Boston Vblog: Day one

Seth, Wesley and I just arrived back south. Where were we you ask? The three of us hopped on Jet Blue and flew up to the cold and harsh New England! We have got a multitude of friends attending college up there. So here is day ones Vblog, enjoi:

lacking

I tell you what, I have just been lacking. Lacking in a lot of areas. Blogging, thinking, prayer, loving, like I said, a lot of things.

Blogging- My utmost apologies for letting Kelvins Kranium go to the wayside over the past few months. But be ready for some new material!

Thinking- Today got out of my '94 Dodge Mini Van, nick named "the Green Dumpster" (due to its color) to go to work. Today I locked my keys in my car. Enough said.

Prayer- I am alone on this one? The past weeks and months have just been rough in regards to my prayer life. It just seems lately prayer has been a nusience rather than an readily acted upon opprtunity. Seems like I just cant stay on my knees, thus life becomes complicated and restless.

Loving- I may be alone on this one. If I could sum up the past few months of a recurring thought that runs through my head and heart would be, "Kevin, you're not loving enough!" I have been lacking in the area of loving others, and rather growing with a love for me. God has challenged me with this thought though, As a follower of Christ there is NO limit to how much I can love.

Hope yenz are one forty seventh as excited about getting this blog up and running as I am.

(Feel free to browse old posts, and add new comments).

What is in my stereo?

I am 17, going on 18 and I dont have an i pod. Some may say I am out of touch, stodgy, un-willing to change, or what ever. But actually they are are wrong. I just haven't gotten around to droppin some big ones on an i pod. Thats all. So, the big question, What is in my stereo?

Joshua Redman: Beyond

Joshua Redman is a master saxophonist. I mean straight up pimpin! This cd is modern jazz at its best. When I put it in my stereo, immediately I was blown away with this guys tone, and over all sound. And I am a drummer. I dont care about that stuff! But this guy, this guy has got it. I dont exactly know what it is, but he's got it. And I like it. The funky rythms, hard bop roots, tenor solos and heads, oooowwwwwww eeeeee. It is enough to keep my ears pleased 'til I return it to the library on the 25th of this month.

Charlie Hall: Flying into Daybreak

Charlie Hall's name began getting out into the industry when he began working with Passion. He is an passionate worship leader, creative song writer, and innovative song composer.

Even though it is a hard call between, Crower and Wickham, I think that Charlie Hall is my favorite worship leader.

He always seems to write and sing the things that are rushing through my head and heart, but that I cant figure out how to express in words.

When Charlie comes out with a new song, and I am like, "Yess! That is what is going on inside of me!! Now I have an outlet to express it to God." For instance there is a song on this album entitled, All my love. There are a few lyrics that I just love, because they are exact things I am thinking, but just dont know how to express.

I can't perceive or understand the kindness of your hand or the mercy in your eyes as you forgave my crimes. You made daybreak through the night, you made my heart to shine. I took my breath, you gave me life, I could not see you gave me sight. Your fellowship is free, you hold on to me, you washed me the truth. You made this desert bloom.

So that is what is blasting out of my stereo for now. I will do more posts like this later on.

Cow Appreciation Day

Where were you July 11th? If you were not dressed like a heffer at Chick-fil-a, just you just missed out my friend. July 11th was Cow Appreciation Day!! What does that mean? Well you come in to any CFA dressed like a good ole' bovine, and you get a free meal. Sounds good to me! So some friends of mine, (listed in order of their height, tall to short): Seth(by far), Steve (his white man's fro helps to give him another 1 1/2 in. ontop of his lanky self), Myself, Ben(really we are at a good equal stance), and Jordan decided to do this whole Cow Appreciation Day thing.

We rolled over to Target and spent about $6.78 on different materials, stood outside of Target and geared up. (I will try to get a picture up sometime in the future.) We went over to Chick-fil-a just in time, and they loved us! We got the largest combos they had, packed up and headed downtown.

We arrived at Graham and Trade at about 10:00 p.m., parked, grabed our #4 Chargrilled Club meals, Bibles, tracts, giftcards, and headed out to minister to the homeless.

As soon as we got out of the car, a man walks up. "Ya'll help a brotha' out wit some food?" We were like yeh!! So Jordan and Ben gave him the food, and began sharing the Gospel. The rest of us began venturing into uptown.

Honestley it was hard to tell if a dude was homeless or not. You can try to imagine how I felt when I went up to dude said, "You hungry? When was the last time you ate?" And he replied, "Dude, like 30 minutes ago." In my head I am just thinking, dude you gotta like take a bath cuz I swore you were homeless. But anyway, we passed out all five meals, some tracts, all the Bibles we had, some gift cards, some money, and got to tell the greatest news they could ever dream of. The glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, which saves.

I encourage you, love the poor. Love the lost. Tell them the truth about Christ. And have fun doin it!!

Note to the reader: I did not write this post because I am myself, currently a CFA employee.

Matthew 22- The Wedding Garment

Read this: Matthew 22:1-14

Are you confused? Bush looks about like I did when I first read this. I literally looked at my girlfriend and said, "Wow, this is straight confusing, it doesn't make any sense!"

Since you have now read the text, please click here to see my guess as to what this wedding garment may have looked like.

Q: "So what is Jesus saying through this parable of the wedding feast?"

A: This king punishes this guy for something that at face value seems to be insignificant, simply not having the garment that he was required to have to come to the wedding.

So whats to big deal? I mean, he simply didn't have his garment. Well here is the problem, and it is a big problem. From the text we are given some clues:

1. That anyone was allowed to come to this wedding. In vs. 9 we find that these people were from the "highways", they would not have been expected to be dressed nicely, already possessing this garment on their own.
2. We also see that all who had shown up to the wedding had been given a wedding garment.
3. The response of the king tells us that this garment must be worn to come into the wedding.

So it is not that this guy just snuck in, didn't recieve a garment, and was thrown into outter darkness for no reason. He refused to wear this garment, he thought he could come in garmentless.

Christ here is speaking of the kingdom of heaven and the imagery of this parable is what allows it to come to life and make sense. To get into heaven you have to have a on a garment, just as with the wedding. That garment is King Jesus' righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10 is a beautiful picture of imputed righteousness.)

You can't enter into heaven without wearing Christ's righteousness, just as they could not enter the wedding without their wedding garments.

From the imagery we can see that Christ is comparing people who claim Christianity, but try to establish a righteousness of their own, with the man without a garment. Jesus is would rather we reject His garment of righteousness, than try to get the benefits of it (namely heaven), without truly accepting the garment, and wearing it.

Bottom line: Christ willingly, graciously, and joyfully offers us His garment to enter into eternal life, but we have to chose to wear it.

Matthew

First I gotta say my sorrys for not posting anything lately. Since school let out in late May, I have been all over the US. First gone on a missions trip with Northside Baptist Church to Marble, Colorado. To sum that trip up in three words I would say: Crazy Old Man. The founder of the camp is up there in the years, but he is fearless. Absolutely fearless, I mean as fearless as a Naked Mole Rat that didn't budge while stareing at a 457lb. Anaconda. Then I was off to California with my wonderful girlfriend Jenny Miner, for a little vacation.

So that has been my life apart from blogging. Now I wanna read your mind. You are wondering why in tarnation is the title of this blog, "Matthew". Well, actually I am not sure. Just thought that "Matthew" would get you thinking. You know, like a buzz word. A buzz word is something that gets your attention, such as: naked, obese, death, viral, diversity, proactive, green, and others.

Ok the word "Matthew" is not a buzz word. The reason this blog is titled "Matthew" is because over the next few weeks I will be posting thoughts, take aways, applications, things I never knew, and just cool things God shows me as I am reading through Matthew chapter 22 through 28. So be looking for those posts.

Pride is essentially competitive

I am finishing up C.S. Lewis's book,   Mere Christianity.  This book covers a bunch of topics, anything from the natural law, marriage, the trinity, and a bunch more stuffis.  A couple of days ago I finished a chapter called, The Great Sin.  C.S. made some points that just hit me hard.  So here are a few:

• "I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice."               

-This is just an interesting point.  The vice Lewis is referring to is pride, and that it is almost completely something that only Christians are aware of in there lives.  It seems the more and more we walk down the road of Christianity the more we see our pride. 

• "...it was through pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."

-Pride is considerd a mother sin.  It is the root of other sins, such as lust, envy, murder, and so on. 

• "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."        

-Right on brotha Lewis!  This is completely true, and is where I got the title for this blog.  When someone wins a race, they don't become prideful because the won, bu

t because the beat all the others. It's not when we look at ourselves that we become prideful, but when we compare ourselves to others.  

How can we cure this pride problem, Lewis gives the first step and I will give the second:

1. Admit that you are proud. 
2. Stop looking horizontally and start looking vertically.  

What do you guys think about the topic of pride vs. humility, any pointers, insight, comments?

Mint Condition

Today I cleaned my room. Yes, that is what I said, I cleaned my room. I was dusting off old GI
Joes from when I was 8, stacking up "a little golden books", (you know the ones with the gold binding?! I am not sure why they are still in my room, but they are), and organizing the 15 books I recieved from the Together 4 the Gospel confrecnce, when I came across something I had never seen in my room. It was a small burgandy box that said in silver colored cursive, "United States Mint Proof Set 1990". So I opened it up and began checkin it out.

As soon as I peered into this little box ,I knew without a doubt this stuff was legit. Inside the box was a Certificate Of Authenticity, which was signed by Donna Pope. Wait...are you tellin me you dont know The Donna Pope?? Well I will tell you who see is, Director of the United States Mint, is her officital title. Now on the other side of this certificate were the specifications of the coins. Some facts about the nickel: Designed by Felix Schlag, Composed of Cupro-nickel(25% nickel), Weight is 5.000 g, and its diameter is 21.21 mm.

When I layed down the certificate and looked into the box, it was like the windows of Heaven opened up cuz these things were so shiny! I was befuzzled by their glossy qualites. They glistend like the gold leafing of a brand spankin new John Macarthur NKJV Bible! These five coins including a penny, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, and a dollar coin, were all manufactured in 1990. As I looked at the profile of JFK on the dollar coin, my busted up mug glared back at me...now remember, we are talking about coins here and not a bathroom mirrior. These bright lustrous coins were unlike any othere coin I had seen. These coins in mint condition, un tarished, without a scratch or blemish, never touched by human hands, and certified by the one and only Donna Pope, reminded me of something rad!

God cleaning us. Christ making us as if we were in mint condition, never touched by sin, washed and shined by His precious blood. This is something that cannot be done to coins. Coins cannot be messed up and then made new. But we can through Christ. Ezekiel 36:25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, an you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols." Another reference were God cleans us, removes our tarnish, our wear and tear, and makes us into mint condition is 2 Cor. 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." Pretty awsome that Christ, who is in mint condition, would make us into mint condition.

hedge of protection

Have you ever heard this prayed "Lord I pray a hedge of proctection around this person." A hedge? Lets see what the official, Dictionary.com, definition is...and i quote...a row of bushes or small trees planted close together, esp. when forming a fence or boundary." ....? Ok, lets use our analytical brain powers and figure this one out.

First, I can see the whole boundary thing, but thats about it. But other than that, this doesnt make beans from shiolah(as my mother would say instead of the word sense), and I think people dont really mean anything when they pray for a hedge of protection. I mean, if I want protection, I certainly dont want some small bushes or trees.

Imagine this, someone is snooping around your house at night, and you have a suspicious feeling that they are going to rob you. Then you get another good look at them through your nice big extravagant picture window, and you see he has a ak 47. Then you shout out to your brother in the house, "Hey, there is some holagin outside with a gun!!! I need something to defend myself with, get me that plant! Not just any old piece of foliage, I will need a hedge..." Honestly I dont want a hedge to protect me. I want like a 3 foot thick balistics tested bullet proof kevlar. Then a nice piece of rugged burlap, two sheets of impregnable metal, and a space suit from Apollo 11. That is the kind of protection I want.

I do see the idea behind a hedge, but it just strikes me odd. I mean read Eph. 6:10-17. The stuff described there is pretty intense. I mean we are going into full out war every day. So dont forget your hedges...i guess. Just a thought, What do you all think? .....(this post is affectionately colored green)

John Wesley?!?!

Nope, I am definetely not John Wesley, just kevin. But I am gettin to do what Wesley did. Preach brotha!!(or sister) This will be my second time gettin to do this! It is something I never thought I would get to do, but God is allowing me to do. (Now i am not trying to "toot" my own horn, first because toot is a weird word, second if i wanted to toot my horn i would go tell it on the corner of trade and tryon were people are, not on this readerless blog!! : )) P Shim (my youth pastor Frank Shimkus), is outta town and he is lettin me have the pulpit tomorrow. I just dont feel worthy of this, but i am siked He is letting me do what is foolishness to the rest of the world!! AMEN?? (I Cor. 1:21) On your right, and my right, is a nice picture of John Wesley for your veiwing pleasures.

Chan the man

I dont know how many of you are familiar with this phenom(is that the right word), Francis Chan. But hes got a Church out in So Cal, (pretty big sacrifice if you ask me...), Simi Valley to be exact. Its called Cornerstone Church, and Francis Chan their lead pastor is absolutely stupendous http://www.blogger.com/www.cornerstonesimi.com/ Subscribe to his podcast, cuz this man is a passionate, devoted pimp(to God that is, for sure!). I mean this guy took a year off from being his churches pastor, which he planted and pastored for 13 years, because he felt lukewarm.

This video rocks too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRi4VwcrYmA 15 min that will change your life! Enjoi!

Prayer...minus you.

Something I have been thinking about lately is this. As I move along in my walk with God, I find my prayers mainly kevin centered. Is that wrong? No and yes. No it isn't wrong to pray for yourselves because of Matthew 6:11-13. This passage is where Christ is preaching and begins explaing how to pray. Verse 11-13 say, "Give us this our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptaion, but deliver us from evil." (ESV) This outline of how to pray includes pray for yourself.

But, notice where praying for yourself is in this outline of how to pray. It is the end of the prayer. The first part of this prayer outline is thanking God, praying for people to get saved (or His kingdom), and His will. Matthew 6:9-10, "Pray then like this: "Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." (ESV) I am not sure about when you pray if you are like me, but when I pray, I find my self saying something like this, "Dear Father, I am needin' this....I want this...I am confused about this...I want to do this really bad, help...I..I..I...I...I...I, etc." Now as I stated before, praying for yourself, your needs mainly, is not wrong. But when you prayers start, include, and end with requests for yourself, there is a problem.

So with that, I challenge you to do something that I do from time to time when I notice my prayers becoming "I prayers", as I call them(as of like 2 seconds ago, pretty clever ehh? thanks, I know). Do this: make a list(actually get a pen and paper, or pencil, or lapiz if you are spanish), and write a list of 10 things you are thankful to God for. This will allow you to have a prayer of thanksgiving. Then make a list of 5 brothers and sisters in Christ that you normally would not pray for. This will allow you to pray for others instead of yourself. Then hit your knees! Just try it, and do it as often as need be. I honestly need to do this daily.

Prayer...minus you.

Dosent matter if you smell like smoke, booze, or w/e

Yo, well I just feel like this is something a lot of people might be thinking these days..."I am too bad for God. I want to know Him, but man when I screw up I screw up bad. I feel like I need to clean myself of my sins before I can come to God."Well there is some awsome news, and if you already know this props to ya, but if you dont, here it is...

Jesus Christ makes it explicitly clear that He does the cleaning of your sins. There is no "pre-bathing" needed to come fully to Him. "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." Rom. 5:6. Without Christs blood we are ungodly, but that is who He came to save, the ungodly. Not the person who is already clean,(because that person dosent exist, 1 Jn. 1:10), He came to save the person wrapped up in the mud of sin and cant see their way out. That was me, and might be you brah/sista!

Read Matt. 9:12-13

Now read Rom 10:9-13...Basically it says to get saved and be regenerated confess w/ ur mouth and believe in your heart. Never says anything about cleaning yourself, He does that for you and I! In vs. 13 it says that whoever calls on Him will be saved! Thats all you gotta do, call on Him, not just mumbling a little prayer,but understanding and confessing your sin and realizing that your sin makes God mad. Our sin made Him mad enough to kill His own son. Because He knew it was best for us, and would give Him the most glory. That is Love!

Read Rom. 8:1-2

Lastly, it dosent matter if you smell like smoke, booze, or w/e. If your stuck in the nastiness of this world, He will take you as you are. He will clean you from the inside out. Thats the Gospel of Christ.

Raw

In 1980 a young man from Rwanda was forced by his tribe to either renounce Christ or face certain death. He refused to renounce Christ, and he was killed on the spot. The night before he had written the following commitment which was found in his room:“I’m part of the fellowship of the unashamed, the die has been cast, I have stepped over the line, the decision has been made- I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still.My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I’m finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed vision, worldly talking, cheap giving & dwarfed goals.My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I won’t give up, shut up, let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up for the cause of Jesus Christ.I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till everyone knows, work till He stops me & when He comes for His own, He will have no trouble recognizing me because my banner will have been clear.”---This excerpt of a to-be martyr fills me with longing like none other. A longing to be like that. A longing to be like Christ. And it is attainable. Seek God. This is what a disciple of Christ should be like. Its raw.

First Post

Well well well, I decided to try this whole blogging thing. I will just be putting up things that are going on in my life, around town and things that God is teaching me. Pretty much anything random, obscure, relevant, anything really. I will hopefully get to post every week or so. Hope you enjoy! Grace and Peace