My extended family

I had the honor this past Saturday to work on my brothers house. I think throughout the day there were about 7 people there that stopped in to help out. The really cool thing is that all the folks that helped out were Christians. The family of Christ. My extended family. How cool is that. It was fellowship. Talking about the things of the Lord while remodeling a home. My brother has been working on his house from dawn to dusk every day but Sunday. A couple of times last week a guy named Tim stopped by to help out. I met Tim a couple of weeks ago. He does not live anywhere near Speculator, in fact he is on vacation. On vacation working, knowing there is a need and doing more then his part to fulfill that need. It is so cool to see a man who loves the Lord on vacation working with my brother on his house. Tim, if you ever read this, thanks. Just you being there has ministered to me. I know my brother thanks you too! All of the folks that have helped my brother out in his time of need have done so to help their "brother" out. Most have families, some larger then others (Ted), all have jobs and other responsibilities, but they take their valuable time to help. They may not know it but they are ministering to those around them, they are sharing the love of Christ, the love that Christ has put in them, love that they would not be capable of without Christ, because He first loved us! Thank You Father for the love you have put in us. Thank You for calling us to you. Thank You for loving us first. Thank You for my extended family!

The things we do for our kids

It is now 10:30 Friday night. Most of you that know me are very surprised that I am even awake at this hour. Well, it gets better. My son has 3 friends over and Tony my neighbor just got here and he is going nuts on Tyler's electric guitar. They are all jam packed in Ty's room and it is VERY noisy! All I can think about is my pillow! It's not very often that Ty has so many friends over. When he does have this many friends over it reminds me of why it doesn't happen very often! The things we do for our children! I praise God that Ty has so many friends that care for him! It's just wish there weren't allergic to sleep! Sleep...sounds very good right now! Good Night!

Delight yourself in the Lord!

Psalm 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." The Lord is now teaching me just how true that is! I found out yesterday that Tyler is absolutely for sure comming to live with me! I am so excited! I hardly slept at all last night. All I could do is praise God for His blessings. Thank you Jesus, I praise you! I have been praying for this ever since Nancy and Tyler moved 6 years ago. I now realize that Gods timeing is much better then mine, it's perfect!

Another praise! It is starting to look like I will have another roomy! We haven't talked yet about the final details but I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. It will be nice to have another body at home. Some accountability is never a bad thing! We will also be able to have some perks! The internet and maybe even TV. Ty wants TV, I may need some convincing. I am looking forward to a roomy though!

Another praise! I have made a covenant with my God to give a certain amount every month. Enough to hurt. I have to stack up those treasures in heaven! Well, with Ty comming to live with me God is giving that money back to me in the form child support I will no longer have to pay! He is the great provider! Now to give more! Thank you Father! I love you! Help me to love you more!

Praises!!!

I am so excited! My God is so great! So strong and so mighty, there is nothing my God can't do! It appears that my son Tyler is coming to live with me for this school year! I want to thank everyone for their prayer and support for me on this! God is so good. His timing is perfect. Praising God for the tests and trials that he sends makes the blessings He sends all the better!

I will now be the custodial parent for Ty. Very exciting. I am sure that there will be tough times. There will be trials. I just pray that God will give me the strength to be a godly father. I praise Him for drawing me closer to Him through all of this. I praise God for the support He has placed all around me. I praise Him for the family and friends that I have that will help me raise the son that He has entrusted to me. Thank you my Father!

Fresh and New

As most of you know I grew up in the Adirondacks and I still live here. I am continually surrounded by my Saviors beautiful creation. Lakes, mountains, streams, trees, and wildlife are all very abundant. Having lived in this beautiful area my whole life it can be very easy to take all of this for granted. It is sometimes stale. I see a lot of folks traveling through town stopping here and there to take pictures and admire the beauty. Its funny how I sometimes look at these people and laugh at them as they admire this beauty that I take for granted. How is it that I can take this beauty for granted!

I have also been a Christian for most of my life. I got saved when I was 9 years old. I have heard the Gospel my whole life. The beautiful Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has surrounded me since I was a kid. I have had struggles in the past, where ,like the scenery around me, the Gospel has been taken for granted. It's become stale. I hope and strive to keep the Gospel new and fresh in my life like the folks that travel through here taking pictures and admiring the beauty. I want to be the one taking pictures, admiring the beauty of the Gospel of my Savior. I pray that what my God and Savior have done for me is always new and fresh. Father please help me to love you more and more every day! Draw me closer and closer to you and help me to see how helpless I am and how awesome your grace is!

Sinner to sinner

Do you or anyone else you know of struggle with sin? I sure hope that I am not the only one! I hate it but yet I do it. Knowing that I hate and still do it makes me hate it all the more! I know that Paul had similar struggles. In Romans 7:15 he talks about just such a problem! "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." It is so good for my heart to hear that I am in such good company! Paul also says in 1 Timothy 1:15 "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst." Like I said good company! Although I would be tempted to argue that I am the worst, Gods Word is inerrant so I will be forced to agree with Paul! I think that if we were honest with each other we would admit that we struggle with sin more then we would like to admit. I talked earlier in a post about how important it is to pray for our pastors. I want to talk now about how important it is to pray for each other! Often! The longer I am a Christian the more I realize the importance of prayer! I do my best to pray daily for my friends and family and I am doing better now then I ever have. I will continue to do better still as grow closer and closer to my savior (I hope!). Father help me to pray more for those that I love! Help me to grow closer in my communion with you to pray without ceasing!

Sacrifice

Jesus Christ died for me and you. He took the sins of all of the world on His shoulders. He experienced His Father Gods wrath to the extent that our sins can be forgiven. Our sins. All of them throughout history. All peoples sin! Jesus took all of this on Himself! "My God! My God! why have you forsaken me"!? A holy Jesus on a torchering cross, suffering unimaginable pain, anguish, and taking upon Himself the punishment necessary to atone a Holy God for the sin that we are born with and He did not commit! A holy, perfect Jesus that experienced His Father God turning His back on Him. Ashamed of Him. All of this done for me! For you! Now that is Love!

I like to think that I would die or sacrifice my life for that of another. I like to think that the love that God has instilled in me would be sufficient for me to take that step were in necessary. I do after all have an eternity in heaven with my Jesus, my Savior to look forward too. Would you die for someone else? Can I take this a step farther? Would you die for the person who murdered your parents? Your child? Your spouse? What if that person were unrepentant? How about another step. Would you suffer while you died? One more step! Would you take that persons place in hell? Forever? Forever!!!! Do you have that much love in you? I don't think that I do. I don't know that we are capable of that kind of love. Jesus was and is capable of that kind of love. That is what he did for us! Now that is Love! Thank You Jesus, my Savior for that kind of love! Help me to share that kind of love with those who are lost!

I praise God that I serve a risen Savior who lives in my heart today! I praise God for His sacrifice! I praise God that Jesus sits at Gods right hand and intercedes for us! Father help me never for forget what you have done for me! Make it more real to me every day. I praise You!

The Gosple of Grace

I have been hit square in the chest a couple of times as of late with the gospel. The good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. The heart and sole of what it means to be a Christian, an adopted child of God Almighty! I was listening to a Macarthur message yesterday on the Gospel, I have been reading his book the "Gospel according to Jesus", and then last night a message from Mahaney all this about the gospel! It is so awesome to be loved by God! I am so thankful that he chose me to be his child! I praise God that He sent His son Jesus to die on the cross for me! I am so undeserving! I am a sinner. I deserve hell for eternity. I deserve judgement. God is just! I am sin. God is perfect! I am filthy, worthless, blemished. But I am also covered in the blood of Christ. I am an heir of God. I am His child because of His sacrifice of His perfect Son. I love my God but only because he first loved me. I praise you Jesus! I praise you Father! I praise you spirit! Help me to be radical for YOU!

Lead by Example

As you may or may not know I have been working with youth since I was about 18 years old. I have such a desire to see young people come to know the Lord and then live for Him too! I had the opportunity this morning to attend a ceremony at Deerfoot Lodge where a young man (now 25) who I worked with some as a youth was honored for not only his many accomplishments at camp but for growing into a man of God. This young mans name is Noah and I am so proud of him! This morning he stood in front of his family, friends, peers, the leadership at Deerfoot and all of the campers and proclaimed to all of them that his goal is in life is to not be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Here is a very gifted young man who wants nothing other then to glorify his God! I wish that some of the young people in my life now could have experienced the conviction and dedication in this young man! I was very fortunate to have my son Tyler with me. I tend to worry a little bit about where this old world is going and what kind of effect it will have on my Tyler. It was very encouraging for me to see Noah up there this morning. I can't wait to see what my God is going to do with the life of Tyler! I pray for Him all the time that he will have a love for Gods Word, a love for the lost, a heart for ministry. Noah is a great example to all of the children who saw him today. He is a great example for Tyler. I pray that his example will point others to the truth of Christ. Thank you Father for the people you put in our paths to help encourage and strengthen us.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about how selfish many of the young people in our society are today. My friend had many stories about just how selfish these could be. It was very disheartening! Not only were some of the kids selfish but they could not see it! To them it was normal! At snack time last night at VBS I got a glimpse of this selfishness too. It made me mad! It is unbelievable that there is so much selfishness! I just can't fathom bringing up my son in such a way that this type of behavior is acceptable, even favorable! I am blown away! Whatever happened to Phillipians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 50 or even 10 years ago this type of behavior would not have been tolerated! We need to pray for our youth! We as Christians need to stand for what we know to be true and do our best to instill biblical values and morals in these kids! It can be very frustrating! But these young people are the future of this nation. They will be calling the shots. They will hopefully be spreading the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that our kids will grow up to love the Word of God, have a love for others and have a heart for the lost!

Moody and prayer

I know I have said this before and I will say it again! It is awesome how God works! Yesterday I was reading my friend Chris's blog http://www.forthesakeofthecalltetm.blogspot.com/ . He has a Spurgeon quote on there that talks about prayer and how important it is to pray for our pastors. Last night I came across a couple of quotes from D.L. Moody in a book I am reading and I want to share them with you. The quotes are on prayer and the importance of praying for our pastors! How cool is that! I guess that God is trying to tell me that I need to be praying more for my pastor! Here are the Moody quotes.

"I have noticed, in traveling up and down the country, and after mingling with a great many ministers, that it is not the man that can preach the best that is the most successful, but the man who knows how to get his people together to pray."

"If the man who is your minister preaches the gospel, you stand by him, pray for him. What a help it is for a man that is preaching to have a lot of people in the pews praying for him."

We need to be in prayer for our pastors! Moody was a man that spent much of his time in prayer in fact James M. Gray (the second president of Moody Bible Institute) said that Moody "spoke to God as if He were a man around the corner, who could be addressed and touched like a real human friend." Father draw me closer to you every day. Be more real to me every hour. Make me more like you every minute. Help me to love you more every second.

I know that prayer works. I also know that I could and should pray much much more! I will be making it a point to pray more for my pastor! I hope that you will too!

Vacation Bible School

This is the week of VBS at my church. It's going to be a crazy week! I ask that you pray for the leaders and the kids! We need these kids to grow up and lead this nation for Gods glory! We are studying the armor of God. It is such a blessing to study these familiar scriptures again! It is amazing to me how inexhaustible God's word is! I will have the opportunity to share with the older kids on Wednesday night. I will be talking about "feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace" Ephesians 6:15. I did a couple of word searches at www.biblegateway.com . Words such as run, flee, and stand. I then applied some of those verses to "the Gospel of Peace". Very cool! I just pray that the Lord will use this broken vessel to proclaim His word to these kids! Please pray for all of us!

Resounding Gong Show

I have been learning so much lately about love. Isn't it awesome how the Lord teaches us? I started reading through 1 John not too long ago and one of the words that comes up again and again is, you guessed it, love. One of the books I am reading is "Moody on spiritual leadership" by Steve Miller. Can you guess what Miller says about the life of Moody? He says that Moody was known for his loving character. Everyone that knew Moody said the same thing about him. He was known as a very loving man! It's so important for us as Christians to love properly, to place our love in our Savior, to love others even our enemies. Just like Christ loved Judas! It is so easy sometimes to love this world, to love our money or our possessions. 1 john chapter 2:15-17 talks about love and where it should be placed , 15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 1John 3:16-24 goes on to talk a little more about love. 16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. The blessings of loving correctly are eternal. The curse of loving incorrectly are eternal too. I struggle so much with loving my neighbor. Would I die for them? I like to think so. Would I tell them about Christ? I need to. If I don't then I don't love them. If I don't I love me more. My flesh is so weak. Help me father to be more loving!

Ministering at the Ministry Center

If you are not familiar with the ministry center check out http://www.adirondackbible.org/ click on ministries and then ministry center. We have a youth group from Green Pond working at the ministry center this week. Last night I had the opportunity to go out to the ministry center with my pastor and spend some time with these young people and their leaders. It is awesome to see these kids so eager to work for their Lord. During the devo Pastor Ed asked the kids how they were doing. The answer he was looking for was "Better then I deserve!" How often do we look at our lives or the day we just had or an experience we are going through and think that we are not doing too well? Tough day at work? Kids driving you nuts? Husband or wife being unreasonable? Just hit your thumb with a hammer? How bad can it really be? Jesus loves you. He died for you. You have streets of gold waiting for you in heaven. How bad is it really? I say Much, Much better then I deserve! What do I deserve? Worse then a bad day! I deserve Hell, forever. How are you doing today?

Jesus and Judas

I have been slowly reading my way through "The Gospel According to Jesus" by John MacArthur. It is truly a blessing. I am at the point in the book now where Jesus is interacting with Judas at the last supper. Jesus says that there is someone at this table who is going to betray me. NONE of the other 11 know who Christ is talking about. That is amazing to me! Judas has spent the last 3 years of his life with these 11 men, yet they don't have a clue that he is apostate! Publicly Jesus treated Judas the same as He treated the other 11. Can you imagine? Jesus knew from the beginning it would be Judas, yet He treated him no differently. Talk about perfect love! I am sure that we have people in our churches very similar to Judas. I thank God that I don't know who they are or what they are capable of because it would be that much harder to love them, my love is far, far from perfect! I also thank God that I have a Savior who loves me perfectly! Amazing love how can it be that you my King would die for me!

Radical for Christ

I have heard the saying "Be radical for Christ" quite a few times recently from a couple of different sources the latest is from the Desiring God blog http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1289_the_advantages_of_providence/ . This post talks about Gods providence. He cares for us and He will provide for us. Do you believe it? Really believe it? Then why not be radical! Do you believe that our Heavenly Father has given us His best when He gave His Son to die for us? Do you believe that we have an eternity with that God who loves us so much? Do you believe that everything you have was given to you by our Lord? Prove it! Live it! I want you all to know that I am talking to myself here more then anything else! I am trying to prove it, live it. I am trying to give my best back to God. I am trying to be radical for Christ!