AFrayedKnot

On two separate occasions Jesus fed thousands of people by multiplying bread and fish. He made so much extra food that everyone had as much as they wanted, and there was still some left over.

On both of these instances, the disciples questioned where the bread would come from. And in both cases, Jesus provided.

Shortly after the second instance of Jesus feeding the thousands, the disciples were in a boat crossing a nearby lake when they noticed they only brought one loaf of bread.

Jesus warned them about the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.

Then the disciples began to argue about the fact they didn’t have any bread.

All this right after Jesus had multiplied a small amount of bread to feed thousands of people.

Ridiculous.

Jesus was finally fed up with them and spat off a slew of open-ended questions.

Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? You have eyes–can’t you see? You have ears–can’t you hear? Don’t you remember anything at all? . . .

Sometimes all it takes to have faith in what Christ can do is a little bit of remembrance of what He has done in the past.

Have you ever seen those billboards that are little notes from “god?” Below is an example, and here is a link to several.

Big Bang Theory. You’ve got to be kidding Me. –God

Yeah, I’m not a big fan of this kind of thing. That’s why when I got an email informing me that @almightygod was following me on twitter, I got a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Not because “god” is following me, but because someone had the nerve to create a twitter account with God’s name, and regularly tweets. Of course, every time he or she updates, they are claiming that their words are the words of God.

Maybe I’m a bit old school, but that irks me a bit. Am I overreacting?

My parents didn’t let me listen to Michael Jackson while growing up. Nor did I watch much of Farrah.

I think I was a bit young for them.

However, I do realize that Jackson and Fawcet were icons to the younger side of GenX and maybe some of the older people in GenY. Although I think they were more geared toward GenX.

I’m a GenY who is near the upper middle, so I missed it.

However, here are a few pop icons who GenY associates with:
-John Mayer
-Britney Spears
-Coldplay and Chris Martin
-Eminem
-Backstreet Boys
-Spice Girls
-Christina Aguilera

It’ll be weird when these icons start dying. Not sure why it’s such a big deal to a generation of people. Maybe because when you grow up idolizing someone, you start to associate yourself with them. And when they die, it freaks you out because you realize, “I’m getting old!” Maybe?

Who are some icons I left out that you’d add to the list? Come on, you can think of some. It’s as “easy as 1-2-3. Just like counting, baby.”

If you’re going to lead a small group in discussion, it is vital that you ask good questions.

There are three types of questions one could ask.

First are closed questions. They stink. Don’t use those. Here’s an example:

Who is God’s Son?

IF anyone actually answers that question (and I really doubt a twentysomething would, unless someone twists his or her arm), it will kill discussion. Because there’s nothing to discuss! Everyone already knows the answer to that question. It’s insulting to even ask it!

Stay away from closed questions.

The second type of questions are limiting questions. These type of questions have specific responses, but they still allow a little bit of room for flexibility and are good to use to get the conversation started. Here’s an example:

Which attribute of God really stands out to you and why?

Not a very difficult question, and there are only a few things someone could say because there are a limited number of attributes of God.

Use limited questions, but sparingly.

The third and final type of discussion questions are open questions. Open questions promote discussion and application at the same time. Here is one example:

Do you prefer discussion or lecture? Why?

This question requires thought in order to respond. Chico or chica has to form his or her opinion and then put it into words enough to respond.

Open questions will get your discussion moving.

The title of this post is a paraphrase of what one of my teachers said in a class in college. A Christian college. The class was Ephesians (I think).

Everyone’s heard the phrase before.

When someone apologizes for doing something wrong to you, you should forgive them, and then forget that the occurrence ever happened, right?

My teacher said that was dumb.

You should forgive people, yes. But forgetting how someone has wronged you could cause you to make a poor decision about them in the future.

Let me take it to the extreme, since that’s what gets people feisty.

Let’s say a man has inappropriate conduct with some children at a daycare, is convicted, and spends a few years in jail. Turns out he was into child pornography too.

The man gets out of jail, claiming to be a changed man. He apologizes to everyone he harmed, including the families of the children he had a history with.

Forgive him? Yes. Forget it? No.

I don’t want that man doing any type of work with my child, even if he has apologized.

Do I believe that he’s different? Sure. Do I give him opportunity to do it again? No way.

So forgive, but don’t forget.

Actually, remember in a healthy way that helps you make better decisions in the future.

I was reading in Ezekiel today when I came across an interesting passage.

God told Ezekiel to give the people a message–they were about to die.

He said that if Ezekiel did not tell them the message, then he would be responsible for their death. Their blood on his hands.

But if he told them the message, they would be responsible for their own life, because they knew it was about to come because they heard the message.

Sometimes we have friends who are living in horrible ways. Ways that do not honor Christ at all. Ways that lead to death without Him.

It is our responsibility to tell them the future of their ways if they continue.

It’s not exactly the same situation as Ezekiel, because the Scriptures say that creation yields the evidence of a Creator, and because of that, people are without excuse.

However, I think we underestimate the responsibility of us to warn one another when a fellow believer (or a non-believer) is involved with things that do not honor Christ.

The thing today is to not offend anyone so they don’t get mad at you.

That’s really a selfish motive. If your friend gets mad at you because you confronted him, then he gets mad at you. What’s important is that you try to help your friend by keeping him from doing something that is not good for his physical well-being or his relationship with Christ.

Not confronting someone so they won’t be mad at you says that you’re concerned with one thing–yourself.

If you don’t tell him the truth and try to hold him back from his destruction, claiming that you didn’t want to offend him, I believe you’ll be held accountable for not trying to help him. His blood on your hands.

We’re in this together. We have to help one another.

I read a small story in the book of Mark this morning about the disciples and Jesus (Mark 9:38-41Mark 9:38-41
English: World English Bible - WEB
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone who doesn’t follow us casting out demons in your name; and we forbade him, because he doesn’t follow us.” ³⁹ But Jesus said, “Don’t forbid him, for there is no one who will do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. ⁴⁰ For whoever is not against us is on our side. ⁴¹ For whoever will give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you are Christ’s, most assuredly I tell you, he will in no way lose his reward.

It seems there was someone casting out demons in the name of Christ who did not follow the disciples. The disciples of Jesus rebuked the man.

Then Jesus returned the favor and told them they should not have forbade him because he was doing it in the name of Jesus. He went on to say that anyone who was not against them, was for them.

Let me change gears a bit and say that I am a Free Will Baptist. Actually, I am very Free Will Baptist. My dad is a FWB pastor, my brothers are FWB ministers, I graduated from a FWB college, work at the FWB publishing house and am a FWB music minister, my uncle is a FWB missionary, my grandpa was a FWB pastor, evangelist, Foreign Missions director, my cousin is a FWB pastor, my other uncle has been a FWB pastor and teacher, my father-in-law is a FWB pastor.

I’m pretty much as FWB as one person can get without going crazy.

Growing up I was a FWB because that’s the way I was raised. Now I am a FWB because out of the parts I’ve studied, I actually believe what we teach doctrinally.

Now that you know I’m not about to leave the denomination, let me get to the point of this post:

Free Will Baptists are not the only people who are part of the kingdom.

Actually, we’re a tiny part of it.

Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

People who have different philosophies than me. People who aren’t white. People in different denominations. People in no denomination. People who play rock music in church. People who play pipe organs in church. People who use the NIV. People who are KJV only.

It’s about HIS kingdom, NOT the Free Will Baptist kingdom.

About a week ago, Sandy Atwood spoke to E-TEAM about sharing your faith. She mentioned that a person doesn’t come to know Christ in a quick way, but that it works sort of like a chain. Each encounter an unbeliever has with a Christian, or with God in some sort of way is like a link in their chain of coming to the point of being saved.

Cue my neighbor.

We met when we moved in. She’s a very nice lady, initiating our friendship actually.

We weren’t sure if she was a Christian or not, so we started praying for her a few months ago.

Then one day when I was cutting the grass, she left, so I cut her grass too. I never told her it was me, and I don’t think she knew it was me, but I thought I should do it (she normally cuts it herself, and I don’t think girls should have to cut grass).

A few weeks later she was digging up some dirt around the back of her house where she was making a flower bed. I came out and helped her break up the ground to give her a head start. That gave us a chance to get to know each other better.

She guessed that Lynsey and I were Christians and that we were involved in our church. (I guess she noticed we were gone every Sunday.) She didn’t seem to be upset or angry at the church, but she didn’t seem to act like it mattered much to her either. So I am guessing she doesn’t know Christ.

Yesterday I was getting my lawn mower out from underneath my house (we keep it there so it won’t get stolen . . . again) when our neighbor came home. We made small talk about some guy from GE who unsuccessfully tried to sell me a security system, but succeeded in selling our neighbor one. After she signed on the dotted line of what she thought was a good deal, he informed her that she had just signed up for 5 years of service. Ouch. I said, “I really don’t think Lynsey and I will be here for 5 years.”

She said, “Oh do you think you guys will do mission work?”

Kinda weird that she mentioned that. We’ve never talked about it before.

Meanwhile, our church is having a women’s tea in a few months. I mentioned to Lynsey that she should invite Paulette (neighbor). The gospel will be shared there and I’d love to see her come to Christ.

I’ve been thinking and praying that Lynsey and I could just be a link in the chain of Paulette’s journey to Christ. She’s watching us, and I want to be good examples for our Lord.

My wife and I have been homeowners for two months now.

I am noticing more and more the amount of stuff you have to do around the house. Bathrooms need to be cleaned, dishes washed, weeds pulled, floors vacuumed, and grass cut (among other things).

That’s a lot of stuff to do!

Here’s the thing about cutting grass: you have to cut it again a week later.

There’s always work to do.

Dumb grass.