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I order one of these remotes last week from TigerDirect.com for $39.99 + Tax. I got if for about half price since it had been refurbished. The new ones sell for around $80. I’ve wanted one of these things ever since it was named one of the greatest inventions of the past few years. It’s not like the old universal remotes where you sit around entering numeric codes into the device; hoping it will work with your equipment. This one has software that you install on your PC. After installing the software you simply plug in the device (via a USB) and the software basically ask you what types of equipment you want to control. We went from 5 remotes down to one. This remote now controls my TV, Surround Sound, Cable Box, TiVo, and Zune. I’m also trying to find the correct components to connect some of my living room lights to. Note this remote only uses Infrared signals. If you have any equipment that uses RF signals it will not work. Anyway this device will help you consolidate all your remotes. The software could be a little frustrating for non techies, but all in all it’s been a solid purchase for our family.

So what enables and empowers someone to live a loving, joyful, peaceful life in the middle of a hating, joyless, and anxious world? It’s called grace. And not just any grace, God’s Grace. Some of my favorite verses are in Titus 2:11-12,

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ

What teaches us to “say ‘No’ to ungodliness’? Is it the ten commandments? Is it church attendance? Is it trying really hard to resist temptation? No it IS the GRACE of God.

And this grace is not some touchy feely thing. This grace is the goodness, patience, gentleness, and concern that our Heavenly Gather has for us. This grace is His blessing toward us, when our lives deserve judgment. I’ve heard it said before that God’s grace is Him giving us what we do not deserve and that is His love and compassion.

To humbly accept that the creator of the universe love us as a person is to be changed. To understand not only that Jesus died for the sins of the world, but that Jesus died for me(you) is to be changed. It’s not difficult to believe that “He so loved the world”, but it’s difficult to even start to grasp that he loves us. The reasons we feel this way is that we know us. We know what we think, how we live, how we lie, how we hate; and yet the King of Creation comes down and loves us with all that He is. He washes our feet and our life with the blood from His cross, and we are left blown away; or simply as the old hymn put it, Amazed!

As you think about the love God has for you it will change you. You’ll be encouraged to stop, step down, and turn away from the wicked tendencies in your life because of His grace and love for you. This is where the Power lies. One of the songs that I wanted sung at my ordination a few years back was a song entitled “Were It Not For Grace”. Here are the lyrics. Read them and think about how good he has been to you in Christ Jesus and be empowered to live a “self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age”. By the way you can have all the ice cream you want. Enjoy! (Picture of Ally with ice cream on her face from a beach trip in 2007)

Time measured out my days
Life carried me along
In my soul I yearned to follow God
But knew Id never be so strong
I looked hard at this world
To learn how heaven could be gained
Just to end where I began
Where human effort is all in vain

Chorus
Were it not for grace
I can tell you where Id be
Wandering down some pointless road to nowhere
With my salvation up to me
I know how that would go
The battles I would face
Forever running but losing this race
Were it not for grace

Legalism doesn’t work. What I mean is that a list of things you are not to do, in and of themselves have no power to help us resist them. They only help us identify and focus on what we are not supposed to do. Unfortunately the byproduct of focusing on what we are not supposed to do is just that; focus. And what we focus on (spend time thinking about) we are ultimately drawn to. Here is a simple illustration:

This week I want you to not eat any ice cream. Not your favorite flavor, not any flavor. Don’t even think about eating ice cream. We’ll if you are like me you started to think about a double scoop of pistachio almond from Baskin Robins. And I’m sure, somehow, within the next week I’ll magically end up at Baskin Robins getting my favorite kind of cream. So if you are often over eating and saying to yourself; “I ought not” and “I should not”; You only drive your mind to focus more on your desire And in this case its EAT MORE ice cream.

The Bible teaches that the laws (Old Testament) that were given were good; however they only helped bring alive the sin that is already in us.

Romans 7:7-11 reads, “ What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.”

The Christian life is the only true life to live that produces peace, joy and contentment; unfortunately the gospel has always been undermined by a teaching that keeping laws will bring this about this life. Legalist living is bondage because WE CAN NOT LIVE IT! I lived a good majority of my Christian life trying to prove my righteousness by keeping a list of rules. The end result of this type of living was depression and anxiety. I often feel sad for those who are trapped in religions that are teaching that a person can somehow attain heaven, nirvana, or whatever by keeping rules and regulations. We will always fail at this endeavor because of our nature.

So, then what really changes a person and actually empowers them to live a right and joy filled life? Stay tuned

Here is a copy of an email I sent yesterday to a client/friend who lost 3 years worth of email from some of his customers. The emails are very important, as they contain a history of the interaction that he and the company have maintained with these customers. While I haven’t been able to figure out what happened to these messages, I did take the liberty of writing this email after he mentioned that it had kept him up the night before. Keep in mind I wouldn’t just send this to anyone. This guy and I have a good friendship.

It’s All Sand

All information is stored as 1 and 0 or on or off switches on your hard drive or server.  These server drives are made out of metal disk and are processed by processors that are made out of silicon.  Silicon is made from melted sand.

Sand and metal along with all other elements will be melted again in a huge fire at the end of time.  There will be a new earth and new heaven and all the old things will be deleted forever.  Since we know this how ought we to live? 2 Peter 3

It’s all going to be deleted anyway.

Hope This Helps.

TJ was up and early this morning riding his tractor around the house as usual. He came back inside and told us he had found a pig. JJ and I both though he was joking, then we remembered seeing a pig at the entrance to our neighborhood about a week before. We walk out under the garage and sure enough. Shortly after the photo was taken the pig got a little too aggressive with the tractor and TJ took off to get away from him.

Lizzy is busy this summer with gymnastics. She has started training for her first competition. She will be competing and level four, with her first competition being after the first of the year. She enjoys reading and I’m paying her money to read through the New Testament by the end of 2009. She is a very bright kid; takes after her Dad.

It was a joy for me to Baptize Ally a few Sunday’s ago. She has really been growing in the grace and knowledge of the LORD. Since I challenged Lizzy to read through the bible, Ally picked up her “New Reader’s” Bible and quickly worked through the entire book it in about a month. Ally loves to have fun and any time she can run fast, bike fast, or drive fast she is happy!

You can describe TJ in one word “boy”. He loves to sword fight and ride his tractor. He enjoys praying or the attention that it gives him. He is also our social butterfly. He loves fight with young men and to sit down and carry on conversations with older men. He can talk like nobody’s business and either gets this from my Dad or the training he has received from his two older sisters.

1 John 4:20-21 (NIV)19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

I fear for many “churched people”. They attend “worship” services weekly, they sing, they read their bibles, they “say prayers” ; they give money to help people in need. On the outside they have a “good Christian” image; yet in their hearts there is much hatred toward fellow believers. They fail the greatest litmus test of all. They have forgotten the love and grace that God has shown them; and emotionally they hold others responsible for the pain in their own lives.

“It’s my spouse or my parents, or my boss or my sister or my brother, it’s my Pastor, or my friends; they are the reason that I’m the way I am.” What makes this even more dangerous is that fact that many of us would say that “we don’t hate someone” even when we actually do. After all hatred is not a part of the “image” we desire to maintain. However we know that while man looks on the outward appearance of other men, God Himself look into the heart (2 Sam 16.7-9).

The all-knowing God looks right past all our veneer and stares directly into our hearts and I fear he sees seething hatred in many. In our hatred we prove that we have never been recipients of God’s love or have forgotten the compassion of God has shown us in Christ. For when you receive Him we drop our weapons of malice, gossip, and slander and we embrace people as they are. We may still have a desire to see them different, but none the less we love them as they are not as they ought to be.

• Finishing up the first week in our new home. We’ve come a long way, still many boxes to unpack.
• This hot weather must be good for Southern Company Stock. It’s jumped almost $2 in the last week.
• The Turning Pointe Family is headed out to give away free pizzas tonight and invite people to a block party next weekend.
• Donna and Scott (Pastor of TP) welcomed their 3^rd baby girl into the world yesterday. Congrats mom and dad, I’ll be by to check on y’all in a few.
• That means that I’m breaking the bread on Sunday. Sermon title is, “God is Love”. I’ve been up studying this morning, can’t wait!
• We’re taking the kids to see UP on Saturday. They are pumped!
• Father’s day is Sunday. We’re planning to have lunch with my Dad and Mom.

Peace Out. TD

After almost 6 years in the same house, we’ve finally relocated to the “friendly city” of Petal. This past weekend was slightly hectic. The movers called on Thursday night saying they had doubled booked for Saturday and could they move us on Friday?! We finally closed around noon on Friday and the chaos began. Now we are finally settling in. Thanks to all our friends and family for helping us pack, move, unpack, keep kids, “talk us off the ledge”, etc.

We love our new house; however, I did get a chance today to walk through the old house for the last time. Ally, now 6 ½ had just started walking when we moved in to the house on 911 Slade Rd in August of 2003. So much of life has passed living in that house; a lot of good memories. Guess I got a little sentimental today. I can now see how older adults can get attached to a place after 40 or 50 years. But we have to let it go, and move on.

As Christians we have to move on because these places of brick and mortar are not our permanent home. No matter how many creature comforts they afford us, we will all leave them behind one day and “fly” to our eternal home. One that was not constructed by a local contractor, but one whose builder is GOD himself. All these structures are just houses, but not homes. A house is an empty building, like the one we just left on Slade Rd. But a home is a place where all the ones that you love gather. And in this eternal home, is the Most Special ONE. Not simply a relative who has passed, but THE LORD GOD ALMIGHT HIMSELF will be present. And when we (those who Love Him) are there with HIM, in ALL HIS GLORY, only then will we truly be home.

Recently JJ (my wife) wrote an email to some friends, who were facing some very difficult and discouraging circumstances. I asked her permission to share this compilation of a Tabetalk devotion, scriptures, and thoughts from Bondage Breaker. I wanted everyone to read these. I often forget the reality of who I am (in Christ). Everything else is “but a shadow on the wall”; true reality is found in our position in Him. Read and Remember!

Quoting from Tabletalk devotional book:

“Paul knew his reward was sure in Christ.  But he also knew that he would receive it only by pressing forward, working out his salvation with fear and trembling just as Christ was working in him.  Sanctification is a cooperative effort between us and God.  He makes our victory CERTAIN (emphasis mine!!) in Christ, but we only know that it is ours if we press on away from sin and toward Jesus.

 ”Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

2 Peter 1:10-11 (ESV)

Tidbits from Bondage Breaker:

“…you are seated with Him in the heavenlies.  Your identity as a child of God and your authority over spiritual powers are not things you are receiving or will receive at some time in the future; you have them right now.  You are a spiritually alive child of God RIGHT NOW.  Your are seated in the heavenlies with Christ RIGHT NOW.  You have the power and authority over the kingdom of darkness and to do His will RIGHT NOW.”

Live in the power and authority of Christ :
belief- confident that the victory in Africa has already been won.

Humility-properly placed confidence

Boldness-spiritual inspired boldness is behind every successful advance of the church.

 ”for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

2 Tim 1:7 (ESV)

Dependence-deal with demonic forces as they arise based on your authority and position and confidence in Christ, then get on with the work He has called you to!

“For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.
 They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.”

Psalms 91:11-12 (NLT)