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Name: Joshua
Country: United States
State: Georgia
Metro: Atlanta
Birthday: 11/13/1980
Interests: God is first. then College Football, Basketball, Baseball. Poker. i also love (w)Affle Ho(use). Give me an Ipod full of U2 and Coldplay on a desert island and i will live and survive peacefully.
Expertise: I enjoy giving my advice to others in need and i hope that God would so inspire me to write books on his changing a dirty scoundrels as myself into a new creation, Holy and pleasing to God.
Occupation: Other
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  joshb42
Member Since:
10/12/2004
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| so its been awhile....buts its that time again...no not time for me to post, but time for the Braves to start playing baseball. I went last night but arrived at home dissappointed due to the starting pitching continueing to suck. Anyway. Today i decided that it would be a good day to update and talke about Jesus. jesus is a cool dude, but you must know that if he was on this earth today, alot of people, including myself may not think so. i know it sounds bad, but if i was in jesus's time or whatever i think that it would be difficult to see that this guy was God. Yeah miracels and the liek were happening but he wasnt "cool" and he wasnt popular in a good way to the masses. This makes me think that today, maybe we as a church are living our lives making Jesus into this different person. He came for the low in spirit, those who would humble themselves to follow Him. Yeah i agree that we must humble our selves and admit we can live without Him, but after converesion we tend to look to Jesus to make our lives comfortable and blessed. You know, get married to a hot chick, have a few all star sports kids, 2 golden retreivers, a BMW , a SUV, and a white pickett fence with vacations to europe or the islands twice a year.......cause thats what Jesus wants for us you know, to make us prosper, to make us enjoy life to the fullest......!?!?!?!? Sounds dumb....cause it is! yet people think that is the Christian life and how he blesses us. Yeah maybe he does bless us with money, but are we stewards of it? Yeah he wants us to be comfortable...in HIM, not in our possesions or life experiences. The only experiences we should expect to enjoy are the ones with Him alone in your room on you knees or digging into scripture or in corparate acts or worship( worship, messages, prayer, fellowship, etc.) All elese he gives us but we shouldnt expect it as believers. If christianity was supposed to be comfortable, go tell Paul, Peter, John and the other first century Christians....id say they would beg to differ. We arent Christians so we can prosper in life cause Christ is a genie to answer our beckons, on the contrary i think we are Christians for Christ to prosper in us and advance his kingdom through us. Yeah God blesses us and wants us to be joyful, but that doesnt mean you cant do that as a poor homeless dude or an afghan christian who gets killed for your belief. If you ask me, the afghan christian gets it more that 99 percent of us American Christians. Sufferring for Christ is an honorable event that i will probably never experience, although how awesome would it be to be able to suffer for our Lord? ( i know it doesnt sound to awesome to me, but whe you get to heaven it would be a thing of honor) ( also, suffering doesnt include foamy latte's or not enough caramel in your macchiato either) The point of this blog is for people (including myself most of the time) who think that Jesus should prosper us in our lives if we are faithful to Him....hahaha, yeah we DESERVE it dont we, after all we gave up our morning tea for reading of scripture....NO, we dont even deserve salvation, why should we deserve prosperity. If you are prosperous, then God has blessed you, but that isnt the only way he blesses us, nor is it the means to the end of salvation. Basically, im sick of prosperity Gospel's and the churches that push it....that is all, over and out.... | | |
| So i have been listening to some good stuff that really has blessed me to continue to be reminded that nothing i did or will do has made me or will make me righteous in God's eyes. Romans 3:23 is a key verse in this truth. It says: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Obviously we have all sinned and therefore cannont amount to the glory of God. We cannot reach God on our own accord nor ae we justified by good works, mainly because we cannot attain good works without the Holy Spirit of GOD. This is kinda disturbing if you stop here, seeing that we can never reach God and all. Well verse 24 provides an answer. "and are justified by his grace AS A GIFT, throught REDEMPTION that is in Jesus Christ." There you have it, we are justified by Christ's grace as a gift to us...a gift meaning, free, did not earn it, given freely to us through a redeeming power on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice. vs 25 touches on a proptiation. Most people dont know what that is, at least i didnt. But then again maybe thats cause im from alabama. Propitiation=P1: the act of placating and overcoming distrust and animosity 2: the act of atoning for sin or wrongdoing (especially appeasing a deity) [syn: expiation, atonement] Well now we know what that is....christ took our place on the cross to "appease the deity" in this case being the one True God. His death took the need for our death out of the equation if we trust him and call is name. I could go on and on about propitiation but ill let you ponder your own thoughts.....this leads me to verse 28 of ch 3 "one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." this is self explanatory, we are justified, or declared right, by faith, not works. for if it was works as paul states, man can boast. You know, "hey everyone, come see how good i look"....well that has no merit in God's eyes. Faith is our justifier and the ONLY way to reach God. Piper gives the analogy of a rollercoaster and mr moses and mr paul....ill let you check it your self if you want, but it was awesome.
Piper here is the link to the list of sermons, it is from romans 2, i dont feel like listening to them to find the right one, but i think you may enjoy these anyway ( i have the piper podcast) anyway, thats the tidbit of the day...and i like it...iwas thinking on this due to recent discussions on baptism and its place in the christian faith, as in is it essential to salvation. My thoughts are no, but it should be done. I found some good stuff on it but it made me think of the verses talking of adding to the gospel and the works side of things. ANyway thats another blog that may be wrote later. also if i get enough asks i may just type out the piper analogy of justification by faith not works....just have to ask... | | |
| So after this past weekend my decision making process of looking for open or closed doors coupled with having a peace about things was totally blown outta the water....Roger Hershey spoke at the conference and he said that closed door may only mean that God wants you to rely on Him more through faith and a peace doesnt mean anyting. Afterall, there is never a peace when he( or i for that matter) enter into a fraternity house to do ministry. Well as many of you know i was almost dead set on going to Seminary, well now i am certain that i dont know. I want to seek God and stop rtrying to map out my own life. I should do what God wants me to no matter what it brings, where it is, or what it will cost me or how uncomfortable it may make me feel...well as many of you know already, i always have a tough time in decision making. Well i am going to seek God and see what he has for me and i will not repoert my findings until i am accepted or admitted into the avenue he deems fit for my life the next few years.. | | |
| Just in from my cousins wedding....was nice wedding, i didnt catch the garter thank God..... | | |
| What up folks...super bowl was boring as crap....so i decided to post my evening thoughts instead. I watched the gaqme with some great folks and i enjoyed the company, but i started to seee something that sucked......we were all 24-30+ and still single...now dont get me wrong im 25 and who dont really care at this moment, but i may have motivated myself abit thinking that i didnt want to be the 31 year old and still single cause i jacked around and didnt care about dating. partly due to not meeting anyone in a hell of a long time that really caught my eye and made me say...ooooweee i need to meet her and ask out.well this one time but the broad never called me back, thats another story...nothing against any girls ive met but you know what im saying. Is it bad that i just dont give a damn? Is it worse that i havent met anyone i find intrigueing enough to ask out? Now dont get me wrong ive met some wonderful girls, but she is gonna have to knock my socks off when i meet her to garner a date propisition. Is this normal? Should I just go on dates with girls i find attractive but not "knocking my socks off" for the heck of it and maybe some girl will spark my interest even though i just like her as a friend?am i just having a quarter life crisis? Man....thoughts to ponder on....mainly i just dont think i care.
PS im not reading that book, i thought it was just appropriate...i actually hate that book, previous post are on that topic if you wanna here my tirade. | | |
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