Youth Convention

What is on my mind after Youth Convention is the people I now cherish dearly, the memories that bring laughter to my soul, and the maturing process of becoming more Christ-like.

1. Our benevolence has become sexy in culture. Buying Tom's shoes for African children is becoming the end of benevolence. Direct interaction with immediate homelessness has become obsolete. When we begin to follow a cultural norm that sexualizes convoluted benevolence (buying altruistic paraphernalia that helps the impoverished via donation) , we marginalize the immediate society that we live in, causing a societal disconnect that ignores homelessness on our streets. We make benevolence an either or 1) buy Tom's shoes, dismissing what true benevolence is or 2) help our immediate society come out of poverty. Of course the first is being chosen because it is sexy in culture and more visually appealing when we wear a pair of shoes that shows off our benevolent spirit (the opposite of humility, the beginning of conceit).

My world is sexualized

Yup, whenever I watch an episode of Glee, a commercial, a person in general, I am starting to notice how media sexualization has affected people. We are no longer sympathetic, but motivated sexually to do things. Bold statement? Not quite; I believe the more and more the media sexualizes people the more people sexualize people. This is bad. We lose our ontological identities and replace them with sexual roles that should not even be discovered outside of marriage. This creates promiscuity and a lifetime of struggle with lust, porn. and a trail of poor relationships tied to sexualization. Even sex itself will no longer be sex, but rather an act out of the need to stick to the status quo. That's bad. AKA: Sex becomes our identity and we lose ourselves.

Waking up 11/19/10

Waking up never felt so amazing. God, you're amazing. Thank you for being so amazing. I am waking up to a life filled with wonder and mystery, all under God's sovereignty and blessing. Thank you for such a day! I am significant because I am loved, living is just one of those perks!

James 4-5

Intro- Celine Dion,-That's the way it is

Mark 5:21-34, The woman who touched Jesus' garment

James 4-5

Can you trust God with our desires?

This is why you must be urgent about knowing your destiny and completing your mission. Jesus said, "All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent me, because there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end." (John 9:4 NLT)


When it comes to planning, many Christians act like atheists. They realized Jesus saved them, but they don't really trust him. They think they can plan their life any way they want to. But the reality is everyone is created by God, and he made each person for a unique purpose. He has a specific destiny for everyone. 

-he won’t give what you want of your heart until your heart is built to receive these desires

-life is meant to be lived by receiving, not giving

-Don’t we all know how everyone ought to live? I mean, we are not good at managing our own lives but managing others.

-you bring Jesus in, live your whole life as a living sacrifice. Don’t live in the arrogance of your own speaking.

-When we just say our dreams, we are not relying on God but opening an escape hatch for our own will

-because they weren’t expecting problems, they were unprepared for them- married people who God put together to marry

-the significance of our life is not that we are alive but because we are loved

-the gift is not the response to the gift, but in doing…it’s not our gift, it’s god’s business

-the recession has caused the arrogance in our financial resource has been ripped  away. The thing is…what happens when everything turns around, will our hearts be aligned with heaven?

=we try to push belief onto people who have no capacity to believe. Jesus’ strategy is to push softly, little by little.

-sometimes all you can do is endure

-God is looking for feisty people, who are going to fight on, the world is not going to win.

James 5

Wealth has created an attitude of superiority, and they became wealthy by defrauding the poor

Money doesn’t get you what you think it gets

Don’t let your difficult circumstances turn you into a complainer

5:12-above all, don’t swear but yet your yes be yes and let your no be no so you won’t face judgment (integrity)

1. “Don’t make oaths” –(swear)

2. Supernatural roulette wheel- what are we trying to do? We are being superstitious, trying to control outcomes by various kinds of things that don’t necessarily flow from the patience that carry us through the day and the night.

1. This is the meaningless repetition that Jesus is criticizing

2. You are related to the father as the father is to son

3. Don’t try to manipulate God through superstition, it’s not magic, it’s faith.

God doesn’t work from a mechanistic world, but from a relational world.

-if you are person living from the inside out, living with integrity that you can take to the bank, then GOOD.

If we can’t complain or manipulate outcomes, what can we do?

1.     pray

Don’t try to put God on the back end, put God on the front end

Bring God into the good times and the bad times, but whatever you do, don’t do it alone

When we are not suffering, what are we going to do?

1.     When things are going well, give thanks

2.     Know that God exists in the good and bad, so address him on both sides

Sometimes, sickness is related to sin

1.     If your sick, don’t do it alone

2.     The prayer offered in faith standing in the reality that God can heal, will raise him up

a.     What happens when the healing doesn’t happen?

                                               i.     When standing in front of God and it doesn’t happen, something else must be going on here.

                                             ii.     If we pray for the sick in this way, it’s not the way that we do it, but it’s the Lord that restores it.

                                            iii.     There are people that haven’t respected the blood of the lord, and the sickness acts as punishment, not consequence

                                            iv.     Not every sickness is related to sin

                                             v.     God is not looking for ways to punish you, but for ways to forgive you

3.     We think the only way think sins can be forgiven if we ask

a.     Jesus asked on the cross for our sins to be forgiven

                                               i.     We enter the sin that has already been forgiven by Jesus

4.     If the skeleton stays in the closet, it has power over you, if you get the skeleton out, it has no power in the present

-James ends his book in prayer (important)

-if anyone strays from the truth and you turn them back to the course of truthfulness, the one who turns the person away will turn their own soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin

Week feels like a bomb

So...the homework comes as follows:

1. CW paper due tomorrow
2.Poster assignment due Wed
3. Comm Theory paper due thursday
4. CW Prophetic challeng next tuesday

That is a lot of papers...Lord help me find peace in you while knocking out these minor principalities we call homework....amen

Why I should care...

Andre invited me to play for the AG conference in December, and what a privilege it is to use my gifts to glorify the Lord. However, he told me I would have to be a lot better than how I played last time, as it seemed like I did not practice lately. Idon't think it's even the fact that I didn't practice, but I stopped truly caring for why I started playing music for God's glory.

The question comes up, "Why should I care?" I think the question is valid, but is selfish. I should care because God cared to get me a saxophone, give me this gift and has given me privilege to use it for his glory. I am humbling myself from this "self" attitude that has brought my caring level to the equivalent of waiting tables and expecting a few dollars. I need to start caring for what I do a lot more that I have, because God cares for me infinitely more. And I need to start dreaming a lot bigger, because God has dreams beyond what I can dream.

It is time to stop dreaming selfish dreams that involve, you, and only you, and dream dreams that involve God's will and others to glorify him.

Should I write down my material?

I should at least write a roadmap of how I want to go in my performance thursday. Here it goes:

1.holding babies/baby jokes...getting past garage into kitchen into fridge
2. outsourcing mormon bikers to china, Mormons bad. Something about 2 men coming to your house and making you feel dirty for something you regret doing in the morning...post on craigslist?
3. Best days to come out of the closet
4. Jesus game/rapture
5. Moving to Britain
6. Everything in the world can be solved with a game of rock paper scissors. It's a clear cut game, if unsure of the hand shape? That's awesome, because you can do it over? Don't like the first outcome? Then there is best out of 3!
7.Man what a week, I took a facebook quiz and found out I'm 89% gay. I'm so confused. I like pink, I like going to parades, I like to hang out with men...but does that make me gay?

 Studying Abroad/drinking...I'm mormon...i don't drink-consider revising...I think the intro should be about babies

I have some homework, but not to worry, the best jokes are stories.

"I can understand the validity of showing people the ugliness of the world, but I also think there is a place for movies to leave people with a sense of hope. If your film isn't going to do that, I just don't think it's worth making."
-Chris Columbus, director of Home Alone


I think Chris brings home a necessity that is ever so relevant to society's needs today. We need to construct our reality's toward others in a hopeful way. Even though the truth is up for the viewer's interpretation, we should not be the ones helping the pessimism of truth. The truth should be upheld optimistically, and that is the hardest thing to do daily.