Christmas in Perspective -The Shepherd's Story

Hey World,

As I'm writing this I'm sitting on the couch in my dorm room, listening to a Christmas song by Alan Jackson, and thinking about how fast this semester went by (which was fast by the way). I've learned so much this semester and had so many great times, it's going to be very hard to leave. Though I'll admit, it would be much harder if I wasn't going home to a snow covered Minnesota Christmas with family and friends. Christmas. I love Christmas. For that reason, I'm going to try and start a little Christmas themed series. With my consistency on here, I wouldn't bank on much, but you never know.

For this series I want to focus on different groups of people or individuals, and see how the coming of Jesus affected them. Tonight (3 AM so I guess it's this morning) I want to take a look at the shepherds.

  

A Failed Generation

For a long time growing up, really my whole life, I thought that my generation was going to change the world for the cause of Christ. The older I got, and the more I grew in my faith, the more certainty I had that this would prove true. Whether the world ended when I was thirty or thirty thousand years after I was gone, everyone would remember my generation as the one that changed the world. Every pastor and youth pastor and camp speaker told us over and over again that we had so much potential. The world had changed so much since the generation preceding ours. We were born into the age of the internet, and social networks, and cell phones, and on and on. We have every translation of the Bible, concordances, commentary, you name it, all at the click of a single botton. We have so many more tools then our parents ever had. These speakers would tell me these things, and the more I heard this message the more I believed it. My generation was going to impact the world like no time in history before, and I was going to be a part of it. 

 Tonight, my dream collapsed. Tonight, despite my aching for it to be true, I cannot force myself to believe we are that generation any longer. I look around at those my age, those older, and the children I see growing up now, and I do not see potential, as those speakers saw. I do not see hope. I do not see change, and if I see change, I see it for the worse. When I look at my generation I see pride. I see lust. I see hate and arrogance. I see children and teenagers who disrespect their parents. I see a generation that holds grudges and doesn’t forgive. I see a generation on their knees with hands lifted and eyes focussed toward Christ on Sunday night, sitting down with hands on the computer mouse eyes looking at pornography on Monday. I see a generation who sings of God’s kindness, who leave only to talk behind other people’s backs. I see a generation who watches “The Passion of the Christ” with tears streaming from their eyes only to go and with laughter watch “Family Guy” make fun of that same Christ. I see a generation who uses Scripture to justify the freedom they have to do sinful things, when that same Scripture was written to tell them they were free from the bondage of those things. I see a generation too busy on facebook and texting and twittering and playing World of Warcraft to stop for five minutes to talk with their Savior. I see a generation who tells me over and over how badly they want to live for Christ, and I wonder...oh i wonder why they never do. I look at my generation, and all too often I see myself. 

One Nation. One Body. One Church

Happily Holidays Everyone!

Before I begin on today's post, I would like to remind you, as I try to often do, that these are merely my words. I pray that God uses them for His purposes, but that is up to Him. When Martin Luther was told to deny his writings, he told the judges this: "I am but a man and I can err, only let my errors be proven by Scripture and I will revoke my work and throw my books into the fire." Martin Luther was a humble man, and willing to be corrected. He also happens to be one of my biggest Spiritual heroes, and I long to be like him in so many ways. This is one specific area. As I've said before, this site is much like a journal. Many of these things I have not researched adequately, but I do try to share the truths that I do find in my journey with Christ. My hope for you, is that you search the Scriptures for yourselves that you might decide whether my words (and hopefully ultimately God's words) are true. With that said, I will begin.

  

Thanksgiving aka National Diversity Day

Well Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I hope this one proves better than all the others before. I hope the turkey tastes better, the temperature is nicer, the families are closer, and the Cowboys lose. :)
Today I thought I'd put a little twist on this post and not make it a cliche Thanksgiving post.

For those of you who know me best, I'm not much one for promoting diversity or worrying much about it at all. This is funny considering I chose to go to college in Los Angeles, the melting pot of the world, and the college itself (Biola University) is a huge promoter of diversity. But today I'm going to make up for my past "ignorance"(as my roommate calls it) and focus on this most intriguing topic.

Taking My Own Advice

Well, this blog certainly (for the most part at least) has turned out to be mostly my own journal read

by a few people instead of the daily blog I once hoped for. I'm afraid I'm quite too undisciplined to keep this up anymore than I have. For that, I am sorry. Hopefully, for those of you who do still keep up with my sporadic posts, you are blessed by them. However, I'm afraid that today isn't really much of a post either, but more of a journal entry. 

The Forgotten Act of Being Still

Hey World,

So I got to thinking (rare), and I think I'm going to start a little mini (redundant) series called
"The Forgotten Acts." It's kinda catchy and maybe it will keep me more faithful to posting.
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Well today's forgotten act is the act of "being still." No I'm not talking about sitting somewhere
quietly while not doing anything. Then again. Maybe I am.
"But how can you be serious James! Nobody just sits around under a tree quietly anymore!"
No. No they do not.

The Forgotten Acts Of Worship

Hey World,

This past weekend I had the privilege of housing my uncle at my dorm room for the night. We had a great time staying up til 1 drinking coffee and talking about all that's right and wrong in the world. One subject we touched on especially hit me, and I wanted to share it with you. It is....you guessed it. The forgotten acts of worship. 

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Now most of you that read this are church-going Christians. I don't actually know that...it's just an assumption since this blog is mostly about my faith. So, the act of worship is not a foreign word to you (the word "foreign by the way does not follow the i before e rule because it does not have the ay sound like in neighbor...that ones for free).