WIALT (2)

The 2nd installment of what I am listening to, enjoy!

First let me start off with a little different flava. If you are into podcasts, and into hard music I would encourage you to check out the HM magazine podcast, for a couple reasons. First they play entire songs not just snippets, so that you can get a feel for the given bands songwriting. Second the host is good and not dorky like many podcast hosts are. Third the interviews are decent. So if you are into hard Christian music I would definately encourage you to download a few episodes and see if you like, also they are free, which is the case with the vast majority of podcasts, so this kinda goes without saying.

Sleepwalking, by Blindside


Pieces, by Red


Chinatown Jail Break, The Galley Slave, Warriors by Flatfoot 56


The Glory of it All, Can You Feel It?, by David Crowder Band

No more Christian t-shirts!?!

its true....
I am not the biggest fan of Christian t-shirts.....there are some I like but more that I dont. I am saddened as my friend informed me, and after verifying it on the web, that my favorite Christian clothing retailer is calling it quits early next year. I encourage all of you to go and check out there clothes if for nothing more than reading the stories behind the clothes they make.......and hey maybe grab a shirt, or a sticker while you can!

check em out!

Could there be a silver lining, well yes there is. This weekend at NYWC I was introduced to the Jedidiah clothing company. AMAZING! Check them out here! They are way more pricey, but the clothes are awesome, and they donate a portion of all their sales to support a bunch of humanitarian causes which you can also read about on their website.

Good clothes are so hard to come by!

What I am listening to!

I have an addiction, and that is music. My wife wishes I had a less expensive addiction, but I say hey at least its not (insert more expensive item to be addicted to here). So here is the thing some of the students have asked me about music suggetstions, what I listen to, how I find out about shows etc. So this is my attempt I am going to post weekly about the albums and the songs (for you itunesers)that I am listening to and any shows that hear of that are coming somewhat close, hopefully we can get together and go to some shows, because I love shows. Anyhoo here is this weeks list (and I know some are older, but its what I am listening to, and you may not have heard them yet!), and they will never be in order of importance, just a mass of info

1.) All Around Me, Flyleaf

2.) Breathe Into Me, Red

3.) Hawk Nelson, The One Thing I Have Left

4.)Tough as John Jacobs, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster

5.) Ignition, TobyMac

6.) Awakening, Switchfoot


Check these out and enjoy!

Warning: Maylene is not for the faint of heart!

A blow to self-exaltation

I am reminded often that the world does not revolve around me. It is true of not only my life but the lives of the majority of those around me. We are a people who desire to have things our way and on our time-table. The sad thing is that we often transpose this aspect of our thinking on to the character of God. We think that we are the center of all things, and that somehow because of our existence God is obligated to do certain things. The truth is that God is only obligated to us to the extent that he obligates himself to us.

I was reading yesterday and reminded that when we think of salvation, and our redemption by Christ. We ought to keep it in perspective. So I share with you a quote from Stephen Charnock:

"It was a pure goodness. He was under no obligation to pity our misery, and repair our ruins: he might have stood to the terms of the first covenant, and exacted our eternal death, since we had committed an infinite transgression: he was under no tie to put off the robes of a judge for the heart of a father, and erect a mercy seat above his tribunal of justice."

Praise God that when we deserved only justice he gave mercy.

Viva Reformata!

Happy Reformation Day!

The Glory of Christ

I enjoy reading the puritians very much, but I have to read them very slowly, mainly due to the fact they were brilliant and I am less than brilliant. I am reading a book by John Owen right now about the Glory of Christ, and as I was reading yesterday I came across this statement and it hit me with its brutal honesty. Owen writes:

"Reckon in your minds, that this beholding of of the glory of Christ by beholding the glory of God, and all of his holy properties in him, is the greatest privelige of which, in this life, we can be made partakers...............Unless you value it, unless you esteem it as such a privelige, you will not enjoy it; and that which is not valued according to its worth is despised."

I know that often I dont esteem Christ in my heart the way that I should and reading this I realized that I esteem other things in his place and wonder at why my heart feels so empty.

Let us fill our hearts with the delight in the Glory of Christ, that we may see it for the privelige that it truly is!

I'm Shipping up to Boston

This is quite possibly one of my favorite songs, in fact it is my ringtone. Just so I can pass along some of my musical enjoyment to the masses. Its riverdance on steroids! For other DKM (dropkick murphys) fun check out "the state of massachussetts" video.

World Series Champs!

My boys did it! What is amazing is the kid that pitched yesterday Jon Lester was being treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma this time last year, and this year he pitches his team to a World Series victory. On a different note, I think Jonathan Papelbon might just be becoming my baseball hero (he's from Jacksonville you know)!

trained by grace

Titus 2:11-12:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age

In Titus 2:11-12 I encountered an interesting thought communicated by Paul. In verse 11 Paul says "For the grace of God appeared" This statement works as a transition in the letter, and more immediately a new chain of thought regarding the foundation for a godly life, and its manifestation through good works.

What stopped me in this passage was the verb that begins verse 12. Paul uses the term "training" in reference to the work of the grace of God in our lives. What an amazing and humbling thought. It is not the fear of the Lord, though that is the beginning of wisdom, or the judgment of God which trains us, but rather the grace of God. The tool which the Lord sharpens our desires for him is his grace.

The grace of God trains us to resist "worldly passions", but how? Paul makes it clear in the verses which follow describing the majesty of the work of Jesus Christ:

who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (2:14)

Our understanding of this majestic rescue of our souls by Jesus Christ is a constant reminder to the us that we are desperately in need of the grace of the Lord. It is not that the grace of the Lord is always a pleasurable training, in that we are often forced to see our own filthiness, to smell the stench of our sinful behavior, but to the one who has tasted and seen that the Lord is good, the grace of the Lord is a sweet deliverance to the soul.

Finally the wonderful grace of the Lord trains us not only for our lives in the "present age", but for our future with Him.

Maranatha! Our Lord Comes!

quiet before the STORM!

The World Series starts in a few short hours. I am ancy and excited. The Sox have a chance to win this one, but it will not be easy. Who cares man we made it to the series! We were all but cleared out by the Indians, and they climbed out of the basement to emerge victorious.

Back again for the first time!

I am terrible at getting excited about something and then not following up on it, but I am going to try the blogosphere once again.

Mike says hi to himself as he is the only one reading this right now.

God-willing that will change