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| I'm switching to only one xanga
xanga.com/joeblade
I had 4 or 5 just for kicks. I'll buy anybody who can find them
all a burrito. But anyway here's the posts from the joeblade one from
the last couple days in a readable order. I'll only post on that
one at least for the time being:
I don't usually write about stuff like this but the question was
brought up today of why I don't want to have sex. It's never been
about std's or having kids or whatever if it was just that, knowing my
flesh, I would have as much sex as I could anyway. But, my
relationship with God is more important to me than any other one I
have. Like Abraham, I would leave any one of you for God. Jessica,
Tiffany, Paul, Mother I love you all but I'd leave you for God.
Thankfully as of now I don't have to. But you have to understand while
people around me are seeking and searching for someone, trying to build
intimate relationships to fulfill their sexual pleasures, I'm seeking a
deeper more intimate relationship with Christ. God is love and anyone
who has experienced love has experienced God if even a small piece.
Love and intimacy are things I've learned from God who created them.
His is deeper. But of course I want a relationship with a woman.
Remember Adam was given Eve even while he had a right relationship with
the Lord. If God says in his word that he wants me not to have sexual immorality I wont,
and marriage is something God's given us and if, and hopefully when, I
get married it will be a deeper relationship between my wife God and I,
all three. Then I'll have sex with her and give thanks to God for it
because it's something he's created for us and that's freaking
awesome. But people who aren't Christians can't understand this
because they don't have a relationship with him. But that's actually
where one of the biggest downfalls of the church is really. People
keep trying to live their faith backwards. Trying to live out all
these rules as if, if they don't have sex don't drink and go to church
that makes them some kind of supernatural omnipotent person called a
Christian that can now feel sorry for you. They're not rooted on a
relationship with our loving God. And though they promote his ways
they're not fulfilled in life, and when confronted with questions they
have to make excuses then get tired of it, and if they finally dare to
go deeper into their own beliefs find out all they live by are rules
and leave their faith.
I noticed I got a lot of pat on the back/me too/you'll find a nice wife someday
kind of responses from the women (you rock Shawn) who read that last post. And
I was kind of expecting that, but then I realized there are a lot of women even
right around me which couldn't honestly respond that way. And I want to say I'm
thankful for you guys and thankful you live this. The other part of that is how
giving into temptation like that kills steals and destroys thing in your spirit,
another thing the world can't understand. A warning though don't try to wait.
I tried that for a while and it drove me crazy. Don't spend this time waiting,
spend this time falling in love with the Lord. Haha It's like I don't want guys
to respond (you rock Shawn).
I didn't notice too many comments on the
other part of the post though. Which I think is the most important because it's
something I see all the time. You can't have an issue based faith, issues
aren't the issue (haha). Love the Lord God with your entire self, and have a
relationship with him. That's what Christianity is. The rest just spawns from
that. Your actions don't make you a good person. We can't go around persuading
people to live God ways when they don't even know him. Life doesn't live well
backwards. I know I've said this a million times and I know you know but I'd
just like to let you know...again
While I'm thinking about love I want to
talk a little about undeserved love. Just me, it's about 4:30ish am so I'm
sorry this post wont be very articulate. Jessica's given me undeserved loved.
I think about myself because I know myself through and dirty broken through and
then I see her walk up to me smiling and glad to see me and I know how little I
deserve for her to care. Jacob too, I leave for a couple months out of nowhere
but when I get back the first thing out of my moms mouth is how often Paul and
Jacob had called and when I see him he's desperately searching his house for
this piece of paper (which he found) where he had drawn me fighting ninjas and
pirates to get to a golden sandwich and laughed when I said I'd rather have a
ham sandwich because I could eat it. Or Ryan as one..a few days when I don't
feel like walking all the way home or whatever and I stop at Ryan's to find out
he's just returned from having one of his half a liver doctor visits but he
still rolls out of bed and drives me home laughing joking and talking about
video games the whole way and usually buying me dinner. I get undeserved love
from people a lot. But what amazes me even more is that somehow God, even
though he knows me even more than I know myself and remembers things I've
forgotten, still loves me. More than that the love I've seen from people around
me and you've seen from people around you is nothing compared to the Love of
God. I almost didn't include that one about Ryan because it was all about how
he does stuff for me and people don't need to do stuff for me like that. But I
remembered that God shows love that way a lot, for God so loved us that he sent
his son as a lamb to be sacrificed for our sin. But don't go into any memory
verse recital, because it doesn't mean much until you know the sacrifice and
love you speak of. And the sacrifice comes from the love which comes from our
God. Like everything comes from him. Nothing will really lead you to him but
he will lead you to things. Anyway its like 5 now and I never got to what I was
really going to write about but this is way too long already and probably
incoherent. I'm going to bed.
Ah computer problems!
INTERNET STUFF:
1
joeblade7@gmail.com is the new email I'm slowly transferring over to
2
bolivianpaperboy and joeblade3 are IM names I'm slowly transferring over to
3
freewebs.com/joeblade the pictures are ancient and some other stuff still needs
to be updated but check it out
4 I have a
mailing list Why? WHY NOT? just sign up to the left to recieve all the cool
email updates you always wished you had
Anyway so about 6am this morning or yesterday as it is now I
was eating blue berry muffins and coffee which kind of fused into a life-giving
coffee/muffin goo. Good stuff. Then I pulled the usual with the video games
at Trea's and stuff. The employing guy
from food lion wasn't there. I don't
think I'm getting that job anyway. I had almost forgotten how much I like Five
Iron.
Ah, well today I want to talk about the difference
between bringing Christ into the world and bringing the world into Christ. To many times I see the church trying to
blend in and be up to date with the world thinking that if they look like the
rest of the world people will start stumbling into the church environment where
they can be properly ministered too.
This is no good, but sometimes we fall into this trap ourselves acting
more like our friends hoping that will open them up enough to give you the opportunity
to share your faith. But this was the
warning given in 2nd Corinthians 6:14-18.
Not to be yoked together with the unbelievers. This doesn't mean don't hang out and be friends with people who
don't believe but rather in your relationships with those people stand separate
and different from them showing the change Christ has made in you. I know a lot of the things I say are easier
said than done and understand me I fail at them more than anyone but if I cant
"practice what I preach" that will never change the truth that is
Christ Jesus and will be revealed in time.
I also know you probably already knew all I've written but there's more
which I think we're missing. Going
further into my original topic we have to understand that dying to yourself and
being alive in Christ means as we go out into the world we are a Christian
everywhere we go. This means a
counter-culture because as we go to work, school, home, wherever we are still
in Christ. And here's the difference,
instead of running a "Christian business" (like I've seen people try
to peddle) where we try to convince Christians buying from them is better than buying
from non-Christians we become witnesses to the people at work first, employee
or boss, and we run our business in a way that would serve instead of take
because such are the ways of Christ(Matthew20:26). And as we make music or skate or eat sandwiches mmmmmm do so in
such a way as to give glory to God.
Imagine for a second if Bam was a Christian. What kind of affect would that have on the youth? So instead of having out pastors in the
ghetto "bling" show me a basketball player in the ghetto on fire for
God. He may never leave that place but
he has the hope of God and he can share it with people and it could spread in
ways we couldn't believe. This whole
thing sounds a little like wwjd but don't confuse things. That's flash force Christianity and that's
not what we need. Jesus is cooler than
hell t-shirt's if anything probably turn people away. Remember to give the whole truth holding nothing back and
remember he said to go and make disciples not to go convert people. We need to throw away our people I've saved
tally marks and start living as a family lifting each other up in love teaching
and learning from one another.
I love this song "..I'm holding on still holding out until they close the door on me.."
| | |
| Turns out Cory doesn't have cancer
My sister turned 19
Pong: The Text-Based Game
There's an advertisement for something called Proxyconn Internet
Accelerator...what kind of a moron would sign up for something called
Proxy...Conn
| | |
| Breaking out the resurrection today. Sorry I haven't posted in a
while. I have had a bunch of funny stories to tell, but I kept
not posting so ::insert funny story here:: and we'll move on.
Anyway things have been going good. I've been praying about some
stuff for a long time and God told me some stuff like a little while
ago about it, but last thursday at davidson worship somebody I don't
even know came up to me and confirmed the same things God had told me
so that was cool.
Did you hear about the pirate movie? It's rated AARRR
You know why? Too much booty
Where does a pirate keep his jelly? a jARR
What's a pirate's favorite restaurant? ARRby's
How does a pirate get to work? a cARR (not really but come on arby's)
What did the pirate get at the golf course? pARR
Why couldn't the pirate go to Canada? It's too fARR
What's a pirates favorite candy? skittles...he just likes them | | |
| Here in America christianity has been shoved down our
throats since we were young. No, no that's not true. In
fact it's quite different from that. You may not believe me, but
that's another thing we've gotten wrong. I mean you can believe
you can fly if you want but unless you're in a plane or something
you're not leaving the ground for long. I mean I don't even count
planes because come on you're not really flying you're just kind of
riding. But anyway do you remember when they told you that you
were special, that you were loved, and that the world was a great place
to live? Yeah I think we all saw the same pbs special, but if you
think about it, it all sounds great doesn't it, but what you found was
a little different. It turns out you're not really that
special. In fact at the end of the day you're still pretty much
like everybody else. Even if you work your hardest you still
might fail. No matter how smart you are how fast you are how
strong you are there's somebody smarter faster stronger and even if
there wasn't would it matter? I mean no matter who you are you're
still going to die. And in like a thousand years or so there
probably wont be anybody sitting around talking about you and even if
they did would it matter? You also found the world wasn't as
great and accepting as you thought it would be. Where you
expected open arms you found shut doors and what you thought would be a
great thing turned into a regret. So what do we do? That's
what's great about us. We keep trying. We keep going even
when it looks bleak because we don't want to be the blonde that swims
half way home then turns around and swims all the way back because
she's tired. But since what they told us didn't hold up and we
tried figuring things out on our own. So we searched for
happiness. But was it really happiness we were looking for or
just a way to numb all that stuff that was already there? A way
to forget about it for just a second. Maybe that's working for
you; maybe not. Then of course love, that thing we always hope
for but aren't sure how to get, or even if it's something you can
get. I mean come on is it a noun a verb an adjective what?
Yeah, but I guess that's really all we know about love for now. I
mean a lot of people say they understand it, but the more I learn about
love the more I learn I don't understand. That's where we are I
guess. Life's not that great, but we cover our tracks well.
But then we hear about Christ and maybe we have known about this since
we were young or at least seen some people kind of gathered listening
to some guy talk on Sunday mornings about love or rapture or whatever's
on the agenda this week. You sit through that then maybe eat some
Chinese go have a nap or something. And that's what christianity
is right I mean it looks that way and is that way a lot of times but
that's not quite right either. But you don't really want that. It
sounds familiar like what they used to tell you back in the day with
nothing but a little twist and maybe some change of scenery.
Jesus is just Santa all over again. No, no it's not. Not
that you ever believed in Santa. I mean personally I always
thought the idea was kind of stupid myself. But what I was trying
to say was the way you see things now is kind of like before.
It's not what you think; In fact it's the opposite. There really
is a God and you really are special. But not in that I'm the
fastest one on the track team or the top one in my class kind of
way. You're special because the one and only God and creator of
the universe knows your name. He knows the number of hairs on your head
or the lack of and he smiles as he remembers the day that you were born
because he is the king and you are his child. And whether you
love him or deny him and nail the Christ to a cross by your own hands
he will still love you. And it's not that questionable daily
changing love. It's a love that isn't based on what you do or who
you are. Nothing you did started it and nothing you can do will
stop it. It's patient, kind, and so many other things I can't
begin to grasp. The death of you flesh is not the end of your
life but even though this world's not what we thought it was at least
we're not alone. But you like being alone? You must be one
of few but let me tell you that you've never been alone. He's
been there; you just made him sit and watch, but he wont leave.
But you don't want him there; you hate him? He knows but he's
there anyway if you ever change your mind. But if he really loved
you why would he have put you here in this mess? If he is real
then it's his fault, right? Well, for starters you're alive, and well to
boot. Problems will come and go but he remains the same. But you used to
believe, but he wasn't there for you? First did you really
believe? Secondly, were you really letting him work or were you
just looking for creative ways to blame him? Third, he is there
so if things weren't as you thought they would be and you left maybe
you should stop working off your own agenda for once and maybe realized
you answered the first question wrong. Your life is fine the way
it is? Ok, but all I can say is that sometimes what we think is
secure in our lives turns out to be insecurity lived out. If you
think following Christ is just a booth to set up like a job fair or the
numbers on the wall menu at taco bell allow me to pick up my things and
go because I wont let the holy God of all the universe be multiple
choice. But he will still be there. You left after the
third sentence? Well, I hope you have a good Easter. | | |
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