My pictures from the farmhouse are finally up.  You can see them here: http://blog.xtego.com/galleries/farmhouse09

If you’ve been following my blog since it’s conception, you’ve no doubt read chapter 24.  The problem with chapter 24 was that it was written when I was only 23.  Now I’m writing chapter 25… and I am 25.  If you’ve done the math (carry the 1) you’ve already realized…I SKIPPED AN ENTIRE YEAR!  So here it is: Chapter 24 when I was actually 24.

When I was 24, I got my first college degree earned job.  I gambled for the first time.  I got my motorcycle license.  I took up golf.  I tried snowboarding.  I sucked at golf and snowboarding.  I got my heart broken.  I fell in love.  I started a business.  I got a puppy.  I moved into my first house.  I went parasailing.   And, I taught myself to cook.

I can’t so much complain about 24…. except that it’s gone.

More to come….

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Wow.  What is this country coming to?  The Pastor is absolutly right.  Our forefathers would be in shock to see that any sub-governing body of the United States is directly prosecuting a person for the free practice of their own religion.  Not to mention this is free practice in that person’s home.  Our nation was founded on the basis of free religion.  In fact, it was so important to this nation and it’s forefathers that it holds the first clause of the United States Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …

The county in this article  is in direct violation of the United States Consititution, and I ask again.  What is this country coming to?  Where do we get off prosecuting people who live under the freedoms this nation was established with.  If we can’t back on our constitution, then what good is our government.  I mean, the only reason I can even write an article like this is because of what the very next line of that first amendment reads:

[Congress shall make no law]… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …

I promise you if any person or organization were to attempt to bring back slavery, he or it would be crushed under Amendment 13 instantly.  However, because we’re dealing with religion, and more specifically, Christianity, it’s almost as if we forget why our country even became a country in the first place.  Time and time again we see Christians being persecuted within our own borders.  Kids are getting in trouble for praying or trying to hold religious functions in schools.  We hear arguments that something “violates the separation of church and state,” often from people who have no clue what that separation even means.  The idea was always to keep the government out of church.  It was never to keep the Church out of government.

This country is slipping down a dangerous slope by forgetting its foundation.  It’s something we as Christians need to be praying about.  I think too many times, we hear things like this couple being forced to cease their Bible studies, and we lose more and more hope for our nation.  I for one am standing firm… God wants to bless and he wants to revive… but he also wants us to believe in him for it.

God Bless America.

First of all, I want to start off by saying that I serve an omnipotent God.  He can do whatever he wants however he wants to do it.  But that doesn’t mean that he’s going to take over and make things turn out exactly how he wants them to.  (If I’m making you mad already, just stick with me)  I guess there are a few attributes about God that one should understand for this to make sense.  Number 1:  any attributes that God possesses, he must possess them 100 percent.  So if we say that God is love, then God must be 100 percent love.  If we say that he is graceful, then he must be 100 percent graceful.  After all, how can you have a perfect God if he only has partial qualities?  Number 2:  God is good.  And based on the deductive logic of number 1, if God has 100 percent of all his qualities, and God is good.  Then God must be 100 percent good.  There can be no bad in him.

The next thing that you need to understand for this to make sense is that sin is the opposite of good.  If we take that into consideration along with what we know about the attributes of God, then we can deduce that God has no sin in him.    So when someone says to me, “If God wants it to happen, then it will happen.”  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Lets look at an example that I think we’re all familiar with.  Adam and Eve.

We all know the story of Adam and the fall of mankind.  Adam sinned by eating from the tree which God had commanded him not to.  It was simple, but it changed the earth and the human race forever.  Now let’s look at what God wanted.  It was never God’s desire for Adam and Eve to disobey him because that would mean sin, and why would God desire sin?  (he’s 100 percent good)  It was God’s desire for Adam and Eve to subdue the earth and fellowship with him.  But that didn’t exactly go to plan.  So please explain to me that if God wants it to happen, then it will happen.  This is true for any of the above statements.  “Everything works out the way it’s supposed to.”   Again, Adam and Eve were to subdue the earth and fellowship with God.  But that didn’t happen either.

There are two things that one needs to understand, and they are often overlapped, but they are two very different things: God’s will and God’s plan.  I believe that God has both for our lives, and I also believe that in an ideal situation they should overlap as much as possible, but it’s important to remember that they are not the same.  First off:  God’s will.

God’s will is what God desires of our lives.  For example, God wills for us to be holy.  His will never ever ever ever includes us sinning, nor can we blame sin or it’s consequences on God’s will.

God’s plan on the other hand is a reflection of God’s grace and his ability to grow us through our acceptance or divergence of his will.  I believe that God’s plan never requires us to sin either.  Let’s look at another example:

Let’s assume that there is only one person out that there God wants us to end up with, (marriage-wise, that is).  Let’s call our perfect, God-planned couple Bill and Sarah.  Now lets say that Bill and Sarah end up dating and get engaged and plan to live happily ever after.  But then, sin sets in, Bill cheats on Sarah, gets Maggie pregnant, and ultimately ends up marrying her instead.

So what was God’s will in this situation?  Well, there are some things that are safe to assume about God’s will.  His will must reflect his character, for example.  So in this case, God’s will for Bill was for him to grow spiritually and live a Godly life, which ultimately would lead to a Godly marriage with Sarah.  God’s plan in the situation, on the other hand, was for Bill to marry Sarah.  However, sin got in the way, Bill made a choice, and now he’s married to Maggie.

Now some may say that God wanted Bill with Maggie from the beginning.  However, if the path to Maggie was formed from sin, and the path to Sarah was not, then it’s safe to assume that that’s simply not the case.  Remember, God’s will and plan NEVER require us to sin.

To follow up with what I said early, let’s continue the example just a bit further.  So now Bill is married to Maggie despite the fact that “God’s plan” was for him to marry Sarah.  Does God now want Bill to divorce Maggie so that he could be with Sarah?  Of course not!  That would mean more sin.  This is where God’s grace comes in.  God’s plan would NOW be for Bill and Maggie to have a Godly marriage together, free from divorce.  His will?  For both of them to grow spiritually and live Godly lives.  Notice that?  His will didn’t change, but his plan did… even despite Bill’s divergence from God’s will.

I’m not saying that we can necessarily know what God’s will or God’s plans are.  These are just examples.  What I am saying is that it’s safe to assume certain things about his will and his plan based on God’s character.  For example, if sin is in the picture, we can safely say that the sin isn’t part of his will.  I’m not saying he didn’t know it was going to happen, and I’m not saying he can’t use it for good.  I’m saying God doesn’t desire us to sin… ever… no matter what the outcome.

So, when someone says to me,  “if it’s meant to be, it will happen.”…   I politely say, “I disagree.”  If it’s meant to be, I still have the opportunity to mess it up.  Your thoughts?

Oh Bethlehem, you will go down in history as a city with no room for its king.

The second city, Jerusalem didn’t have room to hear what Jesus had

Jerusalem, you will  go down in history as a city with no room for its king.

The song finally hits home when it turns its focus to the United States of America and how we’re so caught up in being politically correct that we are no better than the nations and cities who rejected Jesus and his teachings.  One of my favorite lines in the whole song is:

…As we’re sound asleep by philosophies of save the trees and kill the children.

I didn’t understand the significance of that line the first few times I heard it.  But I was in church today listening to the pastor’s message and it made me think of.  How messed up is our society in that it will stand up for endangered animals or the preservation of wildlife and trees, but yet, that same society will stand up for the right to kill unborn babies?  And what’s worse?  People don’t see a problem with this thinking.  It’s no wonder the song ends asking the questions:

America what will we miss while we are sleeping?  Will Jesus come again and leave us slumbering where we lay?  America will we go down in history as a nation with no room for its king?

I launched a new service today to help people use the power of Google to find free music (mp3, wav, and ogg files) on the internet.  Some of you may have used services like this in the past.  G2p.org, for example, is a good one.  However, this new service filters out some of the bogus results that would be returned with g2p.org.  The service is called Free Music Finder and it can be found here:

MusicFinder.xtego.com

Check it out, and enjoy!