How To Use Your Sword

Episode 1  -  In Da House

A Five Part Series on Training Men to Be Warriors

Tomorrow

What does tomorrow truly bring?  There is always the promise of better days ahead.  But is that actually true?  Are there better days, or does it just promise to bring pain?  Of course pain is always a possibility, but there is always a risk invovled in change.  There is always pain invovled in change.  No guts no glory they always say.  Some say that your best days are behind you.  I think that tomorrow is a better day.   Tomorrow is the first day, in a long line of days to come, of the best days ahead.  The most beautiful thing about tomorrows is that they are not today and the are not yesterday.  Yesterday holds the pain, it hold the bad things we don’t want to remember.  Today holds the truth of the moment.  But tomorrow, tomorrow isn’t written yet.  It has’t happened.  Tomorrow is what we make of it.  Tomorrow has unlimited potential to be whatever we decide to be.  The Bible says the God has a ‘future’ planned for us full of hope and full of prosperous opportunities.  Today is the day we deal.  Deal with the pain of the past.  Deal with the truth of the moments of today.  Move on.  Move forward.  Some may say to give up because its hopeless.  I say go to bed.  Thats right.  Go to bed.  Deal with you pain.  Deal with your hurts.  Deal with your truths.  Forgive yourself.  Then go to bed.  Get some sleep.  Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow…….we LIVE.

Unifyer

We just launched  our new online community.  I am super stoked about it.  I think that it will be one of the best decisions and moves we have ever made in our history as a church.  I have become a total Unifyer loser.  I used to make fun of people who were constantly on Facebook.  But now I have become just like them only with Unifyer.  I am excited for where it will take us as a church.

Long Time No See

Holy crap on a cracker its been a while.  Well things are good.  Right now we are in the middle of a series called Hostage.  I am super stoked about it.  We are only half way through and we have already seen some growth happen.  The thing is its not really the growth that has me excited its the fact that people are starting to really get connected with each other and more importantly, with Jesus.  We have a new web domain called heldhostage.ca  There is a section of the web page called ‘come clean’.  Its a place where people can go and post their ‘stories’.  A place where someone can go to just get things off their chest.  Whatever that may be.  Its completely anonymous, no one can ever find out who’s story is who’s.  The whole point of it being the sweet release of unleashing the secrets in our lives that keep us HOSTAGE.   So far the response on it has been good.  There are some pretty crazy stories on there already.  I’m getting more and more nervous as the days go by in this series because I feel like something big is gonna happen.   I don’t know why.   Not that I think its gonna explode and we will all of a sudden be overrun by hundreds of people.  Although that would be cool.  I just think that some serious life changes are gonna happen in the lives of people who have been waiting a long time for freedom from things that have been holding them down for so long.  Freedom they thought would never be possible.  I’m also nervous because in two weeks, on the 23rd, I will be preaching.  I’m not nervous about the preaching, cause getting up in front of people and making a fool out of myself is something I am pretty good at.  I’m nervous about it because I am going to be pouring out my heart for people who are held hostage by addictions.  Add to that the fact that I will be unleashing the honesty of what my life has been like.  My only real prayer through all of this is that people will connect with what I am going to say and that lives will truly and honestly be changed.  I really long for the day when God will start to use my life, and my story to open the cages of so many people who are still Hostage to addiction.

I don’t know what your story is, but maybe its one that you have never been able to truly tell anyone.  Its been dragging you down and hanging over your shoulder for a long time.  You can go to heldhostage.ca and click on the ‘come clean’ link and let it go once and for all.  Remember, it is completely anonymous.  No one can trace it back to you.   Just so you know, I have posted something from my own life on there, so you are definitely not alone.  So, are you going to let it out of the cage, or will you continue to hold on?

No Way In Hell

 I’ve had people ask me how I could believe what I believe about Jesus.  How do I know for sure that I am right about Jesus?  I don[t always know how to answer those questions.  Sometimes all I can say is that I just know.  But if I were to offer an objective look at it, it would look like this;

 

If I believe in Jesus        I die and find out I’m RIGHT          I Go to HEAVEN

 

If I believe in Jesus        I die and find out I’m WRONG        Nothing Happens

                                                                                           I’ve lost NOTHING

 

If I don’t believe in Jesus       I die and find out I’m RIGHT    Nothing Happens

                                                                                             I’ve lost NOTHING

 

If I don’t blieve in Jesus        I die and find out I’m WRONG        I GO TO HELL

 

So you see, the real gamble is playing the game without Jesus.  You have to be careful or you may just get BURNed!! 

 

 

 

Sweet

                                                                           I was super excited when I picked up my daughter from her daycare today because of what one of her daycare teachers said to me.  She told me that Raynae was talking to her all day about “Daddy Daughter Night”.  She said that Raynae was so excited about it that she even wanted to pray with her about it.  I couldn’t believe it.  I mean WOW.  We had only had two “Daddy Daughter Nights” so far and already she looks forward to it and it excites her.  My wife said she told the other ladies at her work about it and they told her they thought it was the sweetest thing ever.  They told my wife that the most important relationship in a little girls life is the one between her and her father.  Well, after my “date” with my daughter tonight and hearing all of this stuff, it has solidified in my mind just how important I am to her and how important my relationship with her really is.  I am just so happy that I am starting to have a positive impact on this little girls life.  The thing that really makes me scared though is just how serious this is.  That I could be responsible for the life of this beautiful little girl.  I mean I’m a screw up from way back, but somehow God thought that I was good enough to raise her and show her how special she is.  And now that she is starting to love “daddy daughter night” and is starting to open up to me I really have to step up my game.  For some reason the thought of raising a good, healthy, strong christian woman excites me beyond measure.  Its in me to do, and I have to do it well.  I must not fail, I cannot fail, I will not fail.  Will You?

Chitty Chitty BANG BANG

I was going for a walk the other day thinking to myself about life, love and all that crap when I began to wonder, how the heck could this whole world occur from a BIG BANG.  I just don’t get it.  I mean, scientists talk about the theory of evolution, that we are descendants of monkeys, and the fact that we all started form some sort of primordial ooze or something like that.  That it all began with an explosion in the universe that started the expansion of what we now know as life and earth.  But the thing that gets me is that all in the same breathe they start talking about how intricate the earth is and all of its parts right down to the single celled organisms that roam it.  The fact that all life on the surface of the planet is dependant upon how close we are to the sun, right down to exact degrees.  I’m sure that a well learned man could spout off all kinds of fact for you and explain to you much better why things are they way they are for either side of the argument.  I am not that man.  I have absolutely no clue how to win you over to my side with smart talk.  The only thing I know is that it is beyond me why anyone would want to believe that they exist by accident.  I believe in God.  I believe he created the universe and everything in it.  Not because of how amazing it is, but because I refuse to believe that I am here because of an explosion.  I would much rather believe that someone designed me the way I am, to be where I am.  That I was loved ever before anyone else on earth ever thought of me.  I don’t want to believe that I am only here because some piece of rock made a mistake in its travels through space and started an explosion.  I want to believe that I was created.  That I am not an accident but I am a purpose.  I am purposely created.  I am wanted.  I am enjoyed.  I am known.  I am held.  I am watched.  I am special.  I am fixed when broken.  I am celebrated.  I am laughed with.  I am cried with.  I am cheered on.  I am loved by I AM.  I am not an accident.  Are you?

Handyman Hell

Oh my goodness.  I hate rennovations.  I hate em.  They suck.  I consider myself to be somewhat of a handy man, but this is taking me a long freaking time to do.  I took a week off of work to do the ‘finishing touches’ on our Town House.  I started with a new vanity cabinet in the bathroom upstairs.  I expected it to take me a day.  It actually took me a day and a half to fully complete.  Then I started re-doing the floor in the bathroom downstairs.  I expected it to take me a couple of hours.  It took me almost two days to fully complete.  Then I tiled the wall around the countertop in the bathroom downstairs, I thought it would take me a few minutes.  It took me just over an hour and I still have to grout it tomorrow.  All the while I have been on my knees almost non stop, without those cushy knee pads you can buy at home depot, swearing to myself praying that my next place will be so perfect that I won’t have to do any renno’s.  I still have so much to do and only a few days to do it.  I’m so ticked.  If only I was a handy man wiz I could have had this all done in a day.  The worst part is that I took a week off of work to do it and I feel like I have worked harder these last few days than I ever do at my job.  And I’m so sore I can barely walk.  Seriously I don’t do this much at work.  I have come to appreciate my job, at which I just stand there and push buttons on a machine. 

I Want a Hummer H2

“Prosperity Gospel” preachers always talk about how God wants to give us stuff.  All we have to do is ask.  The only thing standing in our way is us.  We don’t believe enough.  We don’t have enough faith.  They quote verses like Mark 11:24 “Whatever you ask for in prayer believe you have received it and it will be yours.”  Or John 14:14 “You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.”  Or John 15:7 “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you.”  The REAL problem is that we overlook the really important parts of these kinds of verses.  The “catches” if you will.  Jesus said “If you REMAIN IN ME and my WORDS REMAIN IN YOU, ask whatever…”  The real key here isn’t about faith its about God’s word in us.  Heb 4:12 say “The word of God is LIVING and ACTIVE…”  It moves and grows, stretches, breathes and gives life.  It doesn’t sit still and do nothing.  James said that “faith without works is dead”.  In other words real faith doesn’t just talk, it walks.  It ‘does something’.  Jesus goes into even more depth in John 15 when he says “Now remain in my love, if you obey my commands you will remain in my love…”  So, to get what we want we not only have to be in the word, and have the word in us, in our hearts, but we need to obey it and do what it says.  Live it out and be “active” about it.  Then we can ask for “anything”.  But the real question is:

If you put God’s word in your heart and it becomes apart of you and it changes your life from the inside out, and you obey it and put it into practice and live it out, and more and more everyday you become like Jesus

Would you still be asking for a Hummer?

Daddy Daughter Night

Well, last night I went out on a date with my daughter.  The first ever ‘Daddy Daughter Night’.  I just gotta say, it was awesome.  I just took her to Dairy Queen, and we each had a sunday in a waffle bowl.  She didn’t finish hers so I wolfed it down once I was done mine.  We just sat there and talked about whatever.  It was really cool to just be silly with her.  We joked about how cool it would be to own a Dairy Queen and stick our mouths under the ice cream dispenser and chug ice cream.  We talked about all kinds of nonsense.  Then we went outside and played in the playground.  We giggled and made up all kinds of fun stuff to do.  It was fun to just cut loose and put aside all of the fatherly demeanor and just be her friend.  I feel like we became so much closer because of it.  I hope that these nights I spend with her, just the two of us, helps her to trust me and enables her to feel like she can talk to me about anything.  I always valued the quality time my parents spent with me and I always felt comfortable enough to talk to my parents about anything.  I hope her and I can have that same bond.  Anyone have any suggestions for my next ‘Daddy Daughter Night’?