Category Archives: Uncategorized

5 Flicks That Make My Christmas Merry

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#1: It’s A Wonderful Life

Me and Jimmie always seem to spend time together wrapping Christmas presents on Christmas eve. This has to be my favorite.

 

 

 

 

#2: National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

It never fails to make me laugh and come on…who wouldn’t want to be a part of the jelly of the month club!

 

 

 

#3: A Christmas Story

It helps that I grew up in Cleveland where the film takes place. “You’ll shoot your eye out!”

 

 

 

#4: Christmas With the Cranks

Newer…but hilarious! An all star cast with a surprisingly powerful message of what Christmas is all about at the end.

 

 

 

#5: Home Alone

Another classic Christmas movie. Who can’t love this one. “Merry Christmas ya filthy animal….and a happy new year”

What are your top 5 Christmas movies?

Sizzle, Pop and Swagger

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Sometimes I fear that Jesus would have been voted off his own reality television show.

Jesus was never really concerned with popularity. Am I?

Jesus did not call his disciples to popularity he called them to die. This is the heart of discipleship. To be a disciple is to be a follower. To follow Jesus means to take the path of suffering and death. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)

How do you make the concept of death and suffering pop? How do we make these ideas sizzle? Do inmates on death row have swagger?

We live in a culture that worships success. It is said that if something is to be “successful” it must “sell itself. But death does not sell itself. It cannot. We cannot make the life of Christ into something sexy. Something attractive for attractions sake. No. The first thing the would be follower of Jesus Christ is confronted with is the absolute and total command of Jesus Christ to die to everything but Jesus Himself.

The call to discipleship is a lonely call. Is a hard call. Is an absurd call. It’s the call to die. So will you follow Jesus when it’s not that popular? Will you follow him to the cross? Will you continue to live out, in the mundane and difficult moments of life, the calling of Jesus. Will you follow him even without the accolades?

Jesus is not looking for a marketing team, for men and women who can make Christianity sizzle. He is looking for followers who are willing to die in order to experience life to the fullest.

Community Questions:

Why is it hard to follow Jesus in walking away from the crowds rather than embracing them?

What does it mean to bear our cross (death) daily in the context and comfort of America?

Gourmet Garbage (Martyrpriest Favorite)

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Even gourmet food found in a dumpster is garbage! There is just something about a half eaten slice of pizza that in a single moment transforms it into common garbage when it goes into the waste can. Food in the trash is such an intriguing subject for our culture that even sitcoms have gotten into making fun of the topic, or have we all forgotten the classic Seinfeld episode where George gets into trouble for eating an eclair? Yet it doesn’t stop there…activist groups have coined the phrase “freeganism” as representing an alternative lifestyle which has as a defining characteristic dumpster diving your dinner on a regular basis.

Isn’t it odd that in a world full of food some people, who could otherwise easily afford a meal, actually prefer to dumpster dive their dinner? Yet when it comes to spiritual matters many individuals who are disgusted by garbage gluttons are seemingly unaffected when they themselves dine on spiritual swill. Are we among them?

Have you ever stopped to consider the condition that your soul is in? One author I was recently reading told an excellent story about a young woman he met in an inn one day. She was a lowly servant girl and she asked this man to teach her to pray. He taught her a simple four word prayer… “Lord show me myself”. After a few days of praying this prayer the girl was so overcome with sorrow and guilt that the weight of it all was almost unbearable. It was at this time that the man taught her another four word prayer… “Lord show me yourself”. She was never the same again. When we come face to face with our spiritual condition, with the decay of our own soul, the selfishness of our heart what else can we do but be disgusted by what we see. Yet, when we see Jesus in all his glory what else can we do but rejoice and be thankful for all He accomplished on the cross.

Friends never forget the spiritual squalor we were in when Jesus found us, because if we do it won’t be long until we have convinced ourselves that our original condition was never really that bad…and that my friends is like waking up one day, going into the kitchen and saying to yourself what’s the difference, I’ll just each some trash!

Look familiar? This is a re-post, blast from the past. I originally posted it in March 2009. Rate it if you want to keep it as a favorite.

Are Questions Ever Bad Part 2

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I want to pick up on my last post and offer another thought on the subject. We were considering how to avoid the danger of cloaking anger, fear, frustration or mistrust in the form of a question in our prayers. First I suggested that you start your prayer with silence. Next I want to encourage you to:

Replace the word “why” with the phrase “what now

I recently turned 30 and so my annual check up is due soon. While I’ve yet to meet someone who actually enjoys getting a physical (and if you enjoy getting a physical you need to see a doctor…pun intended) there are certain parts of the physical that still intrigue me. Take for instance when the doctor checks you reflexes. He taps your knee in just the right spot and our leg responds with a jerk. It’s where we get the idea of a “knee jerk” reaction to something.

The word why is often our knee jerk response to God when things go unexpectedly bad in our lives. We barge right into the thrown room of God demanding to know why all this or that has happened. Many times behind our why lies the smouldering embers of anger.

So many times when we ask why what we are really asking is why not another way. And this is important. I’ve rarely asked God why when things went according to my plans. But, when I’m clearly not the one in control, I find why flying from my lips quicker than a major league fast ball. Even more troubling is that many times our demand to know why masks a distrust in one of two areas. Either we believe because of what has happened God is not good and loving or we believe that because of what has happened God is not all powerful.

Honestly, have you ever been tempted to think that….say that….pray that?

Let me challenge you to keep talking to God about the challenging things going on in your life. He wants the dialogue. But try replacing a few of the why’s with what now. When we ask what now we are acknowledging the fact that God is still, and if fact has always been, in complete control. We are saying that, despite the pain we might be facing right now, God is still good.

More importantly, we are giving God an opportunity to speak instructively into the most intimate and perhaps painful moments of our lives.

Set Free Part 1. The Sellout

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Sellout. Just reading the word is distasteful. No one likes being called a sellout. To be a sellout is to be the bearer of a social stigma. But as ugly as the word is, our society is full of sellouts.

Some who are sellouts are so by choice. They made a difficult yet lucrative decision and  were the generous benefactors at the mere cost of their credibility. Yet as unseemly as they may be, far more insidious are those who are lured into being sellouts without knowing it. Sometimes it happens quickly, when an individual signs on the dotted line. Other times it happens gradually, one concession after another. Yes, being a sellout without even knowing you are a sellout is the worst.

The Apostle Paul was concerned that the church of his day was being enticed to sell out. In Galatians chapter 1 he said: “if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” Strong words…but even back then sellouts were not popular.

For so many of us it’s easy to think that the challenges we read about in the Bible are not relevant for our world today. In Galatians 1 Paul was strongly urging the church to be careful of false teachers.  Yet, “I go to a Bible believing church,” you say. There’s no way I could get duped by bad teaching.

Really?

Every year millions of dollars are spent buying Christian books and studies. A cursory glance through some prominent websites that sell these resources will show books by many different authors with a wide array of spiritual beliefs. Are we quick to trust an author because they say they’re “Christian?”

If we follow Jesus, we need to make sure we are holding on to the same faith we received in the beginning. We need to check and recheck that the teaching we sit under, the book we’re reading, or the person whose MP3 we’re listening to lines up with God’s Word. Otherwise, we might be duped.

Christian books are good, and we don’t need to believe every conspiracy theory out there, but Paul’s concern for the church is still very relevant. We need to be careful that either by choice or by foul play we don’t sell out.

Community Questions:

1. Why is it easy for us to at times believe the warnings given in the Bible don’t relate to our everyday lives?

2. What are some good measures to make sure you are still following the original path you started down with Christ?

3. How can we make sure we spend the right amount of time studying Christian material and studying the Bible?