The Past Two Sundays

One of the ways I utilized the outdated mikeinaminute blog was to post about what I had taught, or at least attempted to teach, the previous night at youth. As you might have noticed, I have not yet done so here, so I am playing catch-up.

Sunday, March 22

I continued my tattoo series with the second of my three tattoos; a picture of which you can find below). It is located right over my heart.

That particular night, I decided to more or less allow the Scripture to speak for itself. I interjected very little of my own thought into the lesson. Instead, I read the following Scriptures:

Romans 5:5 - "...And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us."

Matthew 6:21 - "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Matthew 15:18 - "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."

Matthew 22:37 - "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind.'"

See a pattern here? The heart is very prevalent in the Bible. In fact, according to biblegateway.com, the word "heart" appears in the Bible (NIV) 743 times. Where are your treasures? Do you honor God with your heart as well as you do with your lips? Tough questions, right? After I stopped reading, I played a song called "Welcome Home" by an artist named Shaun Groves:

Take, me, make me
All You want me to be
That's all I'm asking, all I'm asking

Welcome to this heart of mine
I've buried under prideful vines
Grown to hide the mess I've made
Inside of me
Come decorate, Lord
Open up the creaking door
And walk upon the dusty floor
Scrape away the guilty stains
Until no sin or shame remain
Spread Your love upon the walls
And occupy the empty halls
Until the man I am has faded
No more doors are barricaded

Chorus:
Come inside this heart of mine
It's not my own
Make it home
Come and take this heart and make it
All Your own
Welcome home

Take a seat, pull up a chair
Forgive me for the disrepair
And the souvenirs from floor to ceiling
Gathered on my search for meaning
Every closet's filled with clutter
Messes yet to be discovered
I'm overwhelmed, I understand
I can't make this place all that You can

repeat chorus

I took the space that You placed in me
Redecorated in shades of greed
And I made sure every door stayed locked
Every window blocked, and still You knocked

repeat chorus

Take me, make me
All You want me to be
That's all I'm asking, all I'm asking

Amen, right?

Sunday, March 29

Last night, I talked about my most recent tattoo, the only one you can see even when Im wearing a shirt; well, a short-sleeved one, at least. Its picture can be found below, as well. It is a Latin phrase: Sub Specie Aeternitatis. Its pronounced "sub speck-eee-ay ah-eee-turn-eee-tah-tis." If you dont believe me, check this link out. I read from Romans 5:16:

"Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification."

I talked about how hard it is for us to wrap our minds around certain concepts like eternity and grace and how Jesus' death on the cross forgave all of the sins we had committed and ever will commit...let alone that of the rest of the world, right?! Thankfully, though, our salvation does not depend on our understanding. It hinges on one thing and one thing only - belief. You all know John 3:16 and what it says. I talked about how God does not judge on some scale - weighing our good deeds against our bad to determine whether or not we pass some test. There is no answer there. The answer lies within our hearts; where true belief resides. And eternity lies with it.

Jubilee for a Weekend: Yard Sale Theology

Well, this weekend marks the annual "Women of SOTH" Yard Sale at the church.

We're busy right now piling in our "junk." Or maybe I should say "stuff." A famous comedian once said that your own "stuff" is "stuff," but other people's "stuff" is "junk."

Ok, he didn't say "junk." He was a little coarser than can be permitted here on the ol' blog.

But we do tend to see it that way sometimes. Our "stuff" has value, we think.

But the truth of American culture is that we're way, way too tied to stuff. And, our stuff doesn't isn't nearly as valuable as we like to think.

We own houses full of depreciating assets (and even the houses themselves have depreciated of late).

This is why I think yard sale may just be one of the most theologically correct things any church could do.

Here's what I mean:

1 - All the proceeds from this weekend's sale, I mean 100%, will go directly to help the Women of SOTH help other women in need in our community.

2 - All of us need to get rid of a lot of stuff. It has a way of piling up, all the time. Cleaning out that garage, and those closets, and those drawers...it's all a good spiritual exercise in letting go and getting free.

3 - A Yard Sale is recycling at its most basic...something that gets used again by somebody else doesn't wind up in a landfill. That's great stewardship.

4 - Community. You don't know somebody until you've sorted "stuff" with them for several hours. Come work, and get to know those folks you worship with in a whole new way.

5 - It's in line with a really cool Bible idea. Times are hard, and this sale will help somebody. Somebody out there will be able to get some items that they can really use, that they couldn't have otherwise afforded. It's a sharing of abundance.

Look what's in Leviticus 25:

In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee, you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines. Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you, you may not eat of its produce, except as taken directly from the field.”

Every 50 years, ancient Israel did an amazing thing.

Land reverted back to its original owners. A big "reset" button was pushed on society...and the edges of the fields and vines were allowed to produced, and they were not harvested. They were left in place to be freely gleaned by those who were in need.

There's a lot we could learn. Come get a lesson in what matters most this weekend....The Women of SOTH yard sale --- Friday night from 4-8 pm and Saturday (rain or shine) 8 am - 4 pm.

Numbers 32

I am reading my way through the Good Old Old Testament again, and if you have ever tried this yourself, you know that there are stretches that are difficult to read. I am being completely honest with you when I say that there are times when I get frustrated reading the OT because I feel like Im reading an extremely wordy history textbook rather than literature that is supposed to aid in my walk with Christ or provide me some glimpse into the character of God. When I pick up my Bible for my devotional time each night, I am hoping to close my eyes feeling recharged rather than even more drained, and sometimes the text can do just that.

Anyways, tonight I had a funny thought after reading a passage from Numbers 32 that I thought I would share with you, the ever-faithful readers of SOTHBLOG:

"Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon- the land the LORD subdued before the people of Israel—are suitable for livestock, and your servants have livestock. If we have found favor in your eyes," they said, "let this land be given to your servants as our possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan." Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, "Shall your countrymen go to war while you sit here? Why do you discourage the Israelites from going over into the land the LORD has given them? This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to look over the land. After they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and viewed the land, they discouraged the Israelites from entering the land the LORD had given them. The LORD's anger was aroused that day and he swore this oath: 'Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of the men twenty years old or more who came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the LORD wholeheartedly.' The LORD's anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the desert forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone. " Numbers 32:3-13

Okay, so this is how my mind responded to this passage:

You know those cheesy countdown clocks you see at stores sometimes or even on ESPN or FOX as time draws nearer to a big game? With each passing second, you draw nearer and nearer to the fulfillment of the promise held by the clock!

What if the Israelites had a clock like that back then? Like, somehow they knew when the day would arrive that they would claim the land God had promised them?

Imagining that they did, think about this passage:

Countdown clock is almost to zero and a bunch of the leaders come whining to Moses: "Come on, Mo. According to the clock, we are basically here. Lets stay on THIS side of the Jordan. What do you say? It will save us the trouble of the classic Oregon Trail dilemma: Should we try and ford the river, or should we float our wagon across? This way, we save time AND we dont lose any spare wheels or the 700lbs of squirrel meat we shot yesterday! Win/win, Moses."

Of course, God hears this, and the next thing you know, the countdown clock has unexpectedly gone up again! By at least a generation, no less! How angry would you have been at the dudes who didnt want to get their feet wet?

Im not saying that God moved the Promise Land to spite the impatient Israelites or anything like that. This is just a "what if?" deal. Life is fun when you ask that question all the time and ponder its infinite answers. This time it just happened to manifest itself in Biblical times.

Relationship Series

Okay, I think I finally have the series on relationships in a working order:

Week 1: Title: "You First"
Scripture: Matthew 7:3
Basic Idea: We should be sure that we are in a good place ourselves before attempting to be okay with another.

Week 2: Title: "Standards"
Scripture: Mixed/TBD
Basic Idea: Figure out what your standards are, what they should be, and then make no compromises with them.

Week 3: Title: "What Now?
Scripture: Mixed/TBD
Basic Idea: This will be a study of what to watch for during the relationship.

Week 4: Title: "In the End"
Scripture: Mark 12:30-31
Basic Idea: We have standards to uphold even when we bring a relationship to a close.

This series will begin on April 5th.

Three Quick Movie Reviews

Okay, so part of my postings here will be reviews of media forms; books and movies, most notably. I do this for a couple of reasons:

1) It serves as a sort of cultural education making you, the reader, more aware of the goings-on of our present day culture.

2) My offerings will serve either to warn you of the bad stuff or turn you on to the good stuff.

With that in mind, I saw three movies this past week:

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

If you have not seen either of the first two Underworld movies, the basic premise is that vampires and lycans, or, as they are more commonly known, werewolves, are at war with one another. This movie served as a prequel - effectively answering the big question: Why are the vampires and the werewolves hating on one another?

Personally, I found this installment to be the best of the three, but take this with a pinch of salt, for it is most certainly not a movie for children or those who cannot stand the sight of violence. The story is well-told, but the cinematics make it difficult to recommend.

Twilight

I finally broke down and saw this one. I had promised myself I wouldnt get sucked into the next teeny-bopper craze, but my friend Jason and I caved because it was the only movie showing during the time frame in which we were looking to watch one. If you arent aware, the movie is based off of a series of books by author Stephenie Meyer named Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

The movie wasnt bad and comes with a PG-13 rating for mild violence and what is called "sensuality" by IMDB. Basically what that means is that there is a lot of tension between the two characters in the film that are romantically interested in one another. Too much for this guy.

The movie completely messed with the traditional vampire characteristics, and that bothered me. For instance: Vampire lore dictates that they cant be seen in mirrors and that is clearly not the case in the film. And according to mythos, they cant encounter sunlight without essentially turning to ash. In the movie, when they are exposed to direct sunlight, they dont burn...they dont even sizzle a little. Instead, they sparkle. Yeah, SPARKLE. As if they had been rubbed down in body glitter. Lame.

Some of the special effects were cheesy, too. Like blurring when the vampires jump or fall. Yeah, somehow vampires defy physics in such a way that gravity, itself, somehow exercises its forces on them more intensely - causing them to fall so fast they blur. Also lame.

The story wasnt bad - as I said: a little too creepily seductive. Best part of the film is watching the vampire family interact. Funny if you think about it. The part of Edward Cullin was played well by an unknown by the name of Robert Pattinson who made Edward extremely creepy and just enough unlikeable to give his character some dramatic depth.

Recommended? If you read the books, sure. Otherwise, pass.

I Love You, Man

I must preface this review with a very necessary warning: This movie is not for kids. Its rated R for a host of good reasons.

That aside, for what it is - an adult-oriented comedy - this movie is fantastic. It mixes outright humor with more subtle humor and keeps you laughing throughout. Basic premise is that a guy is going to get married and realizes that he doesnt have any male friends to fill out his side of the wedding party, so he starts going on "man-dates" to try and meet his potential Best Man. He inadvertently meets a guy by the name of Sydney, they hit it off, and onward goeth the plot.

Most of the humor in the movie is harmless, but when it does get into the PG-13/R range with the humor, it goes all in. Language is also an issue in it, with curse-words being uttered, it would be safe to guess, in every scene.

The movie did a great job of getting you to fall in love with the characters and making you pull for them 100%. When the times are good, you are happy. When they get a little rocky, you hope to see a quick return to the good times. You dont see that dynamic too often in comedies.

I dont hesitate to say that I believe this movie was made for my age range (the 18-25 range). Everyone will laugh during the film, but that doesnt mean it is a recommendation for all.

________________________________________________________________

I usually will talk about some sort of teachable moment from the movies I watch, as well, but opted out to keep things shorter this go around. I dont usually see three movies at a time! Oh, and if you are curious about a movie (whether it be for your sake or you are wondering whether or not to let your children go see it in the theaters), shoot me a line and I will scope things out for you and let you know.

Hasta.

This Is New...

I have officially arrived at SOTH now that I have access to authorship on the official SOTH blog. Thats right, folks: Mikeinaminute and SOTHBLOG have merged into one mega-blog that is guaranteed to blow your minds by way of the penmanship of not one, but two of your beloved staff!

I will be bringing a medley of miscellaneous misinformation to this URL. Actually, that is a lie. I only said "misinformation" to cap off the alliteration there. Most, if not all, of what I post here will be information about the world as I see it. There will be movie reviews, book reviews, rants, raves, randomness, and I guess I have to post some stuff about God here, too, huh? Okay, if you insist.

Consider this your warning. Tomorrow, Pandora's Box shall be opened, and as was so eloquently explicated by a guy named Saul from a movie that shall go un-named:

"Pandora doesnt go back into the box. He only comes out."

Spring

Yesterday I had to drive into downtown Douglasville and back. It was an absolutely beautiful day.

I risked UV damage to the crown of my head and opened the sunroof, all the way. I dropped the windows. You could just smell spring in the air.

As I topped a hill, I approached a stand of amazing flowering cherry trees that flanked the road on its right. They looked like pale pink clouds, hovering close to the earth. It was an incredible site, almost transcendent, just for a fleeting moment.

At any other time of the year, I'd have blown by these trees without a second thought. Maybe even just a couple of days ago. In the summer, they're green and nondescript. In winter, they're just bare branches, fading into a massive sea of the same.

But yesterday...wow. A gaudy, garish, showy, unashamed, unabashed display of bloom-osity exploded on the roadside.

When did it happen?

Was there a moment when the tree switch flipped from "off" to "bloom?"

The real truth is that trees don't bloom in a single moment. They bloom bit by bit, day by day, until the undeniable truth of their presence can no longer be denied, even by the most heedless of us humans.

And that reminds me of something that Jesus once had to say:

Mark 4:26-29 (The Message)
Then Jesus said, "God's kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows—he has no idea how it happens. The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain. When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time!

Imagine: Jesus is saying that the kingdom can be compared to a harvest that comes while we're not paying attention! Perhaps he's saying that it is a gift. It's not the work of our human hands. The Kingdom belongs to God, who chooses to share it with us, and its presence is a mystery that we cannot solve.

Pastors, churches, and faithful Jesus-followers spend a lot of time, sweat and energy worrying about "the kingdom." That's not bad, is it?

Shouldn't we work to "make disciples?" Shouldn't we give our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness to the effort of kingdom-building?

Of course.

But we should also remember that God's grace, like the flowers of springtime, is a gift from Him that we don't make for ourselves.

We are the beneficiaries of God's abundant love and goodness. It all depends on God, and surely not on us.

What a relief. And what a beautiful day this is.

Grace, Peace, and See you Sunday ---
Adam

Does God Love a Good Fool...Yes!

I've been having a great conversation the last couple of days with facebook friends about my upcoming sermon for this Sunday, and wanted to share via the blog, too.

Here are the scriptures...

John 2:13-22 (New International Version)

13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

17His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

18Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"

19Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

20The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?"

21But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

And...

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (New International Version)

Christ the Wisdom and Power of God

18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

19For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.


First thoughts...lots of news blurbs this week about the way that our society is growing more and more secular. At the same time, we're probably more highly educated on the whole than ever before.

What do we count as wisdom? What kinds of miracles do we want to see before we believe? What is Jesus' response to that? What does he show for proof, and how is God's foolishness better than human wisdom? And, how does he use the "foolish" to impart his wisdom? And, of course, the video above is a reminder of everybody's favorite literary "fool" (who is full of wisdom)...Forrest Gump.

Talk amongst yourselves...and let me know what you think!

My cousin Shana mentioned this great song by Nicole Nordeman, called "Fool For You,"


There are times when faith and common sense do not align,
when hardcore evidence of you is hard to find,
and I am silenced in the face of argumentative debate,
it's a long hill it's a lonely climb. Maybe it's true.

CHORUS:
Cause they want proof,
They want proof of all these mysteries I claim,
Cause only fools would want to chant a dead man's name.
I would be a fool for you all because you asked me to.
A simpleton who's seeming naive,
I do believe You came and made Yourself a fool for me.

I admit that in my darkest hours I've asked what if,
What if we created some kind of man made faith like this,
Out of good intention or emotional invention,
and after life is through there will be no You.

Cause they want proof of all these miracles I claim,
Cause only fools believe that men can walk on waves.
Maybe it's true.

Unaware of popularity,
and unconcerned with dignity,
You made me free.
That's proof enough for me.

I would be a fool for You,
Only if You asked me to,
A simpleton who's only thinking of,
The cause of love.

I will speak Jesus' name,
and if that makes me crazy,
they can call me crazed,
I'm happy to be seemingly naive,
I do believe You came and
made Yourself a fool for me.

Peace --- And see you this Sunday, Adam