As I was preparing to give testimony I spent a lot of time looking retrospectively on my life. It was important to remember where I came from and the people and events that shaped my life. I would like to share with you what I shared with my church family yesterday. I believe that my testimony will always change as I grow to know God and experience His work in and through me.

I have a passionate relationship with God that has grown over the years. I grew up attending Waukesha Bible Church and remember many people of this congregation teaching and encouraging me to know God. I placed my faith in Jesus Christ at the age of five when I was afraid of dying and my mom explained the gospel to me. Since then I have been on a journey to learn to depend on God daily and to love Him with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength. My faith truly started to flourish when at the age of nineteen, I made the choice to come to church because I desired to know God more and not attend because it was just what you do on Sunday’s. Many events have shaped my dependance upon God such as my dad’s illness and death along with the many years of surgeries I have undergone.

My desire is that this church continues to grow and to see it flourish. I believe this will happen as I encourage you to grow individually as you seek to know God in a greater way. God has blessed me with an ability to relate to people who are hurting because I have been blessed with comfort from Him as I have gone through the many difficult moments of my life. As an elder I will seek live out 2 Corinthians 1 as I comfort you with the comfort that I received and encourage you to seek Him. I look forward to serving you as we grow together to know God.

As we in unity gather to fast this August what is happening in our lives? What is the purpose of this fast? I have been entrenched in a multi-year project to blog through the Bible. What is the overwhelming theme and constant thought throughout the Old Testament? In Joshua chapter 23 the people of Israel are encouraged by Joshua to “cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.” (Joshua 23:8) and to not “cling to the rest of [the] nations, these which remain among you” (Joshua 23:12). How does this relate to our August fast?

We are enveloped in a world that vies for our attention at every moment of the day. The people of Israel were coming from years of hard living in the wilderness and entering a season of easy living in the Promised Land. Joshua encouraged all the people to not forget God when they inherited the cities, houses, and cultivated land that they didn’t build. We are living today in our own type of promised land where we have been richly blessed by God. It is too easy to let these blessings draw our attention and devotion away from God. When we take something that is intrinsically a part of our daily life we break the cycle of dependance we have placed upon the things we have.

As you enter a fasting season will notice a void in your life where the item at one time took your attention. I encourage you to take this time allow God to meet you in this moment and envelope that void in your day with Himself. You will be richly blessed as you cast aside the things of this world that vie for your attention and cling to God.

For further reading on the idea of clinging to God read through Joshua 23 and 24 and read http://www.aaroneberline.com/2010/05/cling-to-the-lord-your-god-not-to-this-world-joshua-23-and-24/

Today my heart is broken. I lost a friend today that was consistently faithful to me until the very end. Our family dog Otis, a Bichon Frise, has been slowly dying this over this last week. He finally got to a point this morning that his quality of life was gone and we had him put to sleep. He was such a wonderful dog full of life and personality. I will miss his unyielding love that he expressed every time I came home and bark in anticipation of me walking through the gate. He would sit and wait with an overwhelming joy for me to pet him before he would head into the house. He did the weirdest shuffling with his front paws when he was excited and roll around on the ground when he was happy. I am thankful for these emotions of pain and despair that I am feeling right over the loss of Otis because as I reflect on the times I spent with him I see a picture of my relationship with God. I cannot fully express how I see God through the life and death of a pet but it is there none the less.

I will dearly miss Otis as I come home to the gate without his expectant bark. I will miss him falling alseep on my lap or playing with him. Otis was a great dog but in the end my life will always be greater than the things I have around me because I am defined by my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. I would welcome your prayers as my mom, sister, and I adapt to a life without Otis. So long old friend, I miss you dearly and it has only been a few hours.

Photo Gallery: So Long My Friend

This idea of authority was brought to my mind last night. I was sitting thinking about the different areas of sin in my life. I was thinking about actions that I take that are against what I know to be true. I was thinking about why I do want to sin and why I don’t. It was an interesting meditation to actually think about why I choose to sin but even more amazing was the question of why I choose not to sin. Do I choose to not sin because I want to gain favor with God? Do I want to feel pride over my accomplishment? Do I want the praise of men as a reward? In Ephesians 2:8,9 Paul says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” In light of this truth I cannot hope to gain any favor from God because of my not sinning. Does grace just cancel out my need to worry about my actions? May the grace of God never give me liberty to think that I can sin more. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” Romans 6:1,2 We again are clearly exhorted to not sin by Paul and to not live in sin thinking that grace gives us a free ticket to sin. There is no way for me to overcome my sin because it is inherent in my nature. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for my sins when I placed my faith and trust in His provision on the cross. How is a christian supposed to live a sinless life after placing their trust in Jesus Christ? In John 14:16-31 Jesus Christ promises that God will send the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. This passage in John chapter 14 gives hope to the question of why do I want to not sin. In verses 20 and 21 Jesus tells me that those who keep His commands love Him and that the Holy Spirit in me will teach and remind me of Jesus’ commands. Out of this love I have for Jesus Christ I find my desire to not sin.

I will never be perfect and sinless but my love for God makes it easier to for me to walk away from what may look very tempting in a moment of weakness. The authority of God is absolute and it would make sense to live in fear of that divine authority but last night as I thought about sin before God I made choice: I chose God because I love Him. Where is the fear that I might expect to feel? The answer is beautifully given in 1 John 4:17-19 “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.” The perfect love of God expressed in Jesus Christ casts out all fear in my life.

The opening verse of the song Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop by Landon Pigg shares my emotions about my relationship with God. “I think that possibly maybe I’m falling for you. Yes there’s a chance that I’ve fallen quite hard over you.” I’ve fallen hard for God and I am thankful for that. My words are just noise to the true feelings that I have right now but I know I’ve fallen.

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister had left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” but the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her.”

Luke 10:38-42

My viewing life in all of it’s stress and worry is my Martha. I am consumed with not having a job and what will happen if I do not have a job. How long can I support myself? Will I find a job in this economy? I live in fear of what may happen to my health. Will I stay healthy? Will my body recover from all the trauma?  Will I get sick again? I am a single guy living in a world that depicts sexual needs as the greatest and utmost thing you can obtain. Will I ever get married? Why do girls have to dress so seductively? How does one overcome the sexual temptations that encompass society? Why Lord? Why, why, why? This is my Martha, I am so consumed by the circumstances of life I have lost focus of what truly matters. Is my worth and value found in my money, health, job, friendship, or love?

Now enters the moment where God shows me a different way to live. For Martha this is where she questions the perceived laziness of her sister Mary. Jesus says to her that she is too worried and bothered about non-important things and she is not focusing on what is necessary. This transformation in my life was brought about in the midst of the worries I held so important. As I healed from all of my illness I was forced to slow down my life and in that slowness I was able to hear God. In those quiet moments I was able to as my why questions in life and God answered me. I had a lot of time to look upon my life think about all of choices whether good and bad that I have made through out my life. In light of God’s truth contained in the Bible I was able to look back at my life and by the Grace of God a mighty transformation occured. Not having a job became a blessing that I had not anticipated because I was drawn to study the Bible with a voracity I have never seen before in my life. This abundance of time time feasting in the Bible and getting to know Jesus Christ has filled me to over flowing spiritually. The biblical truth that I have  seen in scripture time and time again but never applied to my life are now impacting me in a renewed way.

Freedom from the bondage to depression, sadness, and anxiety and my transformation to my Mary came hand in hand. If I would have kept my life view like Martha where I was too concerned about everything going on in life whether good or bad there would be no freedom or renewal. My Mary was formed in the development of a daily time of study in the Bible where I sought God daily and I desired to learn about Truth more than anything. I have been living in this state of Mary where I am now so consumed with Jesus that nothing else matters. I have been transformed into a man who now seeks God above all things. I desire to know Him and the power of His resurrection. I find that my life is being renewed physically, spiritually, and emotionally from this life changing encounter with God allowing me to go through life with renewed passion as I seek out what God has for me.

What does this story about my life change from a person who worries about all things around me, my Martha, to one who is fixated on Jesus, my Mary, have to do with you? I am convinced that the only true way that we can find freedom in life is to know Jesus Christ. This post is for the people who are in bondage. I do not care what type of bondage that you find yourself in whether it is to depression, stress, sickness, pornography, drugs, alcohol, or sex. I stand here today and I want to point you to Jesus Christ as your only way out of the chains that hold you. I can tell you that the process to freedom is not an easy road but if you genuinely seek God you can find freedom.

I exhort you to seek God!

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Jude 24-25

The most interesting question I had from Hosea was, “What kind of man would take a harlot for a wife?”. It is simple to say that it would be a man who was so confident in who God is because it is counter intuition to take a harlot as a wife. Do we trust God enough to follow Him no matter what He asks or where we find ourselves. I wonder if I would have reacted as Hosea and take a harlot as a wife. I pray that I will grow in my faith to trust God more.

I have been blogging since February 2005 and since then I have gone through many painful moments. The resounding truth that is proclaimed throughout this ragamuffin sojourning I call life is that God is faithful to bring us through what ever we face. If you look at what I write today and wonder that a relationship with Jesus Christ is like please ask me and I will gladly share what He has done. If you take the time to read through the journey I am on you will learn of a Faithful Savior who has kept me in perfect peace in the midst of the storms of life.

This is the first blog I posted back in 2005 Certain uncertainty when looking for the road through the fog. Please feel free to use this post as a starting point and just hit the next post link.