Sick

Two weeks now I've had this little bug in my lungs and it isn't super fun by any means. Sometimes I'll cough for minutes and a friend of mine even had to remind me to cover my mouth, I said to him I'm so sorry I just cough so much these days that I don't remember to cover sometimes.

Being sick however does give God a big window to teach me some cool stuff. In Matt Jesus said "What profits a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" The thing is I am learning that the soul is eternal and the world is temporal. All the things of the world are temporal. My body, my money, my education, my worldly life. Now my roommate and I both work out quite a bit. For a variety of reasons, but a big one is that we want to look good and be strong. I don't believe what David meant in 1 Kings 2:2 when he told Solomon to show himself a man was for him to lift weights all the time. Is there anything wrong with working out? No. However I find myself forgetting to think in an eternal light some of the times.

Fact- the death rate is 100%.

Fact- While man looks at the outside God looks at our hearts.

Fact- He is stronger, Christ is Risen, He has saved me.

Probable Fact- I doubt Jesus keeps a total gym around, we won't need that crap in Heaven!

Fact- We need to start living for the eternal, and not keep the focus on the here and now.

"Don't come in here!"

It was a rather uneventful Saturday, I had spent my day looking over notes for my upcoming exam in my criminal law class. A day where I haven't shared the Gospel or had spiritual conversations always feel like a waste of a day in my mind and I wasn't about to let a perfectly good night end up like that.

Salt Company a campus ministry does an impromptu event called "Friday Night Risk" in which believers will go out and just boldly share their faith with others and ask God to do what we can't, to heal, to bless, and to save. After thinking about it for 2 minutes.. I came to the realization that Friday could easily be replaced with Saturday. I called my best friend Evan and asked him if he wanted to go share the Gospel. We prayed and went out to a scene familiar to both of us earlier in life, Welch Ave. We walked around and talked to various bouncers who had a title of "door greeter" (must be the new nice sounding way of saying bouncer). As we walked down Lincoln way a couple of guys came out of Friley Hall, stood by the door and yelled "Don't you guys come in here!" So Evan and I stopped, and looked at them, and of course we walked towards them. They ran inside and we went into Friley from a side door, and that's when the night began. Soon after entering we were attacked by three guys with silly string aerosol canisters. They ran away and we chased after them. On this chase we ran into a group of 10 college students playing "Sardines" which is hide and seek except everyone seeks and one person hides. We made some small talk and they invited us to play sardines. We played for an hour or two, (I found the best hiding spot, behind the washing machine pipes :) and then during this time we got to share with them a bit and had some cool conversations. It was such a great time, occasionally we would get ambushed by those three guys with the silly string, and eventually we had CAs looking for us. You know how Jesus says in order to inherit the kingdom of God you must become like little children? Yeah its true!

One of the students we met was a guy named Adam and he invited the group playing Sardines to his dorm room. At around 1 am we were all congregated in his room just talking and having a good time. A guy there named Lupe had just gotten out of jail because he was at a party and decided to drive with a .16 blood alcohol level, and he hit another car, drove away and then drove into a ditch. The sad thing was that his only concern was that he had gotten punished. We talked to Lupe about just how its a miracle he wasn't hurt, and his friends said that as well. We also talked about how he could have hurt someone, or even killed someone. It was really cool to see that he was finally starting to realize what his actions could have done. As the night went on Evan and I got to share with the 10 people in the room, and two of them are coming to Salt with us on Thursday. And to think this night of fun and relationship building came from four antagonistic words "Don't come in here!" Word of advice: If you're around Friley and you're told to go away, come in! We'll be doing this for Saturdays to come with a group of 3-4 guys. Thank you Jesus for opening a great new ministry!

Forgiveness

Forgiveness the hardest thing for me to do in my Christian walk with other people. The people that are hardest with are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I ask myself why? The past half year God through real life has taught me so much about forgiveness. Its been tough, because forgiveness is so contrary to our media, and world view.

I think what goes through our mind sometimes is that people who know Christ shouldn't do certain things that non believers do. Although that is true in some aspects, because they know or should know the Biblical way of dealing with problems and to extend grace. However everyone, especially myself are far from perfect. God has really taught me so much this year, as it says in Romans, how can you judge? Because you're doing the same exact thing! The thing is that we all sin. Big or little we sin.

You've got a friend in me

John 15:15 (New International Version)

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

I am so honored to be called God's friend. He truly is my best friend, heck He gave me life, He saved my life, and is letting me live true life. Who wouldn't want to hook up with Him? Sitting on the bus today I was just listening to a conversation by two guys who were talking about various subjects ranging from various women they've had sex with, to how generally they hated various people, and then about some girl in their phil 230 class that dared to talk about God and her views on Him. "How dare she bring religion into this, God I hate Christians."

Little anger burned inside of me, cause Christ is a RELATIONSHIP! I talk with God, I feel His presense and I honor Him. How dare he not let someone talk about a relationship? I find the "Don't talk about religion" comment just plain dumb. A relationship with God is not someone that is offensive, its only offensive cause atheists don't choose to have one, and that is unforunate and they are missing out but its a choice.

I will speak boldly cause its the best relationship in and out of this world!