The White Stone Zone

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