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?