Days of the Week

Check this email forward I got from my sis:

Without GOD, our week would be: Sinday, Mournday, Tearsday, Wasteday, Thirstday, Fightday & Shatterday.

Some Funny, BUT TRUE, Comparisons

Science Confirms the Bible   THE BIBLE SCIENCE NOW SCIENCE THEN The earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22). The earth is a sphere The earth was a flat disk. Incalculable number of stars (Jeremiah 33:22). Incalculable number of stars Only 1,100 stars. Free float of earth in space (Job 26:7). Free float of earth in space. Earth sat on a large animal. Creation made of invisible elements (Hebrews 11:3). Creation made of invisible elements (atoms). Science was ignorant on the subject. Each star is different (1 Corinthians 15:41). Each star is different. All stars were the same. Light moves (Job 38:19,20). Light moves. Light was fixed in place. Air has weight (Job 28:25). Air has weight. Air was weightless. Winds blow in cyclones (Ecclesiastes 1:6). Winds blow in cyclones. Winds blew straight. Blood is the source of life and health (Leviticus 17:11). Blood is the source of life and health. Sick people must be bled. Ocean floor contains deep valleys and mountains (2 Samuel 22:16; Jonah 2:6). Ocean floor contains deep valleys and mountains. The ocean floor was flat. Ocean contains springs (Job 38:16). Ocean contains springs. Ocean fed only by rivers and rain. When dealing with disease, hands should be washed under running water (Leviticus 15:13). When dealing with disease, hands should be washed under running water. Hands washed in still water.

I preached on "What is Sin Today"

So I preached on this and it went GREAT!...... I think :)

I mean, you know when you are doing something that you are called to do and you cannot find ANYTHING that gives you more pleasure? Well that's how I feel every time that I preach. Sure I remember the first or second time that I preached in front of the church and I was SOOOO nervous that my 30 minute sermon became a 10 minute semi-sermon, haha.

I preached in Spanish at the East Side morning service and in English and Spanish at the West Side evening Bilingual Service it was awesome! I loved it! I loved every moment of it from the preparation time to the nervousness right before I preach and all the way to the time when I feel beside myself as I give the Word of God to His people.

Thank you God SO much for giving me the honor of doing this... I don't deserve it, but I fully embrace it!

I have my Spanish PowerPoint HERE and my English/Spanish PowerPoint HERE. Also, the video that comes with these powerpoints is HERE (To Download the video right-click on it, and then choose "Save target as"). Feel free to download and use :)

God Bless!

Amos 7 - People of God Tremble

I don't want to be a stubborn mule in any area of my life or in anything that I am doing for the LORD. Of course whether I am at work or in my house, I do EVERYTHING for the LORD. So, Verses like these make me tremble and remember that while the LORD is loving and prefers mercy over punishment, He sometimes goes with punishment when His children just don't learn.

In Amos 7:7-8 the Word of God says this:

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they (ISRAEL) have done.

8 "Will not the land tremble for this,
and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be stirred up and then sink
like the river of Egypt.

Then, a few verses later in verses 11-12, Amos writes the following:

11 "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

12 Men will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it.

I DO NOT EVER WANT TO HAVE THE LORD RESTRAIN HIS WORD, HIS VOICE, FROM ME BECAUSE OF MY ACTIONS OF DISOBEDIENCE OR STRAYING. He has done that before for a time and while it was what I needed to come back to Him in full force, I don't ever want to experience that thirst in that way again. That desert that I crossed was NOT fun.

Also, this is a warning to the Church. The LORD always speaks to His Church, but He will restrain His Voice and Word when His people are not doing His Will. And this goes to the Church, local churches, and to individuals all alike. Because in every level people can be disobedient to the LORD and not be taking care of the LORD's purposes...

My prayer:

LORD make me a servant and follower of your will. I don't want to stray even just a little bit. I don't ever want to stagger from sea to sea searching for your Word. I want to have it hidden within my heart; engraved into my being to beat down my flesh into submission.

Thank you LORD that you remind us about the past to keep us with You in the present.

Just a quick quote...

God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

A Good Word About Being in a Spiritual Desert

The LORD cares more about building your character
than he cares about your discomfort!

This is such a good word! When we are in a place where we can't "feel" God, we feel so distant from Him. So lonely. But we must realize that when God allows us to go through a dessert, a sad time, a time when we yell for God and hear an echo.... there is a purpose. And that purpose is always an opportunity that the LORD is taking to build our character.

We don't build character through the times when we are on that spiritual mountaintop. We build character when we are grinding it out, yelling for God, and really seeking Him out. So next time that you (and this goes for me too) are in a place like that desert, take the time to praise God because He finds you worthy enough to walk through that desert with you and to build your character.

Genesis 28:15 - The LORD speaks to His children
15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Nudity in Art by Christians

I had a thought this morning and I called my best friend Tristan to help me think through it and discuss. I hope that this is the beginning of an online discussion with people that have something to add.

So the thought was this: Is nudity in Christian Art something that honors God, His will, and His desires?

So here's what Tristan and I came up with:

NO. An all around No. I tried to play devil's advocate, but came to a conclusion that I could find no reason why having nudity in Christian art is fully okay with God.

I will state my reason as to why my final answer is "no" and then go over why I disagreed and threw out any of my attempts to say that having nudity in Christian art is okay with God.

I do not think that nudity in Christian art is okay because it takes something that is sacred and that is supposed to be found only within a marriage and exposes it to the world and, therefore, distorting something sacred and holy into something that is less than holy and sacred.

I think that the biggest reason that we could come up with in order to back up our claim is seen in Adam and Eve. We believe that they were arguably and possibly the most physically beautiful human beings in the history of humanity. At first, Adam and Eve, "were both naked, and they felt no shame" Genesis 2:25. However, when they sinned, they covered themselves up because they did feel shame (Genesis 3:7). Who were they covering themselves from? There were no other human beings on the planet and they were also married. And, they weren't covering themselves up from God because God had not yet entered the picture. So, within their marriage, they felt shame for their nakedness.

Another reason to back my claim is that while the body is a beautiful thing, that beauty is supposed to stay and be seen within a marriage only. There is an inner sanctity that the LORD makes within marriage and nakedness that is supposed to be in that marriage only. In the whole Bible I cannot find a passage that talks about nakedness being okay unless it is in the context of being in Heaven or between a wife and spouse or between the LORD and His church/people.

Another reason that I think that naked art is that Paul says that he will not do anything that causes another to stumble even if what he is doing is okay. I am referring to 1 Corinthinas 8 and I feel that I need to place the following verses of chapter 8 here because they are so important to see:

9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? 11So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

Verse 9 states that we must be careful that our freedom does not cause anyone to sin. So, even if was okay to have naked human being in art, which I think is not, we must be careful that it does not cause a weaker brother to sin. And Paul goes on to say in verse 13 that he will never eat meat if it causes other people to sin. So I would apply his reasoning to art and say that Paul would not paint naked people in art if it caused other people to sin. I think that it is a very reasonable assumption to assume that if anyone has art, whether photography or a painting or anything, that has human nakedness, that it would cause a brother or sister that is weaker than us at some level to sin in their minds. This, I think, applies specifically to men that are watching a naked female in a painting or a photograph or other like forms of art that depict a human being naked in a realistic manner.

This brings me to my another: pornography. There is a line that divides "naked pictures that are regarded to as art" from "pornography." I need to try to define it in context of everything that I have previously written above. If any art that has humans being naked is not okay according to God and any of this art that has naked humans can cause another fellow sister or brother to sin mentally, physically, emotionally or in any other way, then I would say that any and all piece of art that shows nakedness can be regarded to as pornography. I think that there are pictures out there that contain naked people and are placed in an art book and most people would regard that as art. But if that same picture is placed on a web site that is for pornography, then it becomes pornography. Then that leads me to ask: where is that line? Is this picture called pornography because it's on the pornography web site or because the picture is pornography.

I went to dictionary.com and this is their definition of pornography:

Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.

Then I think of what SEXUALLY EXPLICIT mean and "sexually"is pertaining to sex, while explicit means "clear." So sexually explicit means that "it's pretty clear that it's about sex." So, another way of writing the dictionary.com definition is to write it like this:

Pictures, writing, or other material that are clearly sexual in nature whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.

So I guess maybe art in which the artist did not mean to have it be sexually arousing cannot be called pornography. But, if that same piece or art is placed on a web site that is for pornography, then the piece of art does indeed become pornography since it is being used to sexually arouse someone. This, I feel, confirms my previous statement that any art that has a naked human being can be a tripping rock that causes a fellow Christian to fall.

My last point is this: culture. I think that everything that I have stated is subject to culture. There are very few cultures, mainly in Africa, that walk around without any clothing; let us call this culture 'Culture A.' So, if that same culture was to draw a portrait of their own, then I think that it is okay since they are used to seeing each other like that and none of them are caused to sin. I think that this point does not come into conflict with my first point that states that nakedness is supposed to remain only within the marriage only if Culture A has a culture that has an understanding that nakedness is wrong. But, as I stated previously in this paragraph, there are cultures like Culture A that see nakedness and do not see sin or commit sin.

Well, I've talked a lot. And I would REALLY appreciate the comments of my friends, colleagues, and others in this subject. Above all, I want to honor God and that is why I am writing this.