JADDOG

What do Hitler, abortion and the Gospel of Jesus Christ have in common?

http://www.180movie.com/

Good stuff. Be patient through the Hitler stuff, he ties it in well.

My senior year of college A bunch of friends that I played worship with got together in my apartment living room and recorded a demo to send to The Campus Crusade Big Break Conference in Panama City Beach Fl. I had given my life to Christ at that conference 3 years earlier and we were applying to be the worship team for one of the sessions that year.

I have great memories from that afternoon. I still have a copy of the recording and just listened to it. Thought it would be fun to post a copy of it.

Lemme see if I can remember the team that was there:
Radez: Acoustic, Vocals
Andrea: Vocals
Becca: Vocals
Brandon: Electric Guitar
Drew: Drums
Travis: Piano, Vocals
Kevin: Bass
Aaron: Violin
I think that’s everyone…

Here’s what we recorded with a 16 channel mixer, a 4 track recorder and a bunch of college students with instruments in an apartment living room.
01 You Are the One
02 God of Wonders
03 Psalm 61
04 Praise Be
05 Trust in the Lord

I’ve been in and out of reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer for some time now.
I’ve been enjoying meditating on a passage I read last week:

… the statement “God is Love” means that his love find expressions in everything that he says and does.

The knowledge that this is so for us personally is the supreme comfort for Christians. As believers, we find in the cross of Christ assurance that we, as individuals, are beloved of God; “the Son of God…loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Knowing this, we are able to apply to ourselves the promise that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28). Not just some things, note, but all things! Every single thing that happens to us expresses God’s love for us.

Thus, so far as we are concerned, God is love to us – holy, omnipotent love – at every moment and in every event of every day’s life. Even when we cannot see the why and the wherefore of God’s dealings, we know that there is love in and behind them, and so we can rejoice always, even when, humanly speaking, things are going wrong. We know that the true story of our life, when known, will prove to be , as the hymn says, “mercy from first to last” – and we are content.

- J.I. Packer, Knowing God, Pages 122-123

This passage has blessed me as I’ve reflected on the things around me that go “humanly wrong”. Both in my and my family’s life and the life of the people around me. More often than not we do not specifically know, and may never truly know, why a particular event happened in someone’s life. Though, whether we’re glad or scared or frustrated or upset or don’t even care that some whatever has happened, we do know that it happened because our God loves us and is bringing himself glory through his creation.

God has blessed my wife and me with 8 years of marriage today!

My son has been given mercy enough times to know that mercy means not getting punished. This past week in the face of punishment he requested mercy. His request was denied, but it gave me another opportunity to share with him the eternal punishment we deserve for the sin we commit. When Jesus faced punishment for our disobedience He too requested mercy and was denied. In His obedience we were graciously promised mercy when He paid our debt.

Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

When we are faced with punishment from our Heavenly Father at the end of times Christ will have already received the punishment and paid the debt we owe. There will be no need for us to plead for mercy for those who know Christ as their savior.

Philippians 2 continues:

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Our God that humbled Himself to a humiliating and excruciating death that we could live eternally in His presence.

I’m listening to Switchfoot today at work. The lyrics of the song The Economy of Mercy on Learning to Breath caught my attention and reminded me of my 3 year old son.

When he’s due discipline we’ve granted mercy enough that he understands what mercy is. He’s since learned to ask for mercy when he’s due discipline.

Here is the Chorus:

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of Grace
Is where my song begins
In the colors of Your goodness
In the scars that mark your skin
In the currency of Grace
Is where my song begins

This motivates me to start associating Grace with Mercy. Seems like a good opportunity to use a very tangible experience in his life to demonstrate Christ’s work on the cross.

Gotta get me one of these food courts!

I’m in Portland Oregon this week at DjangoCon. On the plane on the way here I started C.J. Mehaney’s Cross Centered Life. This morning I went to the hotel restaurant to have some breakfast and took the book with me.

In chapter eight CJ is discussing the events around Christ being nailed to a cross and mocked for his inability to save himself. He make us vividly aware of how our sin, mine and yours,  is responsible for this painful and agonizing torture. A torture that stretches beyond His physical pain to both His human existence and his spiritual communion with the Father. As I read this chapter this morning over breakfast God shed light on Christ’s choice in dying for us. CJ’s vivid description of Christ on the cross and the choice he made to save us brought me to tears right in the middle of the restaurant. CJ writes on pages 90-91:

“Make no mistake: Jesus [could have descended] from the cross and [saved] himself at any moment. It isn’t the nails that [kept] him there. What [kept] him there is what placed Him there — His passion to do the will of the Father, and His love for sinners like you and me.”

“For Jesus cannot save both Himself and save you and me. It’s precisely because He refused to save Himself that He’s able to save others.

Christ choose to endure “a torment far beyond the pain of His physical suffering” to save the wretched sinner I am.

It’s been a long summer, a summer of change for me.

Last night I finished a the book Mark of a Man by Elisabeth Elliot. I’m not an avid reader, at all, so finishing a book was pretty exciting.

The first half of the book seems to explore the worlds view of marriage. The second half of the book explores the biblical view of marriage. I was blessed to have read this book through a trying summer. A chapter here and a chapter there reminded me of how much I love my wife and how hard she works to take care of me and raise our children.

This book often reminded me of how I fall short in serving and appreciating her and the long hard summer just amplified it.

Electrical
Yesterday I added a fan mount into the ceiling, don’t think I’ll put a fan up there. The box was complements of my neighbour so figured I’d use what I had instead of buying something. Also drilled through the existing frame of the house to run the wire up to the fixture. I had thought I’d have to notch the top plate above the door header and add some nail plates. Turns out I could drill up into the top plate and then into the header above the top plate and meet the two holes together to thread the wire. Hope all this passes inspection.

Framing
Today I got the first wall framed. Quite a learning experience. I found a different neighbor this time to help me lift what I had constructed and help me get it in place. We had to try three different approaches before the frame landed properly. While he was helping me his builder came by that was going to build his deck and game me his card. He didn’t wince at the work I had done so far, maybe that’s a good thing. I put two nails to hold it in place until I secure it finally and one of them i couldn’t get out to shift the frame slightly. Need to get a nail puller of some kind to get the final alignment of the frame. I’ll get to that.

Hoping to be ready for rough in inspection Friday. As long as I can get to building the other frame before then I have a friend coming Friday morning to help me with some of the details of completing the framing. Here’s my first wall framed: