The White Stone Zone

I now have even more of a vested interest in this next election. My one and only son, Liam has joined the Marines. Last night there was a welcome aboard ceremony at Mario's Restaurant. It was a nice occassion and a proud moment for our family; however, I now want a President in the White House who will properly lead our men who are putting it on the line for us. I want a President who will respect the military and use God's wisdom when making tough decisions. I want a President who can empathize and actually care when making those decisions. And now I realize even more why God will never leave us nor forsake us. He has a vested interest in our lives. " 31 ¶ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"(Romans 8) You see that! God has given the life of his Son to make sure we get to be with Him for eternity

I have had a bit of writer's block, so I thought I would let Charles Spurgeon inspire us with great news! According to this gracious covenant, the Lord treats His people as if they had never sinned. Practically, He forgets all their trespasses. Sins of all kinds He treats as if they had never been; as if they were erased from His memory. Oh, miracle of grace! God here does that which in certain aspects is impossible to him. His mercy works miracles which far transcends all other miracles. Our God ignores our sin now that the sacrifice of Jesus has ratified the covenant. We may rejoice in Him without without fear that He will be provoked to anger against us because of our iniquities. See! He puts us among the children; He accepts us as righteous! He takes delight in us as if we were perfectly holy. He even puts us in places of trust; makes us guardians of His honor, trustees of the crown jewels, stewards of the gospel. He counts us worthy and gives us a ministry; this is the highest

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Holy Spirit, but the controversy can be easily eliminated if we let the Scriptures define the work of the Holy Spirit. Two passages come to mind, and in the days to come, we will examine more. 26"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me." The Holy Spirit is to testify about Jesus Christ. In other words, when someone is in communion with the Spirit of God, they are growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit will fix the believers eyes on Jesus Christ. 15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.[ g ] And by him we cry, "Abba,[ h ] Father." 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.. Likewise, the Holy Spirit's

3We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—(Col. 1) It is evident in Paul's writings that he gets very excited when he hears about people actually placing their trust in Jesus Christ in order to get around to the businesss of loving one another. There are several passages similar to this one where Paul gets excited when he hears reports that the churches are full of faith and love. Nowhere does he ever seem concerned about the size of the church, the amount of money, or even the number of souls 'won for Jesus'. (The truth is Jesus alreay won and none will be lost) Paul is concerned about faith in Christ Jesus. This is foundational, and nothing works without faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus asked if he would find faith on the earth when He returned. Notice, He wants to see faith, not works, numbers or religion. All of the polls out ther

John 18 ....Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. 4Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want?" 5"Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "I am he," Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) 6When Jesus said, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. There is a scene in the movie "Remember the Titans" where assistant football coach Bill Yost tells head coach Herman Boone to run up the score..."Leave no doubt," he bellows. I believe this is the reason why Jesus had the encounter with the soldiers in the grove. They came with weapons, but they drew back and fell to the ground at the sound of his voice. This was an example of our Sovereign God leaving no doubt as to who was in charge, who was winning, and who would have the fi

"Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. " (1 Corinthinans 1:24) It amazes me how much Christians want to hang on to Old Testament theology in their relationship to God. John tells us without reservation that "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." We are not to fear God, but teachers insist that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"*, and that we should have a healthy, reverent fear of God." I say this is faulty teaching. It confuses young believers who are used to being motivated by fear, so they naturally transfer that conditioning to their relationship with God. Yes, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but not the end of wisdom. When we fear God, we know we need a Savior, when we receive salvation, God's perfect love is to relieve our fears. We are no longer motivated by fear. Christ is now the W

When we think of the armor of God, we often think that we have to put it on to go into the world where the devil reigns; however, Paul’s exhortation to put on the full armor of God is right after his instructions on relationships—particularly family relationships. The end of chapter 5 instructs wives to submit to their husbands, for husbands to love their wives, and Chapter 6 instructs children to obey their parents, fathers to encourage their kids, and for employees and bosses to treat one another with respect. It is in this context that Paul tells us to put on the armor of God. The armor of God is nothing less than Jesus Christ. In other words, it is through the power and provision of Christ that husbands are going to love their wives, wives are going to submit to their husbands, and children are going to respect their parents. There are, however, several practical applications to the family regarding the armor of God. First, it is to defeat the devil’s schemes. The devil s

Although Satan is a potent enemy, he has nothing left but the lie. He can't touch us, but he can lie to us about God, ourselves and our circumstances, but we only need to resist him and he will flee. We resist him because Christ is living in us and we live in Him. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; and that new creation lives in a sin cursed body in a sin cursed world. It is this sin cursed body that hides the real enemy--what the Bible calls the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (gal.5) The Saint of God must learn to cope with this conflict on a daily basis if they are to know the abundant life Jesus promised. The flesh is totally self centered, self protecting and self absorbed. The impulse to act independantly of God relying on our own strength is constantly with us. The bad news is that it does not change--the good ne

20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth I don't know if it is half the battle, but I do know that not knowing your enemy in the Christian life is crippling, confusing and catastrophizing . Many Christians might say, "Yep, I know my enemy--it is that filthy devil...I rebuuuuuuuuuuuuuke you filthy devil." Yes, satan is a powerful foe to be reckoned with; however, he is not the real problem...he has been stripped of his power. All he has left is the lie. Lies, lies, lies, is all he has. He is not allowed to come near any believer unless God allows it. It always makes me angry when I see people getting all whipped up about the devil when the Scriptures simply say, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." That is it. The believer has been given "all the fullness" (col. 2) of Christ Jesus which includes headship over the principalities and powers. All we need to do is resist. The weakest of believers have this aut

The word repentance literally means to change one's mind. A change in thinking; aka, faith is the first step on our journey of discipleship with Jesus Christ. Repentance has been misconstrued through the years to mean changing one's behavior. To be accepted by God; therefore, one would have to change their behavior (turn away from their sins) and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is a faulty view of repentance which can be damaging. We can not change our behavior--that is the problem and that is precisely why Jesus Christ came. He came saying, "Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Jesus followed up his command for repentance with the phrase "the Kingdom of heaven is near." If repentance is a change in thinking, why did he say, "The Kingdom of heaven is near?" Jesus said it because in order to recognize the Kingdom of God coming upon them, they had to change their thinking concerning the Kingdom of God. Israel's expectation of t

Everyone is familar with the "great love chapter," 1 Corinthians 13. Paul uses poetic language to drive home the fact that without love, even the most noble of feats is nothing. I was thinking about this passage, and I always read it from a performance oriented view; i.e., I took it to say that if I am not loving people, I am in dutch with God. The emphasis was always on my failure to love. This morning however, I realized that the emphasis is on what we possess-what we "have" or have not. This brought me to the realization that if I don't possess God's love for me personally, I can't love others; moreover, if God is love, we can easily replace the word love with God...see how this plays out in the opening verses: 1If I speak in the tongues[ a ] of men and of angels, but have not God, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mounta

There has been much controversy over spiritual gifts since the early church. The central point of our modern rub is whether or not certain gifts are "for today." Some say that gifts such as healing and speaking in tongues have ceased to exist, while others say that speaking in other languages is the only sign that one has been baptized with in the Holy Spirit. Since this controversy has existed since Paul's day, it can't be solved in a short writing; however, Paul does "bookcase" his instructions about gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 with two crucial prerequisites for any use of a gift. First, the gift must be exercised under the Lordship of Jesus Christ through the personal leadership of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells the Corinthians that the result of their previous style of worship was silence from their idols. He contrasted this with the truth that our God speaks to us and through us: 2You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influence

33 " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. God is not a right winged conservative. Now, I can talk politics and air my opinions as good as the next guy, but when it came to the illegal alien issue, I always kept my mouth shut because I did not know where I stood. So, I decided to see if the Bible said anything about it, and this is what I found from Leviticus 19:33: " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. " I thought, "WOW!" Christians shoud be very careful how they approach this issue. God does not play by the rules of the USA. Some claim our Country is built on God's rules--well, what about this one?

What determines our identity? Some may say behavior, others your heritage, profession, relationships or accuulation of wealth. God's point of reference for determining our identity is spirit. We are body soul and spirit interacting and operating as one unit; however, each component is distinctly separate. When Adam died in the garden, it was a spiritual death. When we were born from above, it was a spiritual birth; thus, you became a child of God based on a spiritual reality. On the cross God took away your sin so that He could make your spirit alive by living in you. Spiritually, you were crucified with Christ, buried with Him and raised up a brand new person. The real you is that part of you that is spirit, joined to Christ inseparably. The struggle comes from the real you living in a sin cursed body in a sin cursed world. You will daily struggle with the fleshly part of you. The victory begins with repentance--a change of one's mind. You have to begin by separating in your m

Today was a happy day...I baptized my daughter Grace and my friend, Linda Skapik this is grace going under video of Grace being baptized

“13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.” Colossians 2 1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus Ephesians 2 25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Sir Winston Churchill This quote from the great Winston Churchill brings the Christian life to mind. When a person receives Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they have declared war. According to Paul in his letter to Timothy, they become a soldier of Jesus Christ. Just as a statesman has no control after making the decision to go to war, a Christian has no control over their lives once Jesus Christ has come to dwell within. Jesus comes in declaring war on our flesh, the world and the devil. All expectations of what our life will be like must be dropped immediately. All we need to know is that we are safe in the Master's hands as he g

My wife Carrie and I are eating raw for 30 days. This means that we do not eat anything that is cooked or processed in any way. Or, as Jack Lalanne said, "If God did not make it, don't eat it." I had the holidays in December, my daughters birthday in January, and my parents 3 week visit in February. These wonderful events included a spree of eating a less healthy diet; Therefore, the first days of eating raw brought on a detoxification--I did not feel that great. Understanding the detoxification process makes us aware of just how much junk we put in our bodies. One of the simple components of raw eating is the enzyme component. It takes enzymes to digest your food. Raw food has the enzymes in it to digest it. When we cook and process food, we kill the enzymes; thus, our bodies have to produce the enzymes. The raw food will give us energy, the processed food will not. Furthermore, processed foods spike our blood sugar levels, increase our glycemic load, cause cravings and

How can you tell if you are being taught the truth by your preachers and teachers? Paul tells us the true goal of all preaching and teaching, and thus, provides the criteria by which we decide to whom we will listen. “To the saints, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” (Colossians 1:27-29) Are you being taught your true identity in Christ? Do you come away knowing that you are perfect in Christ? Are you being taught that Christ is in you living His life through you? Your relationship with God depends on Christ’s relationship with God. Can Christ be lost? No! Does Christ ever break fellowship with the Father? No! Then neither do you. The death you died, you died to sin once for all, and the life you now live is unto God in unbroken fellowship. (Romans 6:10, 11) Your hope of glory

The celebration of Palm Sunday is really a celebration of religion at its best. The religous mentality is a temporary flury of activity for God based on fear, guilt and pride. It is temporal--a fair show of the flesh. For the same people that were all excited when Jesus came into Jerusalem were the same people that shouted, "Crucify him! Give us Barabas!" Why did they ask for Barabas? Because Jesus had let them down. They expected God to kick the Romans out of Israel and make them fat, dumb and happy. When they saw a broken, bloody man, they became bitter in their disappointment. They wanted Barabas because he gets things done--He kills Romans! That, we understand, but we do not understand this weak, beaten man. What the crowds failed to realize, and we still fail to realize is that God's strength is manifested in weakness...it is never manifested in our own fleshly efforts, no matter how pretty the flesh looks. Don't mistake a service filled with pretty music an

Another sex scandal is in the news. This time it is the Gov. of NY. The fact that Governor Spitzer was known to "fight corruption" makes it worse in the eyes of many. "Hypocrite!" they yell. Well, of course. When will we ever learn? Men are men and God is God. On the surface, Governor Spitzer is very hypocritical, but what we all have to come to grips with is the fact that the law can not produce righteousness. We think it can, and we try, try again to make it work through self-effort with our flavor of the law, but ultimately we fail, no matter how far we climb. Many preachers and politicians will fight publicly what they are battling privately. It is said of preachers that the thing they rail against the most is what they are personally struggling with--it is the thing they want to do the most; psychology calls it reaction-formation. As good an act the Governor put on in public, I am sure he was a tortured soul who could not break the cycle of lusting after pow

The pain of separtation is something that we all live with. Be it death, divorce, deployment, or alienation, separation is painful. Perhaps the greatest pain of separation is when two people drift apart emotionally, mentally and spiritually, yet they live together, drive together, eat together and sleep together. Mankind has suffered the pain of separation ever since the garden. We have also tried to fill the eternal dark void with everything under the sun only to come full circle, where we once again stare down that dark, empty road. The sad truth is that God has solved the separation problem with the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ destroys separation and creates union. UNION with a capital U! The Scriptures are quite clear that Jesus lives in us and we live in Him. It is quite clear in Romans 6 that we have been joined inseparably to Christ in His death burial and resurrection. It is quite clear in Romans 7 that we are married to Christ. And my favorite passage of union is John

"What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us." A.W. Tozer Faith is an a cluster of attitudes and thoughts about God. Faith in and of itself is useless without a valuable object. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ--the Person of, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the object of our faith--from Him and through Him all things come. In Him, we are completely acceptable to God, totally forgiven and eternally destined for a triumphant entrance into God's kingdom.

"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones." (proverbs 14:30) Long before modern science discovered how our emotions effect our health, God was telling us to change our thinking in order to improve our quality of life. In this case, Solomon picked envy as the emotion that would rot the bones. Likewise, anxiety, fear, hate, anger and resentment are emotions that will destroy our physical health if left untreated by the "Bishop and Overseer of our souls." (1Peter) Bill Ewing in the book Living By Design writes, "We've established that a human being is made up of a spirit, soul, and body. Prior to Christ coming into your life, those three parts interacted in a certain way, and they did so by default according to the way they were conditioned by the influences of the world. Although your spirit has been made new, your body and soul may still function under these automatic, default settings." In other words, your emotions will mor

“We must grasp the truth that our needs are met in Christ by meditating on our riches in Him, aggressively telling ourselves that we are worthwhile even when we feel most rejected and useless, and choosing to live in a manner that reflects who we are in Christ”. ...(Larry Crab) “By exercising a bulldog tenacious faith, we aggressively grab hold of the truths of the gospel on a daily basis, refusing to believe nothing else than the fact that we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus and our lives are hidden with God in Christ…stepping out on faith to love others.” (bill lloyd)

"When words are many, sin is not absent...." Proverbs 10. As the politicians shoot off their big mouths, let us hold our toungues and pray for our soldiers...for the families of those in harms way and those who have fallen. Let us pray for that many Iraqi families would come to Christ. Let us pray for Israel, and let us shout, "Come quickly Lord Jesus!"

You have probably said of someone in your life, "He is a great person." However, you would probably hesitate to say of yourself, "I am a great person." You may think that you were tooting your own horn. And if you did say it, it would probably be in the context of self defense in which you really did not mean it. In the back of your mind, subconciously, you struggle with thinking your not good enough constantly countering that with false humility and false pride saying something pseudo-spiritual and blasphemous to the gospel like, "I'm just a sinner saved by grace." As one person struggling with addiction said, "I am an ego maniac with an inferiority complex. The truth of the gospel is that you are great! Psalm 18:35 declares, "You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great." In the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has done for you what you can't do for yourself

"Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully." (proverbs 28:5) Many times in our lives we felt that things were not fair; in fact, some of us may still be waiting for that one person or institution to "get "theirs". I know that many times I have been frustrated at what seemed to me an "injustice." However, these bouts with injustcie always brought me back to the cross--it always comes back to the cross of Jesus Christ. If we want God to "get that person," we won't have peace until we realize God "got" Jesus Christ. Christ himself bore our sins "once for all." We not only need to bring our sins to Christ and see them nailed to the cross, but we need to bring the sins of those who hurt us to the cross of our Savior. Then, we will experience peace. Justice comes from God, and he has reconciled all things to himself in Christ. "2He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only

It has been stated that Jesus spoke more about Hell than Heaven. This has been a common misconception that needs to be corrected. Churches and prominent evangelists have taught this, but it is totally false. Let the facts speak. I looked up all passages on hell including other terms of imagery such as "lake of fire", "everlasting fire", "eternal punishment", "weeping and gnashing of teeth", etc. Likewise, I did the same for the Heaven. We have to get rid of the morbid message that uses fear to motivate people. Fear works, but it is only temporary...it is the goodness of God that motivates us to repentance...which is total dependancy on God and the good news of Jesus Christ Passages of Hell Matthew Mark Luke 1. 5:22 1. 9:43 1. 12:5 2. 5:29 2. 9:45 2. 16:23 3. 5:30 3. 9:47 4. 10:28 5. 18:9 6. 23:15 7. 23:33 Passages of Fire, Eternal Fire When referring to Hell Matthew Mark Luke 1. 7:19 1.9:48 1. 16:24 2. 18:8 3. 25:41 Total 17 Passages of Heaven or

We live in a day where the words spirituality, “spiritual connection” and faith-based are very popular. The organic/health-food/ and “green” movement often uses these words in conjunction with their brand of “spirituality” which is often humanistic and rooted in the New Age Movement. True spirituality is essential to human health and well-being, but true spirituality is only found in “being made alive with Christ.” It must be centered and grounded in the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since the “spirituality” presented with the organic, “go green” movement is often humanistic and self centered, Christians seem to shy away from any involvement in these areas. However, I believe we should be out front leading the way in all areas of nutrition, stress management and overall health. Part of this blog will give the Christian Community information that encourages them to live the abundant life in all areas-body, soul and spirit. Today, I would like to recommend a book called Livin