Christian Bumper Stickers

My friends and I were talking about crazy drivers the other day. Bethany said, "You know what upsets me, when I see a car with a Christian bumper sticker getting road rage. Aren't you supposed to be a Christian?"

I honestly think there would be twice the number of Christian bumper stickers if people weren't scared of not living up to a Christian reputation on the roads. In the same way, I believe there would be twice the number of Christian's in the world if people weren't scared of not living up to a Christian reputation.

We don't have to be perfect, awesome, law-abiding citizens before the journey with God. Making the journey with God is what makes us perfect. As Christian's, we should be known as humble, not perfect. We should be known as those that believe alone we are an imperfect nothing, there's only one way to change that, with Jesus.

God doesn't expect us to be perfect. Psalm 18:30, "As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him."

God's way is flawless. It is perfect. It's so perfect that if we gives our lives to Him, He is a shield for our imperfections. Wow.

So if you ever hear that excuse from your friend's again, remind them, we don't have to be perfect or worthy of a relationship with God, a relationship with God makes us worthy.

Make the Step

As you read, remember one of my favorite quotes by Dave Matthews, "To change the world, it starts with one step, however small the first step is hardest of all."

What's ten dollars mean to Bill Gates? He couldn't care less.
What's ten dollars mean to a homeless man? Survival for another week.

What's one step to someone who has walked a couple miles every day of their life? Nothing.
What's one step mean to someone who has been paralyzed all their life? It's life changing.
What about one step to a baby who hasn't taken his first step? It's just the beginning.

Now back to Dave's quote. Do you think the first step to the paralyzed man, or the baby, is the hardest of all? Of course, they haven't taken a step in a long time, if ever before.

Just like the first steps of walking, the first steps of faith are going to be the hardest also. What's that first step?

My good friend that just went off to college, Daniel Lipford, would always say "Take the first step, God will take the other 99."

The first step to faith is letting God in, God will do the rest. Make the choice, make the step.

Why can't we Love?

God's greatest commandment is to love Him and love others. We just can't seem to grasp that concept. Before we can grasp it, we must acknowledge why we won't grasp it.

There's two disadvantages to loving others that I can think of.

-If we love others we don't have as much love to give to ourselves.

God loves us enough, we don't need to love ourselves.

-To love like God's asks us is very strange to earthly standards.

Romans 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

We shouldn't worry about conforming to earthly standards, let's conform to God's standards.

Make the choice. Love.

Keep it Simple

I love playing soccer and I love watching football. I've done both nonstop since I was about 4 years old. Unfortunately, it wasn't until now I learned the best lesson you can learn from either.

Simple always works best.

The best quarterbacks know how to make the simple throw consistently, four yards every play will get a touchdown.

The best soccer players know how to make the simple pass consistently, a bunch of simple passes linked together will usually get you behind the defense and into goal.

Yet, for some reason, we think the best way to have an awesome relationship with God is doing something crazy to give your life over to Him. In reality, the best relationships with God come from doing the simple things consistently.

Look at it this way. You're standing on one side of the gym, what's the quickest way to get to the other side? In the time you'd figure out a way to fly across the gym, fifty simple steps would have gotten you to the other side a week ago.

What are those simple steps? They will look different for each one of us. Maybe it's a couple minutes diving into the bible. Maybe the bible doesn't do much for you, try a Christian book. Maybe you need to set aside a certain part of the day as God time, could be before you go to bed, like me. Or you could do it when you wake up, like many of my friends do because they say it sets them in God-mode for the rest of the day.

Make the choice, take the simple steps to a better relationship with God.

Put up your Sails

A life without faith is a like sitting on a boat in stagnant water. It is a content life of mediocrity, neither good nor bad. For most of the world, all they’re seeking is a life of contentment. As Christians, we're not called to seek a life of contentment.

Faith believes in the unseen, it believes in the wind. Faith puts up the sails and trusts everything it has with the wind. Therefore, faith has no idea where the wind will take it, but it trusts it’s much better then the life of mediocrity it had with the sails down.

True faith is completely radical. It's another case of go big or go home. It can’t put the sails up, yet still steer the boat with the rudders. If it does that, it lost the hope of where the wind was taking it and the safety of where it was.

God is the wind. Make the choice. Put your sails up.

Are we naturally sinful?

Be honest with yourself. Are you naturally sinful? Is it in your nature to sin, and against it to not?

Genesis says you are made in God's image.

So, answer it again. Are you naturally sinful?

No. We are not naturally sinful, unless you can tell me God was naturally sinful.

You alone aren't naturally sinful, the world is. So if the world is naturally sinful why do we work so hard to conform to the world? When we do that, we are basically working to conform to sin. Why do we do it? I wish I knew.

Romans 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Make the choice.

Scratching the Itch

I haven't met someone who doesn't love summer, but there is always a down side to everything. The down side to summer, mosquito bites. My record one time was somewhere in the 50s on my right leg and 40s on my left leg.

The thing is, it doesn't really matter how many you have. Even if you just have one, if it itches enough it will drive you insane. I learned that lesson the hard way today. I woke up and the first thing I did, was reach down and scratch the bite on my lower left leg.

The rest of my day...
car ride to Wake Forest - scratched the whole time
interview with Wake Forest - scratched whenever they looked away
car ride back - scratched
laying on the couch - scratched
soccer practice - scratched whenever possible
Olive Garden - scratched

Okay.. well you get the point. Looking back on my day it reminded me of something I read by a man named Amos Lee.

"It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it."

In other words, resist the urge to scratch it the first time, because it'll be a hundred times easier than trying to stop scratching after you started.

That might be one of the simplest ideas ever, yet it's a very powerful realization. I want you to apply it to your every day life..

I know you can think of something. So make the choice, don't even scratch it once, because you won't stop after that.

Wipe off the Glass

To make a long story short, I had a miserable freshman year of high school. To this day, about to be a senior in high school, I still haven't been able to look at it with a clear mind. It's always really biased to the depressing side.

I was at church this morning singing worship when something just clicked in me. There were truly only two things that changed from freshman year to the awesome life I'm living now.

First, perception. I have the same exact friends as I did freshman year, yet I'm so much happier now. I was really inflicting all the depression on myself. I didn't have a reason to be depressed, except for things out of my control.

I read something by this guy named Amos Lee, "Pleasure is the view of our actions." To me, that is so relieving. To me, it says we control our own happiness. We should look for pleasure only from what we control, anything out of our control that goes wrong shouldn't bother us. It's out of our control, there's nothing we can do about it.

The second thing that changed, God wasn't in my life freshman year. Scratch that, He was obviously in my life because my depression is what showed me God. He was just with me through what I thought was a one way glass wall, he could see me but I couldn't see him.

So I want you to take two things from this.

1. Never be upset over things you can't control.
2. True happiness comes through God.

Today, take the time to wipe off the glass and realize, God's been right there the whole time, you've just been ignoring him.

Pride - Good or Bad?

Tonight, hopefully girls will be able to take something away from this, but I'm writing for the guys.

A girl asked me today, "Do all guys take value in pride?" The answer is yes. Guys, whether or not we admit it, pride is a huge part of our lives.

Then she asked, "Do you think it's a bad thing?" It doesn't really matter if it's a good or bad thing, it will always be there. Unfortunately, for many guys, it is a bad thing, but it can also be an empowering thing. It all depends what we find our pride in.

What exactly is pride? It can be defined as "A sense of one's own proper dignity or value." So it's what we place our values in.

Pride is a bad thing when you find it in earthly values. Getting the girls, being the strongest, doing the hurting but never getting hurt(physically and emotionally), being well-known, and basically always putting yourself first.

Pride can always be the most empowering weapon you have if you find it in Godly values, like loving when others couldn't, forgiving when others couldn't, being assertive for the right thing when others couldn't, being honest when others couldn't. Bill Perkins put it best though, "We must find our pride in refusing to sin when sinning is most justified."

So guys, Christianity isn't about ditching our pride to serve others, it's about finding our pride in serving others. It's all perspective.

What do you find your pride in?

WWJD

We've all heard the saying, what would Jesus do? We also all know that in reality, there's no way to do any of the awesome things Jesus did. Except one thing.

Love.

So I want you to brainstorm. In today's world, what's something you could see Jesus doing?

I want it to be something possible. I'll give you an example of what I mean...

Jesus would run to the passenger door of his friend's car, not to get shotgun, but to hold the door open for another one of his friend's to get shotgun.

What would Jesus do today? But I don't want you to think about it without putting it into action. I challenge you to live out your idea the first chance you get.

So, What would Jesus do? Do it.

The Greatest Gift

Imagine you were given the greatest gift in the world, with not only the power to change lives, but save lives. There's an infinite amount of it, easily enough to save the whole world. You want to share it so bad, you do your best, but there's only so much you can do.

That's what I feel like every day. God is the greatest gift in the world, with the power to change and save lives, and there's obviously enough of God to go around. Who wouldn't want to share that?

"What is impossible with men is possible with God." -Luke 18:27

Who wouldn't want that?

How would you want to be treated?

I know you have heard the saying "treat others as you want to be treated." We always hear it. A lot of times we even try to live by it.

No, I won't lie to them, I wouldn't want to be lied to.
No, I won't steal from them, I wouldn't want to be stolen from.
No, I won't kill them, I wouldn't want my life to be taken.

Okay, that last one might be a bit extreme. But seriously, think about this for a second. If you were asked, how do you want to be treated? Would you answer, I wouldn't want to be lied to, stolen from, or killed. No. You wouldn't.

You would probably answer, I want someone to treat me like they actually care about me. What does it like to actually care about someone...

Sure, I won't lie to them, but I will be 100 percent honest with them, because I would want someone to be 100 percent honest with me.
Sure, I won't steal from them, but I will give to them, even more than they ask for, because I would want someone to give to me.
Sure, I won't kill them, but I'm gonna give them life. I'm gonna introduce them to God and His amazing love because I would want someone to do the same for me.

Like I said yesterday, with love we go big or go home. Let's take the meaning of treating others the way we would want to be treated to a whole new level. Go big.

Go Big or Go Home

I love my church, not only for the great sermons, but the rock concert that leads up to those sermons every Sunday.

Today I had one of those couples in front of me that were obviously just not feeling the music. The man just stood there awkwardly with his bible in hand, just soaking it all in.

I know how he feels, I used to be that guy. That guy that's just too cool to get into the music. The only problem with that is, is when the musics really getting to that guy. He can't deny it, but he tries. It's one of those songs everyone's clapping and screaming their lungs out, and then there's him. So he claps. It's weak. It's pitiful. But it's a clap.

Now he's just making a fool out of himself, better off jamming out or standing quietly. It's one of those things where it's obviously better to go big or go home. By the end, he realized that. He was definitely going big. He was rocking back and forth swaying with the music, I saw his girlfriend give him a strange look but that didn't hold him back one bit.

The church music is just like God's love. At first, everyone thinks their too cool for it. But once they see others enjoying it so much, jamming out with his love, they can't resist.

That's when they realize, they can't just clap, they can't just go through the motions. No, they have to go big or go home.

So they let the love live inside of them. They might get strange looks, but they don't care. They know their living out the best purpose of all. God's love is that purpose.

Tomorrow, jam out, let God's love live in you.

Make the choice, go big.

The Re-volution

I want you to think back. Think back to the beginning. Think back to Adam and Eve. Think back to the Garden. I want you to re-member our original purpose.

Humans were made like God. God is love. Love is our purpose.

Adam already broke that with the apple though, we weren't off to a good start. Since then, it's only gone down hill. Now its unnatural to find love. Now its rare to find someone who truly puts others first.

I was visiting my grandparents today, we walked over to their neighbor's to talk. That's when I saw a grave-looking cement sign. It read: Our heart is closest to God in a garden.

That's when I re-membered what my Pastor Steve told me in a conversation I had with him. He brought to mind all the re-words in the bible. Re-deem, re-concile, etc. Then he pointed out when Mary found Jesus she confused him with a gardener. He's tomb was in a garden. In Revelations, I still need to look into it, but he said it spoke of the new earth or heaven as a garden. God's clueing us in, he's giving us hints with the garden. He wants us to re-member something.

So what's re- mean? It means back. Everything God is doing, or trying to do through us, is bringing us back. To re-turn to our original purpose, love.

"Our heart is closest to God in a garden." To God, gardens symbolize our original purpose, love. Which through Jesus, and in the future of Revelations, he's attempting to bring us back to. Garden=love

Plug it in. "Our heart is closest to God in love."

God wants us to love, He made us solely for that purpose, and since He truly loves us He gives us free will. Let's not take advantage of that.

Let us re-member our original purpose, let us start a re-volution. Let us love.

Can't Escape It

When I ride in the car I always have to listen to music. Doesn't matter how long or how short the ride is, I'm all about music in the car. Usually I'll hook up my iTouch into the auxiliary jack and listen to whatever I'm feeling at the time, which lately has only been Christian music.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm really struggling with God lately. Ironically enough, my friend just texted me with a cool bible verse. I went to pick up my bible and check it out, I can't find my bible. Wow. I think the only thing keeping me close to Him at all is listening to my Christian music.

I hopped in the car for about a three minute ride to my friend's house. I wasn't feeling the iTouch, so I went to first mode FM. I went through every single preset, all commercials. No problem, those were just some of my favorite channels to listen to when I don't have someone controlling my music, like classic rock and some country.

I turn to second mode FM, the one with all rap for my friends when they hop into my car. First preset, commercial. Second preset, commercial. Third and fourth, both commercials.

I press the fifth preset, it's music. Christian music.

Remember, God's always right next to you, even when you think you're at your farthest.

Taking the Credit

Today is was my first official high school soccer practice of the season. Coach gave us a drill, he hid five dollars somewhere and he gave us hints to where the money was hidden.

I was just walking around with my teammate Michael when he picked up a sandbag and looked under. Only, he didn't look far enough under. I was a little behind him so I had a better view of under the bag to see the five dollar bill folded up right there. I picked it up, laughed at him, thanked him, then went over to coach and took all the credit.

We do that to God all the time. God moves mountains for us so we can find the pot of gold at the end. Yet, when we find that pot of gold, we take all the credit for it. When in reality, God gave us that gold.

Tonight, I challenge you to think about everything you have in your life, every single thing, it was all because God gave it to you. Give the credit to who deserves it.

I read somewhere God gives us all our unique gifts, but our gift to God is what we do with them.

The American Dream

What's your idea of the American Dream?

I bet it's something like working a good job, having a happy marriage with a couple of kids, a big house with a fenced in yard and big screens tvs with surround sound systems.

In learning some about international poverty and reading the book Acts of Faith by Philip Caputos, I noticed one common theme. Everyone over seas may despise America because we are so selfish and self-centered, but they respect us. They respect us for the American can-do attitude. We believe anything is possible.

That might be the best trait to have. The only flaw with that trait, isn't in the trait itself, but what it's used for.

God's greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. For some reason, we shrug that off as being impossible, while we believe a homeless man can become a millionaire in the span of a couple years.

I'd like us to start a revolution. I'd like us to change the idea of an American Dream. I'd like us to make the American Dream to truly understand and live out the meaning of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

And I'd like us to use our American can-do attitude to make all of that make the new American Dream become American reality.

The Martian

I was watching a movie today but I can't remember the name. It was about a man that adopted a very odd little boy from an orphanage, the boy believed he was from Mars.

His new dad went through so much work and counseling to try and convince him otherwise. Finally his dad was very upset with him and the boy asked, "Is it good to be like everybody else?" Then it went to the next scene.

We live in a society where many times we are convinced it's good to be like everybody else. Many times when we discuss our faith with non-believers we get looks like were telling them we think we're from another planet.

We can't let it stop us though, Matthew 5:10 says "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I believe that genuiness can set the world free. Free from the restraints of conforming. Free from the restraints of tunnel vision perspectives.

But most of all, free from the restraints on the uniqueness that God has given each and everyone of us to live out His greatest purpose, love.

Procrastination

I am a terrible procrastinator. In fact, the reason why I don't have time to tell you my procrastination story of the day is because I put off so much until tonight, the last night before freshmen orientation.

Procrastination is always a bad things, but when it affects our relationship with God, it must be stopped.

In my Latin class everyone put Latin homework last on the priority list, so many times they would come in and tell Mr.M, sorry I was up til 2 o'clock last night doing my other homework so I didn't have time. He'd reply, "Well if you were up til 2 o'clock last night doing your homework, why couldn't you stay up just another five minutes to do your latin?"

It's the same way with God.

"Sorry God, creator of the universe, it's 3 o'clock in the morning and I've had so much homework tonight, so I will just wait and talk to you tomorrow."

If you were up til 3 o'clock anyway, why not stay up another five minutes to spend time with God. Would another five minutes be the reason why you have huge bags under your eyes tomorrow or are you gonna have them anyway?

Living God-centered

I want to share an idea with you that my lead singer at church gave us today.

He prayed that we change our perspectives, to change them in the way that we take ourselves out of the center, with everything revolving around us, and put God in the center.

There's a couple problems with having ourselves in the middle.

Imagine yourself in the middle with everything and everyone else as an asteroid belt around you. In this perspective, everyone around you is inferior to you and they all depend on your movements. If that's true, it's impossible to love our neighbor as ourself, which is the greatest commandment of the bible.

Secondly, if everything revolves around you, God does too. That means God is just another asteroid following your every movement. The God that created the universe, and He depends on your every move, I don't think that's a good way to live.

If we put God in the middle, we realize that we are just another asteroid. We depend on God's every movement. We are equal to every other asteroid in the fact that we are all there solely for His purposes. And if we are equal to every other asteroid, it's possible to love one another as we would love ourselves.

So does the world and the God who created it revolve around you, or do you revolve around God?

What It's Like

One of my favorite songs is called What It's Like by Everlast. The whole song just gives you situations where people typically come to quick assumptions of someone. Then they give you the other side of the story, finally it says, "And then you really might know what it's like."

I came to that bittersweet realization today. I'll give you the situation.

Doorbell rings, I'm not expecting anyone. I run upstairs to my parent's bedroom in the top corner of the house, from here I have a great view of the doorstep. Very stealthily, I pull open one of the blinds and look out. It's a stranger. No need to answer, they're just one of those annoying door to door people trying to steal some of my money.

I can almost guarantee you that you've also done that at some point.

Well today, my friend and I went door to door offering to disinfect and deodorize trash cans and recycling carts. We were raising money for our school's FCA and Miracle League, a baseball league for kids affected by special needs. I'd consider that a worthy cause, but unforunately no one would know that because they looked out the window and saw two bothersome teenagers they didn't recognize.

Lucky enough, we got a lot of the money we needed from our neighbors that answered the door because they recognized us. Then they hear the cause, let us do the work for them and offer the donations.

It was so frustrating how obviously we were being avoided. If only people would take the time to listen to us.

That's why from now on, I'll at least answer the door and see if it's a worthy cause. It reminded me of one of the simplest sayings, treat others the way you want to be treated.

If people lived by that one saying, there would be no trouble in loving. We all love ourselves first and foremost, no matter if we'd admit to it or not.

And just in case you forgot, the greatest commandment in the bible is to love your neighbor as you would love yourself.

So whenever you're confused how to love the person across from you, imagine yourself in his shoes, how would you want to be treated?

Got Milk?

Here's something I wrote a few weeks ago...

I don’t get God. I’m about to dedicate a week to spending time with him and reading Christian books and he gives me the crappiest night ever. During the already horrid night my crucifix that I always have around my neck broke today and since I'm going on vacation I won’t have it the next full week.

I had a terrible night and I told myself well, I’ve got my nightly milk to cheer me up. That’s when I poured the milk and I didn’t get half a glass, and I usually drink 4. Not a big deal, I just walked to the fridge outside to grab another gallon. That’s when I remembered I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow, that was all the milk we had.

All my fall backs, pick ups, or “safety nets,” whatever you want to call them, were gone. And it wasn’t until I wrote this that I realized this.

God always has a reason for everything. God takes away our earthly “safety nets” on purpose. Not to watch us mope, but to realize we shouldn’t need earthly safety nets.

We’ve got God.

A Look in the Mirror

As Christians, we must be able to take an honest look at ourselves.

The greatest commandment is to love. In the bible, Paul literally gives us a checklist to see if we're living out the greatest commandment.

I read this in a book Crazy Love written by Francis Chan, he said put your name in everywhere love is. Be honest with yourself.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly;
it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Don't worry, that's always a shocking realization for me too. We always must take the time to take an honest look in the mirror.

I challenge you to write down the ones your struggling with, read over them every night and look back on your day.

Mickey D's Monopoly

On our road trip the other day as we started to get hungry we entered Connecticut. We quickly found out how unforunate that was. Food off the highway was very few and far between, and all the food available was McDonald's.

Now I know I tend to stir up a lot of controversy with this, but I can't stand McDonald's. I refuse to eat there, unless it's a milkshake late at night with my friends or pancakes early in the morning. So we suffered through all of Connecticut without a bite to eat. Sure enough, as soon as we crossed the border into Rhode Island I think it was, there was decent food to eat.

Imagine a world like Connecticut. Everyone in the world was the same type of person. The world would truly get nowhere.

Paul says in Romans 12:6-8, "We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."

God gives us all a purpose. What we have to realize is that the challenge in this life on earth is not living out our purpose, because God gives us all we need to do that. The challenge of this life is figuring out our individual purposes.

Once we realize our purpose, we have to remember to dedicate it to the One who gave us our purpose, the One that made each and every one of us. We have to collectively use our purposes to one common goal.

I read Life of Amos Wilson, I'm sure I'll be mentioning his writing's in a lot of my posts to come, but he said, "and although we pursure different plans, we aim at the same point."

We may all pursue it in different ways, but it is all for nothing if it isn't for the same point. Let's make that point God's greatest commandment, love.

I believe my purpose is to bring out the best in others, what's yours?

Free Breakfast Gone Wrong

We were at the hotel in Boston getting ready to start heading home. It was one of those hotels with the free breakfast that always seems to cause drama. Well today, since I’m a teenager, I got to sleep in through all of it. So I was lucky enough to miss all the morning’s drama and wake up to a warm waffle in bed. Little did I know the morning’s drama was all over this one waffle that sat in front of me. As I ate, mother filled me in.

To make the waffle you pour this cup of waffle batter into the maker, you close it, flip it and when the timer beeps you flip it back over and take it out. Simple enough, right? Except there’s one key to the whole process that without this key, things can go terribly wrong. That key is the spray that makes the waffle not stick to the maker. As you know, we’ve been in hotels for the past couple nights, so we’re very accustomed to the waffle making strategies.

So after mom sprayed and put it in everything was going flawlessly. That’s when it gets interesting. She couldn’t get the waffle out of the maker. Little did she know, to make matters worse, she was being very closely watched. That’s when she heard a voice.

“You forgot to spray it, didn’t you?” It was one of those snobby accents, one of those accents that just reek of cockiness. She turns around to see about a middle aged man looking straight down at his newspaper through glasses that were literally on the tip of his nose.

Mom wasn’t gonna take it. “Excuse me, I’ve been in these hotels for the past three nights, I know what I’m doing, I sprayed it.”

Continuing on with his reading, without even blessing mom with a look up, “Apparently not.” Mom was speechless, she managed to get it out, came to the room and woke me up to my waffle.
Not an hour later we were outside packing the car when it walked out. “That’s him,” she said. I turned and looked. That’s when I saw him walk to his huge glimmering white Cadillac.

I turned back to mom, “No wonder, he drives a Cadillac.”

Wow. It wasn’t until later I realized how bad of a stereotype I just made. Especially as a resident of one of the wealthiest cities in the world, I have no room to talk. As Christians, we can’t afford to make assumptions or stereotypes. I’ll never forget, my eighth grade computer teacher always said to never assume because you’ll make an ass out of you and me. Hence, if you’re blonde, break down the word assume. And there I go again...

So, my point. As Christians, if we are too occupied judging and making assumptions about someone, we can’t love them. That’s a problem, just a reminder. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment of all, he replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it; Love your neighbor as yourself."(Matthew 37-39)

I know it’s hard, and a lot of times it’s all good and fun, but we’ve got to stop. Stop judging, start loving.

Make the choice.

By the way, I really don't have anything against those who drive Cadillacs and some of my smartest friends are blonde girls....

Welcome to Pennsylvania

It was another long day riding in the car and I'm one of the least flexible people you will ever see in your life. I'm always so sore after my soccer games, people tell me it's because I played so well and I hustled so much. Hey, I'll take a compliment when I get it, you would too. But in my head I know it's because I'm so terrible when it comes to flexibility.

Anyway, we pull up the Pennsylvania and into the visitor center to look at the mountain of brochures to see if it's worth spending an extra night here. I was so tight it took me so long to get out of the car, by the time my foot hit the ground my parents were half way into the center walking along the sidewalk. I shut the door and limped ahead.

Here's the thing, the sidewalks to the entrance literally made a complete loop going unnecessarily out of the way. I figured since I was basically handicapped I had an excuse to cut straight through the grass to the front entrance. As I was waddling to the door, I got these weird looks from my parents and the other visitors walking obediently along the sidewalk. It was obvious they genuinely thought I was breaking some sort of unwritten rule, never cut through the grass. I don't know about you, but I though that was sort of ridiculous.

Have you ever done something without thinking twice and got an unfavorable reaction from others? I bet you can think of an unwritten rule or two that you consider just outrageous.

In reality, our world today has so many ridiculous man made rules. If we wanted to make a list, the list would be endless. That gives us a problem. As Christians today we often struggle with distinguishing the man made rules and the God made rules.

I figured I would just make it easy for you.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment of all, he replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it; Love your neighbor as yourself."(Matthew 37-39)

There you go plain and simple, do it.

What's on your mind?

Answer it honestly, what have you been thinking about?

One night I was driving home from my friend's house and it was pouring rain. I was amazed by the beauty of the rain as it fell onto my car and the roads around it. Then it hit me, other people were watching that same exact rain and it was depressing them. We have the power to choose. We have the power to control our minds.

I was talking with my Pastor Steve one day and through one simple exercise he made me truly understand the power of our mind. Our minds are continually taking in millions of bits of information. Think about your feet. Can you feel the texture their on? I bet you didn't realize that earlier, but your mind was still reading it. How's your bum feeling? You feel all the pressure on it now? Bet you didn't realize that a minute ago. Our minds constantly reading information but we have the power to choose what to pay attention to.

In Romans 8:5 Paul says, "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires."

There's always sin we could be doing, and there's always good we could be doing. The problem is, we normally focus on avoiding the sin and not working towards the good. Like Paul says, when our mind is on the sin, no matter looking for it or avoiding it, we live accordance to the sin. But, if our mind is on the good we could be doing with the Spirit, we live accordance to the Spirit. We are always naturally reading all this information but we have the power to choose what to focus on.

So what's on your mind? Avoiding the sin or living with the Spirit?

Make the choice.

Road Trip

The past two days I've spent on a car ride to Boston to watch a friendly of maybe the biggest soccer rivalry in the world, AC and Inter Milan. It was a ride that's supposed to take about 12 hours, it took about 17 hours. There was almost always one common cause to the traffic. It was one of those things where there were three lanes that have to merge to two, and everyone who feels like they are more important then everyone else goes as far as they can and cuts in. That frustrates me like no other. What makes them think they have the right to skip to the head of the line over all the rest of us?

At one point there wasn't even that much traffic but we were so frustrated from earlier traffic. We were pulling up to one of those frequent dreaded toll booths on the northern roads in the cash lane because of course we don't have an EZ Pass, we're just clueless red neck tourists. That's when someone cut us off, there was no need, there wasn't any traffic around. We reacted by swerving into the lane they just came from. Rode right past them and gave them the "I bet you feel stupid now" look. That's when we pulled up to the booth, cash in hand, window down, and realized, this ain't no cash lane. With a couple cars already behind us, honking at us to ride on through, there was no turning back. We rolled on through without paying the toll, and we drove off to a huge alarm like we just pulled a Nicolas Cage and stole the Declaration of Independence from D.C. That's when we saw a sign, 25 dollar ticket for not paying the 5 dollar toll that we just rode through.

Later in the ride I started thinking about the back up, it had to start somewhere. There had to be that one person that was the first to cut in, therefore causing an even bigger back up. With the bigger back up, more people cut in, more people cut in, it's an even bigger back up. It's a huge cycle all started by the first person. The only way to break it is if we joined together and refused to react to a back up with cutting in. If we did that, the back up would slowly deteriorate, that way everyone could get through in good time without the need to cut in. Anyway, many times just like in our case of reacting to the swerve into our lane with a swerve into theirs, reacting so quickly isn't the best choice.

Isn't sinning the exact same way? It always starts somewhere. For us, sinning started with the first human, Adam. Since then, just like the only way to react to a huge back up is cutting in, the earth has been so contaminated with sin that the only way to react is to keep sinning. It's always gonna be that way until we join together to take a stand.

It's our choice.

As Christians, we must train ourselves to find pride in being "peculiar" to this world as my Pastor Steve would put it. Bill Perkins says this, "We must learn to find pride in refusing to sin when sinning is most justified." And many times, reacting to sin with sin, just like reacting to swerve with swerve, isn't always the best choice for ourselves. Yes, I'm pulling out the cliche phrase, What would Jesus do? React with love.

Make the choice.

Love isn't out of reach

Today I was at a soccer camp where the goal is to raise expectations of ourselves and the coach finally gave one of his last pump up speeches of the camp. He said for some reason the bar is just set so low now and coaches tell us never to expect us to anywhere with our soccer careers.

With such a low bar set for the players and idea that stuck in their heads that it's impossible to make a living out of it, young players these days just don't want to work at it. They believe it's not worth it, despite their love for the game.

That's when he made the best point, it relates straight back to the idea Francis Chan had of swimming upstream. He told us there is no staying the same, we either get worse or get better, and obviously without working at it we will get worse.

His goal was to raise the bar of expectations so we would believe in ourselves. It's amazing how the level of play for everyone, especially I noticed in my game, increased in just this one week camp. If we just set the bar higher for ourselves, subconsciously we work to meet that bar.

Now think about our lives as young Christians. Many parents just don't expect their kid to be a good person. Almost all parents convince their kids that it's impossible to live our lives for Christ.

Once again, with a bar set so low and the idea that we can't totally live our lives for Christ, young Christians just don't want to make an effort to have a relationship with God. They believe there's no point to it. Therefore, if we don't work at it, there's no staying the same, and the typical young Christian goes backwards. Usually so back that the ideas of a "relationship" with God or loving others unconditionally are incomprehensible.

I believe that love and soccer are similar in so many ways in that way. I believe that if we start by raising the bars for ourselves and expecting the best from others, we will in turn get the best from everyone.

Remember, we our all made in the image of God. We are all made to love. All we have to do is set the bar higher for ourselves because we are all capable. Make the choice, expect the best person you can be with God and you will be that person.

What is God?

I want to get back to the basics of Christianity again.

What are the two greatest commandments?
Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Love is the most important part of being a Christian, yet whenever anyone says we have to love everyone, we normally don’t pay attention. Because when we hear “love,” most of us don’t even begin to try and understand what that actually means. We think of it as an abstract concept that in reality is out of reach.

If you look up love in the dictionary, you will find over 20 different definitions. The love I’m talking about is this, “the affectionate concern for the well-being of others.” That’s all love is, it’s that simple yet everyday we just shrug off whenever our church leaders or the bible tells us to go out in the world and love others.

Another basic. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;” So we are made in God's image to live out God's purpose.

Now I ask you, what is God?

God is love.

Love is the greatest commandment and we are made to love, no more excuses. Do it.

What's God sound like?

Soccer has been a huge part of my life for a long time. It was at my last club soccer tournament ever when I realized the teams that play best are the teams that trust each other. If they trust each other, they can be receiving the ball with their back to the opponent, and when their teammates tell them to turn, they can. If they didn’t trust each other, they wouldn’t turn for fear of getting whacked. Without faith in our teammates a soccer team can just not function.

There is one fall back though. Sometimes there will be jerks on the other team that tell you what to do and in the heat of the moment, you listen to that voice cuz it’s the first you hear. You leave the ball and it goes straight to the other team, just cuz you confused the opponents voice with your own teammates.

Our lives are the exact same way. God is our team, he’s always trying to talk to us and we can’t get anywhere if we don’t have faith and trust in what he speaks to us. Except, just like in the real game, Satan is the opposing team trying to trick you into doing the wrong thing.

Do you know God’s voice? Do you know Satan’s voice? I can pretty much guarantee you that you don’t. So we have a problem, how can we tell the difference between the two voices inside our head? We can’t, and the only solution I have for you is to study God’s voice. Now you think I’m a psycho.

Voice can be defined as an expressed wish, so an expressed wish that’s in your mind. So the voices of God and Satan are the battling wishes or desires within your head. Now that sounds a bit easier, distinguishing the desires of God and Satan. Sometimes it’s just not that easy.

Let me give you an example. You’re the judge in this situation. There’s a 16 year old pregnant woman asking for an abortion. You’re extremely pro-life so of course you’re against it, but wait a second. She was raped. Now what? Do you force her to give birth to a baby that she didn't ask for, or do you allow her to kill a human life?

Can you tell me which voice is God and which is Satan? I’ll tell you one thing, I sure can’t. The only way we can truly distinguish between the voices, is to truly know our God. That means spending time with Him, a lot of time. How long does it take you to truly know someone that’s been alive for 50 years? It takes a while. Now multiply that by infinity, that’s how long God’s been around.

We will never know Him as well as we should, but hopefully if we put enough time and effort into knowing Him, we can know Him well enough to distinguish His voice within our head. Sure, we may never know Him well enough here on earth to choose which voice He is in sticky situations like abortion, but hopefully we can distinguish it well enough for smaller situations like how to react to anger directed at us.

So just like I did yesterday, I challenge you to spend five minutes with God. I read somewhere that it takes 21 days to make something a habit. Do it. Make it a habit.

Make the Effort

So today I sat down and I caught up on all my reading. I caught up on my bible readings and I finished the book Crazy Love. It's hilarious because it seemed that everything I read today related directly to what I wrote yesterday. It's just one of those days where you know in everything that your doing God is talking to you. But wait a minute? That's definitely not a coincidence. I dedicated today to better knowing our Lord and Savior, and today He spoke to me in everything I did to better know Him.

That just goes to show you, God is always there just waiting for us. He wants us to know Him, He wants us to love him. Like I've said before, it's all our choice. Make the choice to better know Him, and He will repay you. Look at what I read today.

Deuteronomy 4:29 "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."

All you have to do is give it an honest effort to know Him and He will let you find Him.

And you know how I said we need to dedicate our lives to God? I read a chapter in Crazy Love that literally just listed people that gave their lives to God and the beautiful things they did by giving their lives for God to live and love through.

In the next chapter I came across this quote by Annie Dillard, "How we live our days is ... how we live our lives." If you want to know if you are living your life with God, for God, and through God, look at your day.

So take an honest look at the day you had today, are you living for what truly matters?
If not, what can you do to change?

Remember what Dave said, "To change the world, it starts with one step, however small, the first step is hardest of all."

If you aren't happy with the day you had today, you can change it, make the choice. Start by spending five minutes with God tomorrow, either talking with Him or cracking open the bible.

I'll Dedicate tomorrow to God

Too make a long story short, I've had a rough past couple days. Literally, rough. I don't have two toe nails and a lot of the ones left are broken in half. I've got a headache, whiplash, a black eye, a cramping calf and a swollen knee that won't straighten. I got all that from four soccer games that have become the center of all my attention and energy the past couple days.

Because of soccer in these past three days, I haven't read my nightly readings of the bible, read any of Crazy Love, or wrote at all. If you told me a year ago reading and writing would be such a huge part of my life, I would have laughed at you. But now, through God, it's become a massive part. I try to write nightly to keep record of my ideas of God and things dealing with God or at least dive into his word or a Christian book.

I kept putting off, making excuses to deal with God tomorrow. I figured if I put my relationship with God on hold I could come back to just where it was. I realized the hard way that that is the farthest thing from the truth.

It reminded me of something Francis Chan wrote in the book Crazy Love I'm in the middle of, that ironically enough, I haven't picked up in the past couple days. He made an awesome point when he compared our relationship with God to swimming upstream. If you're not actively swimming or focusing on your relationship with Christ, you're gonna float right back to where you started.

After I was blessed with this epiphany, I told myself I'd dedicate tomorrow to God. I took that as a stinging slap across the face. I just made the choice to dedicate tomorrow to God? Why not today? Why not the past 17 years of my life?

God is the reason why we are here. God is the reason why I am where I am today. Yet, I don't live my life solely for Him and His purposes? Wow, that sounds pretty ungrateful to me.

What are you doing to make sure your constantly swimming?

My Idea of Beautiful

The most beautiful people in the world are the ones that...

can see the beauty in the ugliest places.
can bring out the beauty in the ugliest places.
love everyone and everyone, no matter their situation, beliefs, or attitudes.
never give in.
are always striving to make themselves better, solely for the benefit of others.
never settle for the relationship they have with God, but always want to make it twice as strong. are always striving to be better, but can still be happy with what they are.
make the attempt to live like Jesus.

What's your idea of beautiful?

You should have seen that Sunrise

I was just listening to one of my favorite singers, and I'm betting he's one of yours too, John Mayer. His music just has a power to relax you. I know you feel it too, don't lie.

In the song 3x5 it says "You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes." That's what reminded me of something I was thinking about at the beach two weeks ago.

Have you ever watched a beautiful sunrise or looked out at the moonlight when you were on the coast? If not, you're missing out. I always feel closest to God when I'm out on the porch on the shore late at night. That's where I first truly dove into the bible and found some of my favorite Proverbs that I still shape my life by today.

My dad came out and joined me one night and it happened to be a night when I was just completely in awe of the moon's reflection on the water. It was pointing right at me, and it did so quite often. So I asked him if the light's reflection always pointed at whoever was looking. He laughed and then told me it does.

Doesn't the idea of that fascinate you? No matter where I am in the world, no matter how insignificant I am, the light will point to me. The moonlight's reflection amazes me for three reasons.

1. It beautiful
2. It's the same moon for the whole world.
3. Although it's the same one for the whole world, no matter where I am, it still points right at me.

God is the moonlight’s reflection on the water. He’s beautiful. He’s the same God for the whole world and all of it's existence. He still makes time to listen to me, no matter where I am, or how insignificant I am, He listens. Not only does He listen, God genuinely cares for each and every one of us. Wow.

I think God gives us the beautiful light's reflection as a reminder. A reminder of His greatness and a reminder that despite His greatness, He cares. Can you think of any reminders God gives you?

Back to the Basics

Tonight I really just want to get back to the basic idea of Christianity, many times we assume we understand the basics and just skim right over it to the details. As Christians, if we can keep focus on the basics everything else will fall into place.

God promises us an eternity to live in heaven, in paradise. Now I want you to compare 100 years to eternity. That’s like taking one star out of the sky, it’s not a big deal to give up one star, as long as it’s for a good reason. Now think about this, if we’re given 100 years here on earth, and promised an eternity in paradise, why wouldn’t you give 100 years out of the eternity you have to live, to save as many people as you can here on earth and take them to heaven with you? There is not one good reason.

I'm in the middle of a book called Crazy Love right now by Francis Chan and I just read a chapter about lukewarm Christians. There was one point he made that really makes you think, but you have to be completely honest with yourself.

Imagine your life if you didn't believe in God. Compare it to the life you have now. Did anything change? If not, you've got a problem.

With that in mind, get back to the basics, take in the fact that you truly have eternity in heaven, and once you've done that, start brainstorming how you could use this 100 years on earth to bring as many people as you can with ya to paradise.

What outrages you?

I started my Wake Forest early application today, my dream school. It's known for it's weird questions on it's application, like Look out your front door, describe what you see. What would you change? It really makes ya think.

That's when I came across this question though, What outrages you? I've already thought about it before so it was pretty easy to answer.

There's two things that outrage me. First is a hypocrite. I'd prefer a friend that curses or drinks all the time to someone who claims they never do it and does it occasionally.

In Matthew, Jesus gave us a parable an unmerciful servant. A servant fell on his knees and begged his master for patience and the master took pity on him. That same servant went to one of his servants and choked him and threw him in jail for being unable to pay him. The original master found out and took the servant and said, “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” then the servant was tortured.

As always, Jesus makes a really good point with this one. What I take from this though, God shows us unconditional love and mercy all the time. We can't accept his graces if we don't show the same grace to others in our lives.

Non-believers claim that Christians are hypocrites as an excuse not to be a Christian themselves, I'd like you to join with me in working to take away that excuse from them.

Secondly is someone with strong opinions that don't expect the opinions of others.

Just think about it for a second, you have strong opinions that you would like others to listen to, but you won't listen to others opinions. That's hypocrisy. Keep this in mind too, Proverbs 18:2 says, "A fool flinds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions."

What is anger without a purpose though? God has a purpose for everything. Anger isn't made to ruin our health and give us headaches and stomach aches, which what is usually does for me if I'm angry enough. Anger is made to teach us a lesson. If it angers us, shouldn't we make sure we don't live the life of a hypocrite and do the same exact thing. That's why I started something for myself. Whenever something makes me angry, I write it down on my list of traits not to have. I'm going to start reading over that list everyonce in a while just to check myself and give it my best to rid of hypocrisy in my life completely.

I like to consider it constructive critisicm. Recognizing the actions of others that upset me and eliminating them from my life to make me a better Christian for God to live through.

So take a few minutes and ask yourself, what makes you angry? Do you do it to others too?

Your Choice

"Everything is gonna be alright, be strong, believe." -Yellowcard
That’s what faith does. As long as you keep your faith things will fall into places. I’m scared. I’m scared of going to college studying to do a job based on making a difference in the world through my relationship with God. I tell people all the time how nervous I am. Everything is about faith though, Acts of faith. Our lives are acts of faith. We can make acts of faith on our faith that the human race is no good, not expecting anything of anyone or ourselves and get nowhere. Or we can make acts of faith on our faith that God is good and the bible says God made humans in his image. If God made us in his image, how can anyone say people are naturally sinful? Anyone who says that is just looking for an excuse to sin. O well, we’re naturally sinful. Shut up, quit making excuses, and be the best you can be. You know you have it in you, it all depends whether or not you want to be a good person. It’s truly your choice. Everythings your choice, you want to make a difference? Make the choice. You want to be a good person? Make the choice. You want to be happy? Make the choice. You want to quit a bad habit? Make the choice. We are our own worst enemies. Everything is perspective. When you realize that, wow guys. A whole new world is open. A new world of everything you want to do with your life, it’s possible. Just make the choice to follow through with it, and give it to God. Plain and simple, if you give it to God and do it through God and give all the glory to God, you will succeed. Proverbs 16:3, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”

It's your choice, make it.

Dave's My Hero

Every change I've made in my life started from something tiny and insignificant. Dave Matthews sings "To change the world, start with one step, however small the first step is hardest of all." It's so true, and realizing that has made such an impact on my life. So I'm starting this. I want to give my live to God, I want to live a life that God can truly live through me, I want to make a difference in God, through God, for God. I have to give all the credit for inspiration to Prodigal John, if you havent read his Blog you better check it out. I saw his today, he uses my same style of writing except much better than I do. Like him, I hope to use this to jump-start my life of writing and speaking, maybe even as a pastor, all for God. My name is John, I'm Christian, God saved me my freshman year of High school. I'm President of FCA at my school now, a Christian youth group for my school, and I'm president of a club I started, Miracle League Club, where I play baseball with kids that are affected by special needs. I have three first names, so one of my teachers started telling me Chuck Bob John, that's where the name came from, just for the record. I gotta thank my bud Kyle for actually pushing me to start this. I believe my purpose in life is to bring out the best in others. So I hope this does exactly that for you, if your a high schooler, I hope you realize the power you have if you give it all to God to make an impact in high school. If you're not in high school, I hope you find something to take away from this to strengthen your relationship with God. Enjoy.