Archive for March, 2008

Do you ever feel that you are just unbelievable hard headed, or confused, or even stupid?  Well welcome to my day yesterday.  I had one of the worst days at work that I have had in awhile and just because of my own (for lack of a better word) stupidity.  It was one of those times where you stare at the turkey in the oven and wonder why it’s not cooking.  You look all around and wonder is the oven plugged in? Is the element inside the oven properly installed?  And after starring at it for about 3 hours you realize that the oven was not turned on.  And this is when you want to go slam your head in a door.  So throughout all of yesterday I struggled with this problem that I just could not get past (it wasn’t the oven by the way), and when it all came down to it the reason that the situation was screwed up is because I didn’t take the time to start it right.  I rushed through it, made some assumptions, and of course it was in front of other people which is always nice.  To make things even better I have a counterpart at work that is a polar opposite of myself so he had his comments to make and it was a situation where the devil really tempted me to lose my cool.  But rather than lose the witness and do that I introverted and just got into a foul mood and let the devil work me over that way.  And to be honest and transparent I even let it take me to a place that I just skipped church to take a break from everything.            Now, as if the day had not been stupid enough as it was I skipped church…(Insert Homer Simpson Dooaaaahhh).  The place where I can go to fellowship with fellow believers and cast my burdens down, I skipped.  So I simply made it worse.  Instead of focusing on God and His mercy and grace I focused on how hacked off I was.  So in essence I did one of the biggest mistakes as a Christian that we can make, I did not sit at the feet of my father and take up his yoke, and I carried my own.  Jesus instructs us in scripture to take His yoke and His burdens:

Matthew 11:28-30 (New American Standard Bible)
 28″ Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 
29“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”   

So instead of laying my burdens down at the cross and just relying on Christ and His comfort, I went around all puffed up and ignored all of the blessing and sacrifices that my Lord did for me.  This can and should if you are His follower keep all things in perspective.  Remember this scripture and be comforted, don’t make the same mistakes that I do ;o)

Romans 8:38-39 (New American Standard Bible) 
38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God Bless ~ Tyler

 I made a decision this morning that due to some of the upcoming events with our church I needed to get back into the gym after taking about a 2 month leave of absence.  And as I was running I was just letting my mind wander as to avoid concentrating on the pain and anguish that I was feeling.  I began to think about this past Sunday and all the things that went on and was just basically replaying the day like a movie in my mind.  Well when I got to the Sunday morning service and got to the children’s sermon that our Assistant Pastor Jody Burkeen gave and I began to think about the upcoming Easter weekend.  As I thought about this my mind went automatically to the movie by Mel Gibson “The Passion of the Christ”, in my opinion there is no better depiction on the crucifixion than that movie.     

Well as I began to think about this movie I remembered the scenes of the guards taking my Savior (and yours I hope) to Golgotha where He was to be crucified.  I remembered the scenes that seemed to take hours where Jesus was beaten and tortured to beyond recognition.  I remembered sitting there wanting to scream out for them to stop, I wanted to stand up and fight for Him as Peter did.  And although I know that prophecy had to be fulfilled and that 3 days later Jesus rose again victorious from the grave where He was buried I was still saddened, moved, angered, and full of worship beyond words to what I had seen.  As these thoughts went on I was brought back to present time by the fact that the treadmill was starting to move faster than my feet were so I was beginning to fall behind.  Now here is where a decision has to be made; do I run harder and possibly injure myself or because I know that this is the first time in 2 months that I have worked out if I don’t take it a little easy I will pop my calf muscle ;o). 

But at that moment I was taken to the thoughts of Jesus carrying the cross through the city over to Golgotha and the pain and anguish that He must have endured.  After the beating and all of the wounds from the whipping that He received He still continued on.  At any time He could have had a legion of angels there to assist Him and to destroy His captors.  We as humans give up at some point due to pain or exhaustion but Jesus never did.  He loved us so much that He endured and persevered so that our sins could be wiped clean and we could spend eternity in heaven with the Father.  My Savior and yours, Jesus Christ went the distance and I hope that everyone who reads this has an understanding of what that means for your life.   If you don’t know Jesus personally I beg you to use the contact page to email me or find another pastor somewhere to talk with. 

God Bless ~ Tyler

I wanted to take time to thanks everyone that helped make my birthday great.  It has been awhile since I have been able to celebrate my birthday with a group of friends that care so much about my family and I.  Thanks again and next time we need to pick a lighter topic for discussion ;o)

 God, thank you for the friends that you have placed in my life.

 God Bless ~ Tyler

As I sat in the dentist’s chair today for my 6 month cleaning (first one in many years) and found out that although I don’t have any cavities I do have a tooth that due to the trauma from my accident is dead and so I have to have it pulled.  And upon hearing this I really thought about the relevance of our Christian walk and the dentist.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I am a man of analogies so hold on for this one.

As you know when you go to the dentist the first thing that they do is take x-rays and get an overall picture of where you are and the health of your teeth.  This is very similar to what we experience during salvation when the Holy Spirit convicts us of our overall health spiritually and explains to us that we are decaying and are going to hell if we don’t get cleaned up. 

Well next at the dentist is the cleaning, they come in with all sorts of tools and sprays and cleaning agents and start working on your teeth to get rid of the tarter and any gunk that might be built up.  In our Christian walk this is very much the same once we have been saved we spend time going to church and reading the word and trying to clean up our life and our hearts so that we can be acceptable and basically get rid of all the built up gunk. 

But at this point we still do not have a clean bill of health, you have to wait for the dentist to come look at your x-rays and tell you what; if any needs to be done next and then he will poke around in your mouth a little.  And finally the visit will end with a suggestion as to when to schedule your next appointment for the rest of the work if any.  Well again this is very similar to your Christian walk in that even after we get rid of the gunk that we know to be there it is still up to God and His standards on what needs to be done next.  And just as I have to go back to the dentist to have a tooth pulled because it has died, God will examine our heart and point out through personal convictions what needs to be removed and what can stay.

So the point of this analogy is that just as with the dentist and your teeth it is far easier to deal with any issues and see things before they go wrong.  The dentist only requires a 6 month checkup and cleaning.  But for your heart and your soul that requires a daily time of checkup.  And the only way to do this is to take time everyday to sit and read God’s word and allow Him to guide you on your health and where you need to floss or where He needs to use a metal hook!  Happy Brushing!

God Bless ~ Tyler