PHILLIES WIN !

I was born and raised in Levittown Pa. This is a suburb of Philadelphia. Having lived there for 21 years I have never gotten over rooting for the home teams. My two favorite are the Phillies and the Eagles. Today the Phillies are the Division champs again and look poised to go further than last year when they blew it in the first round of the play-offs. The Dodgers and the Cubs look good but I think the Philly's can pull it off this year. You just gotta believe !! Go Phillies Go !!!!
My favorite college team is Penn State. The only head football coach I know of there has been Joe Pa. Wow, what a legend he is.
I am excited about our church today. The board announced this morning that we will have a Senior Pastoral candidate come to meet us and preach next weekend. We as a body are ready for what God has for us at this time and ready to move on to the next level. The board has done a great job of keeping us together and focused on Jesus. The enemy would have liked nothing better than to have destroyed LifeChurch but God kept him away. A church needs a leader who hears from God and is able to translate the vision and direction of the church to the people. But through this all God used the board, especially the church administrator, Brett Chandler, to hold things together while He prepared us for our next leader. Thank God for Brett!! Amen !
Jesus Loves You !!

THE GARDEN OF EVEN

I have a little garden that I like call the garden of even, even though I don't do much to it , it still produces veggies. The tomatoes have done well this year and continue to give us fruit. The bell peppers however are a different story. I planted six of them last spring and they have brought forth two peppers about the size of a silver dollar. By mid summer I bought two more and they have given us about 6 - 7 good size peppers. The first batch never got bigger than about 8 - 10 inches tall. The last two have matured as they should needing a stake to hold them up.
We also have a rose garden that has done very well. There are six bushes that have produced many roses this year. I don't know the names of any of them but there is a pink one , two red ones, two white ones and one that has a salmon colored flower. One of these days I will get a picture of it and get it on this blog.
Tomorrow I start a diet. Last year I lost 43 lbs. from March through September. I went from 217 to 174. I held it off until this summer when I put about 18 of it back on. It's time to lose it or buy new clothes.
As they say, a waist is terrible thing to mind !

THE ORIGIN OF SIN

A common misunderstanding of sin is that it has a substance. But if it had substance, or a thing, it would have to have been created by God and would therefore in it’s essence be good.
The biblical view is that sin originated in an abuse of the freedom given to created beings equipped with a will. God did not create evil. Evil is a matter of relationship, not a thing. It breaks away from a relation of obedience to and faith in God and makes a decision to fail Him.
Sin, then, originated in the free choice of God’s creatures. When the serpent tempted Eve, he began with a question, “ Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”” You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” By doing this Satan had Eve focus on the forbidden thing, her mind then started to reason that the fruit would indeed be good for her. Satan did not pick the fruit or force her to eat it. Eve then reasoned with Adam and he too ate of the fruit.
Adam and Eve brought upon themselves, then, the personal consequences of sin ( Gen. 3:16-19)
The first or original sin was Eve and the fruit.
The animosity that erupted between Cain and Abel is the first recorded example of the strained relationships that have marred society since the fall. This, in effect, was the first of all wars.

Ah ! The weekend again.
I have hopes of painting some of the outside of our home. Of riding the horse and getting our youngest to ride as well. She is a little frightened by his size and balks at doing more than sitting on him. Maybe this will be the week she goes for it.
Well the Repub's have done something that is different. McCain has taken Palin as his VP candidate. After listening to her speech the other night I am excited about the ticket . She brings a freshness to this Presidential race that has been lacking for a long time. Time will tell if she is the real deal or just a pretty face with a lot of energy.
I have never heard the word "change" used so much as it is being used during this election. It is a easy word to use but to really do it is quite difficult. Everybody wants to change but nobody wants to go through it. I guess they want everybody else to change " just not me".
Politics as usual.

exercise your spirit

Six Exercises of my Spiritual Walk

1) Every day offer yourself afresh to the Lord.
You have to wake up with joy, looking forward to what God
wants to do. Romans 12:1-2
2) Every day I will call upon the name of the Lord in prayer.
Don’t fake prayer, Psa. 86:3, Psa 145:2
3) Every day I will search out and feed on the word of God.
Ex. 16:17-18, Psa. 119
4) Every day I will die to sin.
Confess your sins. Ex. 16:19
5) Every day speak to others about Jesus Christ.
Testify every day about what he does in my life. Acts 5:40-42
6) Every day I will help someone who is in need.
Help someone by deed or encouragement. II Cor. 1:3-4

Daily excercise is good for the body, mind and soul !

The Son will set you free

I often wonder if I am really free?

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (jon8:36)

As we go about our daily lives doing the things we enjoy, going back and forth to work, watching tv, listening to music, somewhere around the world there is a battle being waged that keeps our freedoms in tact. When we get up in the morning and check the sports scores to see if team won or lost, somewhere in the world is someone’s son or daughter is marching through a town to protect our rights and our liberties.

We are blessed as a nation. We live in a time when freedom is not just a dream it is a normality. We expect it just like we expect the sun to come up tomorrow. We have become blinded to the reality’s of what it takes to have this freedom. The foundation of this freedom is courage, strength and blood.

But in reality, this is just a token of goodwill in comparison to the freedom that we can find in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the key to freedom. Only Through Christ can we experience complete freedom. The British author John Stott says that through Jesus we are:
Free from the past and free from the penalty of sin.
Free in the present from the power of sin.
Free in the future from the presence of sin.

Christ free’s us from many things including guilt, fear and God’s judgement. We can only find true freedom by receiving Jesus into our lives as our personal Lord and savior. He’s the one who gives us freedom and and can set us free from bondage and strongholds.

weekend

This weekend was spent buying back to school supplies and catching up on yard work. We have five children ages 11 through 17. One boy and four girls. I took our son for clothes Thursday afternoon. Easy, seven pairs of jeans, seven shirts, shoes etc. and we were done. Maybe two hours counting the time looking at guy stuff in electronics.
Friday night and Saturday night we spent about six hours total looking for the discounted school supplies and some clothes for the girls. And it is only the tip of the iceburg. The supply shopping went well it was the clothes that seemed to get things bogged downed. Sometimes I wish they had to wear uniforms to school !
Allow me just a little rant here... why do they start school in the middle of August? Why does every teacher have to have some little special thing on the supply list? On e of the kids needed blue, black, red and Green ink pens. For what I dont know. As I was standing in the isle that had all (what a joke) of the school stuff I noticed ( after about 20 min.) that there were three other fathers with a list from some teacher looking like I was for green pens or some other thing. I blurted out with , What ever happened to just taking a notebook and a pencil to school? And maybe a pen! All laughed and the tension was broke. Until we got to the next isle and started looking for the special paper that they needed. With five kids you can imagine all the combonations of stuff we looked for.
Well, about 12 more trips to 8 differant stores and we should have it all wrapped up. Just in time for some other money sucking event to happen.
At church yesterday we had an awsome time. God showed up with the opening prayer and His prescence was felt through out the service. The music seemed to have more feeling and the singers were as tight as I've ever heard them. I play bass guitar with the band. They let me sing just not into a mike. My wife says this is good.
I love playing for the Lord. God gave me a little bit gifting in playing several instuments and I use it for Him and His will.
We attend LifeChurch in Birmingham Al. We are currently looking a for a Pastor to take over for recently departed Pastor. It is a hard wait but I know God has just the right person to take over. We pray God's will be done.
The yard work, we have almost three acres, took wife, myself and three of the girls and Jon about four hours to complete but the place looks great.