the awkward message

well i've been in college for almost two months now and i'm loving every minute of it. i've made lots of great friends and done a lot of fun stuff already... but that's not the point of this post....
i've found a church down here i really like called Crosspoint Church and our pastor, Daniel Lucas, is the man. he's funny and easy to listen to, but most importantly, he preaches the truth. he's so real with his church. this past sunday he started a new series called "hostage." unfortunately i'm going to miss the majority of the series due to 'circumstances beyond my control' :) but again, not the point. the point of this series is to talk about different current issues that hold christians 'hostage' from truly living the free, joyful life Christ has designed for us. the topic form this past week was money. financial difficulty is one of the most common struggles among people today, and christians are not excluded from this statistic. now we all know that the Bible commands tithing... and that brings me to the point. a good pastor preaches the truth right? and the truth about christians and money is that we need to tithe... i've always felt sorry for good truth preaching pastors when they have to talk about tithing. you can tell it feels awkward for them, and i think that's a good thing. you can tell they are struggling so much because they don't want it to seem like they're asking for money, but, to a point they are (for their church)... and it's the right thing to do. now understand, i'm not talking about these televangelists who ask for money and say that all your wildest dreams will come true if you give to them. i'm talking about humble pastors who simply want to preach the truth. and again, don't get me wrong, it's true, God will bless those who give as he commands, but those blessings may not be returned financially and they may not be immediate...
so i really have no solution to this... i don't even know if it requires a solution... those we're just some thoughts that came to me and i thought i'd share.

watch this

late nights and politics

so i had a discussion with mom last night about the upcoming election and politics. i wouldn't call it an argument, more of a defense of different stances. as we had this conversation i realized how uneducated i was when it comes to the realm of politics. i thought i knew my fair share. i thought i had a good grasp on my views. i don't though. i need to learn more. i need to know what's going in the world around me, and most importantly, i need to be able to interpret it from a Biblical standpoint. that was one of the things that shocked me the most about myself... i realized i didn't have solid scriptural backing for what i believed. i'm going to get better at this. i'm going to study the issues through the eyes of Christ. what's really right?

there will be more to come on these issues...

that picture...

i logged on to the blog just to see if there we're any new comments or anything cause i haven't been on in a week or so. i looked over at that picture on the right. it was taken right in the heart of time square in nyc, one of the busiest places i've ever been. it reminded me of all the lost needy people in the world. they are out there... they are right here... everywhere... people without hope, without grace, that don't see the love of Jesus everyday. they don't wake up with the peace of having a sovereign loving Father in heaven. i do... i wish they all did. what can i... what can we do about that?

A Mission Trip

Just wanted to drop in real quick and let you all know that today at 4:00 myself along with several others from our BCM here at Morehead are leaving on a trip to Columbus, IN. If you didn't know, Columbus was recently flooded and we're going to help clean up and minister to the people there. Of course, we hope to get a lot of work done, but that isn't necessarily our main goal. Our goal is to share the love of Christ with those we come into contact with, and if we would be so fortunate to have an opportunity to share the Gospel, to be bold and unashamed in our testimony. We would all appreciate your prayers as we go! Thanks!
A fellow servant,
Joseph

Doulos

Well, I’m in college now. Trying to adjust, get plugged in, and... do homework... but that’s a topic for later. I’ve just got a quick thought from our Praise and Bible Study night we have here at the BCM.
Philippians 1:1 says, “Paul and Timothy the servants of Jesus Christ...” That’s all the further i need to go for this. The Greek word used there for ‘servants’ is ‘doulos’. ‘Doulos’ means bondservant or slave. That much I already knew, many times Paul introduces his letters as being a servant of Christ. What I didn’t know was that servants in Paul’s time weren’t known by their names. They were completely identified by their masters. Basically, if I was a servant of Paul’s in that day I wouldn’t have been known as Joseph but as a Servant of Paul. It amazes me how Paul identifies himself so closely with Jesus. By calling himself a servant, a doulos, of Jesus Christ, he says I am no longer Paul, I only Identify with Jesus Christ. That’s an awesome claim! What if we as Christians could say that about our lives? What if we could say we are in such close fellowship with Christ and are so much like him that we don’t even identify ourselves by name anymore, instead, we identify ourselves simply as servants of Christ.