Archive for 'General'
Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites
Posted on July 20, 2005, under General.
Google has a mapped satellite image of the lunar landing sites. I didn’t realize they were all so close in proximity.
The security of heaven and the love of God
(The following is a short presentation I gave in El Salvador)
We have come to tell those of you who may not know, that God loves you and He created you to have a personal relationship with Him. However there is a problem. Sin separates us from God.
When we flew from the United States to come to El Salvador, we had to go through airport security. The airport security has us pass through X-ray machines and metal detectors. We couldn’t get through if we were carrying bad things. Obviously carrying guns and big knives will stop us at security, but one small, hidden item will stop us as well. We can’t get into the plane with what security has determined as bad things.
This is like our relationship with God. God can have nothing to do with bad things. No bad things are allowed into heaven.
You may carry in your past a lot of bad things. You may have a lot of regret and sadness in your heart. You may feel you have no hope. You can feel the separation between us and God. In your heart, you know it is there.
Maybe you haven’t done a lot of bad things in your life. You don’t have much regret in your heart. The truth is, the Bible says you are as far from God as someone who has many bad things. In fact, if we have a rebellious attitude towards God, we are ‘bad things’.
Heaven is perfect. God is perfect. Only perfect people can have a personal relationship with God. This leaves us with no hope! We are not perfect. We are in trouble.
God, in His goodness, saw our problem. Even though He did not need to, out of His love, He came to our rescue. God came down to Earth as Jesus. Jesus, because he was God, lived a perfect life. Because Jesus lived a perfect life, he could make a choice to help.
Bad things, “sin”, requires punishment, it requires justice. Jesus, who was without sin, chose out of love to take our sins upon himself. He chose to take our punishment for our sins. He did this by dying a horrible, shame-filled death on the cross. We deserved that punishment and death, but he took it for us. Because his death covered our sins, he now offers us forgiveness.
Think of it like the security at the airport. Jesus, who had nothing of concern to the security, went through for us. We would set off the security of heaven no matter what we did, because we carry our sin and we can’t remove it ourselves. But Christ made a way, by taking our punishment for us. He went in our place on the cross, so that, by acknowledging that replacement, we now have a free path to God.
God now sees us through the sacrifice and life of His son, Jesus. Because Jesus traded places with us, God now sees us as blameless. We no longer set off the security alarms of heaven, and are able to fellowship with our loving God, because of His saving us through Jesus Christ
It cost money to go from Nebraska to El Salvador, but as an example of God’s love for us, Jesus’s sacrifice costs you nothing. All you must do is believe, accept, and trust that Jesus Christ died a sacrificial death in your place, so that you might live with Him forever. That’s it. It’s your choice.
I invite you now to tell God, I am a sinner. I don’t deserve a perfect God or heaven. But thank you for sending Jesus in my place, so that I might experience your love, and have eternal life.
Thank you God, for your forgiveness and for your love for me.
Pictures from El Salvador 2005
I finally have a bunch of the photos up from out El Salvador trip this year. I am in process of adding captions and search keywords, so you might want to check back later for insight behind some of the photos if they don’t have captions yet. The trip was from June 18 - 26, so I have 9 days worth of photos that I’m organizing and picking the best out of - meaning a lot!
El Salvador 2005 - Photo Gallery
El Salvador 2005
Mission accomplished. Photos coming soon.
Fathers’ Day Gut Check
Julian Lennon on his dad, circa May 30, 1999.
As for John Lennon: “The only thing he taught me was how not to be a father.”
“He walked out the bloody door and was never around. … I’d admire him on TV - listen to his words and opinions. But for someone who was praised for peace and love and wasn’t able to keep that at home, that’s hypocrisy.”
Does he forgive him? “To a certain degree, because he was just 23 when I was born, and there was the Beatles whirlwind. But I can’t forgive him for not understanding, from age 30 to 40, that love is so necessary for a child.”
Is what’s public also what’s private?
A follower first; A leader second
Many who take courses in leadership in the hope of attaining it fail because they have never learned to follow.
Spiritual Leadership, by J. Oswald Sanders, © 1967, page 44
This is a great book.
Do you accept the charges?
This last week I heard someone genuinely ask if having someone else pray for them was free, or if it cost anything. My initial thought was of course it’s free to pray to God! But I realized, because of our separation from God, it’s not free. There is a payment needed. However..
The bill has been pre-paid, you can call collect.
For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to see. And he did this for you.
1 Peter 1:18-20 (NLT)
Videos of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
If you have never heard or seen some of the speakers from RZIM, there are three shorter videos available on its website:
- Albania: A short documentary showing hope growing in a country that had forced it out.
- University of Michigan: Short snippets of an open forum/debate at the college.
- Introduction to RZIM: A five-minute introduction to what RZIM is all about.
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries also has close to 100 mp3’s available free for download to listen to of different speaking engagements and open forums.
TREK 4300
This is my new bike, a TREK 4300.
A couple of friends (hi guys) talked me into getting a mountain bike as a way to get in shape again, and to just have fun. The experience has been great so far. 
I’ve only done two mountain-ish trails (I don’t live near mountains, so..), but it’s been a blast. Granted while my lungs are half the size they used to be, it’s still a rush to take those 20-foot drops! Especially when you do a backflip into a 3-foot ravine at the bottom of one of those Nebraska mountains. I am enjoying my swan-like dive into this peaceful, calm sport. Hehe..
An all-seeing mocker?
I passed a church on the way to lunch today. I didn’t notice what kind of church it was, but I did happen to read their sign out front. It said:
I saw that!
- God
Why would I ever want to go to that church? Why would I want to be surrounded by a bunch of people who believe in an Omniscient Nag?
Q) Does God see all our wrongs?
A) Yes.
Q) Does God care when we do wrong?
A) Yes.
Q) Is that the extent of our interaction with God? Does God just sit there and mock us for our humanness?
A) No. (..thank God)
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
John 3:17 (NLT)
This High Priest * of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.
Hebrews 4:15 (NLT)[* The High Priest is in reference to Jesus Christ]