.  To God Be the Glory.

Know God & Glorify Him

As I read through the book of Ezekiel my mind is spinning around the things that God allows our causes to happen.  I mean it does make sense.  The God of love allows His people to to experience some horrible things.  Why?  Let me be honest and say that I cant explain it.  I don’t know. I do know that in Ezekiel the people were not pleasing God with the way they were living.  They were listening and believing what the false prophets were saying.

I don’t know the exact reason of why God would allow or cause bad thing to happen.  I would tend to say because of their sin God allowed our caused things to happen to get their attention.  I don’t know why God allows bad things to happen but I do know that through out the Bible and through out Ezekiel God kept saying “And then you will know that I am the Lord.” Whether God causes or allows things to happen I cant answer but I do know God wants you and me to KNOW HIM. Book of Ezekiel says the phrase “I am the Lord” over 56 times. In almost all of these cases it says “And you will know that I am the Lord”.

God desires to be know and He desires that we Glorify Him.  Check out this blog post by John Piper titled “Why it Matters That God Does Everything for His Own Glory.”

Giving up that which you love

Today as I was reading in Ezekiel one verse made me think about the Novel Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged is an interesting novel that was written in 1957 by Ayn Rand.  Once every couple of years I listen to this novel on tape.  I do not agree with all of the thoughts that are presented, but I do agree with the fact that God has gifted some people with great minds that are able to make improvements to the world as we know it.

So how did reading Ezekiel make me think about Atlas Shrugged?  In Atlas Shrugged the minds of the world were being abused by the world.  The world was trying to take advantage of them.  The world was trying to control the businesses and ideas that the Minds of the world had created.  Basically the world was saying you come up with the ideas and then we will run things the way we want.   The problem was that the Minds of the world knew how the ideas were created to function.  They understood that if their ideas were in the hands of the wrong people they would be destroyed.  One by one the minds of the world determined that they would sacrifice the businesses and ideas that they loved for a short period of time to maintain the value and existence of these ideas and businesses long term.  They would not allow the themselves to betaken advantage of.   They would not allow their ideas and businesses to be destroyed by those who did not care.

As I read Ezekiel 7:20-22 I found a very similar thought.  Check it out.  

20 His beautiful ornament they used for pride, and they made their abominable images and their detestable things of it. Therefore I make it an unclean thing to them. 21 And I will give it into the hands of foreigners for prey, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, and they shall profane it. 22 I will turn my face from them, and they shall profane my treasured place. Robbers shall enter and profane it.

God in this passage says that He will turn His face from the people and treasured place that He loves will be destroyed.  As a result of sin God turns, for a little while from the very thing He loves.  You see God knows that He is the creator.  He is able to restore and rebuild things to the way they once were.  He was willing to turn from the thing that He loved, so that eventually “They will know that I am the Lord.”

You see when the Minds left their ideas and businesses behind, the world did not know what to do.  They began to search for the People of the Mind, demanding that they return and do the things that they once did.  It was not until the minds were gone, that the World realized how much they needed the People of the Mind.

I believe that sometimes God removes and hides himself from us, so that we will know how much we need Him.  Our tendency is to demand that God listen to us and that He answers our prayer.  But God will not come and work on our terms.  Sometime He must say ” they will profane my treaured place” and “I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them.  Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them. (8:18)”

He is the creator.  He knows whats is best.  We need to realize that we need Him.  We need to depend upon Him.  We can not live life on our own.  Maybe its time for you to give up what you have been loving, and seek after HIM.  Maybe it’s time to die to self, and live for Christ.  Maybe its time to get to know the Creator in a new and personal way. Maybe its time that you LOVE HIM.

Search for meaning

Tomorrow night we are going to be starting a new series titled Search for meaning.   We will be looking at the book of Ecclesiastes.  There are some deep thoughts in this book that should catch our attention.  I know that they have caught mine.   I am excited to share the first, third and fourth lesson in this series.  The second lesson will be done by my friends ryan crider and sarah soden.  These two have recently finished there freshmen year of college.  I am excited to hear what God lays on their hearts to share.

Lesson 1- More?  There has got to be more to life than this.
Lesson 2- Meaningless Freshman
Lesson 3- Meaning not Found
Lesson 4- Meaning found

Check out this cool video. 

Spending time

Last night I went on a nice long walk with my beautiful wife Nicole. Sometimes I get so busy with myself and the agenda that I think needs to be done, that I forget to do the little things that are important.   My walk with my wife was awesome.  Lately we have been going to the gym together, we spend time with each other at night, but there was something different about last nights walk.

We walked, holding hands, talking and sweating (THE HUMIDITY IS KILLING ME).   After our walk, Nicole went to the gym and I went to my hammock.  As I was laying there reading my Bible and Metamorpha I began to think about how God desires for me to go on that same type of walk with Him.  “The Christian life is not about arrival, but about learning to journey with God and becoming increasingly united with Him.”

I am spending some time in Ecclesiastes for an upcoming series on Wednesday Nights about where we find our Significance.  The book of Ecclesiastes is fascinating to me.  The wisest man of all time says over and over again that “this too is meaningless.”  So if so many things are meaningless what is the point? I want to have significance in my life. If “this too is meaningless, where is significance found.”  I believe its in a relationship with God.  Significance is found in a intimate relationship with God.  Its found on our journey of Faith in Him.

So after Nicole came back from they gym we did some weeding together.  We worked as a team.  Actually I was just helping her, but it was so good to do so much needed weeding as we spent time together. Last night as I spent time with Nicole, reading my Bible & book, resting, and talking to God, I experienced on of my favorite nights in a long time.

Maybe its time to slow down, stop thinking so much and just spend some time. 

Even if they dont listen

Today I started reading in the book of Ezekiel and God is still challenging me with being a missionary every where that I am.  I hope that as you read this blog you might be challenged to pick up your Bible and read some from Ezekiel.  WARNING- It might be hard to stop reading this story about God’s relationship with Ezekiel.

• In the beginning of the passage a picture is painted that sounds similar to the passage in Revelations 6.  The result of Ezekiel seeing this is worship.  Ezekiel sees something so amazing that he falls down on his face.  Sound similar to other encounters with God found throughout the Bible.
• God gives Ezekiel the task of going to “the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me”…they are “obstinate and stubborn.”  What a task.  I would be saying why the heck do you want me to go to these people God?  The interesting part of this is God says “whether they listen of fail to listen, for they are rebellious.”  He then tell Ezekiel to listen, open his mouth and eat what God wants to give him.
• God then tells Ezekiel “when I say to the wicked, ‘you will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their lives, those wicked people will die for their sins, and I will hold YOU accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sins; but you will have saved yourself.” God gives Ezekiel the task of telling people that their sin will lead to death unless they repent.  Ezekiel will be held accountable for this task.

You know, God has given us a similar task.  He believers the task to go and make disciples of all nations. When the disciples went from Jesus they were told to tell the people that they too need to repent. God desires for all people to know Him.  He desires to know that they to have sin in their lives and need Gods forgiveness.  We have been given the task of loving God and loving others.  Let us show and tell the world that In Jesus we can have our sins forgiven.  Lets tell them even if they don’t listen.

I love this song from Hillsong.    Tell the world that.  

I am simply reading through the Bible and allow the words of God to speak to my heart.  The thoughts that I have shared are simple thoughts that I have as a result of reading God’s word.  I have not studied this passage in depth.

Severe Weather

For those of you who watch the news you know that a very strong tornado hit Parksburg Iowa last Sunday.  What you might not is that is close to where Nicole’s Family is from.   A grandfather of one of Nicole’s cousins was found underneath the rumble from his house.  Other family members have told stories of families who’s houses are gone.   Cars, homes, just nowhere to be found.

Please remember to pray for all those who have been hit by severe weather all across our world.  Tornadoes, earth quakes, flooding and fires change lives forever.  Pray that during their time of need those affected by mother nature will find safety and security in the arms of Christ.

Read and watch a video about Nicole’s cousin Aaron and how he has been willing to help his hometown.

Read about it here.