I read this and thought you should to…this was written by Mark Driscoll and found on his website www.theresurgence.com Every once in a while, someone of note questions or denies the classic Christian belief of a literal hell with eternal, conscious suffering. Then a debate rages and becomes personal between representatives of various perspectives on the issue.

Meanwhile, the average person’s questions about hell can remain unanswered. So, rather than attacking any individual, I thought it might be helpful to address the issues by answering some of the most common questions about hell. Ministry leaders, including myself, are often asked these questions, and I asked these questions myself as a non-Christian and then as a new Christian in college. Rather than selling you, I will seek to simply be honest and say what the Bible says and allow you to make up your mind for yourself. I will be pulling from a few sections of a book I wrote with a friend who is the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society.
What happens when we die?

God created humans as thinking, feeling, moral persons made up of spirit and body tightly joined together. Death is not normal or natural, but an enemy, the consequence of sin. Death is the tearing apart of these two intertwined parts, the end of relationship with loved ones, and the cessation of life on this earth. The body goes to the grave and the spirit goes into an afterlife to face judgment. The Bible is clear that there will one day be a bodily resurrection for everyone to either eternal life with God or eternal condemnation apart from him in hell.

Christianity differs from all religions in that Christians believe our eternal status depends on our relationship with Jesus. We really believe that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It may not be politically correct, but our lives are shaped by the reality that “whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

“

Jesus talks about hell more than does anyone else in all of Scripture.
”

Upon death, a believer’s spirit immediately goes to heaven to be with Jesus. Jesus gives us a picture in Luke 16:19–31 of existence after death. Lazarus, the godly beggar, goes to be with Abraham, while the self-indulgent rich man is in a place of torment.

Jesus, who has come back from death and is thus the expert on what awaits us on the other side, was emphatically clear that a day of judgment is coming when everyone will rise from their graves and stand before him for eternal sentencing to either worship in his kingdom or suffer in his hell. At the final judgment, all—even you—will stand before Jesus. Jesus’ followers whose names are written in the Book of Life will be with him forever. The Bible could not be clearer: “if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
What judgment awaits non-Christians at the end of this life?

A day is coming when God will judge the living and the dead through the Son. When the Son of Man comes to sit on his throne, all will stand before him for judgment. From the beginning of creation to the end, the Bible makes it clear that the basis of God’s judgment is our deeds.

Jesus made this very clear, saying in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Jesus’ death propitiated God’s wrath against sin. Those who refuse this gift have the double penalty of wrath for their sins and for rejecting God’s Son. Jesus himself taught this in John 3:18, saying, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Unlike Jesus’ words to the sheep, to the goats on his left he will say, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

However, this does not mean that the relatively nice sinner suffers equally with Satan or his most committed human servants. There are degrees of punishment in hell like there are degrees of reward in heaven. Both in life and in hell some sins receive more severe punishment, because that is just.
What does Scripture teach about hell?

Jesus talks about hell more than does anyone else in all of Scripture. Jesus’ words come in the context of the rest of Scripture, which says that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Furthermore, he “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Despite God’s love for and patience with sinners, it is a horrid mistake to dismiss the Bible’s clear teachings on hell. Richard Niebuhr characterized the ongoing attempt of liberal Christians to deny hell as “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Jesus said more about hell than about any other topic. Amazingly, 13 percent of his sayings are about hell and judgment; more than half of his parables relate to the eternal judgment of sinners.

“

Christianity differs from all religions in that Christians believe our eternal status depends on our relationship with Jesus.
”

The Bible does not give us a detailed exposition of hell, but there are many descriptions of the fate of its inhabitants in that place of eternal punishment. They include:

1. fire
2. darkness
3. punishment
4. exclusion from God’s presence
5. restlessness
6. second death
7. weeping and gnashing of teeth

Satan will not reign there. Hell is a place of punishment that God prepared for the Devil and his angels. It is where the beast and the false prophet and those who worship them will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.

At the end of the age, the Devil will be “thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Hell will be ruled by Jesus, and human and demon alike, including Satan, will be tormented there continually.

“

People who reject Jesus in this life will not rejoice in him after this life.
”

Hell is real and terrible. It is eternal. There is no possibility of amnesty or reprieve. Daniel says that some of the dead will be resurrected “to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment.” Paul tells us:

God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

Perhaps the clearest and most gripping depiction of hell in all of Scripture is the frequent mention of hell as “Gehenna.” The name refers to an area outside of the city of Jerusalem where idolatry and horrendous sin, including child sacrifice, were practiced. Gehenna was a place so despised and cursed by God’s people that they turned it into the city dump where feces, refuse, and the dead bodies of criminals were stacked. Jesus spoke of Gehenna as the hellish final home of the wicked. Since Gehenna is described as a fiery abyss, clearly it is also the lake of fire to which all the godless will ultimately be eternally sentenced, together with Satan, demons, and unrepentant sinners. So when the Bible speaks of hell as a place where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die, the original hearers would easily have remembered Gehenna, where this reality was ever present outside of their city.
What are some of the major objections to the Doctrine of hell?

A loving God would not send billions of people to a horrible hell

In a very important sense God doesn’t send anyone to hell. The only ones there are those who have rejected his revelation, choosing to suppress the truth he made plain to them. God made people in his image, after his likeness, with the power to say no and to reject the universal revelation of himself. Subsequently, sinners have no one to blame but themselves if they are damned.

To get to hell someone must reject the God who shows them his goodness and out of love for all “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything”; reject the Spirit who “convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment”; and reject the crucified Son who said, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Obviously, God has been exceedingly gracious to sinners.

People who reject Jesus in this life will not rejoice in him after this life. Hell is only for those who persistently reject the real God in favor of false gods. So in the end, people get to be with the god they love. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, either people will say to God, “Thy will be done,” or God will say to them, “Thy will be done.” Not only is God loving, but he is also just. Heaven and hell are the result of his love and justice.

A loving God would be more tolerant

People who judge God need to really consider if they would be more pleased if God were tolerant of everyone, including rapists, pimps, pedophiles, and even those who have sinned against them most heinously. The idea is completely absurd and unjust. Not everyone in hell is a rapist, of course, but everyone there chose sin over God throughout his or her entire life. . . .

A loving God protects his children from sin and evil by separating them. In this way, God is a father who is tolerant of all who obey him and are safe for his children. But he is intolerant of those who sin against him and do evil to his children. Subsequently, God is intolerant in a way that is like our own cultural intolerances of those who drink and drive, steal, rape, and murder; we, too, demonstrate our intolerance by separating such people from society. To call such actions on God’s part intolerant is shameful, because tolerance would denote both approval and support of evil.

Hell is mean

To understand what love is, look at what Jesus did at the cross. He suffered and died for the ungodly, for sinners, for his enemies. Or, to say it another way, Jesus suffered and died for mean people. A God who will suffer and die for mean people is not mean. In fact, such a God alone is altogether loving; to be condemned by a God of perfect love shows how damnable our sin truly is.

Eternal torment in hell is an unjust punishment for people who sin for a few decades

Some argue that the punishment of sinners is annihilation. This means that after someone dies apart from faith, they suffer for a fitting period of time and then simply cease to exist so that hell is not eternal in duration. In question is the nature and length of the punishment.

Annihilationism is simply not what the Bible teaches. Daniel 12:2 says, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus teaches the same thing and speaks of those who “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Grammatically, there is no difference here between the length of time mentioned for life and that for punishment; rather, there is simply eternal life and eternal death.

“

Satan will not reign there. Hell is a place of punishment that God prepared for the Devil and his angels.
”

The Bible tells us that “the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image” and “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” The word forever (Greek aion) means unending.

This is why the Bible speaks of hell as conscious, eternal punishment. One summary of the Bible’s teaching on the pain of hell says:

* Those in hell suffer intense and excruciating pain. This pain is likely both emotional/spiritual and physical (John 5:28–29).
* Hell is a fate worse than being drowned in the sea (Mark 9:42).
* It is worse than any earthly suffering—even being maimed (Matthew 5:29–30; Mark 9:43).
* The suffering never ends (Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:48).
* The wicked will be “burned with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12).
* Those in hell will be thrown into the fiery furnace and will experience unimaginable sorrow, regret, remorse, and pain. The fire produces the pain described as “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30).
* The intensity of the suffering seems to be according to the wickedness of the person’s behavior (Romans 2:5–8).
* Hell is utterly fearful and dreadful (Hebrews 10:27–31).
* This punishment is depicted as “coming misery,” “eating flesh with fire,” and the “day of slaughter” (James 5:1–5).
* Those in hell will feel the full force of God’s fury and wrath (Revelations 14:10).
* They will be “tormented” with fire (14:10–11).
* This suffering is best understood as endless since the “smoke of their torment rises forever and ever” (14:11).
* This suffering is constant because it is said that those in hell “will have no rest day or night” (14:11) and
* “will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (20:10).

In summary, annihilationism is not biblical. For this reason, it was condemned by the Second Council of Constantinople (AD 553) and the Fifth Lateran Council (1513).

Today, though, it is becoming popular to hope that sinners will eventually repent and everyone will end up in heaven. This is universal reconciliation, the ancient view of Origen. However, there is not a shred of evidence for post-mortem repentance. The continual teaching of the Bible is that we die once and are then judged, without any second chance at salvation. As one clear example, Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”
Do people who have never heard about Jesus go to hell?

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Peter preached, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” The conclusion is simple: there is only one way to the Father and that is through Jesus Christ. All other religious roads lead to false gods and a real hell.

But there are many ways to Jesus. While the norm is responding to the preached Word of God, there are biblical examples as well as life experiences where God gives special revelation of the Messiah to unsaved people in other forms, including direct speech, dreams, and visions. God called Abraham directly. He gave Pharaoh dreams. He spoke to the treacherous prophet Balaam in a vision so that he prophesied about the Messiah. He appeared to Cornelius in a vision, which resulted in him being saved.

“

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
”

There are many such stories. The reality is that anyone who is searching and willing to respond to the goodness of God as Cornelius did will receive special revelation. God is perfectly able to bypass the “normal” channels to accomplish his purposes.

No one who comes to the Lord will be cast out. As Paul says:

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Therefore, while there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ, there is also no reason to overlook the creativity of God to get the gospel out. His creativity includes using us to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth as pioneering missionaries to unreached people groups and generous givers to ministries that translate the Bible into new languages.
Am I going to hell?

The closing verses of the Bible say, “Come!” as an invitation for all who desire to receive God’s saving grace as a gift. Jesus died and rose and is exalted in heaven. If you repent of sin, change your mind about who or what is Lord of your life, and believe, trusting that you can stake your life and eternity on the truth of what God says, then you will receive full forgiveness of all sin, new life in and by the Holy Spirit, membership in the church of Jesus Christ, a meaningful part in his rescue mission in the world, and citizenship in his kingdom. You will be with Jesus and his people now and forever.

I want this for you.

Have you confessed your sins to Jesus Christ, seeking forgiveness and salvation through his sinless life that is your righteousness, death that is your payment, and resurrection that is your salvation?

Thats all

Will Rock 4 Food is a 501c3 that rocks faces to feed places. Last year we were granted non-profit status by the federal government in hopes that we would be able to assist in taking care of the hungry….both physically and spiritually. At Will Rock 4 Food, we know that we are not the only ones in the area that assist these two categories. However we also know that there are many organizations out there that are looking for assistance and we know that we cannot assist every one of them.

Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, we thought we would assist in helping wheels run smoother and more effective…..you know kind of like, we do not make the products you by…we make the products you buy…better (love that slogan). We are looking for organizations in the Northwest Ohio area who are knocking the doors down of love.

Whether you are a teen organization that is loving the snot out of kids, and your purpose is to feed their hunger for Christ, or you are a Food Bank that simply takes care of those who walk in your door with empty stomachs. Both of these areas are what we are about, and would love to come along side you and assist your vision.

How are we going to do this….You will see a link below that you can click on….simply fill that form out, and hit send. We, as the board of Will Rock 4 Food will review it and pick 2 organizations to partner with at each WR4F event. The way you can help us….GET MORE PEOPLE TO OUR EVENTS so we can donate more money to these charities. We also will use some of the proceeds to continue to bring events to Lima, Ohio and surrounding areas!

So join our movement, and post this all over the place!
http://www.willrock4food.com/the-movement/

Finding your passion by what you would do for Free!

Deep down inside all of us is a passion for helping other people, a passion that is given to us by someone we have yet to see, and was demonstrated the best by none other than that person. I know some of you will read this blog and say, whatever Tug, here goes another spirtitual post, well…I did not tell you to read this…you chose to, and if you continue to read, that is your choice as well… but I will say one thing, I am who I am today, because of the volunteering of One person’s life.
I will be the first one to tell you, that I wish I was paid for my biggest passion. I wish that I could quit my job today, (which I love) and venture out to my passion. For the last 8 years I have poured myself into something that has been the most rewarding…other than seeing the smile on my kids face when Daddy comes home, or the joy of knowing that I am providing for my family.
It began as something I drawn to…something that I could not live without doing , and honestly would die trying to help start this before not seeing it started at all. That is how I knew it was my passion. To find your passion, you must find something that you think about consistently. Something that you know God has put in your lap and if you do not do this, at the time you think no one else will. For my mom that is Africa, for my Grandma it was Children Evangelism, for my friend Charles Hill it is Utah, and for me….. it is Rockin Faces and Feedin Places (right here in Ohio, and other places).
I would be lying to you if I did not say I have a total blast running concerts, and am probably the biggest music fan out there…. but this is not why it was started. Back in 2002 God spoke to me and said….you need to VOLUNTEER your time and start a concert ministry that will impact people for the cause of ME. Now it was not those exact words and frankly the word volunteer is not something people like to here. If you were to ask me back then, if within 10 years Will Rock 4 Food would become a non-profit and would see roughly minister to over 15,000 people at concerts, giveaway roughly 15k dollars, see over 500 salvations, and now partnered with another Concert promotion agency out of Ohio that is well recognized in the nation, in Christian Music….I would have laughed. But you see, that is what God does when you are truly passionate about what He has given you. I am not the reason this is successful…..for I am not the only volunteer….We have had over 500 people volunteer in the existence of Will Rock 4 Food events. God has given me and many other people the passion and wisdom to run these events, but ultimately if He was not the Captain, the ship would spin out of control.

Passionately Volunteering….but not afraid to hurt feelings by Carrying out God’s call on your life. When you are passionate about something…you will come across to some people as crazy, maybe sometimes arrogant, driven, authoritative, called names, unfriended on facebook, and many other things because what God has given you, can offend even Christians…..the passion that He has given you to accomplish this can upset people….DO NOT LET THAT STOP YOU!
If I would have listened to humans to tell me what I am supposed to do in life….I would have killed WillRock4Food 3 years ago, and would have probably been in a few fisticuffs during some of the events. God is bigger than people!
Chad, you are one person that I think has a heart the size that I do….and wants to see the world a better place…but I also know that sometimes people will look at you as the toilet ,as they have me….. and think they can take the biggest crap on you….TRUTH is….they can…..other truth….there is a handle on a toilet that enables you to flush that out, and have clean water once again!!

Many of you have seen the posts (on facebook) I have made this week and have even responded to them with other quotes by Charlie Sheen….even at one time I posted on facebook the following update: Tug Taviano is a winner…..and I laughed when my mom liked the status…knowing that she had no idea what I was talking about. I was then bombarded with people giving their best sheenism and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Now first things first, I do not agree with the lifestyle that Charlie Sheen is living but one thing I do truly think is that he is living in front of the public eye, the same way that he is living behind closed doors. So I began to think……am I winning?

The way that I categorize winning is alot different than that of Sheen, although I must say….Tiger Blood, Bi-winning, Being asked if he was a user and saying yah…I use a coffee pot…was brilliant one liners. I categorize winning in my life maybe different than you, but I hope not. Being able to live a life in front of people in public as if you would behind closed doors. I have my fallacies and know that all of us do, but I have spent the last few years of my life…letting people see Tug for Tug.

I pray that this way of winning is allowing people to also see Christ, and if it has not, which sometimes I get in the way….I apologize.

Revelation 3:15-16 says I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

So my challenge to you is win……by allowing people to see who you really are….and quit being a closet christian! that is if you are!

More to come this week….but the fam is wanting to leave my fav coffee shop…… BIGGBY!

#5 Charlie Bit Me

#4 -Deer vs Race Car

#3 The Evolution of Dance- Judson Laipply (worked with him at Sun TV)

#2 The Bed Intruder Song – and News story to get the full effect….the story is not in anyway funny…but autotuning it is!!

Watch this first-

And now —-the autotuning!

#1 Teenage Dream …LOL

I know it has been a while since I have blogged, and have been thinking about this for a long time. You see I do not blog just to blog, or just sit here and think, people need to hear what I have to say so I better type something today. Blogging helps me get what is going on in my life out there, and lets me type through what God is telling me. A way to purposefully think through what God is doing, and remember it so to say!! Potentially could this have an effect on someones life…maybe, but can only happen if I am honest and vulnerable, and listen intently to what God is saying! So here we go on a month of blogging to get back at it, and see where it goes from here! … I will post at least 3 times during the week to start and hope to do daily blogs…. Here we go!

The past year and half has been a whirlwind so to say, things going on in life that are unexpected, a layoff from a position that I thought was God’s calling on my vocational life to find out that it was just for a season (not saying that about the layoff, just clarity that God has me where He wants me), relationships that have been kind of ripped away so to say (missing the teens) , Personal struggles (sometimes not feeling good enough, anger towards people, sometimes including God, having a I do not care attitude), and not giving God the totality of my life. You see it is because of these things that have happened that I have taken some HITS to the gut, and BLOWS to the face, and KO’s to my personality, and would go as far as to say my being….all caused by a round 1 of doubt that crept in when I felt someone tell me I was not good enough (was it that person telling me or just my thoughts to the matter…I am guessing the second one.) and flat out …the thing I was not doing was punching back….with each blow, I would turn my head and give them another cheek….heck you would think I would have 20 cheeks instead of 4 (you have to know me to get the 4 joke). This crap knocked the living tar out of me, to the point of where I am still battling my way back off my knees, but hear me say this….I AM GETTING THE CRAP BACK UP…and CANNOT WAIT TO WALK WITH GOD this year. Cannot wait to see what he does through the fam, in the fam, and just in me personally by saying…. GOD…. I know what I am worth to you…. I do not care what life throws at me…. in you I will always win, apart from you….I AM NOTHING!

Watch this clip from the ROCKY BALBOA movie!

So where are you…be honest, lets start a discussion of WHAT GOD is telling us we are, vs. what we are hearing from others….Let’s throw out there things people have been telling us, and enable this place to be a complete place of lifting each other up….kinda working the cuts and swellings down so to say, and begin the healing process! I pray that you will keep moving forward, and that it will not take until the 8th or 12th round for you to figure out who God has intended you to be!!

Proverbs 24:16 states (MSG) No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; Soon they’re up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces.

You see you are gonna get knocked down and tripped up…TAKE THE HITS….but do not stay down long!

Start the discussion!!

In light of Thanksgiving I have chosen to blog on Chapter 5 of Crazy Love, by Francis Chan.

For many years of my life, especially my high school years and those shortly after, I served God the leftovers and felt no shame, I took my eyes off of scripture and compared myself to others. The bones that I threw to God had more meat on them than the ones others threw on them, so I thought that I was doing Good.  I wonder if that is how Cain felt when He served up the offering for God that He did not accept.  Or maybe it was because I was satisfied with just doing what I thought was just enough to suffice God, you know kind of like the dog that you have in a kennel outside and jumps up and down until you give Him a bone, and then he will stop barking for  a short period of time.  In Hosea 13:6 says “When I fed them , they were satisfied, when they were satisfied they became proud, then they forgot me.”  I would go to the random prayer group in the morning, hold hands and close my eyes and think about practice after school, or I would go to TFC, and give Him the token singing of a song, or listening to the lesson and responding to some questions….or even church, where I would be every Sunday, enjoying it nonetheless, but it was just another day…and another time for me to give God the leftovers of my life, when I think He left all of the meat on His Son and sent Him to the cross to die for me? Am I right on that, did He send a third of his son, did He cut off his finger and save the world? Because honestly he could have decided that, that would be enough for us!

Nah, that is not our GOD, He does everything for us knowing what it is going to take for wretched souls to see His grace, and ugly, sinful, creations that He made, who just play the game….or are we even in the game?!?  Take this scripture for example, when you read this, is He talking to the saved or the unsaved?

Revelations 3:15-18 “I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were even one ore the other! So because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold, refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes so you can see”

(page 84-85, Crazy Love ) When you read this passage, do you naturally conclude that to be “spit” our of Jesus’ mouth means you are a part of His kingdom?  When you read the words poor, wretched, pitiful, blind and naked, do you think that He’s describing saints? When He counsels them to  buy white clothes to cover their shameful nakedness, does it sound like advice for those already saved….I thought that those who were already saved were already made white, and clothed by Christ’s blood?

Wow….I have never actually thought of this, is there ever really a luke-warm Christian…or has that person really experienced the grace that God has intended for us to have.  I mean if I am looking at this scripture and looking at all of the times that we serve up our token praise (now I am not saying that there are not times when we have lukewarm tendencies, but quickly turn back) or we just step in church to stay with the jones’s.  The fact that in scripture right above it says that Jesus wants all or nothing is enough to say, HEY MAN, for thanksgiving do not even serve me any turkey, and mashed potatoes…give me nothing, why would I want it anyway, if it something that you really have not grasped.  Do we sugarcoat crap, to only realize that it is still crap when we get to the bottom of it?  Do we send mixed messages from the pulpits of our churches that our mediocre lives are just ok, that you can just come here, and life will be great during the week, are we that have been pastors even more responsible for sharing a mediocre message of God’s love and not the maincourse.  WE FLAT OUT, need to quit giving God the leftovers, and need to offer Him everything that we have in our kitchen, and anything else we can come up with.

So your family is coming over in less than 48 hours and you have one agenda, getting their meal ready so that when they get done eating, they loved what you gave them….it filled them up, and honestly they cannot wait till you serve it up again!

Some of you that are reading this may be like, Tug, you are taking this all wrong…..Tug, this is not what was intended by this scripture, and to that I say, that we can find any quote on anything that can back every view up…but the point that I am trying to make here is the only point that we need to get!  GOD WANTS ALL OF US, not the leftover…..last but not least an excerpt from page 86 in Crazy Love

Let’s face it We’re willing to make changes in our lives only if we think it affects our Salvation.  This is why so many people ask questions like, Can I divorce my wife and still go to heaven? Do I have to be baptized to be saved? Am I a Christian even though I am having sex with my girlfriend?  If I commit suicide can I still go to heaven?  If I am ashamed about Christ, is He really gonna deny knowing me?  To me, these questions are tragic, because they reveal much about the state of our hearts. They demonstrate that our concern is more about going to heaven than loving the King!! In John 14:15, Jesus says “If you love me, you will obey what I command!”  And one question becomes even more unthinkable!  Can I go to heaven without truly and faithfully loving Jesus? I DO NOT SEE ANYWHERE IN SCRIPTURE HOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION COULD BE YES!

If we claim we know God, and feed Him leftovers, is He really in us???  You may say you know Him, but is He the LORD of you life that He wants to be?

Answer these honestly..(page 97 Crazy Love)

Are you willing to say to God that He can have whatever He wants?  Do you believe that wholehearted commitment to Him is more important than any other thing or person in your life?  Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God, and loving the people that He has made?

After answering those questions, I challenge you to eat on Thursday, only as much as you serve God!!  Hope you can eat more than one of Grandma’s homemade noodles!

This is gonna be a short post….Angie and I went to church this morning, and I sat there in complete disbelief!  The whole message was so right on with the book Crazy Love, that I am reading right now.  The pastor even talked about our good deeds being like filthy rags!! Now he did not mention them being like used tampons….although I was wondering if he was gonna say it! LOL  He spoke about the twinkling of an eye, about us really seeing God for who He is, and the part that really got me was this…As much as I have  enjoyed blogging this week, and oh by the way, Sundays are gonna only be a short blog day, I realize that this is exactly what God wants me to hear! I do not read a ton of books, and I felt lead to read this one, and then the first time in church, boom, right upside the head with the same dang stuff I read this week.  You cannot tell me God does not speak directly to you!! He has to me this week!

See ya tomorrow with the next chapter of Crazy Love

When I was reading Chapter 4 of Crazy Love, I just could not help but just take the questions and put them on here…, just post these descriptions and let you think….SO SEE IF THIS IS YOU>

LUKEWARM PEOPLE

• attend church regularly, It is what is expected of them, what they believe “good Christians” do, so they go
• give money to charity and to the church…as long as it doesn’t impinge on their standard of living. If they have a little extra and it is safe to give, they do so. After all, God loves a cheerful giver, right?
• tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict.  They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives.
• don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin; they don’t genuinely hate sin and aren’t truly sorry for it, they are merely sorry, because God is going to punish them.
• are moved by stories of people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act on it. They feel this is only for “extreme” Christians.
• rarely share their faith because they do not want to make people feel uncomfortable by talking about private issues, like religion.
• feel satisfied with their so-so Christianity… hey, they are not as bad as the guy down the street!
• say they love Jesus, and He is a part of their life, but only a part….HE IS NOT ALLOWD TO HAVE FULL CONTROL
• think that total devotion to God really isn’t possible.
• love others but do not seek to love others as much of themselves….they give them the left overs
• love God and others, but there are limits to how far they will go, how much time, money and energy they are willing to give
• think about life on earth more often than eternity in heaven, focused on the to-do list, rather than the life to come!
• feel called to minister to the “rich”, while very few feel called to minister to the “poor”
• do whatever is necessary to keep themselves from feeling “too” guilty….do the bare minimum just to be good enough
• do not sacrifice or enjoy risking it for God.
• feel safe because they attend church, got saved at the age of 12, baptized, come from a christian family, vote Republican, or live in America
• do not live by faith, only by structure
• drink and swear less than the normal person, but aren’t that different from the normal unbeliever

Kind of a wake up call don’t you think…. I mean seriously think about all the characteristics of being luke warm…chew on it for a while and then either decide if you want to walk away, or completely turn it on for God.  I saw an analogy once, and I believe it was a Francis Chan message, where he was talking about how he loves lemonade, and he loves chocolate milk and had them in two separate cups….then he mixed them together and drank it…simply just nasty..and that is the way it is with being luke warm….if you are gonna sin…man go all out….if you are going to love Christ….go all out…do not sit in the middle!  I am working on going all out..after I read this chapter, I do believe that I would be considered lukewarm…time to turn it up people!

In Matthew 13:44 it says… The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought the field.

Is that how you love God, once you find it…you go bury it in your heart, get rid of everything that is holding you back and go and BET THE FARM on HIM!!!