Tamara Lowe tells it (raps it) how it is

Just ran across this video of a woman names Tamara Lowe from Christ Fellowship rapping some sweet lyrics about God and how we’re just wasting space if all we’re doing is living for Earthly things that our culture is telling us is important. What do you think of it?

April 25, 2010 | Filed Under thoughts to chew on, video, you gotta have faith

Google: Trying Not To Be Evil?

I just saw this now defunct Hungry Beast video about Google and though that I should share. It really gives you a glimpse into what all Google has going on these days and just how far they have gone to make as much money as possible from their flagship advertising products (that generate 97% of their $200 billion market cap). Take a look the video below and see just how Google might be trying harder than ever not to be evil (or are they?).

THE BEAST FILE: GOOGLE (’HUNGRY BEAST’, ABC TV) from HUNGRY BEAST on Vimeo.

April 19, 2010 | Filed Under random thoughts, thoughts to chew on, video

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Church thoughts to chew on for February 7th, 2010: Jesus Died to Make us Righteous

thoughtstochewon Hey guys! It’s Steph writing our church thoughts for this week. Ryan has some two cents to add in reflection to the sermon this morning, which you can read over here in his post. This week was all about righteousness. Righteousness is another big church word that could use a good definition to truly understand what it means, so here you go: Righteousness- to be accepted because you live according to God’s standards; comes from a root word that means “straightness”.

Wow, how can you be ‘righteous’ in the eyes of God? What kind of good works can I do that will be worthy of His approval? This concept of righteousness needs to be pulled apart and examined closely because in today’s culture, we so often believe that in order to gain something, we must buy it. Can we buy God’s favor through our good moral standpoint and religion?

A deep conversation revolving around our future typically goes a little something like this…

person 1: “Hey, so do you think you’re going to heaven?”

person2: ” I think so, I’m a good person. I do a lot of really nice things like drive hybrid cars, send friends nice cards , and give money to charities at Christmas.”

So, how good is good enough? What can I possibly do to be good enough for God? Can I give enough money? Enough time? Enough warm and fuzzies? The answer simply put is no. The reason that we can do nothing to earn God’s favor is because we are all born with a sinful nature. We can not be acceptable to a just and holy God when we are identified by sin. According to Genesis 3, the fall of man happened when Adam and Eve went against God’s commands and sin was brought into the world. Why is it though, that we must suffer the consequences of something that Adam and Eve did? I didn’t eat the apple, why should I have to be born with sin? Here’s a shot at an explanation: Do we not suffer the consequences of choices made before us in our very own day to day life? We’re in an economic downturn, did something YOU do directly effect this? No, but the choices made of those before us in government did. What if your company goes bankrupt and you lose your job. Did something that YOU did directly effect that situation? No, but the decisions and actions of the collective employees and superiors did. We are faced with the ramifications of situations that we did not have a direct part in on a daily basis. And so it is with sin, we are born into this world with sin, and there is nothing great and wonderful enough that we could possibly do to make up for it in God’s eyes.

There are two specific ways that people mistakenly try to be good enough for God.

1. MORALITY

“For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.” - Romans 10:3

Myth: if you live good, you’re righteous. This is the classic example of how we feel we need to do enough good things to earn God’s favor. It doesn’t just happen to non-Christians, either. Christians can be guilty as well of trying to ‘add’ to the cross by tacking on our good works and morals. You can’t add anything to the cross. It’s because of the cross and only the cross that we have righteousness.

2. RELIGION

In Mark chapter 5, Jesus talks about the Pharisees incessant religious checklist of tasks and laws that they were to abide by in order to be ‘religious’. Jesus used them as an example that even their obsessiveness over laws could never allow them access to Heaven. Your works without the cross are meaningless.

In Philippians, Paul writes -

“Yes everything is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.” -Phil 3:8

All of our works, good deeds, self-esteem, and religiousness is simply nothing in comparison to the undeserving gift God gave us through the death of His Son on the cross. We need to stop searching for our own identity and self-worth, and instead trade it in for an identity in God.

When we seek God’s provision for our righteousness through admitting our sin and unworthiness He both transfers and transmits righteousness upon us. It soon becomes apparent that we don’t need religioun, we need Jesus!

Here are some verses to look up describing how Christ died for our sins to bring us to God - 1 Peter 2:24, 1 Peter 3:18, 2 Corinthians 5:21

Once we have been made righteous through salvation we have a power source to be moral and begin good works through faith in Christ knowing that our good works are not the earning of forgiveness, but a fruit of our faith.

—–

If you’ve read through this and you’re questioning how exactly you accept God’s free gift of grace and forgiveness and are ready to make that commitment, then please read on! There is no “magic prayer” or exact wording that you need to pray. It’s as simple as admitting to God that you are a sinner, and there is nothing that you will ever be able to do to merit forgiveness. Believe that Christ, God’s son, came to earth to die on the cross and take our sin upon Himself. Believe that He rose again on the 3rd day, and is alive today. Dedicate your life to God and invite His spirit into your life.

If you have dedicated your life to Christ after reading this, then please don’t stay silent. Contact us or someone that you feel comfortable with and tell them! It’s a long road ahead but it’s a wonderful one, filled with hope, love, and new beginnings.

Also, each of these weekly messages can be streamed/downloaded on iTunes for free. Click here to open up the podcast in iTunes now!

February 7, 2010 | Filed Under thoughts to chew on, you gotta have faith

Getting back into running is HARD (and so is everything else that you don’t pay attention to)

Stephanie and I just got back from a Sunday morning 3-miler and I think that we both realized something about half-way through the ’supposed to be really easy’ a.m. skedaddle (is that even a word?). The thing that we both realized was that getting back into running is hard and getting back into the groove of running is even harder.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself:

Are we talking about the Hup who literally burned up an 8k a few months back?

and…

Are we talking about the Steph who ran a sub 4-hour marathon (and over 20 miles to prepare) not too long ago?

Well, the truth of the matter is — yes, unfortunately we are still talking about the same Hup and Steph that should be running a 3-miler in their sleep (yeah, that’s us — in the third person). The truth is, even though we should be able to run 15,840 feet literally without breaking a sweat, the fact of the matter is:

Everything that you forget about or become complacent with will eventually be harder than it should be.

I don’t care if it’s running, a relationship with your girlfriend/wife/best friend or the position that you are paid to do at work. If you let yourself become too comfortable in any type of situation and stop pushing yourself in (or even stop paying attention to) whatever you’re involved in, it’s only going to make it harder in the end.

So, what I would suggest is that you take inventory of what you currently deem valuable or a priority in your life and ask yourself a few questions about them:

Have I become too comfortable with it to the point that I am just going through the motions?
Am I taking it serious enough right now, or do I simply feel like I have it under control because I always have in the past?
Has something seemed to become much harder than it always has been for no apparent reason?

After you ask yourself these questions, it’s then time to take action on them and to make sure that you are constantly becoming a better, all around person at the things that you feel are the most important in your life. This goes way beyond running (especially for me) and includes things like work, faith and love among others.

I hope that this makes sense — I’m going to try to articulate and push out some of my more personal thoughts on here and this was my first shot. Don’t worry, they’ll only get better from here.

Thanks for listening and feel free to give me any feedback that you have. If you need me I’ll be prepping for the Turkey Trot 5-miler that’s coming up on Thanksgiving (wish us luck!).

November 22, 2009 | Filed Under relationship stuff, thoughts to chew on

Church thoughts to chew on for November 8th, 2009: Helping Carry Others

thoughtstochewon Let’s face it, we all live in a very self-indulgent culture and believe me, I’m no exception. Sometimes I feel like the hardest decision of my day is whether or not I’m going to stop by Starbucks in the morning before work. To break it down more simply, that’s basically deciding whether or not I’m going to go spend about $5 bucks on a few ounces of heated soy milk, chai flavored syrup and some water. Yeah, it’s really rough sometimes.

Anyways, during church today we all had the privilege of having a guest speaker, Lisa Orris, who is currently the director of evangelism at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Chicago, IL. She had some interesting stories to tell from back when she was the chaplain at a hospital in Illinois, such as one night in particular where she remembers having to use her strong faith in God to help a seemingly hopeless woman who, due to her circumstances, had lost much of her own. She told this story as a way to show how Christians are bound together by a welcomed burden of always thinking of others, praying for others and loving others before we do the same for ourselves. This isn’t real easy to swallow and the fact that we’re living in a culture that is constantly telling us to think about ourselves first and others last, it’s something that all Christians need to constantly be reminded of and acting on as much as possible.

Next, Lisa pointed us all to a verse, Luke 5:17-20, which tells a story about some men who were carrying their paralytic friend to see Jesus in hopes of getting him healed. After trying several times to make their way trough the crowds to Jesus (they were carrying their friend on a couch), they took their efforts to the next level by carrying him up a flight of outdoor stairs to the roof of the house. Once they had made it up there with their friend (who was still, of course, on a couch), they dug a hole through the tiles of the roof and lowered their friend down right smack-dab in front of Jesus. Yeah, they dug a hole through the roof!

You wanna know what Jesus had to say after he saw this random dude on a couch show up in front of him? Was He angered? Nope. Was He worried about the roof? Nope. Was He happy to see him? OH YES HE WAS. So happy, in fact, that He not only healed the paralytic, but he also forgave all sins of the other men that had gone through all of the trouble of getting him lowered down into the house. He was pleased to see the efforts of the friends who had enough faith in Jesus that they would even dig through a roof to get to him.

This ‘digging through roofs’ is what Lisa told all of us in attendance that day to do for other Christians who are looking for help, guidance, friendship, counseling, love, faith or anything else that we could potentially provide for them. No, it’s not always easy (lowering a person on a couch through a roof rarely is), it’s what we, as Christians are called to do for one another (and others who aren’t Christians).

So, what this tell me is that I always need to be ready to help carry others, even if it is an inconvenience to me and my perfectly scheduled day and yes, even if it means that I don’t get my $5 Starbucks for the day.

What are your thoughts on carrying others? Do you feel moved to help others or have you ever missed a chance to carry someone that you probably should have? Feel free to share your experiences with us in the comments if you feel comfortable to do so.

November 8, 2009 | Filed Under thoughts to chew on, you gotta have faith

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Church thoughts to chew on for November 1st, 2009: Learning To Forgive

thoughtstochewon I’m trying something new today with the blog after I thought of an idea that I wanted to try out. As most of you hopefully already know, Stephanie and I are dedicated Christians and we’re always looking to live a life that gives praise to God in as many ways as possible. We’re by no means perfect (no human being is), but we have placed the Bible, the life of Jesus and our relationship with God at the center of our relationship, which has only allowed us to become an even more awesome couple over time. I won’t take up too much time at this point with all of the details, but if you would like more info on what being a Christian is really like you can email either of us anytime — we’re always available to chat with you, no problem. I digress…

Anyways, I wanted to open with all of this information because the idea that I had today is a way that will hopefully help me better communicate some of the great things that Stephanie and I get out of our church service each week to all of you who might not have had the chance to go to church this week (or who don’t go at all). My fairly simple, yet highly effective idea was to take notes on my Blackberry during church today instead of writing all of them on the sheet that is given out each week. I thought that I would try this out because it allows me to email myself all of my notes that I jot down during the service so that I can have them somewhere other than on a piece of paper that I don’t ever end up looking at again after I leave the church for the week. Then, what I’ll do each week is post some of these notes so that first, I can think about all of them again and second, so that you can check them out if you’d like to see what we focused on for any particular Sunday. So, here are the notes that I took during this week’s service and if you’re in the bay area and would like to check out our church on an upcoming Sunday, just leave us a comment or send us an email and we’ll figure out how to get you there.

Anyways, the theme of this week’s message as Learning To Forgive and here are the notes that I took for the week — if you have any questions, please leave me a comment and I’ll get back with you asap.

- we can’t love enough (people are built self-serving), so we must kill our natural motives and let God love through us

- we must be prepared to to give reasons to those who ask about why we have the hope that we do.

- if you’re keeping a record of wrongs, then you’re not actually forgiving

- we must trust the word of God more than we trust our emotions

- wherever God guides, he will provide — He will give us the energy and courage to forgive

- forget about the past. Forgive and press on towards the goal of living a life for God

- forgive as the Lord forgave you (he made the ultimate sacrifice by dying on the cross)

- forgiveness is given, trust is earned

- forgiveness is the intentional act of giving grace (”they don’t deserve it” < this is the point) forgiveness is not reconciliation

- forgiveness is letting go of our resentments

- 4 ways to forgive

* deal with it immediately
* determine to go first
* remove revenge from your vocabulary
* do good to those who you forgive

I hope that this gives you a good sense of what we discuss each week at our church and if you have any comments or questions about any of the notes in the list, please let me know!

November 1, 2009 | Filed Under thoughts to chew on, you gotta have faith

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