no greater joy!!

after work yesterday Shannon and i went downtown to hand out tracts and preach in the mists of rush hour. though it was a very different experience then the normal Saturday morning, i must say it was a time of joy for me. as i study some of America's church fathers i see in them what John Piper calls Christian hedonism. This can be summed up in this quote, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him". WOW! that statement changed my way of thinking forever. i always viewed Christian deeds as being our duty, i now see that duty is not enough to sustain us, for we as humans will always seek happiness and joy. what better way to achieve said joy then through God. it's a better way because as we fulfill our needs of joy, God gets glory! and i truly believe that God has done everything through out history down to the creating of bugs and snails for one reason alone. you guessed it, his glory! so in conclusion i must say that it was really great to get to go downtown and fulfill our commission, get filled with joy, and bring God the glory he longs for!!

live like hell? then you'll burn in it!!

i have been thinking today, and here is what i came up with. i do not believe in the "carnal Christian" doctrine. I'm not saying by no means that i plan on becoming the judge of who is and who is not a christian. but! i do know this. Jesus saved us FROM sin, so if we stay in it and make no attempt to get out....... that's not being saved!! this you would think would be a given but there are some who will go around and try to let everyone know that if there is a time when they said a prayer and asked Jesus into they're heart then they are saved and if some one is worried about it they say tell satin to leave you alone, or take him to the little date in the back of your bible and say "see devil, i got saved at the revival meeting on this date here". now, i say this. just because you said a prayer at the crusade five years ago does not mean your a christian. if that where true do you realize 95% of America is saved!!! yet they drink, fornicate, they are full of pride and idolatry. yet praise God they are all brothers in the lord! now i know that there are none righteous no not one, and that we have all come short of God's glory. but we can not forget that to be born again means TO BE BORN AGAIN, you know like a new life. the good ol puritans had no problem perching Holiness and holding they're congregations to it. i think that's the big difference between then and now. today we tell people that they can say a prayer and than that they can still be saved as a carnal Christian, then we get all flustered when 90% of the Church is living like the world. what!!! do we have any idea what they are being told!!! of course they are not changing, let them listen to just one of the good ol sermons from any of our American church fathers and i bet we see a reaction then!