Welcome to my blog!

A few friends of mine suggested I start a blog to post my thoughts on God and life and other random things, so here I am writing my first blog!  I’ll mainly be writing about what God is teaching me and what I’m reading or listening to (I should say right now that I’m a big fan of Andy Stanley, so you’ll hear me mention him a lot.  If you haven’t listened to him before, you should look him up – he’s the best!).  You can go here: www.northpoint.org/messages.  You can also subscribe to North Point’s messages on iTunes for free, and each week you’ll get the latest message.

I’ll also throw out some random tips that I’ve found useful, like freezing food or finding good deals or managing finances. 

So, thanks for reading!  Hope you find something useful that you can apply and pass on!

Photo printing: Walgreens vs. CVS

This week I printed a bunch of my pictures from Italy at Walgreens (uploaded to their website), and my roommate printed some of hers at CVS (using the kiosk in the store).  The CVS ones were noticeably better quality – not sure why, although I did notice that CVS uses Kodak paper, and I couldn’t tell what kind Walgreens uses.  It may have something to do with using the kiosk versus a website.  

Thought I would pass that along for what it’s worth!

Grilling pizza

Two posts in one day…I figure I’ll just keep going while I’m on a roll since I probably won’t post anything again for another three months.  🙂

Last weekend we made some pizza on the grill and it was fantastic.  One half had red pesto sauce, fresh basil, and cheese.  The other half had regular pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese.  They were both really good, but that red pesto sauce that we bought in Italy is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.

Here’s the link to the website we used.

The Hole in our Gospel

First of all, I can’t believe my last post was in February 2011.  Yikes.  Awhile ago I recommended two books (Heaven by Randy Alcorn and The Treasure Principle also by Randy Alcorn).  I’d like to add another book to my top 3 books ever…The Hole in our Gospel by Rick Stearns, president of World Vision. 

All I can say is that I think it should be required reading for every church member in America – it is that good and that important.  It’s about the way America views and treats the needs in the world in contrast to how much we spend on ourselves and our own churches.  I liked all of the financial statistics in it.  There’s one page that breaks down how much we spend each year on jewelry, pets, etc…and basically if we would give the same amount away, we could end world poverty. 

I am pleading with you to read this book.

Samaritan’s Purse

Continuing to feature different ministries…

Samaritan’s Purse is one of my absolute favorite ministries to give to.  Lots of you have probably already heard of it.  It’s a ministry that was started by Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son.  They’re probably most well-known for Operation Christmas Child.  Last year they collected over 8 million shoe boxes to distribute to kids around the world.  They’re also involved in all kinds of disaster relief both domestically and internationally.  The best thing is that they do everything in the name of Jesus.  You can sign up to volunteer with Operation Christmas Child, or you can also go on domestic and international mission trips, either as an individual or as a team.  I’m actually looking into going on a trip this year!

Mr. Clean Magic Erasers

I just have to post about this really quick!  Last night I made a life-changing discovery about these things.  I had some soap scum/hard water spots on my glass shower door that would not come off with Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles, etc…so I Googled it and found this suggestion that worked like a charm!  I took a Magic Eraser and got it wet, then added a few drops of dishwashing soap to it (I had Dawn but I really don’t think it matters).  Then I just wiped the shower doors with it, and everything came right off with no effort!   I had to use a wet towel several times to get all the Dawn off the doors, and then I dried them with a clean towel.  The easier thing to do would be to use the Magic Eraser right before you get in the shower and then just rinse the doors off while you’re in there. 

Way to go Magic Eraser!  Let me know if you have any other good uses for these.  🙂

One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven, Part 2

Continuing on in my notes about One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven.  You can see the original post here.

Oswald J. Smith said, “We are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing the world and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected!”

These are some of the reasons we give for not sharing our faith:

Fear of being rejected

Are we more worried about what people think of us, or about what God thinks of us?  Galatians 1:10 says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”  Phillipians 1:21 says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  We should live for Christ and die for Christ. 

Don’t know how to

If someone led you to Jesus, then you actually do know how to lead someone to the Lord.  And if not, this book will help you!  One good way is to talk about a tragic event involving death and ask the person what they think happens when we die.  Or ask them if they died tonight, are they 100% sure they would go to heaven. 

Fear of losing a friend

My two cents: If you have a true friendship with the person and share with them in a loving way, they aren’t going to end the friendship.  They know that you care about them and that you’re going to be their friend no matter what. 

They have already heard

Supposedly someone has to hear the Gospel 7.6 times before they commit their life to Jesus.  So even if they’ve already heard, it’s okay.  Your conversation might be #7 or 8!

I’m just lazy

I’m going to use some direct quotes from the book here because they are so good. 

“According to Zondervan Church Source, 97 percent of church members have no involvement in any sort of evangelism.  A survey by Christianity Today found that only 1 percent of their readership had witnessed to someone ‘recently’.  This does not sound like the people I read about in the New Testament who had so much zeal that they were willing to die for our Lord.”

Maybe we just don’t have any faith to share?  It’s not real enough in our lives. 

“If God gave you a thousand dollars every time you shared your faith in Jesus Christ, would you share your faith?  Every one of us, including me, ought to repent of the fact that we would share Jesus for a measly dollar bill, instead of sharing Him because of the unconditional love that He has for each one of us.”

Friendship evangelism

Lots of times you hear people say (and I’ve said this myself) that they will just let their lives be a testimony.  It’s definitely important to live for Christ and pray that our lives would bring Him glory, no doubt.  But that seems like stopping halfway.  The fact is almost everyone who’s ever accepted Christ has done so because they heard about Him – someone verbally told them.  (Romans 10:14 – “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”)  

So why do we hope that just actions will suffice?  Mark Cahill says, “When we don’t want to talk about our faith, it is usually because we are ashamed of what people might think of us.  However, God commands us to stand for Him and never be ashamed of Jesus.”  I have to admit that this is my biggest obstacle to sharing my faith.  I want to be able to say along with Paul, “…I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”  

I don’t know enough

If you’re saved and the person you’re talking to isn’t, then you know enough to have a spiritual conversation!  Plus you have the Holy Spirit living within you to help you with what to say and to understand God’s Word.   And honestly, it’s not about knowing enough.  It’s as simple as explaining the difference that Jesus has made in your life…no can argue with the power of a changed life.  If someone asks you a question you don’t know how to answer, just say, “That’s a good question.  Let me get back to you on that.”

They won’t want to talk about it

Cahill says always assume people do want to talk about eternity, not that they don’t.  In this crazy world, people are searching for meaning and truth and trying to make sense of things.  Pray that the Lord will lead you to lost people during the day and that He will be working in their hearts before the conversation begins.

It’s No Accident; Make Way Partners

It’s no accident that you were born when and where you were.  On Randy Alcorn’s blog, he posted a link to the Desiring God blog about why we were born in this time and place.  The full post is definitely worth reading, and you can find it here.

Here are just a few excerpts from it, and then at the end of the article Randy Alcorn posted some great ministries that he supports.  I’ve decided to feature some of those ministries on my blog, one post at a time.  Today I’ll be talking about Make Way Partners.

If you have the ability to eat three times per day and have shelter over your head, you are better off than many people in the world. If you earn $25,000 per year, you are the richest 10% of the world.

You could have been born as an impoverished child in an unreached nation. Perhaps as a girl born into a Muslim family where you would be forbidden to show anything beyond what can be seen through the eye slits of your veil and could be beaten if you disobeyed even the simplest command of your father. You could have been born in a remote village in Vietnam with little food or education and no opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You could have been born as a girl in Africa who will eventually be sold by your parents into sexual slavery. That could have been you.

But it’s not you. Instead you were born into privileged circumstances. Blessed physically, educationally, financially, and spiritually. Why? Only by the grace of God. What is our response then to such blessing and grace?

We take for granted the blessings that we have received from God. Instead of thanksgiving for what we have received, we complain about and lust after the things that we don’t have. We covet what our neighbors have. We idolize material things. We are surrounded by clear, tangible, practical blessings from God that should be so easily recognized and enjoyed.

And another crucial response to God’s blessings and grace in our lives should be to look to share with those in need. Rather than looking at our own circumstances and then the unfortunate circumstances of others and saying, “Thank God I’m not them!” We need to recognize that our circumstances are by the grace of God alone in order that the grace of God might spread from us to others. This is certainly true in care of the global poor. If Christians would simply tithe it is said that the global church would have sufficient funds to solve world poverty…Giving among Christians was higher during the Great Depression than it is today.

But again, by the grace of God, you weren’t born into those circumstances. You were born into your own. So you can ignore what could have been and just continue in the circumstances you have been given by God’s grace. Or you can choose to recognize that you are who you are, that you are saved, that you are blessed, that you are undeservedly loved— only by the grace of God— and choose to do all that is in your power to help those in need. To invest the blessing of your education for those who have none. To invest the blessing of your finances to help those who have little or none. To invest your spiritually blessed life to help those around the world who are lost without Christ to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

Make Way Partners

Through the hope of the Gospel, Make Way Partners goes to the most vulnerable and least protected to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery.  The ministry was started by a woman in Alabama who left corporate America after she felt like her life wasn’t really leaving any sort of lasting mark.   They use two criteria to select places of ministry:

1. Where women and children are at highest risk of human trafficking, forced prostitution and other forms of modern-day slavery
2. Where little to no other help is available because it is considered either “too” dangerous, “too” expensive or “too” remote for most people to go.

Eastern Europe and Africa are the two fastest growing regions for human trafficking, so that’s where their primary focus is.  This includes areas like Sudan, Congo and Romania.  Research shows that the best way to end trafficking is prevention. 

To find out more, to donate, or to go on one of their mission trips, go to their website.

Snow Adventure

Two days ago it started snowing about 3:30 in the afternoon, and all heck broke loose.  Everyone must have left work at the exact same time at the speed of 3 miles per hour because every single road was jammed with cars.  I headed up to Moores Lane to pick up Beth (my roommate), who was stranded at a gas station.  I was on Mallory Lane barely moving, so she just started walking down Mallory Lane until she got to my car (during her trek only one person asked her if she needed help).  After moving about 500 feet in 45 minutes, we decided to pull in to Target and hang out while the traffic died down.  It was still snowing but we were banking on the roads not getting any worse.

When you have a bunch of time to kill, Target’s a great place to be.  We had our choice of parking spaces (although you couldn’t see any of the lines, so it was a free for all).  We only saw about 6 other shoppers – it was surreal and kind of creepy.  But the time flew by.  We tried on and photographed ourselves in sunglasses, headbands, and hats; browsed the clothes and home goods; and I skimmed an entire book about Justin Bieber (while Beth pretended not to be interested but kept coming by to get tidbits).  He’s actually a funny kid and seems pretty talented.  Definitely overexposed and probably overrated, but hey, that’s not his fault.  He also said he’s a Christian, which I thought was cool. 

So after spending an hour and 45 minutes at Target, we managed not to buy anything .  We walked out with nothing but our newfound respect for Justin Bieber.  The roads were totally empty at that point (still very snowy), and we got home in 20 minutes with no problems.  All in all, it was actually a fun evening!

One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven, Part 1

I’ve mentioned the book One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven before.  This book, along with Heaven by Randy Alcorn, has changed my perspective and challenged me to the core more than any other book besides the Bible; and yet no matter how much I agree with it and love it, I can’t seem to live it.  So I’ve decided to read it and re-read it until I can actually do what it says, which is quite simply telling people the good news of Jesus. 

Why is that so hard?  For example, he says that according to a survey by Christianity Today, only 1 percent of their readership had witnessed to someone “recently”, which obviously implies that 99 percent have not.  My prayer and hope is that the 1 percent would become 99 percent. 

My reasons for blogging about this book are to try to discover and conquer my own fears as well as note some great insights from this book about what keeps us from sharing our faith and the best ways to go about it.  I hope you find it as challenging and helpful as I have. Jesus’ final words to his disciples in the books of Matthew and Mark were to preach the Gospel in all the world.

Now onto Part 1. 

The author, Mark Cahill, has witnessed to thousands of people, so the book is founded on his real conversations and experiences.  The vast majority of the time, the people he has talked to are interested in the conversation.  Even if they don’t agree with everything he says, many of them thank him for an interesting, meaningful, insightful conversation.  We typically think that people don’t want to talk about eternity or Jesus, but that’s simply not true.  Inside every person is an awareness of God’s truth (Romans 1:20).  Below are some insights from the first few chapters. 

• It’s not that we’ve “got to” witness – we get to!
• Every single person is valuable to God.  Do we view the people around us that way (even the ones we don’t particularly like)?
• There are three possible outcomes when we share our faith:

1) The person can accept Jesus;

2) The person can reject Jesus;

3) We can plant a seed

Most people would consider either outcome #1 or #3 a success, but they would view outcome #2 as a failure.  The biggest fear most people have about sharing Jesus is that they will get rejected.  However, 1 Peter 4:14 says, “If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”  Also, Jesus said in Luke 6:22-23:

Blessed are you when people hate you,
   when they exclude you and insult you
   and reject your name as evil,
      because of the Son of Man.

Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.

When we get rejected in the name of Jesus, God actually has “great” rewards waiting for us in Heaven that are worthy of rejoicing and leaping for joy!  So even though at first glance it might seem like only 2 of the 3 outcomes are positive, all 3 of them are actually a winning situation.  We can’t lose when we share our faith!  The only time we lose when it comes to witnessing is when we don’t share our faith.     

 

Favorite Things

I thought I would do a post of some of my favorite things right now!  Some are new discoveries, and some are old favorites (in no particular order):

1. Waterproof mascara – for some reason, using waterproof mascara helps my eyelashes stay curled and in place.  I was having such issues with the regular kind, and then I switched to this (I use Maybelline falsies), and voila!  Love it. 
2. Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie dough
3. Tostitos chips with a hint of lime
4. Tostitos new restaurant salsa (with the chips above – LOVE it)
5. How I Met Your Mother – makes me laugh so much
6. Blue Diamond salt and vinegar almonds
7. The Social Network – rent this if you haven’t seen it!
8. Dry shampoo
9. Coconut lime verbena lotion from Bath & Body Works
10. The new elliptical machine at the Franklin Y with the touch screen, TV, and built-in iPod adapter