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| ..Obedience.. I've been more intentional with my love for God recently. Consciously cutting the "fat" from my daily routine. Setting aside a good hour per day just to spend telling God that I love Him, that I'm so grateful for His Son and His work on the cross. For so long I just let things go, things will just fall into place, why would I have to actively participate in my relationship with Christ? God just handles stuff on His own time, right? While God is sovereign His sovereignty is great enough to include our wills as part of His amazing plan. Therefore it is refreshing for me to step back realize I barely know the God I love often so I can declare my love for His and deliberately act according to that. I love my creator and savior. | | |
| ..New Ride..
Early 80s Bianchi
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| Sometimes Pilar asks me if I love her. And I go on to say, Of course I love you, I married you. Today I realized I don't love myself a lot of the time. Plenty of my time is spent thinking over how I could have done or said something better/different to impress more people. I just can't figure out how to forgive myself sometimes. When I feel so empty I don't have much room to love Pilar the way I should. Its kind-of ironic. I feel empty, yet still I don't have enough room to love. Maybe that it is hard to have love to give if you don't have much for yourself. Anyway. I'm working on loving myself more. I need to let the Lord fill me rather than other things.
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| ..Anathallo..
For those of you who don't know. Band of Survivors is a month long "mission school" that the Salvation Army (Metro Division) puts on during the summer. I was able to participate in this fantastic program this summer as a cell group leader. If you want to know more about BOS I'd be happy to tell you.
A week and a day have past since Band of Survivors ended. I'm sitting in a coffee shop just down the street from our apartment listening to Anathallo. I am gracious to those on Band of Survivors who introduced me to them. Band of Survivors acted as a catalyst of sorts, helping me realize that Discipline is extremely vital for my relationship with God. As a band, or team, we all decided to abide by certain rules, and to be disciplined. Rules, I think we all agreed were based on concrete truths found in scripture. Fasting was a large part of what we agreed to do. Giving up the use of Internet, Television, Video games, Secular music, were all things we fasted from. Not that we were condemning these things. I know good does come from them, but how often do our lives become saturated with internet and television? So the whole point of us fasting was to open up our time and mind to doing things we know for sure God would want us to be doing. We know for sure that God wants us to be in His Word, praying to Him, serving the poor, edifying each other, singing praises to Him, so we filled our time with that, instead of Halo, Lost, Facebook, and YouTube. It was difficult, but it got easier with time. I dare you to try giving up the things we fill our lives with constantly and really try devoting time to prayer, scripture, or even throwing together some sandwiches buying a 24 pack of bottle water (for 5 bucks) and finding people that are hungry and thirsty (they are all over the place). We also decided to study the book of Acts together (in a small group setting) and devote ourselves to 24/7 prayer (everyone prays in shifts, 1,2, and 3 hour increments during our time on BOS). Obedience to Christ isn't impossible, it is actually life giving and refreshing.
The Salvation Army is a church (not just a thrift store down the street)
The doctrines of the Salvation Army are (for all my Reformed/Calvinist friends/or people that this the Salvation Army is a cult...you can check out more at www.salvationarmy.org)
We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
were given by inspiration of God, and that they only constitute the
Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.
We believe that there is only one God, who is infinitely
perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is
the only proper object of religious worship.
We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead - the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal
in power and glory.
We believe that in the person of Jesus Christ the Divine and
human natures are united, so that He is truly and properly God and
truly and properly man.
We believe that our first parents were created in a state of
innocency, but by their disobedience, they lost their purity and
happiness, and that in consequence of their fall, all men have become
sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath
of God.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has by His suffering and
death made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may
be saved.
We believe that repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and regeneration by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation.
We believe that we are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and that he that believeth hath the witness in himself.
We believe that continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.
We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be
wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of
the body, in the general judgement at the end of the world, in the
eternal happiness of the righteous, and in the endless punishment of
the wicked.
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