Well, as a follow up to this past weekend, I thought I'd give the updates. 

In my last post I mentioned all of the things that were going on this past weekend.  To Recap: I was performing my first wedding, we had the funeral for Janny and I was looking forward to an amazing worship service on Sunday.

First, I want to go through the events in the order the happened, then I'll talk about each.

• Friday night, I went to the wedding rehersal, Jen went to the viewing for Janny.
• I went to the viewing right as the funeral home was getting ready to close up shop.  Got to say goodbye to Janny and talk to her husband and son, trying to encourage them.
• Saturday morning, 11 am, went to the funeral services.
• Saturday, noon, went to wedding. 
• Saturday, 1 pm, performed wedding.
• Saturday, 2 pm, went to the reception for the funeral at our church.
• Saturday, 4 pm, went to the wedding reception.
• Saturday, 8 pm, finally got home for the evening.
• Sunday, 9:30, Arrived at church for worship practice, expecting great things.
• Sunday, 10:30, worship started.
• Sunday, 12:30, worship ended, yes, worship ended not the service.

Now, the funeral was nice, knowing that Janny knew the Lord was encouraging and a lot of the conflict within her family was put aside, at least for those couple of days.

The wedding went off without too much of a hitch, however, I struggled with the King James that is in the wedding ceremony.  It's been so long since I've read King James it was throwing me off.  I think I'm going to rewrite that ceremony using NIV or NLT.  However, other than stumbling over the thee's and thou's I did pretty good, accourding to my lovely wife and the couple that I married.  I think that is all that was important.  The reception was also very nice.

Now, Sunday service may have been the single most awesome service that I've ever been part of.  First, the worship didn't stop after 30 minutes, which is the norm.  We were going for the whole service.  Many people were baptized with the Holy Spirit.  Many more were just plain blessed.  There were even a couple families that were healed of some things that were tearing them apart.  Benny stepped up and started to take his position as the next pastor of FFCCPA and we even started collecting money to go toward starting 5 international training schools.  I believe we collected enough to start the first one Sunday alone.  Only $4K more and we will have reached our goal!

If anyone wants to help with that, let me know, I'll let you know how you too can help us start some training schools in other countries.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend, and by the end, I was worn out, but I would be happy if every weekend happened the same way.

This weekend is a hallmark in my ministry.  I will be performing my first wedding ceremony!

I'm excited, a little nervous and hoping my voice, which is very weak today, is strong enough to get me through.  I'll put a write up about how it goes after the rehersal tomorrow and then after the wedding on Saturday.

To add to the excitement of the wedding is a little mellowdrama.  One of the ladies in our congregation lost her battle with lung cancer this past week, so we will be working with her family to put a dinner together to celebrate her life.

I'm really looking forward to Sunday Service as well.  Our pastor and a couple other ministers went to the International Pastors and Ministers Conference this week. I'm planning on going next year, but everything that I've heard from the conference is that it is just plain awesome.  I got to catch the evening service on Tuesday and it was incredible.  I really wish I could have been there in person, because there was power watching it in my living room on my laptop.  With a re-invigorated minister Sundays service should be great.

The pastor also mentioned to me last week that he's going to have me minister in a few weeks on what I wrote a few days ago on this blog, Increasing Your Need.  I'm preparing for that, which is why I'll be posting a little less until then.  If I have some new revelations on the topic I may post them, but we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I had one of the most amazing times of prayer in my life.

I've recently begun praying regularly when I"m in my car.  Not only is it one of the few places that I can truly be alone, but it's been part of my introspection.  I've always prayed in my car, but now it's an "appointment" with my father.  Scheduled time for He and I to get together and pow-wow.

I've been doing this for the past couple of months and I've noticed that it's been getting harder and harder to pray.

It's not that I don't have the words, anyone who knows me knows that words are not the problem.  It's getting harder because I refuse to be a repetative prayer.  I don't want to speak just to be heard.  I don't want to sound like the old priests of Ba'al who would chant the same thing, over and over again just to be seen.  I want my conversation with God to be relevant.  I want it to have conversations with God like I have conversations with my friends, frankly, because I want to be friends with God.

My abiility to pray and be relevent has been hindered because of God.  It's His fault.  You see, He's been meeting all of my needs, so it's more dificult to just converse.

With that being the case, I've decided that I must increase my need!  If the basics in my life, food, shelter, love, have been met then I have to find bigger things to need.  So what do I need now?  Considering that He is able to do excedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think, what do I need now?  I need for my wife to be happy.  I need my boys to grow up to be great men of God.  I need to be out of debt with money in the bank when we open the church in Sarasota.  I need to be able to give to my community.  I need to be a blessing to those around me.

When you start getting into details of everything you need in your life, even past the things that are normally considered a need, you'll discover a whole new world. 

Now, what will happen when all of my current needs are met?  Well, I'll have to increase them again.  I don't know where I'll be when that point in time happens, but I'll know what to do when it does.

Another thing, since He is able to do excedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think, I think it's time we stop thinking and asking small.  I don't think he wants us to be coming to Him with small ideas.  If I am $20 short of paying my bills, I don't think He wants me to ask for $20.  He want's me to ask for as much as I can think of, because he is able to do so much more.

I have a vision of what I want my kids to grow up and be.  I know that each one has a personality that will be used to do great things.  I know that they will all do different things because they are all different.  I know that Josiah has the heart, he is compassionate.  I know that Braedon is the thinker/schemer (in a good way).  I know that Thorin is going to be the leader.  I'm not too sure about Rilian yet, he's a little too young to decipher yet.  However, I'm praying that the Lord lead them all to immense success no matter which path they take in life.  I am praying that he protect them from my mistakes in raising them.  I'm asking that he do more than I can imagine with them, and I have a pretty good imagination.

Ultimately, we need to never be satisfied where we are.  We need to constantly be growing.  We should be getting past our current needs and into the next round.  We need to start thinking bigger.  Our small thinking keeps us trapped in a pit of despair from which no one can get out.  Expand your horizons and escape the grasp of this worlds system.

The Bible says "That which you sow you shall also reap."  I know I've been kind of on a tear about sin lately.  It's all part of my journey of introspection.  However, there are current events in the world that point me to this as well.  There are quite a few things in the media that bring todays post to me.  From the death of several celebrities to the Iranian election to the current administration in Washington.

I was never a big Michael Jackson fan, even when I was a kid in the 80's.  He just wasn't my style.  I still watched the Thriller video when it came out, I thought it was a great video.  Of course I was totally into the undead movies of the time.  Being from Pittsburgh it's almost an unwritten rule that you have to be a zombie movie fan, considering that Pittsburgh is the home of George A. Romero.

However, Michael, to me, wasn't the biggest loss over the last couple of weeks, it was Steve McNair.

Now Steve McNair, as a NFL player was exciting to watch, with his ironman persona.  He was as tough as they come and through his career never backed down from playing because of injury.  If it was possible for him to be on the field, he was.  He also was a person who gave back to the community.  He was well known for his generosity, with his time and with his money.

After his retirement last year, apparently, he started to let his fame go to his head.  He started messing around on his wife with a girl that was 16 years younger than him and in the end, she ended up being the death of him, literally.

I'm not here to judge Steve McNair's eternal salvation, that is not my job.  However, I will talk about how he sowed death and death is what he reaped.

At some point in Steve McNair's life he decided that his wife wasn't sufficient for him.  He decided that his kids weren't as important to him as getting it on with a 20 year old girl.  As he started dating this girl, he was sowing death.  He was sowing the death of his relationship with his wife.  He was severing the intimacy he may have had with his kids, and everything I've ever read indicated that he was a good father.  He sowed death into the lives of everyone around him.  The fact that it ended in literal death only brings an exclaimation to the fact that he sowed death.

Had Steve McNair not died on July 4th, he would have still reaped that which he was sowing.  He would have lost his family, many of his friends and he would have lost his reputation and so much more.

As part of my introspection, this causes me to think.  What am I sowing in my life that could lead to death?  At this very moment there is nothing new, that I haven't already recognized, but it impressed on my the need to always ask the question.  What am I sowing?  Do I want to reap it's harvest? Am I reaping things that will lead to life, or things that will lead toward death?

Am I sowing my finances in places that will lead to growth, or to places that will lead to debt?  Am I sowing my time to things that will lead to family growth or to a distant family?  Will the things I sow into my kids lead to rebellion or lead to intimacy?  Will those things that I sow into my wife lead to a long happy life or divorce?

I hope that everything I sow in every area of my life will lead to life.  I know there are areas that I fall short.  I just hope that I'm not so blind that I don't recognize when my actions are sowing death.

Steve McNair made the decision to cheat on his wife.  Perhaps the reason he is now dead is because he had a change of heart and wanted to end it with this young girl.  Perhaps.  Perhaps she was just mentally ill.  I don't know, I don't know what happened there.  I wasn't a fly on the wall.  I don't have a clue.  However, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.  Let's hope that whatever happened in that room that Steve had accepted God's gift, even as he was reaping the death he sowed.

Rom 7:4-25

I think, sometimes, to be a Christian is to be schizophrenic.  As Romans 7 says:

Rom 7:15-17
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
NIV

We try so hard to do what is good, but we always go back to what is evil.  Our mind warring against our body for our souls, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts.  It’s the dichotomy of being a Christian.  We do the things we don’t want to do, but for the simple fact that we don’t want to do them it proves that the law is good.  That is just odd.  I like it, but it’s odd.

It makes you understand, though, that God doesn’t really put the importance on your actions as a Christian, but on the condition of your heart.  For instance, if you were entrapped in sin, and it is something that you want to do, it doesn’t prove anything but that your heart is evil.  However, if you are in sin, but it isn’t something that you want to do, but you stumble, it proves the law is a good thing.

The way I always tell the youth group at FFCC is this; the law was not created by God to limit your freedoms, the law was created to show you the things that will cause you pain.  In God’s attempt to keep His children safe He basically said, don’t stick anything into the light socket or don’t touch that pot of boiling water.

Ultimately, we need to continue to try to do good.  In all things we should try to abstain from the very appearance of evil.  However, when those times come and we do fall, and we will, don’t be too hard on yourself, pick yourself up, dust off your backside and continue pressing forward for the prize.  Falling isn’t failing, quitting is failing.  If you keep fighting for the prize eventually you will get it.

Our faith is not a sprint, it is a marathon.  In a sprint you have 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.  In a marathon, everyone, whether you are first or last, is a winner, as long as you cross the finish line.  It’s up to you in what condition you cross.  Do you want to be the beat up wounded warrior or the victorious king returning home, the choice is yours.  Even the king loses some battles, it’s how he responds that makes him the conquering hero.