Wonder what's next?

Things have changed a bit since the last time I posted anything but not too much.  I still work for the same awesome company but with new and different responsibilities.  It has been an awesome and difficult transition to say the least, but I am blessed.  I get to work with a person who is very talented at what he does and he is an excellent teacher.  God has really made it easy for me to keep returning to work day after day.  I truly feel blessed.

Now for what you most likely are reading this blog for... I have yet to be involved with any new music ventures and I still have an unquenchable passion to produce music.  I would love to be a musical missionary like so many other amazing bands, but I trust the Lord to do in my life whatever He will.  I know His way is always the best way and right now, I am enjoying the time with family and friends.

So, what does it all mean?  If God provides the vehicle for me to pursue singing in a band again awesome!  If not, awesome!  God is in control.  I surrender my life to His will; after all, it belongs to Him anyway, right? :)

God bless and keep the faith!

Chris

Warrior DASH me to peices?

I am a prayer warrior - a warrior ready to face the Enemy by the grace of God!
I am a loving warrior - a warrior fighting for the heart of my wife!
I am a caring warrior - a warrior seeking to be the best father I can be! 

Physically... not so much.

So... last week I signed up for Warrior Dash (www.warriordash.com).  It will be the most physically intense thing I have done in my life to this point.  Here's the thing; I am horribly out of shape and I am definitely not a runner!  I am about 5'8" and on Monday, July 25th I weighed in at 224.7 lbs.  According to the BMI (body mass index), I am in the neighborhood of 60 lbs overweight and considered obese.  Yikes!  The last time I weighed 165 lbs I was a junior in high school!


On Monday, aside from weighing in, I also began working out.  I started with the treadmill and situps.  Let's just say, I am still in pain but I have pressed on.  A verse comes to mind as I write this, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:13

God is so very good.  Even though I am weak, He is strong (1 Corinthians 1:25).  It is His strength that I lean on as I work out.  It is His word I am meditating on (most of the time) as I am sweating my ears off.  It is His glory I seek with every gasp of air I inhale!

It is my sincere goal to live a life that glorifies the Lord and gives honor to His holy name.  I am participating in warrior dash not for my glory, but to help me stay focus on working out and getting in shape.  I want to live a healthy life that is a good example for my daughter and wife as well as others.  But most importantly, I am God's temple and it's about time I started looking like one rather than a half way house! ;)

God bless and keep the faith!

Chris

P.S.  If you are willing to pray with me as I prepare for this event, it would be greatly appreciated.

I am the broken...

There have been many times in my life I have felt like a failure.  More times than not, it's because I've failed at something.  

I am troubled because of a current failure in my life.  I'm not hopeless or without peace, just troubled.  About a month ago the drummer for the band I was in ("I've Died Daily") quit the band.  In my opinion, this was the pull of the string that eventually unraveled the entire work. 

The Bible tells us, "those who have ears to hear, let them hear."  I was not one of the "them."  I had ears full of gauze and a head full of ideas which didn't mesh with the rest of the band.  For that reason I have (respectfully & lovingly) stepped away from "I've Died Daily."

There have been many folks who have been loving and encouraging, attempting to convince me this was not my fault.  I am eternally grateful for the outpouring of love and consideration but, truth be told, in a very major way, it is my fault.  I failed to hear what my brothers were saying, and by not listening, I was telling them I didn't love them.  

I understand this because of the many years of experiencing this with friends and my wife.  I have struggled when listening to them even when they were speaking plain as day.  I've also experienced the frustration of making what I thought was a clear point only to be questioned on it again and again.  That's exactly what I was doing.

So, why am I sharing this? 

God is sovereign; that's why.  

My goal in life is to serve and glorify Jesus.   I know I fail at this, and that's why I prayed for brokenness four days before our drummer quit.  I never anticipated my prayers for brokenness being answered in such a way, but God knows best.  I know there were struggles we were facing as a band, but my ambition and passion kept me deaf and dumb.  I love my brothers from IDD tremendously and tried to express that, but finally I understood we were not all united. Effective ministry can only happen when we are all on the same page.

I am now broken and troubled, but I know Jesus is with me.  He has forgiven me and I know He isn't done with me yet.  Does this mean I will sing for another band?  I dunno; it's in God's hands.  For now I am taking a break from music to properly mourn IDD and spend some more time with Jesus, family and friends.

2 Corinthians 4:17

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.  Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

God bless and keep the faith!

Chris

P.S.  Trials and tribulation build character... I willingly pray for brokenness because I want to be the man the Lord desires, not the man I think He wants me to be.

2400 WATTS: Connect to the power source.

***This is one of a few posts that were originally posed on the "I've Died Daily" website.  Now that that website is no more, I have re-posted it here.***

I recently had a conversation with my wife where she brought up how many different power cables for devices she had; Mobile Phone, Kindle, MP3 player, baby monitor, and other items which vie for a spot in one of the coveted power outlets in our home.  She brought up how we are “connected” to so many things… but are we connected to what matters?

None of these devices can function if they aren’t first connected to a source of power.  Without something pouring new life into them, sometimes DAILY, they begin to decay and finally die.  In order for them to work at all, they need to be connected to something else.  Not only that, think of how much time and energy went into their creation!  

Genesis 1:27
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:7

 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 

Lamentations 3:24

I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Let’s look at our mobile phone for a moment.  They are brilliant devices that allow us to be ‘connected’ with anyone in the world.   In some cases we can be connected at the push of a button.  Yet in ‘dead zones’, it doesn’t matter how charged the battery is, they are useless.  Unless they have a connection to a provider, they cannot fulfill the role for which they were created.  They can be full of ‘life’ but absolutely useless.

John 15:1-4

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Let’s take this a bit further on a tangent from the previous paragraph.  Our mobile phones are great ways to keep in contact with people.  With the advent of conference calling and texting, we can even communicate with multiple people all at once!  This is an excellent way to communicate… but are we really ‘connecting’ to anyone?  It was only a matter of a few weeks ago that my wife and I finally broke down and got text.  We both recognized how ‘detached’ we are from people by simply texting.  Texting aside, can we truly say we are connecting with someone, or even really communicating with someone if we are not with them in person? 

I don’t know about you but it troubles me how often I find myself attempting to talk on the phone while doing all manner of other functions at the same time.  News Flash, I’m a dude!  I don’t multitask well! LOL!  I know that if I am on the phone with someone and doing ANYTHING else, I am NOT connecting with the person on the other end of the phone.

John 15:5-8

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

Here’s my point.  We need to get connected to the only Source that will never cease to fill us.  We need to be seeking the Source daily!  Jesus is the only source of living water and our only hope for salvation.  Seek Him.  If you don’t have a relationship with Jesus or a local church body, contact me chris@ivedieddaily.com or any one of the others in I’ve Died Daily and we will help you get CONNECTED!  Jesus is waiting on your call, and He is always with you and ready to listen.  He loves you so much that death was a price worth paying FOR YOU.

Lamentations 3:25-26

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
   to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
   for the salvation of the LORD.

Psalm 62:5

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I hope this message blessed you as much as it did me to write it.

God bless and keep the faith!

Chris

Mirror, Mirror, Tell Me Your Lies!

***This is one of a few posts that were originally posed on the "I've Died Daily" website.  Now that that website is no more, I have re-posted it here.***

Blindness, illusions, misconceptions, false representations… Seek the Architect!

I began reading the Bible daily with my accountability partner January 1^st.  We began in Genesis and have been feasting on the word daily. 

In an effort to keep each other accountable to reading a minimum of 1 chapter a day, we are discussing each chapter and wrestling with the wisdom we’ve gleaned.  This has been a huge blessing.  It keeps me reading the Bible daily, I spend time meditating on the word, and I have someone to talk about Biblical truths with.  It’s also been great getting reacquainted with the patriarchs of Israel, and be reminded that they too were only human.  I really started seeing how the Word applies to life and how much I’ve been missing out on its sustenance. 

Well, this blog entry is mainly because of a statement my accountability partner (You can check out his simple, yet powerful website here http://www.heprayed.com/) made in response to a passage in Exodus.  He said,

“This earth here isn't reality - it's more like the Matrix!  There's so much spiritual activity - battles, victories, struggles, etc going on behind the scenes.  We don't enter into true reality until we've been released from this world into the presence of our God and we're not "seeing as through a blurry mirror" anymore.  (1 Cor 13:12)” 

HOW VERY TRUE!  If you don’t know what “The Matrix” is, aside from possibly living under a rock, you missed one of the better (not best) sci-fi/action flicks from my generation (I personally think Equilibrium was a better movie, but more on that some other time).  In the Matrix, Neo feels like something is just different about the world and when given a chance at reality, knowing it will change everything, he takes the RED PILL. 

Quick tangent!

There are a TON of parallels in this move that ‘mirror’ Biblical truths, but that alone is a blog in itself (and had probably been done 100 times over by now).  There is one parallel I need to draw simply cause I mentioned it; Neo takes the red pill, is ‘born again’ into a new reality, and finally sees the truth.  We accept Jesus as our Lord, are washed in His blood, and are born again to a new life where we walk in truth.

Okay, back on topic!

I don’t think we can fathom just how distorted our “reality” truly is.  For one thing, we didn’t know the reality of the Garden of Eden, and we didn’t experience the joy of walking with the Lord in the cool of the day.  That is a reality we will never fully grasp until we are finally home.  For Adam and Eve, they experience the glory of God and they fully understood what they lost by eating of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6-10).  For those who don’t know Jesus, they are stuck in the same toils that Adam knew (Genesis 3:17-19).  For us who do know Jesus, we are blessed by the truth that we are nothing but sojourners in this world and should seek to be heavenly minded (1 Peter 1:17-21).

We are trapped by our inability to see.  We are incapable of seeing the things that go on in the spiritual realm, and we rarely comprehend the gravity of what it meant for Jesus to die for OUR SINS.  Our whole reality is a blurry mirror.  So you will know, the title of this blog is a line from the song “Perseverance” by the band A Plea For Purging.  I realize the line in their song was probably not intended to be used in this manner, but I thought it fitting considering the nature of this blog.

So I leave you with this thought; don’t be conformed to what the world tells you to be and don’t let what other people think of you shape who you are.  Live a life that is worthy of the price Jesus paid.  Find your worth in Jesus and strive to see Him reflected back when you look in the mirror.

James 1:22-25 (ESV) - But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Wake up Neo, the Matrix has you.

God bless and keep the faith!

Chris