Cross Dressers Anonymous

First off, your probably thinking that with the title of this note, i'm going to be addressing issues like the homosexual agenda. And actually, that isn't the case. What I want to talk about in this note is being clothed in righteousness according to the Cross of Jesus and living a life in the Holy Spirit. After going through FIRE, I've come to realize that the more you learn about God, the more you realize how little you actually know about Him.

Lately, I've been mulling over the idea about what is holiness to the Lord, walking uprightly before God and walking in character and integrity. I'm really hoping that some of the following thoughts won't come back to haunt me, but with the way that my life goes sometimes, I won't be surprised.

I've been doing a cover to cover reading of the Bible for sometime now. One verse that keeps coming back to mind is "All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6 NASB). One thing that I'm EXTREMELY grateful for is that there is nothing in, on or around this world that I can do to become righteous, other than accepting Jesus and thereby acknowledging that my life before hand and everything I do outside of Jesus is garbage. It's worthless, trash, rubbish, feces... you get the idea.

I can remember talking with folks when doing street evangelism and I ask them things like "so, do you know Jesus?" Their response: "yeah, I go to church." wow, where did that come from? I couldn't care less whether you go to church. I ask "Have you asked Jesus into your heart?" Their response: "I prayed some prayer when I was younger..." (At this point in time, they start getting fidgety... I usually know where the conversation is going at this point in time.) It's usually at this point in time that I have to start tearing through a lot of religious junk and Christianese. Which is ok, I know the talk well. I know how to dismantle arguments and find out that when someone who is now 20 prayed a prayer at 5 but they're living like a little heathen.

I've personally done a decent amount of counseling and have discovered that so-called "Christians" have no idea what the Bible says and means. Everyone and their cousin knows John 3:16. But so often we have a wrong perception of God's love, mercy, truth, justice.... etc. We think that because God loves us, we can do whatever we want and its all just going to be ok. Luckily, that's not the case. If it were, God wouldn't be true to His word.

In reading through the New Testament, I've noted that Paul thanked God very much for the blood of Jesus that was shed and then said "Hey, check this out: there is a life in the Holy Spirit that God has for each and everyone of us to have! God gives us grace to get rid of our junk and then rely on the Holy Spirit to give us power to live without sin. And He gives us these gifts not only for me, but for you as well and to bring others into a saving knowledge of who Jesus is and what He did. But its because God loves you and He wants the best for you while your here. But you gotta stop doing the stupid stuff (sin) that your doing."

I know for myself, I like hard messages/sermons. I like messages that get under your skin in a good way. When they get you thinking. I'm a firm believer that having a 'good' church is the best counterfeit to having something much better. Because when you have a 'good' church (you know, like all sorts of ministries, but having no substance to it) you totally fake yourself and others out. Spending 1 minute in the presence of God can do what 500 sermons can't do. I've grown up in the charismaniac churches/circles all my life. Got 'saved' at like 4 or something, baptized in water @ 9 i think (I just got re-baptized over a year ago because I wanted to) and then baptized in the Spirit @ about 12 i think. And there are times when you can fake yourself out and think you know it all.

I'm soo grateful that there isn't anything I can do other than accepting Jesus and being a disciple of His that gets me into Heaven. It's not works, but it's grace through faith. As a matter of fact, after graduating FIRE, I took a good little while and pulled back from having to be at meetings (i mean, i kept serving in with FIRE) but I stopped a lot of stuff. I felt I had left my first love. It's only when your clothed in the righteousness of what Jesus paid a price for that makes you any good.

Lately, we've been having these awesome prayer meetings (we might call them slosh meetings b/c we just get 'hammered' or drunk in the Holy Spirit at times). I don't know how to explain them in such a way that might be understood without being there. But these meetings are designed to change our likeness more into Jesus. It's not just to say "hey, we're having really good prayer meetings. you should be there to make us look really good." It's more like "Come and let God touch you so that you can touch a dying hurting world."

Sometime ago, I was speaking at a youth retreat and the Lord directed me to speak directly out of John 15. That's the Abiding in the Vine chapter. And I've been repeatedly going back to that for sometime now. That and Romans 8. (When you've really been touched by the power of God, I believe that one of the fruits of it will be an increased hunger for the Word of God.) It was in preparation for this retreat that I wanted to preach a good call to start a revolution. And while that was good and all, about 2 hours before I spoke, the Lord said "well, that's a good idea, but how about what I want?" That's when He gave me John 15.

In any case, let us continually look to Jesus for our everything. He gave us His Holy Spirit for a reason and purpose. Let's take heed and be clothed in righteousness according to God's standard.

God, gives us grace to walk as You deem worthy.

Some Reflections on Current Happenings

In writing this, I want to be careful about what I say and how I say it. I'm grateful that I live in a country where we are to have freedom of speech and soo many other wonderful freedoms. Those are in the documents written by the Founding Fathers and they're essentially at the core of what makes America a great nation. But lately, it seems that some of these freedoms are coming under fire. According to some recent articles coming down the pike from our government. It seems that some of my activities and beliefs might be labeled as a 'right wing extremist' or a 'domestic terrorist". Life could get interesting, considering I'm not a supporter of tyranny, I've never once attended any sort of anti-government rallies (I actually have a lot of interest in government, you can ask a lot of my friends about that.)

But I also realize how important it is to pray for our nations leaders. I'm not a supporter of our current nations leaders (I don't support genocide or the homosexual or 'alternative' lifestyle to name a few), but I don't vehemently hate these folks either. I don't support living a lifestyle contrary to the Bible. But I'm not going to force someone into living how I live.

I say all this because I get emails all the time about how ungodly beliefs are continually being forced upon me. I continually get emails about how when I go to the store, money that I'm paying for goods and services is automatically being given to people who do things that I don't agree with. Meaning that un-Godly lifestyles are being ENCOURAGED financially by businesses and governments that I have to use. President Obama has recently lifted a ban on federal funding for overseas abortion. Great, now the money that I would be making is going towards supporting something that I whole heartedly disagree with.

Sometimes, I get into discussions with folks about the issues. And sometimes, it doesn't go too far. Often times, people don't want to talk about it because the picture is just too painful. Could previous generations could've done more to prevent it? Perhaps... In any case, it seems that it is now up to my generation to fix the mistakes.

In any case, I guess you could say that I'm just a little peeved right now at things that are happening. Big Brother is supposed to be representing me, but more and more it seems that he just doesn't care. He's got the power to change things and they're changing things alright... just not how I want them to be changed.

All For The Sake Of A Crown....

Ok, so Ms. California 2009 was asked a question about same-sex 'marriage' and according to some she answered it right and to some she answered it wrong. She could've just answered it to suit ears and she might have the crown today. But that would've been violating her principles and her beliefs. Some think she should leave her beliefs out of it and answer it to just suit them. But then should wouldn't be true to herself and her moral beliefs.

Another point that I want to raise on here is the name's she was called by the judge later on. I don't think that was very nice of him and it probably hurt her feelings. I think he should genuinely apologize, even if Mr. Hilton didn't agree with the answer. Is that the kind of reputation you want to give of yourself? It doesn't exactly shine well onto the homosexual movement....



For the record, according to me, she went for the right crown and that makes her more beautiful than anything. It may not be a crown here, but its a crown that will last for all eternity.

Christians and Politics... Do They Mix?

On the right hand side, you'll see a link for a podcast that I recently did with a missionary friend of mine from Peru, Steve Bremner. We discussed the issue of how Christians should handle the political scene. Should we vote? How does God fit into the scene if you are a Christian and you hold office. Enjoy the podcast and I welcome your feedback.

Hope Deferred

The other night, I was talking w/ my roommates here about how much my trust in leadership has really been kicked around. I'm not talking about just everyday stuff, but I'm talking about big monumental things. I hope and pray i'm the only one who feels like this right now, but a large part of me is just fed up with the lack of a lot of integrity in leadership. Whether its in the church, of which I'm apart of, or in our government, which I follow kinda closely because of my interest in government.

There have been a lot of scandals in the church world nowadays. In the past 40 years especially, a lot of leaders have 'fallen'. They've fallen due to sexual issues, financial issues and other issues. Granted, I know religious leaders are people just like anyone else and they have their short comings. And I have mine so I have no stones to through at that. But one characteristic of it is are we going to learn from those mistakes, or do we sweep them under the rug and act like these problems don't exist. I say all this because frankly, it doesn't help for us to ignore the issues. That only helps in trying to 'win souls'.

One question I ask to people is "How good is your word?" Can your word be trusted, or do you just speak things flippantly and then conveniently forget about them?

In the governmental realm... would someone PLEASE get a clue? We've made some folks into superstars. I don't know if we realize this, but they're in that position to SERVE us. Congress people are there to SERVE us, not have their lives handed to them on silver platters and pay $90 for a meal (that's just an exaggeration). That is an abuse of my tax dollars! I wish we would be able to have easier access to them...

(If you'll note, I didn't give names. It isn't my desire to single folks out, but I wanted to address a principle instead of a person.)

The Myth of Palestine

I want to start this note off to say that God loves the Arab people just like everyone. Jesus died for their souls as well. I have friends in Arab nations and I know that God wants them more than they could ever want Him. With that in mind, I read a brief article lately entitled "The Myth of Palestine". So I'm going to put it on here for all ya'll to read. Enjoy.

The Myth of Palestine
What happened to the “Palestinian” Empire? Should the “Refugees” have a ‘right of return’? Are the Jews occupying Palestinian Land? Let’s look a little closer at the facts!
In light of the “apartheid” accusation toward Israel over the so-called plight of the Palestinians’ loss of their country to Israeli aggression and ‘occupation’, here are several basic questions that one should be able to answer if, in fact, “Palestine” ever did exist.
1. When was it founded and by whom?
2. What were its borders?
3. What was its capital?
4. What constituted the basis of its economy?
5. What was its form of government?
6. What was the language of the country of Palestine?
7. What was the name of its currency?
8. Choose any date in history – what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the U.S dollar, German mark, British pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date?
9. Since there is no such country today, what caused its demise, and when did it occur?
10. When exactly was it a proud nation and what was it soo proud of?
11. Here is the most important question of all: if the people (erroneously called Palestinians) are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over – or rather thrown out of – the Arab world, and truly possess a unique ethnic identity that gives them a right for self-determination, why did they never try to become an independent and cohesive group (the PLO terrorist organization) until the Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War – a war they initiated?

There truth is…
- There was never an Arab country of Palestine, and Palestinian-Arabs were never a nation.
- Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab state or province. (it is not even in the Qur’an).
- In all of recorded history, only one People have ever made a country (others named) “Palestine” a sovereign nation-state with Jerusalem as its capital… The Jews.

(Adapted from “A Japanese Perspective on the Palestinians” www.bridgesforpeace.com. Reprinted from JVT March/April 2006.) May/June 2007 Jewish Voice Today, Pg. 21

Biltmore Estate

Well, this past Saturday, I was priviledged to go and tour the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. My parents came into town for a super quick tour (they were heading home to PA from Florida with the Stoner's) and so they decided to stop in and see me and then go to Biltmore).

Biltmore Estate is absolutely huge. I mean, its only 175,000 sq. ft. of a house. It sits on a meager 8,000 acres of property (www.biltmore.com). It is a tourist trap and therefore, everything is really expensive (go figure, huh?). We did the tour in about 2 hours. They have headphones that you listen to as you go from room to room. I had a good time, considering that my parents paid my way. I would go up again though. And do the audio tour b/c you'd probably miss out a lot without them. I mean, your already paying at least $35 to do the tour, you might as well pay the extra money to understand it all.

After doing the tour, we went to the winery and did the wine tasting. I had never done one before, but it was fun. I wouldn't be able to tell you any of the names of wine that I tried, but I did learn that I'm not really missing much by not normally drinking the stuff. I'm not opposed to further drinking of wine, but I don't make it a regular thing in my life. I'll stick w/ Cheerwine and Mountain Dew.

If your into history and like to tour homes and like a lot of walking, I'd recommend you doing the tour. If you don't like any of those things, don't do it. Plain and simple.