St. Patricks Breastplate

I was re-reading George G. Hunters The Celtic way of Evangelism and this prayer of St. Patrick caught my attention because of its value to our life in following Jesus.....

I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind
,Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me From snares of devils,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom
Against false laws of heretics
,Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning
,Against drowning,
against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

I of late have been praying this and it is a powerful prayer when these words become your own.

Pacifism Vs. Cowardice

A little while ago my Pastor and I where having a conversation regarding the christian response to evil done to the helpless, now I had always saw(and still do see) myself as a pacifist , I am against war and any act of aggression, that is unnecessary. My Pastor on the other hand(who is a man I love and respect very much) feels that any act of aggression regardless of purpose is not to be done by a christian. To me, and understand I am not your typical right leaning Evangelical christian, to sit and let violence or harm be done to an innocent smacks of cowardice. Now I don't believe as a christian I should support a violent intervention or confrontation, but its something completely different if I see a man beating a woman and out of compassion I pull him off even if it might cause him harm to do so. I don't believe that a true follower of Christ that is a pacifist can say that Jesus would ignore such a situation and wait for someone else or call the authorities. If I follow Christ and am not willing to or complacent on defending those that are defenseless and protecting the least of society, then am I really following Jesus? The Jesus of the bible didn't sit idly by as the weak and despised where attacked , He defended them. Our society it seems so often is one of extremes , especially in the church. We have the more conservative wing of the church that seemingly cheers every time an enemy is destroyed, but on the flip side you have the more liberal wing that would let the innocent die to keep their pacifist stance. We need to understand that though I may be against war, I don't have to be a coward and not defend the person who is suffering violence. There is the old standard of What would Jesus Do?, well would Jesus stand by idly as the weak suffered violence.

I'm Back

I'm back after nearly 3 months , I've been working and what not so I haven't had time for blogging. Its not that I've had nothing to say or comment on, I just have been really busy. Of course the unfortunate thing is that now I'm unemployed, after 8 weeks of what amounted to temp work, building electrical panels for packaging machinery. So anyways I'm available to write here again for the next however long it is till my next job.

I have a lot of things on my mind and want to write on them all, but I'll take this one at a time. Starting with Africa, as I've expressed before Bono the lead singer of U2 is one of my personal heroes, with the way he lives out his faith and cares for the least of society and seeks to help right wrongs in this world and isn't afraid to use his fame to push for these things, but in an intelligent and thought out way. The One campaign and DATA have worked and used the power of the people to relieve debt to African nations and medicines to the African people to fight AIDS and Malaria and other more simple illnesses like the flu and not having clean water to drink. Thanks to these movements Millions of bed nets are going to people to prevent and work against Malaria, AIDS drugs are going to those in need to help thousands if not millions. In Tanzania 1.6 million more children are going to school. Growth is happening all over Africa after the $50 Billion of debt relief that came about as a result of the recent G8 summit. I have to say that I am excited that these things are taking place, but more must be done to curb the nearly 6500 Africans that die daily of preventable disease. Also there must be a push for African goods and fair trade with these African nations. The church should be a leader in these movements in the U.S. , the African people hate aid, but they need it, until they can sustain themselves, the church has a call to feed the hungry,clothe the naked, visit the prisoner or care for the sick, we the church must be leaders in this, not Democrats or Republicans, but the church of Jesus Christ, this is not a liberal or conservative thing this is a compassion and Christ thing that must be pushed by the the church to put an end to extreme poverty and unnecessary death by preventable disease. We must work to change our world for the better.

Trust

I trust God, I really do, in my heart I believe that He will do His work and I'll be blessed just knowing that I'm following His will. I wish I could say that , I wish in every aspect of my life I could say I trust God completely, I'm sure I would have way more peace and I would be blessed always knowing that I'm following God. But I don't and in truth I think there are very few of us that do. See I don't see trusting God in all things as proof of salvation or even a Christ centered life. Now first lets look at those that literally followed Jesus and in many ways had to trust Him with Their lives. There are several instances in the New Testament that they well didn't trust Him, for example at the feeding of the 5000 they were ready to send the people away, because they didn't trust the Lord to take care of them. And even though they were told for 3 years that Jesus would die and rise again the 3rd day, they were in shock at the Lords betrayal , arrest and subsequent crucifixion and the only ones that seemed to believe that there could be a resurrection or at least the appearance of it were the pharisees, the disciples again didn't trust. Trusting God at least the trusting I'm speaking of is more than just mentally saying "OK I trust God" I believe its something deeper it comes from the heart, not the brain, and that is where my trust block lies. I also believe that a lack of trusting God is more common than we would like to admit in the church of Jesus Christ. I am not advocating people not trust God(of course if you truly trust Him my little blog will do nothing to change that trust ) what I am saying is that its merely human to not trust God everywhere. However, this does not mean that we shouldn't seek to trust God in all things through prayer how we live our lives. Trust isn't trust unless its been tested the same as faith if it is not lived out in the real world. I guess what I'm saying is that we need not to destroy or beat up ourselves over our lack of trust in certain areas. We should see these as areas that God can grow us into and work in, we can't be the perfect christian, at least not this side of eternity

1/4 way to the goal

Its been 4 weeks since I started my diet and amazingly I'm a quarter of the way to my goal of 80 lbs., it really still amazes me how eating fruits and veggies instead of a burger and fries can change your body. I am starting to think that perhaps incorporating a larger, much larger portion of fruits and veggies into my daily intake is changing my metabolism. I have been blown away its becoming more of a lifestyle for me everyday and remains easy when I take one day of the week that I can enjoy the Burger and fries. Its great to be losing and actually going down on the scale. I've said it before but this is still just the beginning. I want to commit myself to this for the rest of my life and look forward to a healthier life also. I know that eventually my weight loss will slow down or stop all together but I don't care I feel great and thank Jesus for it. So here are the stats

Sunday March 12, 2006

329 , -5lbs. (-21 lbs. overall)

MCI

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

"“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery."
Luke 16:18

I want to believe Jesus, I want to take seriously everything that He said in the Gospels, I want to love my neighbor and my enemy, and deny myself and take up my cross. I'm sure that if I polled my Christian friends they would agree, after all isn't why I'm a christian , because I follow Jesus. Yet today in America, the church that we call the Bride and Body of Christ is ignoring the words of the one we call Lord, now I'm not just talking about the typical thing I rant about , the old Evangelical church and its lack of love for our neighbor or our enemy. No I'm ranting about something else, divorce in the body of Christ, stats show that more christian marriages end in divorce than non christian, taking into account what Jesus said in Luke 16 that's an awful lot of adulterers in the body of Christ. It's a scary thing to think that divorce has become common place in your typical evangelical church. Yet the church in general glosses over this like its OK, but yet if a homosexual comes in and is unwilling to conform they are promptly shown the door, same as the unmarried couple living in sin or the girl that ends up pregnant. Now of course I'm not advocating giving the boot to newly divorced, but I'm saying that , what Jesus took seriously we also should take seriously. Divorce is by no means the unpardonable sin, but neither is fornication or homosexuality. Divorce hurts and scars everyone involved, a christian should do everything in their power to prevent divorce, theirs or others. we need to have grace in our marriages, we can't be like the world and call ourselves called out of that same world. The church needs to change, not to suit the world around us, but to be people that takes seriously what Jesus said and not just in loving our neighbors and enemies, but in our marriages and families also.

16 and counting

I have to say that the last 3 weeks have been awesome, it's been great to eat healthy and almost eating purely vegetarian , I've learned a lot about my own little attitudes about food. I want nothing more than to keep down this path of discipline and growth (or shrinkage) to the weight that I need to be at. I have been changed in attitude I just want to continue. I have to say that I don't have a lot of words this week because I'm in shock at how quickly I'm losing my weight, I know it won't last the whole time but I still will be excited even when its 1 or 2 pounds as long as it goes down. Here are my stats , taking into account that I didn't have a weigh in last week this is what things are looking like on the weight loss front

March 5, 2006

334(-10 lbs.) -16lbs. overall

MCI