Resurrection Cookies

We found a cool devotional to do with your kids the night before Easter. The idea is to make cookies that have ingredients that point to the Gospel story. The recipe is here.

This is a picture that shows the finalized ingredients (pecans broken representing Jesus' body broken for us, egg whites representing the life, etc.) Each ingredient has a scripture to read and talk about with your kids...

This is the 'tomb'. The oven preheats to 300 degrees prior to putting together the cookies, then when placed in the oven, it's turned off, so they can set overnight (for the final part of the devotion Easter morning). Let the kids have fun with the 'sealing' of the tomb with tape or what-have-you...

This is the final product. These cookies *should* be hollow inside - just like Jesus' tomb! I highlight 'should', because if the cookies are too big, they don't seem to work right.

Everyone, have a blessed Easter, and remember that this is the best day on the Christian calendar!!

Emily, Kylie, and Daniel (the High School minister). The 'Critics' have two groupies who are enjoying the music....

Jennifer, the children's minister is admiring little Miss Anna here.

The "Critics" playing here. They have a good CD out...you can listen to a sampling of their music here.

Happiness...

Many times we mistakenly think that God is a god of happiness. That unless we are happy, then something must be wrong. This shows that the root of happiness in our lives can be a comparison of our situation with the situations of others.

We have become a hedonistic society - borne out of freedom - the major downside to the principle of 'the pursuit of happiness' as defined in the Declaration of Independence. When one pursues happiness rather than God - one will base that happiness on externals.

True joy comes from true freedom - not the freedom of personal happiness, but the freedom of Grace.

There is much confusion between these two. Those without personal freedoms covet those who have them, and those who have personal freedoms say they are not truly free (therefore not happy) because life has dealt them a bad blow here... or there... "if only this hadn't have happened..." They live in the past.

True freedom begets true joy, and is rooted in the Person of Jesus and the concept of His infinite Grace. Once one places his faith there, no matter the trial, his freedom and joy is secure, no matter his particular jail cell.

Parable Teaching...

We always hear it said that "Jesus was the best teacher in the history of the world.", what does this Teacher have to say about His teaching style?

Jesus tells his disciples the reason for Him teaching in parables:

"...but to the rest it is in parables so that looking they may not see, and hearing they may not understand..." (Luke 8:10)

It's a quote from Isaiah 6:9, when Isaiah accepts the call to be God's spokesman. To further the context of the passage in question, it says (in Isaiah):

"Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed." (Isaiah 6:10)

It's a troubling passage for me to understand....doesn't God desire that all come to eternal life (2 Peter 3:9)? Then why is it that He purposely hardens peoples' hearts (as with the pharaoh prior to the Exodus)? Why is it that He 'deafens their ears', and 'blinds their eyes', so they won't see the truth and be saved?

Some points to note:

• It takes God to reveal spiritual truth to someone.
• It is God's sovereignty and His mercy that allow some to be saved. It is His prerogative alone.
• The paradox is that once the Gospel is heard, people will reap a punishment in hell even if they 'don't understand' (don't come to salvation)
• This drives back to the whole free will vs. predestination doctrines taught in scripture.

Who are we to say what is fair and unfair for a Holy God to do? By what standard do we place God? When we start saying that God should play by certain rules, is that not saying that we are somehow better than God? If this is the case, then our god is no bigger than ourselves.

No, God is sovereign, and will have mercy on who He chooses to have mercy on.

Romans 9:14-24
¹⁴What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

¹⁹One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” ²⁰But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” ²¹Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

²²What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath–prepared for destruction? ²³What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory– ²⁴even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

A thing I noticed...

The stability of a project is inversely proportional to its scope creep.

Gone Fishing...

Was reading Luke 5:1-11 today. Interesting things to note:

1. God was preparing Peter's heart for service ahead of time. (See John 1:40-42) Andrew, Peter's brother, had been a disciple of John the Baptist, and brought Peter (then named Simon) to Jesus. Jesus announced to Simon that his new name is Peter, which means 'rock'. This guy Peter must have been blown away. Here he is, a fisherman. And now he's told by the Christ that he is a 'rock'.

There's a lesson here for us to contemplate. He prepares us for His service ahead of time. Our heart starts to contemplate the Christ and what He means to us.

2. Jesus asks Peter to do something outside his 'comfort zone'. To place his boat in the water to basically be a 'stage' for the audience on shore to listen to Jesus. I'm sure a lowly fisherman would not want to put out his boat to be gawked at by a bunch of folks. I wonder what he was thinking as he was steadying the boat while Jesus was teaching.

He'll ask us to use our occupations, like Peter's, to be used by Him in the service of others.

3. Jesus gets through, then tells Peter to put his nets down for a catch. Now Peter is hit hardest here. He's a man's man and definitely knows how to fish. Here's a carpenter telling him what to do. He balks at first. (Don't we?) "But God, I already did this....or that...." He is then blown away by the catch.

Jesus can make our career very successful for a season if and when He wants to. But many times it is a test. Are we loyal to the job, or the Lord?

4. The success brings Peter to repentance. The feeling of unworthiness. The knowledge that he did nothing for the success, that it was of the Lord.

It's a humbling thought to know that many of our success stories are solely the hand of God in our lives, but many times we say it's luck, or fate, or what-have-you.

5. In spite of a success in his career, Jesus calls him not only to be a disciple (a follower of Christ), but to call him to a different vocation. He says that Peter is to now be a 'fisher of men' instead of a 'fisherman'.

I've looked around the Bible for examples of a 'vocational calling' to ministry. Here is one staring me in the face. Peter is to be credited for extreme obedience to the calling in the face of his seemingly successful occupation. (The fish filled two boats to the point of sinking.) I'm sure this was a very successful outing that would have brought him money for a while, but the real success is of the Lord, not quantified by money or worldly goods.

What a lesson for me today. True success is quantified by God's glory, not my pocketbook. Wow.

Saturday outing

It was beautiful today. The Lord has definitely blessed us. We went out to the local college campus with a rocket and some kites. The rocket in question is a rocket that Tanner got on Christmas, which takes pictures when it's about 600-700 ft in the air. It's pretty cool. (It's kind of my toy, too.)

The kites were gotten last year by Poppie, and were a big hit today, because the wind was kicking up around 20-30 mph. It was pretty strong. Gracie had a good time, and got to fly her first kite today. She wasn't too interested in the aerodynamics of the whole thing, though.

Some pics below of the outing:

Emily going for the 'ole kite setup routine here...

Tanner getting his kite off the ground..

Gracie flying her kite here....

Fish...

Tanner wanted to go fishing last weekend....so he went out back to the ditch behind our house. I told him he wouldn't catch anything, but as you can see below, he did...4 in fact!!

This got Emily in the mood to catch some fish, so she did as well!!

The ditch behind our house where Tanner and Emily caught their fish!!

Tanner's proud of his fish...

Emily and her catch.

Tired of...

Spyware?
AdWare?
Popups?
Get Firefox. I've been using it for a couple of months or so. Every now and then when I forget and open up IE, I am reminded of why I like FireFox so much. (The popups annoy me to no end...)

I like the smart keyword feature the best I think. Tabbed browsing is cool as well.