RBC youth ministry sent a team of high school students and leaders to New Orleans to do inner city ministry. We miss them. We're looking forward to hearing all that God is doing there. (don't forget to turn off my playlist)

Shoving people over the cliff

I want to be a bridge. I used to be a bridge builder between myself and the godliness I wanted to see produced in people around me. And the chasm between them and Christ was so huge. I laugh to myself. With each passing log that I removed from my eye to build these bridges, I began to see my role more clearly. My sight will keep improving over time, I know. I'm sure I'm making logs for myself as I speak.

I'm not a bridge builder at all. I am a bridge. People don't walk all over the builder on their way to Christlikeness, they walk all over the bridge. A builder doesn't make many sacrifices for those who will be getting closer to their goal. The bridge does. It gives of itself. It gets worn down. It is taken advantage of and it is willing to be broken in places for the traveller. It extends grace and doesn't even know it.

Exhorters must have a strong desire in them to see people grow. In my immaturity, that was all I could do; want people to grow. I could see how bad they needed it. I felt that I could help them, if they would just listen to God's word. This was a good thing. But it was only the start of something great.

This passion is necessary and if it isn't strong inside of me, I won't be motivated to share it with others. I'm remorseful to say, in the past, it displayed itself in me, more like shoving someone over the cliff of God's judgment, than anything else. Wanting others to quit sinning or to hurry up and change is not the path to accomplishing it. This desire is only the first step.

Here comes the hard part: being like Christ myself. And how does this man, this God-man help me grow? He became a bridge for me. He was crushed for my transgressions. He took on my sin problem. He laid himself down across the trench of God's wrath, which was very deep, and let me walk safely across.

All along the way, He has been very, very, very patient with me. Though he was crushed He never has crushed me. If I could count the gentle reminders and merciful redirectings He has given, when He could have pounded me into submission, they would outnumber the miles between God and me.

I want to be like that. Everyone I know, who has been purchased by His blood should find two things in me. Number one, a passionate, unrelenting desire within me to help them learn to live like Jesus no matter the cost. And number two, a sweet and merciful patience that lays me down across that dangerous place and points them in that direction. I want to be the bridge over a rocky crevasse of radical change, but a steady bridge painted with grace, one that will get them there with very little notice of myself.

Not sure if I will achieve this.

I thank God for those who didn't shove me over the cliff.

I praise Christ, my sinless Savior for being the one and only perfect bridge.

Paper towels, Vacuums and washing the car

Summer has convinced me of something.

I am going on the mission field. I have decided that I need to go to Africa. Sadly, not because of a conviction to win the lost. Simply because I hear that African missionaries get to send their kids away to boarding school and I want to do that. It beats the alternative for me...

Jail.

Don't report me, all you well-meaning single people.
Thank you for your empathy, all moms of boys.

The end.

Think

"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
~Adolf Hilter

"The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted." ~Jonathan Edwards

If you can't rejoice in your very sad circumstance, and you cannot see the bright sky in the day or the stars, dancing at night, for the gloom that has settled above you. Rejoice in this: God has so set His love upon you that He gave the life of His Son to purchase you back in order that He might give you grace to please Him and then smile on you as if that pleasure came from you. Rejoice in God.

The fourth uh Jooo-Ligh!

I live in America. I thank God that I do. I honor the day that she was born: July 4th, 1776. I grew up on Schoolhouse Rock. I still put my hand on my heart for the national anthem, go to fireworks shows, watch baseball and eat apple pie. I have been a beneficiary of the freedom of public worship for many years. I've even been known to bear arms and speak my mind from time to time.

I am ticked that my tax dollars go to support government bailouts of companies that should go the way of all bad companies in a capitalistic system, down the drain to make room for those who do it right. I believe in a free market and not being taxed without representation. I think it is wrong that congress holds midnight meetings and that my money pays for overseas abortions. Closing Gitmo is a bad idea. Appointing racist judges is wrong.

It is great that a black man can become president here. I never doubted for a second one could and I hoped for the day we would celebrate that. I'm not proud that he bows to other kings and praises Islam. I do not trust him to protect Israel or Christianity. I know that a majority voted for our president, but I don't think they really believe like he does. In all of this, I will still show respect and pray for him.

I don't believe America is in a position our founding fathers ever truly believed we'd be. Taking people's hard-earned money and handing it to the undeserving, giving a chance for freedom to foreign murderers, and the killing of our defenseless young using the money of those who abhor the thought of it, are just a few ways I think they'd disapprove. With every good intention they wrote the declaration of Independence and the Constitution so that our future would be secure, and protected in the hands of those who would become our leaders. If our judicial system handled those documents with integrity we might have come close.

The framers underestimated something big. The sinfulness and megalomania of mankind. They thought we would be led by those who share their goal of wanting what is best for the people. And that when someone who doesn't share that goal takes office, he will establish his own goals at the cost of those people. Godless men, strike out at the heart of God. Church, beware.

All that to say. The church in America today could use a little persecution. A little burning up of the chaff is in order. We've earned a some stripping down to show our true colors. I don't fear the future even with a president who has consistently promoted almost everything God hates in the last six months. What I fear is a church not prepared for the coming of Christ because her freedoms have coddled her into lazy compliance with a Christless, God-offending system. We cannot appease dead people into life by compromising holiness or simply being green. Since we look too much like the world, perhaps God will use the world to draw darker lines between us.

"Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey."

I think it's time we became prey. You silly, distracted, entertained so-called church, open your eyes to the times. Examine yourself and declare to whom you belong. God is nauseated by your mediocrity, and by the way so is the world that you think you are appeasing.

Is 59

Spokane news about Hunter

Here is a video of Hunter's Dad being interviewed on local Spokane news.

Click on Spokane teen dies in collision on Hayden Lake.

Thank you to everyone who has said you are praying. The memorial service will be held this Friday at noon, at Real Life ministries in Post Falls, ID.