God is so amazing isn't He? I mean there are thousands of languages in the world, millions of bands in billions of billions of ears. It is so awesome that we have been able to translate God's Word and praise songs into many of these thousands of languages. The fact that we have been able to do that in todays world only hit me while preparing for my mission trip to Chile. We are singing praise songs in worship down there and one we wanted to sing was Mighty to Save. With our luck the song by Hillsong has been translated into Spanish and made popular to where we are having these services.

It just amazes me at how powerful our God is and how he can do soooo many things unimaginable to our human minds. Dios Puede Salvar!!!!!!

Economy

I was watching Enemy at the Gates this morning between classes. And if you havent seen the movie it is about the Russians fighting the Germans at Stalingrad. One of the newspaper writers there gets an idea that they sgould make a hero. The hero wasnt some big within the Russian army or the Czar, it was a kid that he was trapped with 500 yards away from 6 Germans and the kid strategiacally killed all six within 2 min. The put him on the front page for a few weeks and was sucsessful with doing it. He was the picture of their war.

That got me thinking, with Obama as the President and saying "We will prosper in the end this recession." Is he the right one talking about it? He is already criticized for every step he makes. Maybe we need to find some one else and make them the picture of this recession, make them the positive aspect on making it back to the top. i dont know who it would be or should be but just not Obama nor a pollitician, they both are smart but they are the top dogs, find someone not so far up but knows what they are doing.

Mardi Gras!!!!!! Which Mask are you wearing??

So I attended the Chapel Service today and the priest from Lexington Catholic, Father Norman Fischer, was the speaker. I knew of him from my days back at St. Mark because he came to do a couple of services for us. But I never really listened to him back then. I was just like any grade schooler that would lose their attention quickly. This time, however, I listened to him somewhat closely. He is a very funny guy and entertaining. Hence the two songs that he performed for us that he had changed the words to make them a Christian song. Overall very interesting.

He did make a couple of points while he was speaking that just caught my attention. One was when he was talking about the masks and how we need to unmask ourselves from the things that are keeping us from following the Lord closer than where we are now. One thing we had said in the service was "Help me rid of my mask." What masks do we take on? Drugs, alcohol, family problems, peer pressure in general.

What can we do to help these people or maybe even ourselves get rid of our masks? One thing that comes to mind is something we discussed in my New Testament class on Monday- teaming up. The discussion in class the other day was dealing with how can we as one person help one of ours friends that is hindranced or handicapped, and the answer was team up with some of your Christian friends and surround them with Jesus and keep them involved with what you all do, like attending church on Sundays or just hanging out in mid-week playing video games. Same thing with these masks, we can team up with our friends of faith to help the friend overcome whatever is going on in their life. Like hanging out with them on a Friday night to keep them away from the alcohol or drugs, or just discussing your faith with them if they are riding the fence on whether they believe or not.

It's kind of funny how God can put events in your life throughout the week or over a span of a month that deal with the same matters. maybe he does this on purpose because he wants to get a point across to you about something or to teach you more on a subject.

This one caught me off guard!

Just looking at what kind of Religious cartoons there are on Google, I came across this one that simply amazed me, but yet it's some what true.

Many Christians in today's world are more critical of others not of faith than they are willing to just sit and talk with them. And more often than not this cartoon explains what happens. We can be critical of them and be as harsh as we can be, but when WE are being criticized, that's when we want to be calm and talk about things.

It's time for this to change. Its not good for the image of our faith nor for our personal selves. When we are critical like this those not of faith look at us and say "I don't want to be in a group that goes around criticizing others that aren't like them." That is not what we are about, is it not? As Christians we are to accept them as God has created them just like he created us.

Treat with disrespect, Gain Disrespect.
Treat with respect, Gain respect.

Remember this next time you are at Wal-Mart or the movies and find yourself in a convo about your faith.

Did you know????

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus, after every miracle that he does, He tells his disciples to not tell of the happening. That don't go boasting on how great He is, just keep it on the low down. He just keeps repeating this throughout Mark.

Wonder why that is??? I think it is because God wants our faith to be of free will, choosing on or own to follow him. Not to follow him because of Jesus and disciples bragging on the works that he does. But to let the people see for themselves and let the people affected by the miracle go out and profess their newly found faith.

I also wonder if that is why Peter denied Jesus three times after being criticized of being seen with Him? I mean it was embedded into his head to not tell who Jesus was but to let them find out for themselves on who he was. Soon after the denials the centurion is at the foot of the cross in Mark 15:39 and says, "Surely this is the Son of God." This wasn't the work of Jesus bragging on himself or Peter saying "Yes this is the Son of God," the centurion found out who he was after he saw how Christ died and had heard His cry.
Just a thought from learning about Mark in New Testament.