Archive for March, 2008

Well as usual last night we had another great E3 Cell Group meeting. Unfortunately we did not have any new visitors but I know that others are just on the horizon. What we talked about last night is something that I think all Christians tend to forget and tend to take for granted so I wanted to show you this in the blog this morning.

Have you ever had a time where you wonder where all the money has gone and then you take the time to write every transaction down and you see trends in your spending that you really wouldn’t of noticed otherwise? Well this is the same for our position in Christ, sometime we begin to feel defeated or down on ourselves and think that we are not worthy of respect, love, compassion etc. Well let me present you a list from just 3 sets of passages in the Bible that will empower you to remember whose child you really are. Take a minute and read these 3 passages out of the Bible: Romans 5:1-11; Romans 8:28-33; Ephesians 1:3-8. Ok, now that you have read those here are the things that are given to us through salvation or because we are a child of God, basically meaning “Our Position In Christ”

So will all of this out of those few scriptures what else is there out of the whole Bible. My point is this, we should never feel inadequate or defeated for we have been given victory over all things through our position in Christ. We should never hesitate to witness and share what we have in Christ to others who don’t have it. We should share it like we would share a bucket of water to someone who is on fire, urgently!!!

God Bless ~ Tyler

As we are coming up to opening day I can barely stand the excitement.  I am immediately thrown back into my playing days in college where I can almost smell the grass and the glove oil in my nose.  Of course if you know me that is funny but it is a smell that any ball player that has spent a long time in the game knows.  I then get a hunger for sunflower seeds and peanuts.  What an awesome time of the year!!!  So in my excitement I prepare to brush off my Xbox and get my MLB season back up and running (I am sure Krystal is glad to hear that) and one thing that I must do is check out the stats of my favorite players and begin constructing my team. 

As I begin that process I always start with the guys that I played with or know to see how they are doing and see what their season is going to look like.  I always start with the guys that I played against either in college or high-school like Trot Nixon or Billy Wagner.  But then move on to the guys I know and really hope that they are doing well.  The most infamous one of those that I know is Josh Hamilton (I played with his older brother Jason, Josh was our batboy).  And I say that because he is most well known for getting drafted number one in the 1999 draft out of high school,  then getting into drugs and falling out of the MLB to the point that no one thought that he would ever play again.  Well to make a long story as short as possible (please read his story though it is amazing) He is after much work now the starting centerfielder for the Texas Rangers.  As I was reading his stats this morning, he made a statement that God really spoke to me about.  Here is the excerpt from the article…

“It’s like He’s standing beside me, plugged into me,” Hamilton said. “I’m not one of those guys who talks about God because it sounds good. It’s because He changed my life. One thing I keep in mind first thing in the morning is no matter what I do, the Man upstairs already knows what will happen.

“All I can do is play to the best of my ability and have fun. If I strike out or make an error, I will know in my heart that I at least did my best. That’s the way I looked at it last year whether I went 4-for-4 or 0-for-4.”

 Josh is a former crack addict that has been given an opportunity to play again.  He could take all of the credit and talk about how he beat the addiction and get all of man’s glory right now, but instead he is giving all of the glory to God and having an oppurtunity to witness to those who may be in the same place he was.   So my question is this:   What has God put you through or where has God placed you so that you can be an example of His glory?  What has He brought you through so that you can be there for someone else who is going through it now?  And if you do have that opportunity are you giving the glory to Him or to you?

God Bless ~ Tyler 

As I have been going through the past couple of weeks things have been seemingly getting harder and just more distracted in my mind.  Everything has had to have more effort and more energy to get done.  And I guess you might have noticed that I have not blogged in a couple of days.  

Now those of you around me and have asked how things are going and I responded fine…don’t be offended.  I really did not have an answer to give you as I did not know what was going on per say in my own mind.  I figured it out this morning though and I wanted to take time to share with you guys as I hope that I can help everyone avoid the same struggles that I have (yet I know you do and will so hopefully we can just learn from one another).

I, in my quiet time this morning (hint, hint if I didn’t blog, I missed a quiet time (accountability partners you know who you are)) was reading in the Gospel of John and the Lord really spoke to me when I read:

John 14:21 (New International Version)
21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” 

And I realized that I once again have taken up my own yoke and have walked away from the presence of my Heavenly Father.  I think by far this is one of the biggest things that I struggle with in my life in that my pride starts to kick in and I begin to try to handle everything in my own power instead of picking up His yoke as we are commanded to do.  So based on the scripture that I shared above I have his commands but I was not obeying, therefore I was not in a place where God could show himself to me.  Now I still saw God working around me but I was not prepared for it or just flat out ignored it because I had my own issues to deal with.

 I have a conversation with my earthly dad all the time about when you are a child you don’t know how good you have it because everything is taken care of for you.  But in reality this is the same for us adults.  Yes, we do have to pay our own bills and manually take care of things now but we don’t have to worry about how things will be supplied either the same way my children don’t worry if there is going to be food in the pantry when they open it.  God wants us to be obedient to His commandments and then He will show himself to us through provision and blessings and works in our lives.   So who wouldn’t want that? 

Anyone that knows me knows that I can’t remember anything for very long.  If I don’t make a point to put it into long-term memory then it is…what was I talking about?  Sorry I couldn’t resist.  So because of this problem if I know that on a particular song that we are doing I am not going to have the words in front of me then I have to really listen to it and just sit and soak in it to get them memorized.  And as I was preparing for the Easter special that we are doing at church I began to really study the words so that I would remember them when it came time to sing.  Luckily, all of the verses in the song are the same and obviously the chorus is the same as well.  But I began to wonder why the writer made all of the verses the same and I believe it is because there are times that we just don’t get it.

I have had many conversations with my friends where we will discuss getting a deal on some purchase that we made, and we get really proud of ourselves when we negotiate a cheaper price or feel like we have gotten something for free.  Yet, we have gotten the most important thing in our life for free and we don’t always get that excited about it.  We have opportunities to share about it or tell that we have it and we don’t.  Let me take this opportunity to share the lyrics with you so that you can understand what we have gotten for free…

He was pierced for our transgressions
He was crushed for our sins
The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him
And by His Wounds by His Wounds
We are healed

Now I have highlighted several words that I want you to really look at.  We were healed and saved because someone else took all of our pain and punishment.  Jesus Christ went to the cross and took our piercing, He went to the whipping block and took our beating and was crushed when we should have been.  He took the punishment for our crimes and sins so that we would not have to. 

How many of us have had a speeding ticket get dropped and we felt so fortunate and we were so excited that we told everyone?  Basically the same thing happened for our eternity; Jesus paid our fine so that we could still spend eternity with Him and the Father.  I really hope that you will take the time to think about just how fortunate we are that we don’t have to receive what we deserve.  If you would like to listen to the song click the link below.

By His Wounds