Bible Zombies

You skin my people alive and tear the flesh from their bones. Yes, you eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and break their bones. - Micah 3:2-3 NLT

Lent 2008

Lent, in most Christian denominations, is the forty-day liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter.^[1] The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured temptation by Satan.^[2] Different churches will calculate the forty days differently.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial—for the annual commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated during Holy Week, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Western Christianity, Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday.^[1] The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter", a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.^[2] In those churches which follow the Byzantine tradition (e.g. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics), the forty days of Lent are calculated differently: the fast begins on Clean Monday, Sundays are included in the count, and it ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. The days of Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are considered a distinct period of fasting. For more detailed information about the Eastern Christian practice of Lent, see the article Great Lent.

I've managed to avoid doing anything for Lent for all of my Christian life. But at Church on Sunday we were given Preparation Packs for Lent 2008.

I thought to myself, maybe it's time to embrace Lent and Self Denial as an experiment in discipline, something I'm not very good at.

So for lent, to honour God through my physical body, I'm going to attempt to give up Coke and Chocolate for 40 days.

To free up some time (a very precious commodity that can be easily whittled away) I'm giving up COD4 for 40 Days. This should free up some time so that I can commence reading my newest Bible; The One Year Chronological NLT Bible.

It's going to be a hard task, but I guess that's the point of Self Denial, and I'm inviting you to keep me accountable. I'll be posting my daily success (or failures) every night before bed.

King Uzi

For Rhett and Frank, from Isaiah 6:1.

There can be only one...

The trouble with Brett making pop-culture references in his sermons is that my mind always wanders.

Highlander was not only a great movie, but it also had a fantastic soundtrack, and is hard to get out of ones mind once you start thinking of it.

So don't ask me about the message from tonight, just know that there can only be one, and this one promises life eternal.

Solitude

Brett was talking about solitude tonight, so halfway through his sermon I got up and went for a walk in the quiet of the winter evening.

It was very refreshing.

Hopefully I didn't miss the point of the message.

Sleep As Worship

Apparently sleeping is an act of worship.

So the next time my boss catches me sleeping on the job, I'll just say 'It's ok brother, I was just worshiping God."

Sweet.

Thanks Melissa.

WMD

Apparently, the humble Television is EVIL, possibly part of the Axis of Evil, and is much sought after by UN Inspectors and Gun Totin' American Troops, all tasked with the glorious job of ridding the world of the Evils of Islam, um, I mean Terrorism, by the Almighty Bush.

Prosperity Gospel?

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Genesis 32:26b

I'm not sure, but is this one of those scriptures that people quote to support the Prosperity Gospel?

It sure seems like it's giving us permission to demand a blessing from God.

And hey, who wouldn't like to be blessed?

The problem I have with people who insist that God wants to bless us, is that it always seems to be some sort of Western/Consumer Driven style blessing.

I wonder how some Christians would feel if they asked for God to bless them, only to hear a knock on the door, and find a needy person asking for help (it is better to give then to receive)?

But lets just assume that God does see blessings as purely the socially acceptable monetary value added type of thing... we'd still have to look at the scripture in context right?

During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”
Genesis 32:24-26

Now I'm no Bible scholar, but it seems like Jacob was up all night, wrestling with God in the flesh. Now I'm not sure that that's gonna ever happen again, but using Jacob's blessing as a bench mark, if we want that brand new, 42" HiDef Widescreen, we've got a whole night of wrestling with God, presumably through full on prayer, and then when morning comes, right before God delivers us our new piece of home entertainment, wham!, we've just suffered a massive hip injury.

But scream in pain as we might want to, we can't, not if we want that TV, we've still got to hold on and demand it from God.

Finally God relents, we have our TV but will never play sports again, because, gosh-darn-it, we didn't ask God to pay for Hip replacement surgery.

Oh, and none of your friends will be able to come over and enjoy the TV with you, 'cause they can't find you in the WhitePages as you've had to go change your name to Kazakhstan or some other country's name (v.28).