Blog.

My previous post seems to be generating traffic, so I thought I would post the outlines of his talks and a few notes that I have taken when listening to his lessons. All of the following comes straight from part 1 from his series at the Focus on The Family Institute. I will list these in bulleted notes form, please do not take what is listed here out of context, listen to the actual talk and study the Word before you start making conclusions for yourself.

-Strong evidence suggests that Jesus’ disciples were all younger than 15, with John possibly being as young as 7-9.

-The olive tree is the picture of God’s people. It “never dies” in that the Farmer cuts it down to a stump approximately every 400 years, and new shoots grow the next year. In this context, Jesus was a shoot from the ’stump’ of Jesse. Israel is God’s olive tree, who is cut down several times due to failures, the last time being the Babylon captivity. The Jews grew from Jesse’s stump, and the Gentiles, shoots from wild olive trees that never produced any fruit, were grafted onto the stump of Jesse. Note: Non-Jews can’t exist without their Jewish roots! The Christian world has forgotten this, and obscured their Jewish roots, and in the process, it’s not that western translations are wrong, they have just lost a significant part of what it “says and demands”.

-There are 2 ways of explaining truth: the Eastern way, and the Western way. Western thought is akin to the Greek philosophy, where the mind and logical thought was elevated to high importance. They were abstract thinkers and they valued definition, proposition, and organization. Eastern thought is very different. Seemingly unorganized (try to outline Jesus’ teachings) and very concrete. If you ask a westerner “who or what is God?”, they will mainly reply with abstract words like “almighty, holy, just, love, truth, honesty, and eternity”. On the contrary, an Easterner (Jew) will answer concretely, with ‘picture words’ such as “my shepherd, my rock, my bread, my living water, my father, my brother…” and it’s always my.  The devil knows and can say God is almighty, holy, just, etc, but he can’t say God is his shepherd, rock, bread, etc.  What difference is there in the devil’s knowledge of God and ours?  It’s true that God is love, truth and holy.  It is good information, but we don’t have to believe anything!  It’s all head knowledge!

-The book of Mark contains many Hebrew expressions, and is written with very poor grammar in Greek.  Evidence suggests it was at least passed down orally in Hebrew and later translated to Greek.

-Mark 4:24 “Consider carefully what you hear”.  The Greek = “look at carefully what you hear”.  How do you look at what you hear?  You can if it’s a picture! (you can see a shepherd)

-The Hebrew word for bread is lahem.  The Hebrew word for a place or a house is beth.  Where was Jesus born? Beth-lahem, or Bethlehem.  What is a house of bread? A bakery!  The Bread of Life (Jesus) was born in a bakery!  It’s very probable that the Light of the world was conceived on the Feast of Lights.  The Living Water was laid in a manger, which traditionally for Jews was carved from stone and was for water, not hay.  It’s all about the picture, you can see this stuff!

-Learn to think Hebrew, or in pictures.  Jesus used pictures and stories to teach… The Bible in Jewish context will grab the heart, not only the head.

more to come…

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose, specifically, my purpose. I have wrestled with it, trying to figure out what really matters in life, what I am living for. I’m 26, have a great job, am married to the most wonderful woman anyone could ever ask for, have an incredible family and an awesome set of in-laws, but I keep asking myself: what is it that drives me to get up in the morning? What are my short term goals? What are my long term goals? Does any of it really matter?

I look around me at the culture that I live in here in Northern Virginia and see a variety of people with varying purposes. Unfortunately, there are an overwhelming number of people that are living for “stuff”. That “stuff” takes many different forms: bigger houses, new cars, bigger TV’s, promotions so they can afford all the aforementioned…

There is a second group that stands out, but only a few people fit in this category comparatively to the “stuff” group. These people are those that live to help other people. This can be manifested in several ways: non-profit organizations, charities, volunteer’s at charity events, etc. The people in this group go out of their way to meet the needs of those around them: to feed the homeless, counsel and befriend the battered and abused, or provide families for orphaned or homeless children, etc. This second group of “givers” tend to find fulfillment in alleviating the pain and suffering of others, instead of attempting to find happiness in material possessions. While this group has a much nobler purpose than the first group, there is still a lack of eternal purpose.

The last group consists of Christ followers. These people are really a subset of group two, as they truly love their fellow man and do everything they can to help others, but the driving force behind their actions has eternal purpose. These “followers of The Way” actively seek to lavish love on the world in an effort to ensure everyone they come in contact with has a relationship with Jesus Christ. This last group understands Christ’s mission, and in striving to be like Christ they share the heart-aching desire for everyone around them to know the all-encompassing, unconditional love of almighty God.

I want to be in the third group. In fact, I believe I am in the third group, although I don’t always act like it. I still exhibit characteristics of the “stuff” group. I am at a point in my life where I know the importance of purpose, and I know that my purpose is to love those around me like Jesus loves me, but how does that affect me on a smaller scale? What needs to change in my life to help me look less and less like the “stuff” group, and more like a true Christ follower?

These questions continually haunt me, and I believe the Holy Spirit is knocking on my heart, attempting to get my attention, though I stubbornly don’t listen. Honestly, I’m scared of what God could do through me. My faith is big enough to know what He’s capable of, but not large enough to want to unleash that kind of power in my life. It is an odd kind of fear, because one would think the idea of wielding the power of the Holy Spirit would be very desirable, but that’s how I feel. I want to take that next step, jump off the cliff and dive deep, to let go and wholly trust in God to allow Him to do whatever it is He wants to do with me.

“The righteous will live by faith…” (Rom 1:17) Lord, increase my faith…

It has been quite awhile since an update, and for that, I apologize! Thank you to all my faithful viewers that keep coming back to check on me. Heather and I have been staying pretty busy with our jobs lately, and the holidays have kept us running around shopping and hosting friends and neighbors at our house for various occasions. Heather’s parents were in town several weeks ago, and we had a wonderful time getting to spend some time with them. It’s awesome to have two sets of incredible parents!

I’m almost done with the drums, the pictures below show them assembled, but I still need to do some finish sanding and buffing before they really shine. I had the opportunity to play them at a men’s breakfast last month, and they sound great.

It snowed almost 4 inches yesterday, and basically gridlocked the roads. Originally I thought the people up here would be more adept at dealing with the snow and bad weather, but apparently we’re not quite far enough north. It was almost as bad as traffic in Abilene, TX when it rains! Haha.

Another thing that I need a little feedback on: Occasionally, I get a few hits on the forum that I have hosted on my server. Originally, I intended to use it as a communication tool for Pipeline, but it never really caught on, so it has just sat there, with no activity for the last couple months. Would you guys be interested in using it for discussion? If there’s enough interest, I’ll keep it up and start expending more time to it, but it takes more people than me to make it work! Either comment on this post, or send me an email if you care one way or the other.