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9 Principles Of Wise Decision Making

July 13, 2009 in journey, life with 3 Comments

“How do I know if I”m making the right decision?”

This is a question that I am often asked as I get the chance to speak to many adults and teenagers who are simply wanting to know if they are making the “right” decision. Instead of trying to answer their question for them, I like to give them principles that help guide them, as they make an informed, Godly, decision. I have had this hand-written list, written on a small index card, for years now. I”m not sure where I got it, or who I heard them from – but I wish I could remember, because I’d like to think them – it’s a great list. (I’ll also never know if there were 10 principles, and I just didn’t write down the last one, or not. Regardless, I sort of like the fact that there isn’t a perfect “10.”

All of us at times are faced with a crossroad, and we must also weigh our decisions against the truths found in God’s Word. I hope these principals will bless you as you seek to make Godly decisions in your life

9 Principles of Godly Decision Making

1. Am I putting God’s desire ahead of my own? (Matthew 6:33)
2. Will it help me to love God and others more? (Matthew 22:37-39)
3. Does this help me fulfill the great commission? (Matthew 28:18-10)
4. Will this help me lead a more holy life? (1st Peter 1:15)
5. Will this increase my personal knowledge of Christ? (2nd Peter 3:18)
6. Is this Profitable? (1 Cor 6:12)
7. Is this glorifying God with my body? (1 Cor 6:19-20)
8. Is this causing another to stumble? (1 Cor 8:9)
9. Am I doing this for God’s glory? (1 Cor 10:31)

God sure does make really cool stuff….like Laminin….

July 8, 2009 in life, videos with 2 Comments

laminin By now I”m sure you’ve seen this clip – but if you haven’t you need to. (I’m blown away every time I watch it.) It’s a talk given by Louie Giglio about you, me, God, laminin, and how incredible He [God] is.

If you’re not “into” “church talk” at least skip to 4:03 where Louie starts talking about a molecule called Laminin(picture to the left) – it’s amazing. Wow – God really knows what He is doing….

God is…..Triune

July 7, 2009 in life with 9 Comments

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A few days ago I asked my friends on twitter and facebook this question;

“If you had to describe God in one word; what would it be.”

(not that any amount of words could ever adequately describe God)

Here are some of the many replies….
—————————————-
Awesome
God
Love
Indescribable
Unconditional
Word
Holy
Good
Father
Daddy
Hope
Faithful
Perfect
Amazing

——————————————-

While most of these are great adjectives for God; I was saddened that no one described Him as the one quality that is His, and His alone – Triune. It is this quality that sets God apart, that sets Christianity apart from any other religion. If you have the other qualities, but not this, then you don’t have a Biblical picture of God. Why is this not one of the first things that comes to people’s minds when then think about the One, True, God? Why do so many “Bible Teachers” neglect to talk about God in Triune (Biblical) terms? Why do we not teach our students (let alone our adults) about the face that God is Triune? That if God wasn’t Triune, if Jesus wasn’t fully God and fully man, then His death wouldn’t have mattered? Why do so many neglect this?

I’m so thankful that God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and that each is fully God and there there is only one God.

This is so vital because

“What a person thinks about God is the most important thought they will ever have. Because what a person thinks about God will determine what he thinks about everything else.”

Are we “thinking” right about God? Are we teaching Scripture to people in a way that would cause them to think “right” or “Biblically” about God? To think of God as Triune? Every time I open up the Bible to teach Scripture I ask myself “How can I make sure people walk away “thinking” CORRECTLY about the God this Bible describes?”

How about you? How would you answer the same question? When is the last time you have heard a sermon on the doctrine of the Trinity? When’s the last time you taught someone about the TRIUNE God? Do you make it a priority to teach about the Triune God of the Bible? Just some thoughts….

{On a side note – there are two professors at DTS, Dr. Scott Horrell and Dr. Jeffery Bingham, that God has used to really change my life, and my teaching. These men taught me more about the Doctrine of the Trinity and the importance of TEACHING it in my sermons then anyone ever has. I owe these men more then I can ever repay them. Thanks guys, you’ll never know the impact you have had on my life.}

Batman and Robin – Episode 2

July 7, 2009 in life, videos with 1 Comment

Here is the 2nd episode from the Batman and Robin series we produced a few years back. I actually think this is my favorite out of all the ones we shot. Hope you enjoy!

Awesome = this 360-degree tour of Michael Jackson’s private geek lounge

July 6, 2009 in life with 1 Comment

OK – STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND - click here to go on a 360-degree, panoramic, tour of Michael Jackson’s private ~~nerd~~ video game collection/super nerd lair. THIS PLACE IS AMAZING! I am having geek lust after looking at this awesome place! This guy spent some serious cash on his geek lair! This place is simply amazing! This entire room comes from the infamous Neverland Ranch – as you look around you’ll such great hits like “Simpson’s pinball, Jurassic Park, Crazy Taxi, and the entire cast of Star Wars; in other words – a mega arcade!

Many of the items you see in the panoramic tour were auctioned off by Julien’s back in April of this year. (If you haven’t seen the items listed in his auction – you should browse through the complete catalogue, as it is very interesting – you won’t believe some of the things Jackson owned!)

{warning – if you are on a slow computer, or your iPhone, you may want to bookmark and come back later – as the file is very large, and puts your web browser to work. But trust me when I say – it’s worth it!}
{via Pinsane}

Me and my appendix called it quits today – for good.

July 5, 2009 in life, videos with 14 Comments

All I can say is “Wow! God did it again.” Watch the video above to hear the entire story. But basically the story is this – I thought I had a really bad stomach ache yesterday afternoon, that bad “stomach ache” got REALLY bad around 3:30 this morning (in fact it was the worst pain I had ever felt – and it wouldn’t stop.) My awesome wife took me to Presbyterian Hospital, and they quickly ran some tests after making me drink some extremely “uncool” liquid. (click here for a video I made while drinking it.) After they ran the tests they found out that my bad “stomach ache” was really an appendicitis and decided that I needed to have an emergency surgery – an appendectomy.

By 9:30 am I was out of surgery (click here to view a video I shout when I came out of surgery – Warning, I’m a little loopy!) – and the extreme pain that I had before was gone! (instead replaced by three nice scars around my lower stomach.) The Doctor said that my appendix was in REALLY bad shape, was super infected, and that gangrene had sat in, (gross) in other words – it “REALLY” needed to come out! Believe it or not, by 4:30 pm THEY LET ME COME HOME!

The nurses said they couldn’t believe the doctor allowed me to go home, since a surgery of this nature requires at the very minimum an overnight stay. They simply could not believe I was walking to the restroom (although extremely sore), talking (i had a breathing tube in for a while), using my phone, making jokes, and even eating a nice chicken dish for lunch! I told them I had lots of people praying for me, and our great God works like that sometimes (granted, He is always great, and wise – but it sure is awesome when your prayer requests, and His will line up). So thank you to everyone who prayed, called, texted, twitted, left a voicemail, etc -it meant more then you know. In fact I was overwhelmed that even some students that I minister to sent me text messages – that was super cool! One more super cool “God thing” that happened today – as many of you know; summers are very busy for me, and normally something is going on every day of the week – but this Sunday and Monday were very “low key” days, and I’ll only be missing a few appointments. So as crazy as it sounds – this couldn’t have happened at a better time! Big thanks to Presbyterian Hospital, and Dr. Shires (who just happend to be the cheif surgeon who was on call today – another “God thing”) – you guys rocked it today. Your entire staff was exceptional! Thanks for making such a scary, and stressful, experience a great one! Thanks to my iPhone 3GS which allowed me to capture such great footage! Thanks to my awesome wife who is always so loving, and most of all thanks to our super, awesome God. He really did do a miracle today – I can’t believe I’m home right now typing this. (24 hours ago I was on the floor in tears because of the extreme pain I was having.)
{p.s. – I had a breathing tube in my throat, and as you can see, the Lord has really allowed my throat to heal up very quickly!}
{p.p.s. – And to my mean appendix, – I’m mad you kept me from seeing the awesome firework show, and enjoying my Joe T. Garcia’s – I’m glad we’ve parted ways. You weren’t much fun to have around, and you won’t be missed!}

Trek Camp 2009 {rocked}.

July 2, 2009 in life, photos with 1 Comment

I just got back from spending a week with Lakepointe church at Highland Lakes Camp in Austin, TX where I was the speaker for their Trek 2009 Camp – and I had a great time. I spoke around 15 times last week, so was wore out, but the staff (and students) at Lakepointe are GREAT! They really are super people to work with, and I consider them good friends! So thank you Lakepointe (and the students who listened to me all week), it was an honor.

As usual, God showed up and did his thing. Many students begin their life long journey with God, through Jesus Christ, this week. Many more said they learned “so much” about God this week. My prayer after any sort of “event” like this is that students would live their life after camp, the same way they lived it while they were at camp. That they would live a life just as excited about their relationship with God through Jesus Christ, as they did while they were at camp. But above all – I know God showed up and rocked some teenagers lives this week – and to that I say, Amen!

The Matt Wheeler Band played worship at this camp – and they ROCKED! If your looking for an incredible band to play at your camp or event, you have to contact these guys. They did a super job! The summer’s only half-way over, but so far, it’s been a great one! Here’s some pictures from the camp!
{p.s. – I will be uploading the messages from all of my talks very soon for anyone to download and listen.}

I’m on posterous. Are you?

June 29, 2009 in life with 2 Comments

I’ll be honest. God has blessed me with some crazy-awesome friends. Hands down – I am friends with some of the most creative, and innovate people walking the Earth right now. Not only are they super talented – but they are using their God-given talent to do Kingdom work. I like that!

One of the best parts about having such a great group of friends; I”m always learning about really cool, new ways to do things that I am already doing – but better! One of my good friends, John, made a post on Church Crunch the other day titled – “Why I’m moving to Posterous and Leaving TwitPic (and everything else like it)”

My first thought after reading that post was;

“OH NO! Not another social media network to keep up with. No way!”

But then I looked into it a bit more, talked with John a bit more – and now I”m sold! It’s not another social media network to keep up with – in fact – it keeps up with the ones you already have!
If you consider yourself “in” to social media – this is a really, REALLY, cool website. In fact; website really isn’t the right word – it’s much more then that – it’s a portal for all of your social MEDIA content. In fact, the more I play around with it – the more amazed I am at what you can do with it, and how it integrates so smoothly with all of your social media networks. It’s simply awesome! If you like to share life – you should use Posterous!

I really enjoying sharing life with others. I love connecting with people. I believe God created us to glorify Him, and one of the main ways we do that is by being in a right relationship with Him, and with others. Connecting with others. I believe God put in each of us a desire to want to do just that. To connect with other people; to share life with others, etc…which is one reason I enjoy being “extremely relational”. I enjoy sharing life with other people – I like to share videos, pictures, status updates, twitt’s – life. Posterous makes it really easy for me to share my pictures, videos, etc using Twitter. It’s also very simple to upload media to all of your “networks” at once. In a nutshell – it’s great!

John did a great job of explaining what Posterous is and does, so I”m not going to retype what he already wrote, but you should read his post – now.
I’ll end by simply saying

“Posterous makes it REALLY easy to share life. If you enjoy sharing life through Social media – go sign up!”

Let me know what you think about Posterous. Do you use it? Have you tried it? Have you subscribed to my updates?

Catalyst Filter – Summer 2009 – Aqua Box

June 27, 2009 in life, videos with 2 Comments

I just got my aqua box for summer 2009 from Catalyst filter. They always send lots of great stuff out. What the video below to see what I got in my aqua box. If your not a member of Catalyst Filter – you should sign up!

thank you Ambassador {and The Cross Movement} – take 2

June 16, 2009 in life with 0 Comments

broken-heart
A few weeks ago I posted this, thanking the Ambassador (aka – William Branch) for the impact his ministry has had on my life. You can imgine how sick I felt when a few days after posting that – I received this.
I’ll save you the time from reading the entire letter – here is the part that caused me to do a double take -

“It is with much grief, severe disappointment and an overwhelming fear of the Lord that Cross Movement Records is sad to announce that we will be discontinuing the forwarding and promotion of the Artist and Minister, The Ambassador AKA William “Duce” Branch, due to recent findings of moral failure in his marriage.”

Huh? What? Not Ambassador! This guy is solid! He went to the same seminary I attend. He loves God. There has to be some sort of mistake! I had a rush of emotion. Then I prayed. Hard. For him. His wife. The “other” women. My marriage. Then the next day I wept. I still couldn’t believe it. I re-read the link just to be sure I wasn’t in some sick nightmere. Nope. It happened.

This should be a reminder of how active satan is, and how he wants to “kill, steal, and destroy..” He wants to ruin us. To shatter us. The ministry God allows us to be a part of. Our marriages. Everything. He wants to kill it. But there is good news, actually GREAT news – our God is big, much, MUCH bigger then satan.

“The one who is in us, is GREATER then the one in the world.”

The fact is, apart from God’s grace, this could happen to any of us. If it wasn’t for the restraint, and power of the Holy Spirit this could happen to any one of us. We must press into God – hard. We must stay CLOSE to Him. To others. Others who are allowed to ask us those tough questions about our life. We must also pray for leaders when they mess up. We must pray for them much more then we “gossip” about them. We must NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER say

“That could NEVER happen to me.” - It could.

That’s why we must be on guard – and stay connected to the Father, and to His people! We must keep going back to God in prayer, asking that the Holy Spirit would give us strength, and convict us – QUICKLY – to anything that could cause us to stray.

I’m praying for the Ambassador, and his family – I ask you to please do the same. I still love him, and his music is still super legit! I also mean what I wrote in this blog post. Above all, I’m thankful that we serve a ultra powerful God who forgives us of our sin, and makes us right with Him through His Son – Jesus Christ whom He sent. He also has the power to heal, and restore, people, relationships, ministries, and marriages.

{How’s your relationship with God, your spouse, and God’s people? Are you closely connected to them? Are you working daily to grow in your relationship with each of these? How are you doing that? How are you protecting your self? How are you staying LOCKED on God? Also will you please pray that God will restore William Branch (The Ambassador) to his wife, and family?)

Is the ride over for Six Flags? {please say it ain’t so}

June 13, 2009 in life with 4 Comments

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I ran across this link tonight from CNN saying that Six Flags is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Turns out they have 1.8 billion dollars in debt. (not sure how, considering how they charge 46 dollars for a medium coke….)

The link says that their parks are in “good” shape, and will remain open. I sure hope so. I can’t tell you how many awesome memories I have of going to Six Flags Over Texas growing up. Every year my parents would buy all of us season passes to the park – and we would go – allot. It was pretty much our summer babysitter. In fact, we went so much that we would BEG our parents NOT to go sometimes! ha,ha..pretty awesome, huh?

However, I’m looking forward to [hopefully] bringing my kids to Six Flags one day.

So go out and support Six Flags this summer. Buy lots of those 46 dollar cokes, funnel cakes, and pink things!

What about you? Do you have good memories of a Six Flags Theme Park?

We got pwnd by a cupcake

June 12, 2009 in life, photos with 1 Comment

Cupcakes seem to be the “in” thing these days. Everyone seems to be selling trendy cupcakes. It’s all good because I like to eat said cupcakes.

In Austin this week I visited Hey Cupcake with John {aka – @human3rror} and his family – if you are ever in Austin you gotta go!

(I’m not sure who won – us, or the cupcakes!)

{p.s. – John’s daughter could be on Barney

New York + Animoto = slideshow delicious

June 2, 2009 in life, photos with 1 Comment

I had a great time in New York hanging out with some good friends, and visiting my brother! As always, I took a ton of pictures, and I have been wanting to try out Animoto.com for sometime – so I did!
Animoto makes some very bold claims in terms of the awesomeness of their end results. I was a bit skeptial, but in the end I think they do a really great job. (and their website is super easy to use!)

Take a look at the final results and let me know what you think!

time flies when your having……..

June 1, 2009 in life with 1 Comment

(yelp, this is a picture of my “little” brother taking me down in Battery Park)

I just got back from a great trip to NYC with some great friends of mine to hang out, and visit my “little” brother, Ryan (who lives in New York). Only one thing – he’s not so little anymore. Ryan’s the oldest, of my 3 other “little” brothers – and we’ve gotten to be great friends as we’ve gotten older. It’s when brothers and sisters reach “that” age when they are no longer simply brothers and sisters – but friends. I can honestly say Ryan is one of my best friends. I don’t get a chance to see my brother Ryan much – but when I do, I enjoy it. He’s cool, funny, smart, a really cool dresser, likes old school video games, good coffee, not caught up in all the stuff the world is caught up in, like art, good books, and just a really fun guy to hang out with! (sorry ladies he’s taken!)

This trip was especially meaningful for me, because I think I finally realized he is a man now. Not my little brother any more, but a man. He’s really turned out well – I’m very proud to call him my brother. I’ll be honest, it was sad leaving New York this time. I wanted to hang out with him one more day, have one more cupcake with him, drink one more cup of coffee with him – but I had to leave. He had work, I had work – we both have “grown up” lives to live.

All that to say, I’m thankful he is my brother (as well as my other two brothers). I’m proud of him, and I’m thankful he is not only my brother, but my friend!
(no matter how grown up we get, I think he’ll always be my “little” brother.)
- love ya bro, Im proud of you!

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