While in service on Sunday, our pastor said something that I found profound.  It's not that I didn't know it, it's that I never thought about it.  The statement that he made was:"God exists outside of time."

I want to elaborate on that though.

Does God predestine who is going to be saved?  Many people will say yes, and many will say no.  This can decend into an argument that does not gain anyone anything.  The reality is both are right and both are wrong.  Since God exists outside of time, he can't "predestine" anything,  Predestination by it's nature is a statement of time.  Since He exists outside of time it literally becomes that He knows the beginning from the end.  It's not predestined, it's preknown.

Predestination, the doctrine, precludes that you have no choice to follow Christ, you either will, or you will not, the choice is not yours.  However, that would make humanity lower than the angels and the word of God says that We were created a little lower than Elohim.  We were created a little lower than GOd and a lot higher than the Angels.  We were created in the image of God, not the image of angels.  God gave us the choice to love Him.  It's only when you choose to love God that it is a true expression of love.  To be forced to love God is to be a Slave, not a Bond-Servant.

I give myself to my God everyday.  I choose to give myself to Him.  He doesn't force me.  Because I give myself to Him and He accepts me, that makes me a bond-servant.  I am bound to Him by choice, His and mine.

Because God exists outside of time and space, He can speak in the past tense of those things that haven't happened yet.  I am assailed by diabetes.  That is the current condition of my body.  However, the word of God says that By His stripes I was healed.  It also says that to those with clean hands and a pure heart, they are the healed of the Lord.  These are statements in the past tense of things that haven't happened yet.

This means that God looks at me and sees me as healed.  The only thing standing in the way of me becoming healed is getting it into my thick skull that I have been healed.  I also have to ensure that my hands are clean and my heart is pure.  That is what this journey of introspection is all about, to purify myself and sanctify my life for service.

I know this post seems to be all over the board, and it is so, but I have a lot going through me and sometimes it's hard to focus.  One of these days I'll be able to have the venue to put this stuff out a little more efficiently and not fall into scattered diatribe.  However, that day is not today.

God bless you, everyone!

I need to slow down at times.

I need to pull back the reigns and get the horse under the right control.  Just because I want something to happen in my time, doesn't mean it's the right time.

I'll be plain with this.  I'm the Microsoft Practice Director at ConsultUSA.  The biggest part of my job is to be billable at client sites using my skill at developing applications using Microsoft Technologies.  However, I've been losing the joy of developing ever since accepting that I was being called to Sarasota.  I want to move out of my career as a developer and get moving on to the next part of my life.  However, it's not the time.  I know it's not the time, but the joy is waning.

I want to be studying to show myself approved.  I want to be working on a plan for opening the church in Sarasota.  I want to be in a place where I can pray for the area that I'm being called to, and the other areas that FFCC is expanding to.

In the meantime, I'm still doing my work and doing the other things when I can.

I'm not asking God to increase my patience, however, it is something that the next couple of years will be developing in me.

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.