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The Scary thing? You Don't Think You’re Scared.

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  In a world full of people hiding in fear behind their screens, make the choice to fear not. Roughly 2000 years ago, a man named Simon was out fishing with his brother Andrew. They had been fishing all through the night when they came across a man on the beach. Andrew had already met the man and believed him to be the Son of God. The man was Jesus of Nazareth and their meeting that day would change the brother’s lives forever. Christ invited them to push out and toss out their net for another catch. Simon replied that he’d been at it all night, but Jesus insisted, and Simon obeyed. The amount of that they caught threatened to break the net and sink the boat. Amazed and in awe, and surely remembering what his brother believed about Jesus; Simon fell to his knees and said, “depart from me; for I am a sinful man.” It’s interesting to note that having experienced the goodness of God, Simon didn’t feel relief, he didn’t rejoice, he didn’t even say thank you. Instead, he felt undeserving an
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The Nature of Sin and How it Relates to Repentence

Common Definitions of Sin : Doing something bad, breaking commandments of God. A great majority of individuals have an oversimplified view of sin. It is commonly defined as doing something bad, something that harms other people, or something that goes contrary to God's commandments. For example, if I punch my brother, insult a friend, or steal from the store, these actions would typically be classified as sins and we naturally feel a need and even desire to repent. Repentance According to this scenario : Feel bad, say you're sorry and try to stop doing the negative action.  When we talk about grievous sins like murder, rape, or adultery, the repentance process holds consistent. Feel really bad, be really sorry, and try extra hard to stop doing the negative action. This is true. Those actions are sins and we have need to repent when we commit them, but the definition of sin and the scenarios above greatly simplify and cheap the true definition and experience of repentan
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Is That What The Commandments Really Are?

Earlier this month, I was reading through the scriptures when I came across a verse that we all know. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matt 5:38) The Lord, in this verse, is inviting us to covenant with Him, to be made whole through Him, and to be like Him. It is a beautiful invitation given to us in the form of a commandment. I was thinking about the beauty of that invitation when it hit me.  Are all commandments invitations to be like God?  In other words, is God simply telling us who He is and inviting us to adopt the applications that will help us become like Him? It hit my heart as my perspective on commandments shifted.  If commandments are God's way of describing Himself to us, they are less about a mean God telling us what to do and more about a loving God inviting us to walk in His footsteps to become like Him. All too often we imagine a God who sits upon His throne, tells us what to do, and then punish
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To Kathryn.

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It's Ours Today we got our house. From the moment we saw pictures of the house, we knew that it was ours. I tried, with little success, to keep Kathryn's expectations low. You see, we had walked through so many homes that ended in heartbreak. Either the home cat-fished us and was incredibly disappointing to walk through or it was sold to someone the hour we walked through it.  I pointed out the cons of the house. All the reasons of how it was going to let us down. Kathryn didn't listen and neither did my heart. An excitement welled within me all day as I anticipated the visit. I wanted to show everyone pictures of the house we were going to walk through. When we pulled up to the house that night and opened the front door, I felt happy, hopeful, and calm. The house is small, newly refinished, and has an odd layout. What got us was the magic in the house. Every turn of the tour seemed to invite more magic. Moment after moment, Kathryn and I would look at each other with that
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