The Serpentine Sandwich

The Terrible Lie.  That is the title of the chapter about the Fall in The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.  I like that she changed the name from the fall to the terrible lie, not because the fall is a bad name, but because it makes us think of the story anew, maybe it could become a story not just a long time ago in a land that is now lost - but it may be our story.
So I decided to offer another name - The Serpentine Sandwich.
The Serpentine Sandwich describes the serpent's art of deception.  The Serpentine Sandwich has three main layers.  First, the top piece of bread - this is the truth (twisted).  Genesis 3:1  "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"  God said something about not eating from a tree, so the serpent takes this truth and twists it into all the trees.   The next layer is the meat (serpent meat) - the lie.  Genesis 3:4  "You will not surely die."  Adam and Eve died in many ways, maybe one of the most was when their son killed their other son, let along being expelled from the presence of God, let alone their hearts eventually stopping.  Bold-faced lie.  The next layer is the bottom piece of bread - the truth, spoken in a lying tone of voice.   Genesis 3:5   For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  Their eyes were opened, but to what?  They knew good.  Genesis 1 was filled with "good."  They knew the extreme goodness of God's creation.  What they did not know was evil.  Having one's eyes opened to evil is spoken of by the serpent as something to be coveted.
There are not only too many examples of Serpentine Sandwiches to add another, but it is a very dangerous thing to spend too much time on the lies of the enemy - they get enough time as it is.
It is better to spend time in what the lies of the enemy are the horrid counterfiet of - the truth of God in the word of God.
God is our DAD.  If you balk at this, ask if it because you are yourself believing a lie of the enemy that there cannot be a good dad.  D.A.D. is our acronym for our battle against the Serpentine Sandwich.
D.  Defense against the Serpentine Sandwich.  This fights the first layer of bread, the truth, twisted.  When the Serpent come to Eve with the truth twisted, she does something most of us wish we did - she quotes the word of God.  But she adds a little part "neither shall you touch it," which is like adding mayo to the serpentine sandwich.  The Serpentine Sandwich cannot stand up against the word of God, but your words it can slither all over.  Eve could also call out, "Dad!"
A.  Antidote for the Serpentine Sandwich.  This exposes the inner layer, the meat, the lie.  Once someone has swallowed the Serpentine Sandwich the antidote is the Word of God coming as questions.  "Where are you?"  "What have you done?"  Adam and Eve are much more heroic than I am - they answer his questions.  Often we just keep hiding or keep running away.  May we also, once we swallow the lie, but quick to answer God's questions.  We could also call out, "Dad!"
D. Destruction of the Serpentine Sandwich.  This deals with the sandwich as a whole - all the layers, including our mayo.  The offspring of the woman will bruise the serpent's head, and the serpent with bruise his heel.  The serpent bruised Jesus Christ's heel by striking him with death and sin.  Christ was wounded by sin and took on the sin of humanity.  How is the serpent's head bruised?  The head is where the serpent speaks.  Christ on the cross is the ultimate display of the love of God - it is impossible for the darkness of the lie that God does not love us to stand up to the light of the love of God on the cross.  Does God love us?  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . . Picture Christ calling out to his Father, "Dad!" and let the lie that he does not love you finally die.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.


Watch this video in the light of who our true Dad is - God Almighty.

Stay Away from Hydrocodone!

Ever since Carl Mannich and Helene Lowenheim mixed it in Germany in 1920, Hydrocodone (or its various names) has been taking away the pain for people all over the world.  Most people who take Hydrocodone, though, are in the US of A.  Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK have all banned its medical use.  Why would that be?

Hydrocodone is a narcotic pain killer.

Do you have pain?'

Think twice or thrice before filling the script so easily given by the doctor for hydrocodone.

This post may get many hits and comments and people may say bad things about this post and blog because hydrocodone is one of many drugs (by no means the only drug - oxycodone, methadone, suboxone, tramadol, and even benadryl) that are abused.

I am not a doctor.

I am not a pharmacutical representative.

I am not a drug dealer.

I try to help people with addictions.

Many people with drug addictions started by using a prescription that their doctor gave them called hydrocodone.

I am the watchman of Ezekiel.  You may think that I am crazy, but I do not want your blood to be on my head.  Hydrocodone is a tool of Satan to take everything away from you.

If you are getting defensive as you read this, let me ask this question, "What did people do for pain before pain killers?"  What good had hydrocodone really brought to this world?  What heartache and suffering has hydrocodone brought to this world.

This blog post was written for one single person.

You who are wondering if you should take it for the pain.

No!!!!!   Don't take it!!!!!!!

Please please please please please don't.

There is no pill that can take the pain away.
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Jesus wants to be with you in your pain.

Family Sports

When I was a kid, my family would play family football or family basketball.  What that meant was often my dad and I against my brother and my mom.  I never played football for a school or peewee team, but I played with my family.

I coach soccer even though I know nothing about it.  I coach 6-10 year olds and help them work together.  It is fun.  But it is more fun when I text my brother and his family and my family, and possibly others, play soccer as a family.

Here are some reasons to do this.

1.  Instead of dividing up the Christian family into this person to ballet and this kid to karate and this kid to volleyball and this kid to soccer, the whole family plays together.  Sports can be a time of family unity instead of family division.

2.  It is cheaper than paying for the a. gas to go to all the games.  b.  entrance fees to all the games.  c.  registration fees for all of the sports.

3.  You get to play, which is something that will help you in being a healthy person.  Your body is a temple.

4.  Your child sees sports more as a fun activity and less like the be all end all.

5.  The "award" your child gets for playing is called "fun."  What more reward do they need?

6.  The family that plays together stays together.

7.  The research says that family sports and exercise are very good.  See below:

 http://www.commonhealth.virginia.gov/documents/hf/AllTogetherNow.pdf

http://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/1061376/the-benefits-of-exercising-as-a-family

http://familyfitness.about.com/od/motivation/a/bonding.htm

Christian Music #7 Learning to Sing

I am the father of four children and many times found myself with a fussy child trying to calm them.  My babies, like most babies, did not want me to just sit there with them in my lap.  So sometimes I would stand up and sing to Jesus while I was holding them.

It is hard for me to know, even as I write this, what a big deal that is.  Holding my child and singing,

"in moments like these, I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Jesus,
in moments like these, I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Him,
singing I love you Lord, singing I love you Lord, singing I love you, Lord I love you."

Without really knowing it I was teaching my babies to worship God, the same way I was teaching them how to lose their temper, and many bad things that I did, I was also teaching them to worship Jesus.

My mother would no doubt have done the same thing when I was a little baby.  Many of the first words I learned were from my mom praising Jesus while holding me.  I was blessed to learn from her.

Question 1:  Who have you learned to worship Jesus from?  Who taught you?  Maybe it was not a family member, but who was it?

Question 2:  Who is learning to worship Jesus from you?

Idea:  Think about those who are watching you, and how you can help them in learning how to sing to Him.

Carefrontation

When I was in college at a Christian University, someone introduced me to the idea of care-frontation.  Confrontation sounds so bad right?  It often can go bad, especially when I am confronting my kids.  I am also a soccer coach and I coach the blue team.  Often I have to yell these two words from the sidelines of a game, "SAME TEAM!"  I feel like someone should yell these two words to me when I am yelling at my kids.

Let me discuss three main aspects of how confrontation usually goes normally with my children. After something triggers my anger I decide what the main goal is, and 1. the main goal is for me to win the arguement.  After the main goal is established, I go about accomplish it by 2. the strategy of fight or flight (mostly fight), by using my voice as a weapon.  3.  I see myself as my ally, and the kids are my enemies.

Funny how this confrontation style, the one that comes naturally to me, is not very effective.  It usually creates a war in which win or lose I always feel horrid about later.  Is there any hope for confrontation, or should we not confront?

That is where Paul in Galatians 6:1 helps us in describing what I think is where people must have found the idea of carefrontation.

"Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.  Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted."

Essentially Paul was crying, "SAME TEAM!"

1.  The goal is not for me to win but for the team to win.  Restore him to what? - to the team.
2.  The way toward restoration is not fight or flight, but in a spirit of gentleness.  If I come calmly, the other person will not as easily perceive me as the enemy.
3.  The enemy is myself.  There is no I in team.  Not only could I fall prey to the very sin the other person was caught in, but I could be caught in the more destructive sin of self-righteousness and pride.

How can you do this in your life?

Decide who God is leading you to confront.
1.  See the goal as a team win not an individual win (same team).
2.  Approach not as an enemy, but as a friend (same team).
3.  Watch yourself, especially lifting yourself above the other (same team).

The three rules of soccer: Advice for soccer coaches.

***********Disclaimer**********
These are the three rules of soccer for the young kids that I coach.  In some ways these could be the three rules for any sport, even individualistic sports like cross country which I have participated in as much as anyone.  If you are looking for your child to win your particular sport you may be upset and disappointed by these simplistic rules, but the kids I coach can remember them, and if the first two rules help them to actually follow rule three, which is what I have begun to see even in my kindergartners, what an effect it would have on their whole life!

Rule #1:     HAVE FUN.  Do all the things your parents say you cannot do inside: run, yell, jump, etc.

Rule #2:     BE SAFE.  Do not kick people, or their hands or heads.

Rule #3:     PLAY AS A TEAM:  "I will give a double high five to every player who passes the ball to someone on your team."  They started passing the ball to each other.  Training humans to work together toward a goal instead of working toward a goal solo is one of the hardest tasks of a teacher of any group, from preschoolers to middle-agers.

Listening to my teenager during 2014.

2014 is the year I have a teenager.  I feel like I already have one.  One of the things I notice most about having a teenager (almost) is - Oh how the tables have turned!  I was once the teenager who had parents who did not know anything, but now I am the parent who does not know anything.  I was once the teenager who had parents who did not understand, and now I am the parent who does not understand.

I have a tendency to tell my almost teenager to stop talking, pardon my language, to tell him to shut up.

Why?  Watch the first episode of the Cosby show.

He says things that make no sense.

Some of you reading already know this - I am the one who needs to shut up.  One of my worst faults is not shutting my mouth.  So this year in 2014 - the year of the teenage fatherhood, I seek first to understand, not to be understood.

I am setting as a big goal to actually listen to my teenager in 2014.

What is your ides for 2014?

Christmas Grief

Whenever a death or tragedy occurs around Christmas, people often comment on what a horrible time to deal with death.  Many people, myself included, are dealing with death this Christmas of 2013.  From the empty place at the table to the empty place in my heart, the season of fullness is hollow.
How does someone comfort in a loss at all, let alone a loss at Christmas?
Rachel lost her son, and then she lost her other one.  Her husband could not comfort her, nor could her friends.  She died in her grief.  Even though she died thousands of years ago, her cry is still heard all around the world - the cry of grief, grief that refuses to be comforted.
There were many like Rachel in Bethlehem, and it was no silent night.  It was a night of grief, or despair, of refusing comfort.  Why did you send your Son if He seemed to only bring more pain?  Salvation?  The mothers of Bethlehem were not experiencing salvation but overwhelming grief.
Mary seemed to sneak out of Bethlehem just in time and miss the grief of Herod the Great.
Mary watched her son crawl, toddle, walk, and run.  She fed him and then He fed her, from loaves of bread and fishes to the Bread from Heaven.  If any woman was ever captivated by her son it was Mary the mother of God's Son.  He did not come to escape death, but to walk straight into it.
The small baby Mary held in her arms spread His arms out and died.

Christmas is a story about grief, specifically the grief of a mother.

Jesus walked into our grief, into our death, and came back with the keys of death and hell.
The hope of every mother, from Eve the mother of Abel to Mary the mother of Jesus to the mothers of the Sandy Hook elementary students, is the little baby born in a feeding trough.
Jesus Christ offers eternal life to all of us freely.
Jesus Christ can deliver people from death.

Jesus said to a grieving sister, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Best things to inherit - #1

God inherits us.   "And he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance."  - Exodus 34:9 (ESV)

The tables are turned.  The best inheritance I can think of is for we, such as we have been and are and will be, to be inherited by God.  Moses recognizes this in the clutch time in the book of Exodus, with the thought of the promised land without YAHWEH to be unthinkable.  

What does it mean for God to inherit us?

Could it really be true, that the Almighty God would want us?  Could he really see us as His inheritance?

To be wanted.

To have a place and a purpose.

To be His, and to belong to Him.

What can be the best inheritance for our children?  It is to know that the Lord God loves them and desires them to be His own.

Do you know that the Lord wants you for His own?

Not because of what you have done, but because of who you are - His.

You have always been His.

The greatest inheritance is the one we are - HIS.

Best things to inherit - #2

The LORD, YAHWEH.  "And the LORD said to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel."  - Numbers 18:20 (ESV)

All or nothing.  If you want the best you forgo the rest.  Yahweh was offering long ago to Aaron the best possible inheritance, but he had to forgo any other inheritance.  We can look at this two ways.  One way is to think of the fact that Aaron and the Levites had no land, no this, no that.  Wow.  What they had to give up.  At this point the Jim Elliot quote is helpful:  "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  Today the lands of Israel are a continued and constant issue of war and conflict, and yet YAHWEH remains untouched by war.  He cannot be conquered or overtaken.  Yet he offers himself in the early pages of the Bible to a most unlikely person - Aaron.  

Just start reading about Aaron and you will be frustrated with him and possibly identify with him.  He lies, he complains, he worships idols, and he is jealous about Moses.  Aaron also experiences tragedy.  His sons die instantaneously.  He lost that which was most dear to him.  He saw how fleeting this life is.

This Aaron is offered YAHWEH as an inheritance.  

How much more are we, the royal priesthood through Jesus Christ the eternal high priest, offered YAHWEH, offered Father, Son, Spirit, as an inheritance?

Our children are offered God Himself.  We must share that inheritance with them, even as the FATHER shares it with us.  We must also show our children that to let go of all other things we cling to He who can not be taken from us.

Best things to inherit - #3

The Kingdom.  "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."  - Matthew 25:34 (ESV)

Inheriting a human kingdom, whether that be an ancient kingdom like the Persian empire or a baby kingdom like the United States of America (I know, I know, the U.S.A. is a democracy) is something that would overwhelm the average person.  So much power and responsibility.  So much status and wealth.

And yet those kingdoms fall to nothing.  We see this from history.  We also see this in the pages of the Bible.  Daniel, as an older man, was offered high status in many human kingdoms, but his message continued about THE Kingdom that would crush all others.  It is so easy for we humans to interpret out human kingdom as the kingdom, whether that is Nebuchadnezzar, ancient Israel, current Israel, or the United States of America.

The Kingdom is ruled by the King - Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  We have an inheritance in a kingdom that far outweighs any human kingdom.  Often we are faced with a choice to pursue the eternal kingdom above or the temporal human kingdoms below.  Daniel, even with his status of human kingdoms, continues to speak to people of a better kingdom.  Wherever we are in the kingdoms of this world, whether we are the President of the United Sates, Barack Obama, or whether we are a teenage textile worker in Bangladesh, may we seek out and speak of the kingdom that never ends, which is offered to us freely to inherit.

 May we share with our children that the best thing we have to offer them is not our money or houses or lands, but the kingdom of God which God alone offers, the kingdom of heaven which no earthly money can purchase.

Best things to inherit - #6

#6.  the earth.   "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." - Matthew 5:5 (KJV)

Throughout the bible there is a emphasis on inheritance on land, and while earth could be translated land, this quote from Jesus puts inheritance talk into a great perspective.  Maybe you have not, but I have heard of inheritance arguments and feuds.  When grandpa dies everybody is fighting to get their share.  Jesus suggests a different style of inheritance.  Meekness.  What?  I thought if you want something be bold about it.  Make a plan and plow through so that you can get what you want.  Don't let people plow over you, you plow over them.  "NO,"  says Jesus - it is the meek one who will get it, the pushover, the one who is plowed over.

The two other times this word "meek" is used in the book of Matthew, it is used for Jesus himself as he is talking about himself.  The only other time it is mentioned in the New Testament is in 1 Peter 3:4 talking about a "meek" and quiet spirit, which is great value in God's sight.  Who will inherit the earth?  The meek, those walked on and crucified like Jesus, and the best non-Jesus example (the only one) in the Bible is the meek spirit of a woman.

Inheritance was often tied to men throughout the Bible, and Zelophehad's daughters in Numbers 27 are the exception to the rule.  The world and most of the societies of this world reward boldness and assertiveness and dominance.  God's inheritance is given in a different way - to the meek, the spat upon, the overlooked.

Ah, the meek - they will inherit the earth.

Me:     I thought the rich families and CEOs inherited the earth.
Jesus:   No, it is the meek, the humble, the lowly.
Me:    So you are flipping the way we do inheritance on its head.
Jesus:   Turning it back rightside up - the way you do it is turned on its head.
Me:    I do not know if that will work out in the real world Jesus.
Jesus:  Oh yes it will, for I am the real world, and I am the meek who will inherit the earth, and I share with the meek ones who come to me, for no one comes to me but in a meek way.  The proud will never admit their need of me, unless they let my meekness rule their proud hearts.

Best things to inherit - #7

#7.  Knowledge.   "The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge."  - Proverbs 14:18  (ESV)

Ah knowledge.  I recently gained the knowledge of how to install a lid switch on a washing machine.  It was something that I had no idea of and now I know how to do.  Coca Cola has the knowledge of mixing a drink that is calorie free and still tastes like coke (coke zero).  I went to seminary racking up a bit of debt to get the knowledge of how to read and understand Biblical Greek and Hebrew.  People search for knowledge all the time, nowadays on the internet.   Many times we do not get the knowledge we seek such as how to eat candy and drink pop and lose weight or how to spend all your paycheck impulsively and be a millionaire.  The Bible, such as this verse, speak of the good of inheriting knowledge, such as the metal smith who passes the craft to his children.  Today education is almost always emphasized.  Education is seen as the foundation of all society.  So why do I have it at #7. 

Because two people in the Bible had a lot of knowledge - the first man and the first woman.  Maybe knowing a lot is not the best thing.  There is a danger to knowledge.  Think of nuclear knowledge.  Think of the internet.  Knowledge in and of itself can be deadly.  Many people who live a street life have knowledge.  They have learned, or been forced to learn deadly knowledge.  What is the quality of knowledge that we are passing on to our children?  What quality of knowledge has been passed on to us?

Some knowledge is no doubt better than others

Some knowledge is to be avoided: 

"O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge," - 1 Timothy 6:20 (ESV)

Some knowledge is to be filling us: 

 "And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding," - Colossians 1:9 (ESV)

Best things to inherit - #10

I have been looking through the Bible at the subject of inheritance, and while land is the prominent thing that is inherited in the Bible, it is not the only thing.  So here goes my list of things that I think are cool to inherit.

10.  The blessing.  "For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears."  Hebrews 12:17 (ESV)

This is a negative example of a very important inheritance.  Our children want to be blessed by us.  This blessing is one of the best blessings we as parents can hand on to our kids.  It also shows what the opposite of inheriting a blessing is.  It seems that Esau inherited rejection.  It may be that each parent has a choice to give their child a blessing or a rejection as an inheritance.  

How can we give our kids an inheritance of a blessing?

We can tell them that we love them out loud in a non-sarcastic way, and hopefully we are crying when we say it.  There is my idea.  What is yours?

Generational Baggage

Do you have generational baggage?  Maybe it is a generational sin like murder or some sexual sin or gossiping, or maybe it is something that was done to you, or maybe it is some secret that you do not know.

Do you see yourself in the light of that baggage?
Does God see that baggage and say, "Yes I love her, but I can't use her with all that baggage on. . . "

Saul felt the same way when he said to Samuel, "Am I not a Benjaminite, the least of the tribes of Israel, and is not my clan the humblest of the clans of Benjamin?  Why are you talking to me in this way?" in Samuel 9.

Benjamin was almost done away with in a civil war (Judges 19-21), so they were literally the least tribe in terms of numbers and the only tribe to be genocided against.

But what about his clan?  What would be the humblest clan of Benjamin?  The reason for the civil war was because some worthless men from Gibeah of Benjamin surrounded a house in a similar way that the men of Sodom did in Genesis except that the men of Gibeah actually committed an act - they did things to a woman so that she died.  It seems that the most humble clan of Benjamin would be the clan connected to the town of Gibeah.  In 1 Samuel 10:26 we learn that Saul is from Gibeah.  It may have been some of his family members that were doing the evil deed of Judges 19, one of the worst things done in the entire Bible, and that is saying a lot.

So God chooses Saul.  Why would God choose Saul?

He also chose another Saul of Benjamin, but he was also the son of Pharisees, and Pharisees were the enemies of Jesus and they planned his murder.  So when God decides to pick someone to take the message of Jesus Christ to the other nations in the world, he picks Saul, whose family did the worst thing in the Bible.

Why does God choose the worst possible choices?

"God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise,
God chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
God chooses what is low and despised in the world,
even the things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." (1 Cor. 1)

God chooses you not because of your goodness but because of His goodness.

Answers, or Questions, in Genesis

There is a group out called Answers In Genesis that seeks to help Christians develop a Biblical worldview by helping people to find answers in Genesis through showing how the Bible is true in all that it says regarding science and that God created the world and universe in 6 literal days.  I love the spirit behind getting people to look into the Bible to find answers, but I want to propose something a little different.  Instead of providing answers for our children and even for ourselves, could we not instead provide questions so that they themselves could seek to answer them.  Actually let me take it one step further.  I believe that I do not have the answers to God, and yet I have many questions, and so maybe we come up with questions without worrying if we can answer them or not. 

Analogy time:  If you decided to walk the Appalachian Trail and did so with a know it all, and this person always knew the right gear to use and always knew which trees should be in bloom and which animals like coke zero and which ones didn’t, and of course they always always knew where you were, would it not take the joy in discovery away, and indeed the joy of wonder.  Things that fascinate me do so often because of how much I do not know about them.  So I want to look out on the AT and not hear someone tell me the scientific reason why the leaves on the trees change color, but I want to hear someone say, “Wow!”

So it is with God.  I believe that God is not a question to find the answer to, or an arithmetic problem to solve, but a mystery to be explored – without having the trip planned out.  There is so much about God that is so unlike we humans.  The Bible, being God-breathed as it is, often resists our pinning it down and getting all our questions answered, rather it calls us to ask more questions without knowing all the answers, without solving every exegetical problem or theological dispute.  But as we follow Jesus Christ we know that He is the only Answer we need, and that there is much of Him we do not yet know, and so we press on to take hold of Him, yearning for that day when we will be completely held by Him. 

Jesus, the toddler survivor

Christmas is different this year in America because of the children who will not be able to open their gifts.  Gifts are such fun to give and receive, but everything changes when a horrid tragedy like what happened in Connecticut happened.  One of the most horrible parts of this story is that this is not the first time something like this happened.  Many Christmases ago in Bethlehem a little boy received gifts that his whole family wondered at (Matthew 2:9-12) and those who gave the gifts were overjoyed.  And yet everything changed when an evil man named Herod was hunting the little boy to kill him (Matthew 2:13).  Jesus survived this hunt and fled to Egypt (Matthew 2:14-15), but there were many of his playmates and age mates who did not survive the evil man’s rage (Matthew 2:16-18).  Jesus grew up with the horrible start of surviving a man killing his friends when he was less than two years old.  He grew up in a similar way that the children who survived the shooting in Connecticut will.  Jesus was the toddler survivor.  Jesus started his life in the midst of grief, and he came to be known as the “man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53).  Both Jesus and the kids in Connecticut had and will have questions that few can answer:  “Why did this happen?”  “Where was God?”  “Why did God let this happen?” and many other such questions.   But God sent his son not only for more questions to be asked, but to provide an answer, and that answer was not an answer with words, but and answer with a person, the person of Jesus Christ, who was God and who was man, and who died and rose from the dead and so defeated death and offers an invitation to us.  He asks us not to bring our gifts only to his feet, as the wise men did, but also to bring our grief, our hatred, our death, because Jesus can take our grief and turn it into joy, and he can take our hatred and turn it into love, and he can take our death and turn it into life, because he himself is joy, and love, and life.  Jesus Christ invites us to himself.

Proverbs 31 - an English Acrostic

A bride of valor, who can find her? And far higher than a beachfront mansion is her price,

By giving his heart to her, her husband says, “I trust you.” He will not be deprived of booty.

Creating good for him she makes no evil all the days of her life,

Doing the laundry and linens, she works with the pleasure of her hands,

Engine locomotives like her bring the groceries in from far away,

From her bed she gets up to make breakfast, and all look to her for food,

Google-ing real estate she buys some and plants a garden with her hands,

Her belt buckle says, “Strength,” and she makes her arms strong,

Identifying that her gain is good, the lights stay on as she works through the night,

Juggling needle and thread she makes clothes new,

Keeping open her hand to the poor she reaches out to those in need,

Letting no fear inside her house with the snow, all are clothed in red,

Making bedspreads for herself she is dressed to win the smooth contest,

Noticed is her husband when he walks down the block and sits

On the front porch with the grandpas and grandmas,

Printing T-shirts that she sells,

“Queen of Purses” – they all buy from her,

Robed with strength and splendor,

She laughs about tomorrow,

Teaching from her mouth wisdom and from her tongue covenant loyalty,

Under her watch is her house, and she does not eat the food called “Lazy,”

Valid blessing from her children and her husband praises her saying,

Women of valor are many, but you soar above all of them,

X chromosomes lead astray and beauty withers away,

Yet a bride who fears Yahweh, she will be praised,

Zucchini bread and her mocha cheesecake give to her, and let her deeds bring her praise on the porch.

Christian Summer Camp

I went to a christian summer camp in Pennsylvania called Summer's Best Two Weeks.  I started going there when I was about 11.  I went for about 7 years.  I got really excited about living for Jesus when I was at the Summer Camp because I was around so many college kids (the counselors) who were excited about living for Jesus.
Christian Summer Camp was a big part of my giving all of me to Jesus Christ.  Last summer my oldest son went to a Christian Summer Camp.  He also had a lot of fun.  A lot of kids in our church have went to this summer camp and are planning on going again.  It is called Bear Lake Camp.  They will experience a community of people who love Jesus in a way they don't in school very often.
A man I love at Summer's Best Two Weeks talked about when people make decisions for Christ.  Oftentimes it is when they are in their teens.  He said often kids make those decisions, the same decision I made many years ago, because of a christian summer camp.
So my christian family idea is send your kids to a christian summer camp.

ZRBTT

There are some of yo who already know what zrbtt spells.  This is an idea I got from a little girl named Rudy Huxtable.  She wanted to know what zrbtt spelled.  I am sure that I am not the only one who grew up giving and recieving zrbtts.  What is a zrbtt?
Watch this clip from the Cosby show to find out what zrbtt spells, and also what a zrbtt is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znDI9UpFYKE

Now go and give your kids a zrbtt.
The family that gives zrbtts together is the family that stays together.