Mission Trip

We are going to the Bridge of Hope church of the Nazarene on March 13th through the 17th in St. Louis, Missouri! All those interested must come and sign up at youth group within the next week. Cost of the trip is $30 per student and then $50 for family's with more than one student going. Hope you join us as we go and minister to those in inner city St. Louis!

Hard Times

This morning around 3 a.m. I lost someone very dear to me. My Nana, Lora Lee Dunkin, passed from this life to be with her heavenly Father. As I reflected upon the good times we shared I was constantly reminded of the way my Nana loved Jesus with every part of her life! My Nana and Papa had read the Bible for 15 years straight until the day that Alzehiemers got a hold of her. My Nana battled this disease for almost two years, and despite these tuff times still kept her faith in Jesus. My Nana got to a point where she could not speak well any more. My Papa told me of a time when a lady next to her in another room was about to die and how my Nana went next door and prayed for her.... not even missing one single word! My Nana was a lady of passion. She loved her children and she loved her grandchildren. She especially loved her husband. My Papa has portrayed to me in the most incredible way, the way we should love one another. My Papa went to see my Nana every single day in the nursing home going two to three times each day for hours upon hours at a time. My Papa would rub lotion on my Nana's feet and legs and arms and face to keep her skin moist and healthy. He would take her out for drives around the lake and take her to Chick-Fil-A. My Papa loved my Nana unconditionally. Despite these incredibly rough times my Papa never wavered in the love that he showed my Nana.
I am reminded as I grieve for my family of the ever powerful love of my Savior, Jesus Christ! A love so powerful that our minds can not comprehend. I am lifted in spirits to know that Jesus loves me despite what bad situation I might be in. No matter what mess I have made of myself , He still reaches out to me. I question myself at times though on whether I truly love others the way my Papa demonstrated in loving my Nana. My Papa challenged me to reach out to my wife and to love her with all that I have! To be there in good times and bad. To show compassion,love, and gentleness in all situations. My Nana leaves a legacy of one that can never be topped. A life that shows me that there is NOTHING more crucial in life than surrendering yourself to God and being His child. Let me leave you with this statement my Nana once said:
Life is hard at times...... But God IS ALWAYS good!

Love you Nana and can't wait to see you once again!

The Rich Man and Lazarus

In Luke 16:19-31 we read a story about two different men. One named Lazarus, who while on Earth lived a life of extreme poverty and another man (unnamed) leads a very wealthy life. The passage explains that as both of these men lived their lives on Earth, the rich man had a great house and that Lazarus sat outside his place just hoping to get the scraps that the rich man throughout before the dogs got to them. There comes a day when Lazarus passes from this life and is accepted into heaven. We read that later on the rich man also passes but instead of going to heaven like Lazarus he is thrown into the pits of Hell. We see dialogue beginning to go between this rich man and Abraham as the rich man peers up and sees Lazarus being taken care of in Heaven. We see the rich man begging for Lazarus to be allowed to just give this man a little bit of water to cool his tongue because of the extreme pain and torment he is going through in Hell. Abraham tells him that this is not possible and that he will spend eternity in this place and there is nothing that can be done now..... It is to late. The rich man cries out asking if there is anyway Lazarus or another person in heaven can go back to Earth to warn his family of this outcome that awaits them so they can change the way they are living. Again Abraham tells him that there is no way that can happen.
We see this picture of grief and of anxiety as this rich man now sees the consequences of the life that he lived while on Earth. We see the desperation in his voice as he cries out for help. But there is nothing that can be done. All that was is now over. The deal has been sealed. All doors have been closed and there is no turning back.
I want you to think about how you are doing life? Are you seeking God with all your heart, soul, and mind. In other words as put in Romans 12: 1-2 " So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work (school), and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
Let God change your heart today. Let Him work His magnificent love into your life!

D-E-V-O-T-E-D

2 Corinthians 5:7 "Walk by faith, not by sight."
 As I read this verse I find motivation to live my faith everyday, no matter how I feel. Let me put it this way: I am training for a marathon right now. Thi past week is week four in my training and fatigue is starting to set in. Yeterday when I woke up to run, I found it incredibly hard to get up and run because I lacked the desire I had in the first few weeks of training. In other words the fatigue that had set in on my legs had started to wear on my drive inside my head. Despite the fatigue I know my final goal and continue to get up and train. I think a lot of the time in our walk with Christ we find ourselves in a rut because we start to make our relationship with God more about us than Him. We become selfish and instead of focusing on God we focus on how we feel. Paul encourages us to not walk by feelings but by faith. I took this as encouragment that even though things may not be going great around me I stay devoted to my God at ALL times to bring Him glory.

Caught with your hand in the cookie jar?

James 4:7-8


I remember growing up going to my grandma' house and how I always looked forward to getting into the cookie jar. The rule was at grandma's house was that you had to wait untill after dinner to grab cookies out of the cookie jar. My goal was to always see how many cookies I could get out of the jar before getting ran out of the kitchen by grandma for breaking the rules. I think a lot of the time we live our lives the same way in our relationship with God.
Ask yourself this question. Do I tend to try and push the limits on boundaries I know I shouldn’t cross in my life? Do I try to get away with as much as I can and still be looked at as a Christian person. In other words do I try and push the limit with sin and see how far I can get in to it before I actually fall face down into it. God’s grace is endless for us, but for us to live trying to get away with as much as we can is not what God calls for us to do. God tells us to resist the devil. In other words run from him and turn to God and satin will flee from you. So what do you think…. Are you resisting the sin in your life or are you trying to see how much you can actually get away with….. Cause God calls us to come near to Him.

Happy Martin Luther King Day

"Admitting the weighty problems and staggering disappointments in life, Christianity affirms that God is able to give us the power to meet them. He is able to give us the inner equilibrium to stand tall amid the trials and burdens of life. He is able to provide inner peace amind outer storm" - MLK, from his sermon "Our God is able"
What can we learn from a man with so much passion? Jesus called us to live a life full of passion. A lot of us have different things we are passionate about, but are they things that truly matter? Take a look at this passage in Phillipians and spend sometime reading it for your quiet time today and think about if you are truly passionate about your relationship with Jesus Christ........
Philippians 3:7-14 (The Message)

"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness. I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."

Paul was the author of this passage. He realized their was nothing more important in his life than his relationship with Jesus! How about you? Today as you spend sometime reading this compare it to your life. Do you match this type of passion in your life about your walk with Jesus? Or do other things in your life overpower it.

Pray for those in Haiti

Please continue to keep those impacted by the devestation in Haiti in your prayers.