A response

To be fair I haven't done much with this blog over the summer.....so I missed this comment on one of the few posts I did have. I talked God loving us as we are. This was the only comment at the end of that post:
You say God doesn't expect us to be perfect? But at the same time we strive to live in his image. His image IS perfect right, so why should we strive to be like his image when you are already telling us it is impossible? Doesn't that make it a hopeless, and for that matter pointless, struggle?

I want to address this directly because it's a common thing that comes up. It's all pointless. We can never reach perfection so why try. Right? Wrong.

Check this out: My hockey hero is Grant Fuhr. He won 5 Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers in the 80's. He won a Vezina. He is in the NHL Hall of Fame. His number is retired by the Edmonton Oilers. He is amazing.

I own a book that he co-wrote from his glory years. It's called Fuhr on Goaltending. I've read that book a bundle of times. I've worked on all the tricks and exercises he has in the book. I completely understand everything that book has to say. But the guys I play with will be the first to tell you that I'm no Grant Fuhr. I'm not waiting by the phone for an NHL team to call me to come to training camp. Not only am I not like Grant Fuhr right now.....I'm getting older....and there's really no chance that I'm ever going to be Grant Fuhr.

That doesn't stop me from putting the pads on and going to play every week. I LOVE hockey. I look forward all week to playing. I can't wait to go out there. I won't be Grant Fuhr, but it's not going to stop me from playing hockey ever again.

You're right in thinking that we are called to be like Christ. Yes Christ was perfect. Will you ever be perfect? No. Because you are human the Bible tells us that we are all sinful. We are all not perfect. Will you ever full "be like Christ". No. However Jesus gave us tons of instructions and guidelines on how to live our lives. We strive daily to follow these. We know we will never be perfect. But we are in LOVE with the one who is. So we do everything we can to follow in His footsteps.

Hope that helps a bit. Just for fun here's Fuhr toward the end of his career...when he was playing with St. Louis. AMAZING still!

Being Good Enough

You are good enough. Did you hear me? You're good enough.

God doesn't ask us to be perfect and then come to him. If that were the case, we'd all be in a world of trouble.

Jesus had these guys that he hung out with. His disciples. Basically a disciple was a pupil. A student. Kind of like most of you. They were just there to learn from the teacher....Jesus. So Jesus spends 3 years wandering around teaching these guys. He teaches them privately. He teaches them with large crowds. He laughs with them. He eats with them. All day. Every day. 3 years. Pretty intimate.

If you've ever gone backpacking for any length of time (more than one night), you find that you get to know the people you're backpacking with pretty well. You talk, you eat, you walk together. Now multiply that out over 3 years.

So these guys got to see Jesus do miracles. They watched as he told people who had been crippled their whole lives to stand up and walk. They saw him take some fish and bread and feed well over 5000 people....and have baskets left over of extra food. They were there.

Guess what? They didn't get it. If you read through the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) you'll find that time after time, they would see Jesus do all this cool stuff....and then they were like....."um, yeah....what just happened?"

This one time Jesus heals this boy that has an evil spirt. They left the area and start to travel. When they reach their destination, Jesus asks them what they were arguing about on the road. They confess they were arguing about who was the greatest. So they watch Jesus perform a miracle. Then they start trying to decide who the coolest is. WHAT?

Jesus outright told them that "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."(Mark 9) and they didn't understand. After Jesus has been crucified and buried...where are the disciples? HIDING in a room. They didn't get it.

So why am I telling you this? What does this have to do with you?

Jesus HAND PICKED this guys to follow him around. He wanted these guys to start telling people about him after he left the earth. He wanted these guys to start the church. These guys. The ones who time and time again, didn't get it.

I'm not close to perfect. I don't "get it" a lot. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what God really wants. I recognize that God is so BIG that I'll never really understand him completely.

I'm going to go out on a limb here....and guess that you're not perfect either. You probably do stupid stuff. My guess is that you have some questions about God. Maybe you even doubt God exists. Maybe you wonder if He's listening.

Here's the great part. God loves you. He has called YOU. He desperately wants to have a major place in your life. He wants to spend time with you. He wants you to love Him. He longs for you. The God who created the universe. Who was around before time began.....is the same God who desires to whisper quietly in your hear and have you hear.

You don't have to be perfect. In fact, I'm pretty sure God knows that you're not going to be. I know for a fact that he loves you anyway. He's like that. He loved a bunch of guys who doubted him. He loves me. He loves you too.

Slacker

Ok straight up. ....I've been slacking this summer with blog posts. Sorry guys.

Forth of July. Meet by the YMCA between 9:30-10. Shirts are 7 dollars. This is an amazing opportunity for us!!!

Every Sunday night all summer we're down at Beatty field. We've been playing lots of ultimate frisbee....we're going to do a silly game for awhile this Sunday then play frisbee after. Hope to see you there.

Point Update

This is the last week for Connections BOO HOO. We'll be at the YMCA. Please come to dinner. I love sitting down to eat with you guys!

I'm going to do a summer fun night all summer. It'll be Sunday night at Beaty field. We'll start June 14. More info will be here. Please come!

Here's the points break down right now. It's a close race.

Magenta 21500
Burple 26750 (that's the adjusted score)
Ochra 22300

It's anyone's game. This week is the last hurrah.

If you get this I'll give you 10,000 points.

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How Sweet It Is

Just thought you'd love to see some of the fun we had this past week. Kyrene, Jake, and Time I love you guys!!!!

Finally

So how many of you have been checking. I had every intention of posting stuff here Monday and the week has just slipped away from me. Sorry.

Sooooo....here's the points break down as of 9:41Pm Wednesday night.

Team Magenta: 9,500
Team Burple: 17,700
Team Ochra: 19,300

So Team Magenta you really need to get on the ball here.

Remember we're at the YMCA this weekend. I'm thinking of giving points for everyone who is there at 6pm when we pray for dinner. So you might want to encourage your friends to get there on time for once!



How many e-mail addresses do I currently have?


What was the first name of Pastor J's first crush.....(hint it's a pretty common name.)


I like to chew Wrigley's Double Mint gum. You should remember that for Sunday.

Also, what city was Tobiah born in?

I found this a couple days ago. Really good stuff.