Month: May 2008

1.  I arrived at the movie theatre at my normal time this morning, and Pastor Paul was already sweating up a storm upon my arrival. He totally dreams of setup on Sunday morning, and come to think of it – so do I. Transforming a place of Hollywood movie magic into a place of worship within a matter of a few hours late on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning can only be described as miraculous. We do it all for Him.

2.  I was at the Kids’ Life Registration table when Kelly, Kourtney, McKenna, and Blake checked in. I said ‘Hi’ to everyone. Kourtney ran away from me, McKenna ignored me, and Blake looked straight at me and cracked a smile as if to say ‘Yeah, I know my name !’ Oh yeah – and Kelly told me to fix her up with a cup of coffee with lots of cream and sugar. Apparently Kelly thought that it was Mother’s Day rather than Memorial Day. It’s all good, but Kelly got her own coffee !  😯

3.  A rockin’ edition of ‘Praise & Worship’ was conducted by Jesse, Alex, another young skinny dude with long hair and tattoos, and Julie (of ‘Richard & Julie’ fame). If you weren’t up on your feet and singing and dancing and clapping your hands then you … were probably sitting down and enjoying the music of God in your own special way. That’s cool too.

4.  Pastor Travis wrapped-up our month-long ‘Fortune Cookie’ message series with a teaching that was subtitled ‘A Person Often Meets His Destiny On The Road He Took To Avoid It ?’. Our Life is the cookie. Our future is the fortune. Jesus is holding the cookie.

Romans 8:38-39 (NLT, 2ND Ed.):
38  And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow — not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
39  No power in the sky above or in the earth below — indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5.  What happened over the course of the next 3½-hours (immediately following the conclusion of the 10:30 AM service) can only be described as mass chaos to an exponential degree. I won’t mention most of the specifics except for the highlight of it all which featured Richie N. and I as the only two people to show up for a picnic and baptism at Homestead Bayfront Park. Apparently we made it in to the crowded park just before it was closed (by Miami-Dade County Police) to new patrons, but we didn’t know it at the time. I later found out (while I was back at home eating dinner) that the picnic had been moved over to Keys Gate Park (just a couple of miles away). One of these months we are going to have a normal picnic and baptism. I’d like to be there for that one !

Acts 17:22-29 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)

22  So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way,

23  for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

24  “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since He is Lord of Heaven and Earth, He doesn’t live in man-made temples,

25  and human hands can’t serve His needs — for He has no needs. He Himself gives life and breath to everything, and He satisfies every need.

26  From one man He created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and He determined their boundaries.

27  “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him — though He is not far from any one of us.

28  For in Him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’

29  And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

GREAT words there, and I especially adore the 27TH verse above. It’s all about seeking Him, finding Him, and following Him. He is never unreachable.

In this world you may encounter those who just seem to be as far away as possible from God. That’s the devil at work, but God is so ultimate – so powerful – that He can reach them and pull them away from the throes of evil and darkness. Don’t ever think that you are better than any one of them. Don’t ever think that the light of the day is so far removed from any one of them. Don’t ever think of them as ‘them’, for they are us. We are God’s children. We are brothers and sisters and He is Our Father.