The Worst

So I started reading through 1 Timothy this week and came across a passage of scripture that really stuck out to me. It is chapter 1 verses15-16. It says…

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.”

Most people know the story of Paul, and his life before Christ and his life after he found Christ. It is incredible to see how God worked through him. Paul use to be a man that would verbally and physically abuse Christians, yet when Paul came to know Christ, God used him in so many ways. He even used him to write many books of the Bible!

Yesterday our pastor spoke about counterfeit repentance and then real repentance at our evening service.

With counterfeit repentance you will stop at being “sorry”. We come to God and we cry and we say, “Oh I am sorry for what I have done”, yet we go out the next day and do the same thing. Counterfeit repentance is about self preservation. We feel guilty for what we have done, but have no intention of quitting the particular sin. It is all about us, and not about God. It is selective. With counterfeit repentance you may feel bad about saying a cuss word, so you decide not to cuss anymore, but you don’t feel bad about messing around with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Or you may not feel bad about getting drunk once a week. It is full of excuses. You may say things like, “I know I was wrong, but….

If you look at 1 Samuel you can see this with the story of Saul. God told him to go to the Amalekites and destroy every living thing. People, animals…everything. Yet Saul and his army did not do this. They kept the best of the livestock and even brought the king back with them. When Samuel confronts Saul for not doing exactly what God said he begins with his counterfeit repentance. In chapter 15 verse 13, Samuel blames the soldiers for the disobedient part but is boastful about his part. In verse 24, Saul says, “I have sinned”, yet right after that he says he did what he did because he was scared of the people. In verse 30, Saul again says, “I have sinned” yet he still wants to be honored and wants Samuel to come back with him so that he will not be embarrassed by his sin. He wanted to hide it.

If you are like me, you can see yourself in this story. After Bryan preached this sermon, I took a deep long look at myself, and realized that a lot of the time this is me. I will make excuses for my sins, I will blame others. But this is not how we should be.

Real repentance is not just taking one big sin out of our lives and leaving the rest, it is an ongoing process of realizing we need God to change the foundation of our being. Repenting is realizing that ALL sin in our life is disgusting and foul and evil, and we should not want to have anything to do with any of it. Repenting is waking up everyday and starting a new day of evolving and changing our soul to become more like Christ’s. This is what Paul meant when we wrote Philippians 2:12 and said, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. When we accept Christ we are saved, but it is an ongoing process everyday of repenting and changing and becoming more in tune with the person God wants us to be.

If we repent in the way Christ has taught us, we can be open to do mighty works for Him the way that Paul was. When we repent we cannot be prideful or secretive about it. We must have a healthy fear of God and be disgusted with all sin in our lives. That way we can have a desire to seek after God’s righteous and become holy. We can allow Christ Jesus to display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.


Be an example.

We are Weak.

Ok so let me set the stage for this blog. Monday night was “The Bachelor” season finale and Ash made me miss 24 to watch it. So last night, Ash and I sat down to watch the recorded 24. In case you don’t know 24 is the greatest show on television. But anyways, this episode was awesome! Tony had figured out that there was going to be a terrorist attack on Washington D.C., but they just didn’t know where it was going to be. They figured out that a Senator’s assistant was helping the terrorists and that he was going to be at the White House and had the information they needed.

So Jack, who is the MAN, heads over to the White House to interrogate the assistant and to try to get info from him. Again if you haven’t seen 24, then you need to know that when Jack Bauer interrogates you, you will give in. He basically beats the crud out of people until they give him the information he needs.

At the beginning of the season, Jack was being brought before the Senate by the same Senator and his assistant (the bad one), to be tried for crimes against humanity. This Senator wanted Jack thrown in jail for the extreme measures he had taken to protect our country. So as Jack is interrogating this suspect he begins to give Jack the information, but then everyone busts into the room and makes him stop, and they arrest him. The Senator walks into the room and starts confronting Jack. He tells him that the way he handles situations are wrong and blah, blah, blah. And then Jack says one of the greatest lines I have ever heard……

“You are weak! I am willing and able to look evil in the eye, and deal with it!”

How awesome is that! Yes….I do have a man crush on Jack Bauer.

But anyways, it got me to thinking about myself and the church. I am weak. The church is becoming weak. Let me explain.

Christianity as a whole, is the largest “religion” in the world. Yet we are weak. We are scared. We have the God that controls this entire universe in our corner, yet we back down and fall into the same behavior that the world does. Why is that?

Because we do not allow God to be our strength. Yesterday I was at work and this kid who was probably 20-22 years old comes in wearing this shirt that had the words “bad religion” on it. Underneath it was a picture of the cross with a circle around it and a line through it. How has it come to that?

It has come to that because we are weak as a group. Churches around the country are getting smaller and smaller, and shutting down more and more. Christians aren't living a life that reflects the glory of Christ. We are living lives of hypocrites and failing daily to show the love that Christ gives.

Is it because God isn’t big enough? No.

Is it because we don’t have time? No.

Is it because we aren’t united with Christ and each other? Yes.

We need to become united as a group of believers or this world is just going to continue to get worse and worse. We need to be able to look evil in the eye, deal with it, and then fight it! Even as individuals. We need to be desperately seeking God’s strength everyday because we can’t do this on our own. We need to start taking stands in our own lives, so that people can stop looking at Christians and relate the word hypocrites to us.

Should I have said something to the kid about his shirt? Should I have asked him what it meant to him? What has Christ ever done to you? Do you even know what the cross stands for?

Let me give some reason why I didn’t….

I could lose my job. The kid could punch me in the face. If he started causing a scene it could be embarrassing.

There are probably a million more reasons. But the main one that it comes down too, is that I was weak in that moment. I failed. I didn’t allow God’s strength to guide me.

I should have taken the opportunity to talk to the kid. Not bash him and scream at him about wearing a shirt like that, but gone and at least attempted to have a conversation about, in a loving and respectful way. What if he just thought like that because his dad was a pastor of a church, but beat him when he was a child? I might have somehow been able to develop a relationship with him, and maybe opened his eyes to what a picture of the cross should really imply.

At this point, I just encourage each of you to wake up everyday and ask for God’s strength because we are weak, but in Him, we are strong! In Him we can stand for things that matter eternally. We need to realize that we are mighty in God and we are mighty in numbers. In Him, we can look evil in the eye and deal with it!

Be an example.

It's a Boy!!!!

So incase you haven’t heard the news, we found out this past Wednesday that we will be having a boy! Ash and I are both so excited. I know it is a really corny response, but when people asked us what we wanted, we both were honest and said that we didn’t care, just as long as we got a healthy baby. I have to admit that it feels so good to know that we can actually start calling him by his name, and not just “it” or “the baby”. I had some other names to call it like “peanut” or “alien”, but it feels so good to be able to say “him” or “he”. And yes we do already have a name picked out…….Parker James Waddell.

We really loved the name Parker and both decided that we wanted to keep the name James in the family. Plus James fit really well with Parker.

So after we found out, the first thing we went to do obviously was shop a little bit….we bought a couple of outfits at Target and some other essentials. But last night we went and registered at Babys R Us. That was fun! We had a blast going around the store and just basically scanning everything.

It was so fun just to be able to enjoy that time with my wife. You guys have no idea how much my wife means to me. I can’t wait for the day when little Parker gets here and she gets the opportunity to be the mother that she is meant to be. As long as I have known her, Ashleigh has loved children. She loves playing with them, taking pictures of them, and basically just loving them. I honestly believe that Ash will make one of the, if not the best, mothers this world has ever seen.

I have to admit that I’m not as scared as I thought I would be now. I thought that if we found out it was a boy, I was going to be extremely nervous about how to raise a good, young Christian man. Surprisingly, I’m just plain excited. I can’t wait for the opportunity, when I get to sit down with Parker, and teach him how to be a man, although I’m still working on that myself. I can’t wait to help him learn how to play different sports, or teach him guitar. I can’t wait to have another VIDEO GAME PARTENER!

But seriously, I can’t wait how to teach him a lot of things. How to respect women, to treat them the way they need to be treated. I see a lot of teenagers these days, and these guys have NO idea how to treat a woman. I was thinking the other day, that with a boy, I just have to worry about how ONE boy is acting, in comparison to if we were having a girl I would have to worry about a lot of boys!

I can’t wait to teach how to love Christ, and how we as men are suppose to be the spiritual leaders. I want to show him what it means to reflect Christ’s heart and life.

Basically, I just can’t wait, I can’t wait to hold him in my arms. I just can’t wait!!!!!

Be an example.

"Blessed Assurance"

Matthew 14:27-28—Jesus said, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.  So don’t be troubled or afraid.  Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again.  If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am.”

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon over at two of my friends parent’s house.  Their dad, Doug, has been battling cancer for around two years now.  After searching scripture for reasons to stop treatment, he ran across Psalm 139:16 – “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed”.  He stopped taking chemo treatments in the middle of 2008. Most of us know that cancer treatment is exhausting and basically makes you feel awful 24 hours a day.  Doug decided that he would rather spend his last few months feeling alive and with his family.

Yesterday while at their home, I saw a wonderful picture of what our faith and trust in God is suppose to look like.  My friends were about to lose their dad.  Yet, we were all standing around and it was actually an encouraging atmosphere.  People were smiling and reminiscing about Doug’s life and the joy that he brought to so many others lives.  Some were talking about the struggle he has gone through and how it has been a long and tiring road.

But the main thing they were all talking about was the peace they all had.  Are my friends going to miss their dad? Yes.  Is Jeanie going to miss her husband? Yes.  But how could they sit there and smile and laugh?  

It is because they know, and I mean they KNOW, that they are going to see their dad again.  It may just be a few weeks or it may be years and years, but all of them are going to see him again in Heaven.  The peace that was in that house surrounded me, and I truly felt God’s presence lingering around all of us.  There were times when there were breakdowns and tears and hugs, but for the most part it was a celebration.  Obviously I don’t mean a celebration of Doug’s passing, but a celebration of his new life that is about to begin.  He is getting ready to go be with Christ in Heaven, to begin a new eternal life with our Savior.

My main memory that I have of Doug took place a couple of years ago when I was somewhere around the age of 18.  At that time Curtis, Clif, and I were pretty much together and hanging out every night.  Well at that time, and I hate to admit this, but I loved rap music.  I thought I was the next Eminem.  But anyways….I had let Curtis borrow a 2Pac CD.  Doug had gone out to Curtis’ car for something and found it.  He confronted Curtis about where he had gotten it and of course Curtis had to tell him the truth.

Next thing you know Doug comes up to me at church and said he needed to talk to me.  He pulled me off to the side and basically chewed me out over the CD and could not believe that I was listening to that crap, and even more that I would let Curtis listen to it.  At the time I thought, “Who is he to call me out on something like that?  Why does he care what music I listen to?” Some might think that it was his business because I was letting Curtis listen to it, but honestly I don’t believe that was the message he was trying to send to me.  It was a challenge.  He was challenging me to be better than that.  He knew that I was listening to that crap and it was going to reflect in my life, which at the time, it was.  I look back at that time now, and think, “What a waste”.

But that is truly what Doug’s life was about.  It was about setting an example for many to follow.  For anyone who doesn’t know Doug.  He was a loving dad and husband.  He was a Sunday School teacher.  He devoted the majority of his life to Scotland, and a group over there, ministering in a very dark place.  But most of all he was a believer in Christ.  And that is why yesterday, today, tomorrow, the next few weeks and years, we can all celebrate that Doug is going to be spending an eternity in Heaven.  That we will all have an opportunity to see him again.  I will be able to sit down and have a good talk about music with him.  We will be able to worship in God’s holy presence, in God’s holy place together, as one.  We will see him again just as we will see Christ again.  Doug’s life was an example, an example that should be followed.

Be an example.

Psalm 18:1-6—“I love you, Lord; you are my strength.  The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.  He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.  I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.  The ropes of death entangled me; floods of destruction swept over me.  The grave wrapped its ropes around me; death laid a trap in my path.  But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help.  He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to Him reached His ears.”

2009

Happy 2009 everyone. One of my new year’s resolutions is to try to start blogging on a more regular basis. It seems like I have been getting maybe one a month in, but I would really like to get one a week out. To me blogging is such a good way just to be able to put into words how you are feeling and what is going on in your life.

As I put in my last blog, my wife and I are expecting our first child. So far everything is going really well. There haven’t been any sorts of problems, and our little baby seems to be growing, as well as Ash’s belly, which in no way is a dig at her, it is just cute to look at lol. I feel so blessed to know that God has given me such a wonderful wife, one that is going to take care of our child now and after birth. Ash is going to be a wonderful mom, and I hope I can be a wonderful dad. We go back to the doctor the 28th and then back four weeks after that to find out what the sex is and I can’t wait!

Incase you haven’t heard we also have a new president with this new year. This is actually what I was wanting to blog about. My good friend Tommy wrote an e-mail a while ago, talking about the hatred that has been put out by Christians towards our new president. I will be the first to tell anyone that I did not vote for Obama. I don’t agree with a lot of things he is going to be standing for. I don’t believe that he can possibly fulfill all of the promises that he has made to the country. But I believe in our Savior. I trust that God has put President Obama into this position for a reason, even if it is just to test our strength and our faith in Christ.

What I don’t believe in is the Obama bashing that has been going on. I will admit, and Ash can even tell you, that I make my cracks and my jokes about Obama, but nothing I say comes from pure hate for the man. There are a lot of Christians out there that I believe truly “HATE” Obama, and that is just pathetic to be honest. We as Christians are better than that, we are bigger than that. At this point in time, we have one option when it comes to our new president, and that is to pray for him. Pray for him everyday. Pray for him to make decisions that will reflect the attitude and heart of Christ Jesus. Will he make those decisions, based on what he has said….probably not. He will probably be pushing homosexual marriage. He will probably be pushing for Pro-Choice laws. Even still, that harder we must pray for him. We can only hope that God will impress upon his heart that those are not the right decisions. That homosexual marriage only defiles that holy sanctity of marriage. That the beautiful small child growing inside a mother’s womb is meant for so much more. Believe me, the abortion situation hits home with me in multiple ways. I have heard my child’s heartbeat at just 8 weeks, and to say that that little fetus growing inside my wife’s womb isn’t alive is just beyond me.

Yet still we must pray. The only website we can get on at work is the news site WBIR.com. If you haven’t been to the site, you can post almost whatever you want on there, and it is sad to see what some “Christians” have posted. The hatred that has been shown towards this man is unbelievable. It actually makes me sick to think that people can say what they say and then quote scripture. I want everyone on here to know that I am going to start today praying for Obama, every single day. I ask all of you to join me in that prayer. Do not pray for any pain or suffering towards him, pray for his heart to be open and for him to listen to what the Lord would have him do. Pray that he will stand upon the Word of God and be a tool for a greater glory than himself. I want to end this with a little bit of what came from Tommy’s e-mail because I think he puts it really well. Please just remember to pray and trust…..

“I'm afraid of the fear and hate we are generating amongst our own people. I'm afraid that Christians will be put on public trial not because of our stand on the word of God, but because we end up lashing out in the hatred and fear that we've stirred up amongst ourselves. I want to be labeled "an extremist" because I take God's word to heart, not because my fellow Christians are shooting at the president because they think he is the embodiment of all that is evil.No matter what we may think of him, he will be the president for the next four years. Disagreement is great, it's what keeps us in check. And I'm not calling on everyone to fall in love with the guy (as some have). But brewing a pot of hatred is not going to do us any good; it will only bring us down in the end. God calls us to pray for our leaders. How can we pray for someone we hate? If we're not praying, then we are doing more damage to the Church than any persecutors ever could, because we're doing it from the inside out.” ---Tommy Brown


Be an example.

Baby Time!!!!

So it has been a while since I last blogged, but I have some big news, incase you haven’t heard….I’m going to be a daddy! I have known for quite a while now but have just gotten the opportunity to get on here and blog about it. We are ten weeks this week and it is such an incredible time.

Ashleigh and I were babysitting Tripp one night and we were just sitting on the couch playing with him, and Ash looked over at me and smiled. I said, “what are you smiling about”, and she said, “I can’t hold it in anymore”….not having any idea what she was talking about I asked, and she said, “look in the bag next to couch”. So I picked up this little white bag and looked inside. When I moved the tissue, there was some baby stuff that said stuff like I love my daddy, and stuff like that. It also had two positive pregnancy tests in it! Apparently my brain didn’t want to believe it, because I just kept saying, “are you serious? Are you serious? Are you serious?...it was quite hysterical.

So we kept everything a secret for about 3 weeks, because we wanted to wait until we were a little bit further along before we told anyone. But then the day came to finally tell our parents. So we first went to have Sunday lunch with my parents. After the meal we went over to her parents house, because Ashleigh hadn’t seen her mom in a couple of days, or at least that was our excuse. When we got there we started talking to Lori, and Ash’s sister Britt came in and told us that her and her boyfriend Chad had just finished their Christmas tree and they wanted us to come look at it. So we got Ash’s dad and we all went in to the bonus room to “look at the tree”. While we were just standing there, Ash handed her mom a bag, and said, “I found this for you the other day and it made me think of you”. Nobody really thought anything about so we just kept talking while Lori opened the bag. Inside was a mug that said something about grandchildren being precious. Lori looked at us and said, “Your not pregnant are you?”. We said, “yes”. She said “no your not”. And we said, “yes” and everyone got excited. There were hugs and tears. Everyone was so excited for us.

So after we left their house we went straight to my parents house. We came in and acted like I had left my wallet somewhere. Well my mom was in her sewing room upstairs, so before she came down, I hid our video camera in a corner in the kitchen because I knew when she found out she would be hysterical to watch. So when she came downstairs, I “found my wallet” and we went into the kitchen. I gave her my “Christmas list” and told her to look over it and see if it was “ok”. You have to understand that my mother hates my Christmas list every year. She will literally sit there and mark off things that she would “never buy for me”. So of course she looks at the list and starts to mark stuff off. Well she gets to the bottom of the first page and says, “James I’m not going to buy any of this crap”…well when she flipped to the next page it said, “baby stuff….a crib, diapers, Merry Christmas Grandmother”…well when she read it, she did exactly what I expected…she screamed….and screamed….and screamed….and screamed. I went to hug her and she went to Ashleigh. Pretty funny.

As funny as it was to watch her scream, it was really heartwarming to watch. She has wanted to be a grandmother….well basically since she found out she was adopting me.

So a couple of weeks went by and we had our first doctor’s appointment. It was so much fun. The anticipation and joy that was going on that day was overwhelming. We got to have our first ultrasound, and the doctor said everything looked great. We got to hear the little heartbeat which was at 178 beats per minute which they said was really strong. And that’s what made it real to me…to hear the little heartbeat and realize that my child is actually there and growing inside Ashleigh. It is still a little overwhelming, but you have no idea how excited I am and how thankful I am that God has given me this opportunity. To father a child and raise it, and to use the child as an opportunity to give glory to God. I just thank Him so much for it.

Ash’s morning sickness has been pretty bad. Pretty much 24 hours a day. She has good days and sometimes we are just thankful when she has a good couple of hours. As hard as it is on her, the doctor told us that her feeling sick is a good thing for the baby, so in our own little way we are thankful for her sickness.

I hope that you will all pray for us as we go through this experience. Pray for us to be prepared to the best of our abilities, pray for the health of the baby. Pray for Ashleigh and I, that we will prepare our hearts, our minds, our spirits, and just pray that we will be the parents we are meant to be. Our next appointment is December 31st. I will try to put up another blog after that just to give everyone updates.

Be an example.

Come Together

So I was listening to a pod cast from the pastor of Hillsong Sydney, Bryan Houston. He has a series of sermons about being in a “place of agreement”. Something that he said really spoke to me. He pointed out that as Christians, we may disagree with homosexuality, abortion, over consumption of alcohol, or whatever else. Yet when we go to sporting events we can all sit on a row full of people who are dealing with these kinds of sins or a variety of others, or people who don’t believe in Jesus in any shape, form, or fashion. We can stand and cheer with a Muslim or someone who practices Judaism or Buddhism. He even says, “If our team is really playing well, we may even hug or kiss, the man next to us.”

He says the reason we can do this at sporting events is because we are all focused on the same thing. We are focused on cheering for our team and trying to help encourage them to a victory. We are focused on a goal, we are focused on the victory.

If you are curious as to why the church is truly struggling in America right now, I have one of the answers. We aren’t focused on the goal, on the victory, on the prize, on Jesus.

I sing in our church choir, and honestly I get so sad when I look out in the congregation during worship songs. So many people are just coming to church because that’s what they are supposed to do. They come, they stand, they sit, they “listen” to a sermon, they stand, they sit, we pray, they leave. For so many “Christians”, that is just how it is for them, that is what they consider a relationship with Jesus to be. I will admit, there are weeks when I am like that. I’m tired, I’ve had a long week at work, and basically just feel dead, and don’t feel like coming to church. But the difference is, when I get there, I feel such peace and joy. I come to church and I become focused on Jesus, and what my goal in life is suppose to be, which is brining glory to Him.

Like I said, we come and stand, and act like we are singing, and have no expression of joy on our face and it is so sad. We will sing, “How Great is Our God”, and our faces will look like God just killed our favorite dog or cat.

Not only do we come to church and act dead, but then we come and just start these huge battles and arguments with people, that have no bearing on eternity. It is so sad, to see us be able to cheer for a football team with a Muslim, but cannot rejoice in the Lord, at church, with another Christian, because they said that they like hymns better than contemporary worship, or that they carpet in the sanctuary would have been better brown than red. We argue between “denominations”, which I think is one of dumbest things that our “religious system” ever came up with. I’m going to use sarcasm here, “OH, YOU HAD WATER SPRINKLED ON YOUR HEAD?! THEN YOU AREN’T A REAL CHRISTIAN BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T DUNKED!”… “WHAT YOU USE THE NIV, WELL THE KING JAMES IS THE ONLY “REAL” BIBLE, YOU AND YOUR CHURCH MUST REALLY NEED JESUS.”

What we need as a church is to come to a “place of agreement” with God and with each other. And not just in our home churches, but, dare I say it, other denominations. The church was supposed to be a body of believers focused on other thing, one prize, one God, one Jesus. As Christians, we have the greatest prize, the greatest victory, the greatest thing that we could ever receive in Jesus. If we want to see a difference in this world we need to come together.

One of my favorite Beatles songs is “Come Together”. That is exactly what we need to do, we need to come together, united as one body, one thought, one mind, one God, united as one, pouring our hearts out in Jesus’ name.

Be an example.