Being a Dad

We decorated the Christmas tree tonight while watching White Christmas. Of course, Amanda got very emotional since this will be her last time decorating a tree at our house. From a Dad's perspective, it's easy to have your children leave home because God has made them strong to face the world. It is also hard to have your children leave home because they don't need you anymore.

The reason I posted the article about fellowship is that's the way it is with your family, you need your relatives to complete your life.

To each of you this holiday season may the love of your Brother fill your lives with the everlasting life his birth, life, and death earned for you.

Fellowship

Christian fellowship is common sharing in the Gospel in faith, and in other spiritual and mutual gifts. God creates it by calling us into fellowship or partnership with His Son so that we share in all Christ’s works, blessings, glory, and goods. It is a union of believers in Christ through fellowship of the Spirit. This communion of believers is unity or “oneness’ in Christ, which transcends race, social position, and death. Non-relatives are called father, mother, brother, and sister.
Christian fellowship involves participation in the experiences of Christ and of fellow Christians. Out of basic communion in the Gospel of Christ comes the communication of spiritual and material gifts.
As faith always produces fruit, so fellowship of the Spirit in Christ manifests itself in action. Christian fellowship is activity in the Gospel. Its mark is love. It causes Christians to treat each other as close relatives. It is a fellowship of feelings, burdens, and a communication of help. It is activated by desire to bring others into its fellowship and avoid or heal schism within itself. A climax is in the Lord’s Supper. (CPH, 1975 p 295)

Jon and Kate

Our family has been watching the show forever. When Hannah and I watched the first episode of season 5, we decided to stop watching. We still love the show, but we think that the only way to save their family is to get out of the spotlight.
Is Jon right? Is Kate right? I don't know. Hannah said that the Dionne quints urged Jon and Kate to not get into the publicity business. They knew how it ruined them 70 years ago and they didn't want it to happen again.
Sandy thinks it might be fruitless to think that not watching a show can get it canceled, but I know that watching it, buying tabloid magazines and adding fuel to the paparazzi fire can only make it worse for them.

Not that Sandy is sideways in life, but Uriah has really turned our lives around!

Can Jesus be insulted?

Today in devotion we read a message that said the Jews insulted Jesus by saying He was a demon. Sandy thinks that Jesus can't be insulted because Jesus can't sin. I think that people insulted Jesus all the time, but He always turned the other cheek. What do you think?

What's not to believe?

We studied heaven in Bible Class again last night. I told the story about how we were watching the Olympics a few years ago and one of the gymnasts had one the gold medal (the show was tape delay). The announcers were talking about how the Japanese or Russian had one and there was no way short of a miracle the American would win. I told the kids that the American had one, I had seen it on TV earlier in the day. They said I was wrong or had misunderstood the news report. I said I was positive. Sure enough, the American did win.
Heaven is like that. Paul and Peter had both seen heaven. Jesus said we will be there with him. It's already and accomplished fact. We sit here watching in tape delay. We sometimes struggle to believe when we know the truth. Faith is simply that trust that when someone tells us an accomplished fact, we just need to believe it.
Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? That's faith!

Proverbs 5:18-19 says "Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love."
To be ravished is to be filled with delight. The best way to describe that feeling is when you fall backwards onto your bed with just shear pleasure. What a gift the LORD gives to humans is the pure pleasure that comes not from sex, but from love.
The world teaches that sex is as natural as food. The problem is that there is no spiritual connection with food. God told Adam to take his wife and be one flesh. He couldn't have been talking about the physical connection, but the spiritual connection.
I pray that all of you may be ravished with the love of your spouse.
For those tempted to pleasure apart from marriage, I can tell you the wait is worth the while.

Is this all there is?

It does seem rather strange to write your thoughts into a computer for all to see. What if someone who doesn't like you uses your information to hurt you? What if you put something in your blog that upsets someone else? What if you are the only one who doesn't realize you have nothing to say?
This morning in youth forum, we discussed suicide. What do you think about this question? Does a person who commits suicide go to hell?

See if your answer matches what we found out from the Bible. I'll give you a hint... How do we know if anyone is going to heaven or not?