Not About Me

Ok, I’ll be honest.  Sometimes I don’t love worship on Sundays, because every song isn’t exactly the way I want it to be—not the right genre, too slow, you know what I mean. But thanks to Los’s post today about reaching all generations (by the way, if you’ve never read Ragamuffin Soul, start right now), I got to thinking about this whole thing in a much different way.

We always focus on what we want, to the point that we even grumble about how we worship! Remember, guys, worship isn’t about us at all. It’s a way to thank the God that rules over our lives and holds everything together in the universe. The song The Heart of Worship by Matt Redman says this perfectly—

I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required,

You search much deeper within, through the way things appear,

You’re looking into my heart.

Here’s a challenge; get your heart right when you come to worship, put aside what type of music you prefer, and focus on what’s really important—not the song, but the words. What you’re actually saying to God.

It’s not about you or me, it’s about Him.

Yep, I’m Back

Sorry it took so long to get me back to writing.  School has been crazy, and I gradually forgot about the blog.  Before I knew it, I hadn’t written in like 2 or 4 months!  Well, I’m back, and although I won’t be writing everyday, I’ll try my best to keep it up.

So, I just began reading Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom today.  It’s a short book (only about 180 pages), but I can already tell it’ll be full of amazing, life-changing kind of stuff.  One of the main characters, an old man named Morrie, quotes the philosopher Stephen Levine,

“Love is the only rational act.”

Wow, although this is a very short and simple sentence, it’s amazing how much impact it carries.  To me, this is what it means; love carries a tremendous amount of influence in the world.  It’s the greatest thing you can do, and one of the only really great things a human can do.  Think about it, if you love God, and love your neighbor, Jesus says that you’re doing pretty well.

Any thoughts about the quote?

P.S.  PHILLIES WORLD CHAMPS!!!

ESV study bible/translations

There’s this amazing bible coming out soon: the ESV study bible.  I really have needed a study bible like this for a while now.  It has..

2,752 pages

1.3 million words

20,000 notes

Over 50 articles

Over 200 full-color maps

200-plus charts

80,000 cross-references

40 all-new illustrations

This sounds amazing, and something that’ll really help me to grow closer to God and understand and interpret his Word so much better. 

My question is, what translation(s) do you use for Bible reading?  I’ve mostly been using NLT, some NIV, and a little of the Message from online.

are you ready for some football?

I am soooo ready for football season to start.  I’ve already had a week of practices, college football is a week or two in, and most teams (besides some that played on Thursday, I think) in the NFL start their seasons tomorrow!  I am so psyched, if you can’t tell. 

Football is the KING of sports.  Although you get to collide with somebody every single play, it’s still such a game of strategy and thinking.  Without your entire team working together, you won’t accomplish anything.  I guess that can kind of be applied to our spiritual lives as well; the better relationships that we have with our Christian friends and the more we bring eachother up in Christ, the better we can be. 

Anyway, football’s such a great game, and I can’t wait to see my Eagles play tomorrow.  Their two best recievers are out with injuries (who weren’t that good to start with), so I have kind of an ominous feeling that the game won’t turn out so well, but hey, with the Eagles, you never what kind of game they’ll play; a horrible one or a miracle performance.  Anybody remember 4th and 26?  Only the Eagles could pull off something like that.  One more reason I love football- David always has a chance to beat Goliath.  Any given Sunday, baby.  Can’t wait for the new season.

4th and 26

 

First Day of School Tomorrow!!

Wow,did the summer go fast or what?  I have school tomorrow, and already had my first practice with pads for football today!  Now that school is starting up again, the true test begins.  It’s easier to be Christ-like when you’re at great Christian camps learning more and more about God and getting closer to him.  But when you’re in school everyday and surrounded by temptations of all kinds, the boys are seperated from the men, so to speak.  (Probably not a great cliche to use, but hey, it kinda works.)

I just ask that you would pray for me and my friends from church, that we would stay strong in the Lord as school begins, and that we wouldn’t conform to the ways of our peers.  Also, that we would be a light to our friends and classmates (Matthew 5:14-16) and show the love and compassion of Jesus Christ in our words and actions.

Finally, I just wrote a post for deeplyrooted.tv, our youth group’s blog, so check that out.

some good music you have to hear

I have a friend named John Mitchell.  Well, if you’re reading this, he’s probably your friend too, so I’ll just cut to the chase.  This kid is a musical talent, and with a piano, some drums, and GarageBand, he’s making some great music.  Check him out on Myspace, and add him as a friend if you like his music and have a Myspace.  He’s always working on something new, so keep checking back.

Conrad Thoughts

Hey guys, I know I haven’t written in a couple days, but I’m back and ready to write again.  I got back from Camp Conrad about a week ago.  Although Conrad isn’t as nice as other camps I’ve been to and the food doesn’t quite..hmm… match up, none of that really mattered, because it was a time to get closer to God and everyone in youth group. Not to mention Peter’s poptarts helped me survive breakfast. Haha just kidding.

Anyway, I wanted to highlight one thing I discovered from our speaker, Mark Reed.  Mark was like no speaker I’ve heard before.  He didn’t really have an overall theme to the week, but it was more of a beginner’s course to spiritual growth.  One day about Bible reading, one day about prayer, one day about interacting with parents, etc.  Although I knew the general points Mark was trying to make, he mentioned some great verses and passages that I was unaware of.  One thing he mentioned was a verse out of Psalm 139.  I just want to recommend that you read Psalm 139 if you aren’t familiar with it.  It’s a really comforting passage and one that explains how much God is involved in our life.

I want to share verse 17 with you (I think this is the one Mark shared with me as well).  It says..

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
      They cannot be numbered! 

It’s amazing to me that the God of all the universe would have time to think about me even once in a lifetime, but no, his thoughts about me can’t even be counted, and it’s the same with everyone in the world!  Well, that’s all I have to say about Conrad for now.  Again, take a look at Psalm 139, it has some awesome stuff in it.

Not sure what to think

Read this post from Los’s blog.
I’ve talked about the song, Healer, just a little while ago, and I have no idea what to think about this.
Just read Los’s post and the article in the post. Tell me what you think.

Praise- Pop-Pop’s Surgery

I just wanted to thank Tiffany and anyone else that might have prayed for my Pop-Pop Mike.  He had the quadruple bypass surgery (yep, it went from triple to quadruple) on the morning of the 13th, and everything went really well.  He’s feeling great and might even be able to sit up and maybe even walk today! I praise God that he is recovering so quickly and again, thank you so much for the prayers.

Back to Work..

I had my first day of conditioning for football today, and I’m already excited for the brand new season.  Last year (in 7th grade) my team, the Tigers, went 8-0 and averaged 30 points a game (and we took out all of our starters in the 3rd quarter every game!).  I play left guard and left outside linebacker (at least I did last year, not sure what I’ll play on defense this year) and start both ways.

But let me get away from last year and get back to this year- first day of conditioning.  I was supposed to be doing some light workouts all summer, but (don’t tell Coach) I haven’t been keeping up on that.  It was hot as heck out there today, and man, I did not feel good after a while.  It reminds me of a quote that I heard a little while ago, “Your success today depends on your preparation yesterday.” Or something like that.  I realized that I really should have been doing those workouts and keeping myself in shape.  Well, I’m in shape, just not tip-top shape yet.  Alright, I’m starting to ramble.  I better just stop writing and go work out. 

Anthony