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December 27, 2006

car update

my car refused to start two weeks ago, thankfully, my father was right across the street when it happened. I called him and he came over, we couldn't get it to start, so we drove home in his car. We had it towed home the next day, and then after much wait (didn't have time to mess with it) we got the starter off, which tested bad and was a warrentied item so it was replaced free of charge.

We got it on yesterday, but it still won't start. We charged the battery up fully but still no go. It is giving us some strange symptoms and so Jason and I are going to see if maybe something wasn't done right in the installation and maybe that will fix the problem.

Pray for my car please, I just need the problems to go away.

December 24, 2006

Merry Christmas!!!

圣诞快乐

Shangdan Kuaile

Merry Christmas everyone

December 17, 2006

the first Noelle

three years ago I was standing in line to see LOTR 3, dec. 17 11:55 and my elder brother Jason forgot to tell me, so we are standing in line and I am telling a friend of mine that my sister in law is in the hospital due any day to give birth to her 5th child. Yep, Jason turns around and tells me that "oh yeah, Julie gave birth yesterday."

I am always the last to hear anything in my family.

December 16, 2006

Thinking True

Simply a matter of priority.

Do you love God? If so, how much? Do you love Him enough?

Consider this for a moment:
1 Corinthians 6:20 says this, "For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

consider this for one moment, what does it mean to be bought with a price? It means this to me: that I am not my own. It means that I have no rights but those given to me from the one who paid the price. In this case, God. What rights does He give me? I have the right to obey Him, and that's it.

This seems like such a difficult thing because it requires us to go against our natural desires so often, but think about it like this: God didn't have to pay for our sins, He was well within His rights to let us go to hell but He didn't, therefore we owe Him nothing short of our entire allegiance. And if we truly love Him, then trying to please Him is a little thing.

He tells us in the above mentioned passage that we are to glorify Him in our body and in our spirit. That means that not only in our actions, but in the deepest parts of our heart as well. And really, that is where it all starts, in the heart.
Romans 12: 1-2 says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Please focus in on the last part, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Do not be conformed to THIS world. Do not buy into the thinking and the way of acting that is acceptable in this world, but instead make your thinking and acting new through a process that is called renewing the mind. This means that you question every thought and every thinking process and take it back to its root assumption. If it doesn't hold up to the truth of Scripture (which you know because you read it every day and study it every day) then you throw it out. Before long, you will begin to understand God in a whole new way. Not a way of mere facts and trivia, but in the way that you would know your best friend or most intimate aquaintance -- personally.

Do you think like this world? Do you buy into the logic of the enemy? Or do you know the Truth like a close friend and do you reflect His nature like a finely polished mirror?

thanks for thinking about it, and MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!

December 06, 2006

An exercise in Alliteration

I found a friend of mine who introduced himself with a series of paragraphs that used some really exceptional alliteration, one of my favorite tools in writing. I found myself inspired and as I began to comment on it in his comments I found this was my response:


Ni hao bu hao my brother.

Your use of alliteration as always is awesome, actually achieving an impressive arsenal of arching alliterations using an impressive array of letters to assemble an absolutely accurate as well as an articulate avenue of displaying your aptitude and artistic attitude. You have assembled quite the anthology while at the same time avoiding assanine accusations of any adult around. Assuredly, this author is assurting before this whole assembly that a more amplified archetype of alliterations could not be assembled without assiduous attention to the archaic as well as archane accumulation of ancient and likely accruing unneeded articles, adjectives, and adverbs simply to achieve an account that is more abundent in alliterations; which, as all are apparently aware of would be simply aberrent, the author of this comment not abhoring the idea assumes the achieving of such an ideal an acceptable and wholly adequate endeavor to be attempted by none other than the author of this article in A. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to apply myself to the assignment and thus assure myself of the actual aptitude of the author to analyse and actually see if the ace's ability was askew at all. And in conclusion, as the audience assembled to analyse this article is assuredly aching in the action above articulated, the aged are even accruing an ashy appearence. I apologize, and ask ever so appropriately for my leave.

as always, Go with God my friend.

overall, an A +

:)


you can read his introduction here

December 05, 2006

Happy Birthday to...

ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that's right, today is my 25th Birthday!!!! A quarter of a century old...woh, that sounds old!

December 04, 2006

18 years ago today!

Before I met Jesus my life was like this:

I was born in Ft. Worth, TX on Dec. 5, 1981 while my father was in Seminary. I was born into a strong Christian family. I was 5 years old when I knew that I was a sinner, and that if I didn't accept Jesus into my heart and my life as Savior and Lord I would go to hell, despite what I believed or my family's faith. Yet I let fear hold me in its icy grip for two years until I became more afraid of hell than I was of being in public and of water.

But then I came to know Jesus personally like this:

The day was Dec. 4th, 1988, it was a Sunday. It was the last day of an outdoor tent revival, and I had been fighting it all week. On that last day, I heard God tell me, "It's today, or it's never." I knew that if I didn't face my fear and win today, then I would lose my whole life. So that moment, without my father who had promised to walk up with me all week, I moved out of my seat and made my way to the front to talk to my pastor, Larry Marlin. I could hear my mother tell my father, "well, go with him." and I knew my father was following me. I walked to my pastor and I told him, I need to accept Jesus as my Savior. He asked me a few questions, and together, my father and my pastor and I prayed that Jesus would enter my heart and my life, forgive me of my sins, and take control of my life -- and you know what? He did. And I have never once regretted it.

Now that I know Jesus personally, my life has changed like this:

My personal relationship with Jesus has changed my life in every way. Although, right away there did not seem to be much of a difference because I had always lived like a Christian should in terms of morality. I really began to see the difference in my life as I entered the teenage years and I began to be to be challenged to not stay where I was in my personal walk with Christ. To live my whole life as a child and never mature, that would be a travesty, and yet I would have, if I God had not challenged me in that regard. I thought I knew a lot about the Bible, well at least enough, but then I began to question things. I didn’t question because I doubted, I questioned because I began to understand that I did not understand them well enough. I did not OWN them. In order to own them I had to invest myself in them. So I began to study my Bible, to seek answers to the difficult questions, and to share what I had learned with others, and so my personal ministry began. With just seeking to grow in my own walk with Christ. Now, He has changed the very way that I see the world. And that changes everything.

December 03, 2006

never was a preacher...

but tonight I preached... sort of.

Tonight was presentation night for our Sunday Night Seminars at church, and I have been teaching a Bible study on Self Control and kung fu.

So tonight I presented a synopsis of what I have taught, what I will teach next time (spiritual principles that parrallel kung fu) and then did short demonstration that included having the pastor flip me.


It went extremely well, far better than I ever could have imagined. I took about 40 minutes, and I basically preached a sermon.

It touched at least one person who shared afterwards, and I had a lot of people who came up and told me I did a great job. The pastor and my father were thoroughly impressed. All the glory goes to God, for I could not have done so well without Him. I believe that He spoke through me tonight, I have never felt so relaxed and comfortable as I did speaking tonight.


This morning I gave my testemony in church, got a lot of good feedback on that.

Tomorrow marks my 18th birthday spiritually and tuesday my 25th actual birthday.

it's an exciting time in my life.