I almost died...

So this morning I was taking a shower and the LORD saved me. I was kicking around something on the shower floor and I slipped…bad! I guess it can be seen as sort of funny in my description, but it sure didn’t FEEL funny. I could not get a grip as my feet and legs flailed forward. If I didn’t get a foothold on something, I would have landed awkwardly and dangerously on the bathtub. At some point I was able to lean over the side and I started to fall out of the bathtub with my back toward the floor. I thought that I was going to hit the toilet with my head or my back and was really scared. I tried grabbing onto something but all I was able to grab was the curtain which went down with me. I was expecting a lot of pain but was surprised to feel nothing. I landed on the ground and on my butt and I couldn’t believe that I didn’t hit any part of my crowded shower room. I literally started praying and thanking God because I could have easily hit my back, my heard, hips, who knows. It was very dangerous and I could have been seriously injured.

Thank you LORD for you protection!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Programming Heaven

This link takes you to the Beginner Developer Learning Center - a centralized learning environment specifically targeted to beginning programmers. Here you'll find a rich array of learning content that starts with the very basics, and guides you through step-by-step to becoming a fully-fledged developer!

Try this out if you are a programmer and would like to have some fun!!!!!!

I'm such a geek!

Are Your Eyes & Your Computer Holy and Safe?

Many guys out there, here, everywhere struggle with keepn their eyes clean. Others might not struggle but the temptation is always there with all the spam and everything that they receive in their email.

Most have fallen.

If you have, or even if you haven't and would like to check what crap has gotten into your comp, please check out this web site :)\

WWW.CONTENTPURITY.COM

Also, if you would like some accountability, please check out XXX Church. It's an amazing program that WILL keep you accountable :)

Christian Hip Hop - Trailblazin' Ministries

Wants some hot Chrisitan Hip Hop songs and mixed tapes?

go HERE!

Some HaHa for ma Albiceleste Peeps!

If this ain't Argentinean, then NOTHIN is!

Hilarious Bed Video!

Check this video out, but if you are at work, make sure that you have your sound turned down or even off!

hahahahaha...

Girls are evil????

This CAN'T be true!!! But you CAN't argue with math ;) Any replies? I would LOVE to hear some jokes and comments from da ladies :)

Bible Map Web Tool

This is an amazing tool that pastors can use DURING their sermons! You can actually take the people in your congregation into virtually any place that you are preaching on throug this web site! Praise God for the many gifts and talents that He has given people to come up with things like this.

Bible Map

You have GOT to try it out!

Characteristics of Spiritual Gifts

These are not ALL the characteristics, but these are some of the most over-arching ones. I like these as I have come to see them as pretty accurate.

Characteristics of Motivational Gifts

The Characteristics of the Gift of Prophecy:

1. A strong need to express themselves verbally.
2. A strong ability to discern the character and motives of other people.
3. A wholehearted involvement in whatever they are doing.
4. Very open to correction.
5. Extremely loyal.
6. Willing to suffer for what is right.
7. Very persuasive in defining truth.

The Characteristics of the Gift of Service:

1. Sees and meets practical needs.
2. Frees others to achieve.
3. Disregard for weariness.
4. Difficulty in saying "No!"
5. Alert to likes and dislikes.
6. Strong desire to be with others.
7. Need for approval and appreciation
8. Likes short-range projects.
9. Meets needs quickly.
10. Tendency to feel inadequate and unqualified for spiritual leadership.

The Characteristics of The Gift of Teaching:

1. Strong desire to present truth systematically.
2. Requires thoroughness.
3. Needs to validate information.
4. Checks out the teacher.
5. Great delight in researching.
6. Tendency to avoid illustrations from non-biblical sources.
7. Needs to clarify misunderstandings.

The Characteristics of the Gift of Exhortation:

1. A motivation to urge peoples to their full spiritual maturity in Christ.
2. An ability to see root problems in a person.
3. Prescribes steps of action.
4. Turn problems into benefits.
5. A desire for face to face discussion in order to determine and insure a positive response.
6. Desire to gain spiritual insights through personal experience.
7. Desires to bring harmony between diverse groups.
8. An enjoyment with those eager to follow steps of action.

The Characteristics of the Gift of Giving:

1. Able to see resources
2. Desire to feel a part of the work.
3. Desire to give high quality.
4. Hope the gift is an answer to prayer.
5. Desires to give secretly.
6. Prefers to give without pressure of appeals.
7. Concern that giving will corrupt.
8. Exercises personal thriftiness.
9. Gives to motivate others to give.
10. Ability to see financial needs that others overlook.
11. Confirms amount with counsel.

The Characteristics of the Gift of Organization:

1. Ability to see the big picture and visualize final results.
2. The ability to break down the major goals into smaller, achievable tasks.
3. Motivated to organize that for which they are responsible.
4. The ability to know what resources are available and needed to reach a goal.
5. The ability to know what can and what cannot be delegated.
6. Tendency to remove self from detracting details and focus on ultimate goals.
7. The willingness to endure reaction.
8. A need for loyalty and confidence from those who are being directed and served.
9. A tendency to assume responsibility if no structured leadership exists.
10. A desire to complete the task as soon as possible.
11. A joy and fulfillment in seeing all the parts come together and others enjoying the finished product.
12. A desire to move on to a new challenge when the previous task is fully completed.

The Characteristics of the Gift of Mercy:

1. Ability to feel an atmosphere of joy or distress in an individual or group.
2. Attracted to and understand people who are having mental and emotional distress.
3. Desire to remove hurts and bring healing to others rather than to look for the benefits of the hurts.
4. A greater concern for mental distress than physical distress of others.
5. A sensitivity to words and action which will hurt others.
6. A tendency to react harshly when intimate friends are rejected.
7. An ability to sense genuine love and a greater vulnerability to deeper and more frequent hurts from the lack of love.
8. A need for deep friendships in which there is mutual commitment.
9. A need to measure acceptance by physical closeness and quality time together.
10. An enjoyment and unity with those who are sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.
11. A tendency to avoid firmness unless he sees how it will bring benefit and eliminate greater hurt.
12. A closing of the spirit to those who are insincere or insensitive.

Getting in God's Way - Study Notes

Matthew 16 - Jesus Christ (JC) tells his disciples that they're going to have to suffer and they didn't like that. In verse 21 and following Peter was getting in the way and Jeses told Peter to get behind him Satan.

Getting in God's way

1. Is not necessarily talking about getting in God's will, rather as a hindarence as to what God's up to

2. this doesn't mean that we're not supposed to help peopel that are in need

3. of all the gifts of a believer, the people that are going to have the most difficulty not getting in God's way are the people with the gift of Mercy because they see someone and they immediately want to go help them out.

Questions:

1. When do we get in God's way?

2. How do we get in God's way?

Answers:

1. When we begin to interfere when w what G is doing in someone else's life

2. When we get in the way of what G is doing in our own life

primarily deal with with #1

16:13 - who the people say that I am?

Naturally Peter said the rigth answer and JC commended him becuase Peter realized who He was.

2 deal with His mission. this sets the stage and the environment of getting in God's way. That's why Peter was wrong in teling Him not to die.

- must suffer many things for God's will

- they just told Him that He was the Messiah but they failed to recognize how these things must come about even though He said it

- He didn't give them details, he did use the word used the word that means "to be murdered, without justice"

- He gave them just enough to know bc He knew taht they couldn't handle that

v22 - Peter instantly pulled Him aside and began to rebuke Him

-P assumed responsibilty for christ. P was responding probably like most of us

-The only thing he heard taht JC was going to be killed and He was like" no WAY that's gonna happen"

- Peter makes a declaration "It WILL NOT HAPPEN THIS WAY"
- P is responding as a human being and as a man

- He didn't think of the OT as a sacrifice

- Then JC responds just as quickly and instantly dealt with Peter

- = A real conflict between them

- He grieved in His Spirit

- Out of the same mouth is the voice of Satan

- Greek = same phrase in Matthew 4 - JC in the wilderness v8 = Be gone Satan... Jesus uses the same Greek phrase

- Your name means rock but you just fell out of your place

- Before you were a beautiful rock but now you are a stumbling block

- JC was horrified and not angry

- He responded the way He did bc in the wilderness that is EXACTLY the way Satan talked to Him

- JC's ears did not forget the voice of Satan

- A child of God cannot be possesed by the Devil, but the Devil can use ANY child of God who is not discerning and mindful of Satan that can be used to get in the way of God's will

- Demonic Spirits are in this world free to some sense to get in God's way by using Christians

- JC identifies that voice for what it is

- Our first response is to try to alleviate people's pain but not if it gets in the way of God. Only as the spirit of God leads us to.

- God knows that they're going to have to suffer and blow it and fail painfully in order to prevent them from failing in the future to a degree taht they'll NEVER be able to recover

- The reason that JC responded so uickly is that Peter was attempting to affect the plan of God

- He didn't realize that what he was trying to stop had eternal concequences

- If we get in the way we fall along with the person that we're tryign to help

- A parent towards their children can do the same thing

- A friend who is engaged and is being mistreated

- At work there's something that needs to be corrected

what do we do?

- we forget that we might not know the whole story and what God is up to

- We don't know all that's going on in all of someone's life

Racial Reconciliation Definition

I haven't written in a while. So here's a book that I am reading:

Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World
By Paula Harris and Doung Schaupp

It' spretty good. I like what I have read so far. I especially like the definition that htey have of racial reconciliation because it has Christ in the center. They said that Racial Reconciliation is:

Jesus' power through the cross restoring relationships between the races - replacing relationships characterized by divisions, partiality and the unjust use of human power with a new community based on God's love, justice, healing, and shalom.

I really like that. I will try to keep up with my posts as I read more and more of this book. I actually wished that I could have written some more up here on my earlier blogs, but oh well...

Praise God for leading me to read this book and thank you Ms. Abbey Sheet for letting me borrow it.