This year Elisha Scott Fowler’s voice joins ours in wishing you a very Merry Christmas and great years ahead and behind! This holiday season, we pray that God will continue to bless you with both provisions and purpose for the year ahead. There has never been a happier place for us than to be doing what He has called us to do, which has included being parents in 2014. These past nine months have made for quite the journey of growth for both us and Eli. Stepping into being a family has been one of the greatest challenges and opportunities for growth that Stacy and I have experienced. Eli is a huge blessing in our lives and one that we are so incredibly thankful for! Read the rest of this entry »

Light displays, Christmas songs, plays and performances, movies, cookies and pies, family potlucks and gift exchanges, a visit to see Santa Claus, a visit from Santa’s elf on the shelf, a Christmas tree or two, letters to Santa, gifts on Christmas Day, shopping…shopping…and more shopping. It’s all driving me nuts this year. Why? Because I don’t see any lasting meaning in any of it! Aside from the worship I am doing at church…which I do every week of the year, Christ isn’t very prominent in my Christmas.

Do me a favor: add up all the hours you have spent on Christmas traditions, then compare them to the hours you have spent seeing Jesus in the season. If your like the average American Christian, it’s a pretty pathetic ratio, maybe even as bad as 100:1. In fact, beyond Christmas carols, I’m afraid that most people’s only Christian Christmas experience may be worshipping on Christmas eve.

Read the rest of this entry »

Faith

Do you wish you had more faith? Do you envy those who seem to have great confidence in their religious life? Let me challenge you to adopt a lifestyle that has great faith:

Firstly, get up every day and meet with God. Read the Bible, think through the challenges of the day and week ahead, then bathe all that you have heard and all that you need to do in prayer. If you will start your day by doing what is necessary to ensure that you and God are on the same page, then you will live your days with greater faith.

Secondly, begin to live and act as if God will give you what you need for a life that reflects His wishes. Don’t think of faith as something that gets you what you want, but as the attitude that believes without the slightest doubt that everything God wants you to be and do, He has given you great strength and ability to do. If you struggle with a sin issue or attitude in your life, get before God and claim the strength to beat that behavior and believe that as you do everything you can to overcome that issue, God will give you what you need beyond your effort. Believe that the issue is as good as defeated. If there is something you desperately need for an important, godly purpose, expect God to provide it or show you how to get it. God provides to those who ask confidently and wait expectantly.

How can you be sure that your wishes and His are in sync? God’s promises and His purposes. Throughout Scripture God talks about what He desires and He makes promises to those ends. For example, as He commissions His disciples to share the message of salvation with the whole world, Jesus promises that He will be with us, to the end of the world. We never have to wonder if God is with us in this task. He promises wisdom to those who ask for it. He promises strength to stand up to temptation and promises that He has given us everything we need to live a life of godliness. Look for God’s promises, then make sure you bring them up whenever you are tempted to doubt.

5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 An indecisive man is unstable in all his ways. (Jas 1:5-8, HCSB)

Lastly, remember that God is leading us in His great endeavor. His plan in epic…too massive in scope and detail for us to know all the parts. We must content ourselves with two things: (1) doing what God has set forth for our lives, in the immediate future, and (2) becoming the person God desires to shape us into through our relationship with Him and others, and our adventure in doing what He’s called us to do. A life of faith is not a life that sees the big picture…its a life content with and focused on these two things.

Will you join me in working harder to live a life of greater faith?

We need more people who live with this faith.

I need more friends who help reflect this faith to encourage me.

Want to be challenged with more? Have a look at a great book that challenged me in my faith: Experiencing God.

And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem without knowing what will happen to me there. 23 except that the Holy Spirit warns me in town after town that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. Acts 20:22-23

They repeatedly told Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem. Acts 21:4

10 While we remained there for a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 He came to us, took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, “The Holy Spirit says this: ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will tie up the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’” 12 When we heard this, both we and the local people begged him not to go up to Jerusalem.  (Acts 21:10-12, NET)

In Paul’s dramatic approach to Jerusalem the people he meets warn him against going to Jerusalem. Some bible interpreters even argue that “spirit” in the first passage is Paul’s spirit, rather than the Holy Spirit because the tension is too great for them to believe the Holy Spirit would both compel someone to do something AND warn them not to do it.

However, Jesus faced a similar tension in His own life when He struggled in prayer before His crucifixion. He wished for a different trial than the one He was going to face, and prayed against it even to the point of sweating drops of blood.

I believe Paul needed both the motivation and the preparation for suffering that the Spirit provided in these instances. He needed to have a firm resolve that takes a lot of thought and even argument to set in a person’s mind.

We should also avoid being put off when we see conflict arise between godly people with godly intentions. While we should be VERY intentional to make sure everyone is speaking what they believe to be God’s perspective, yet we should also be aware that often times God leads us to a place of tension and disagreement that we are meant to stay in, rather than resolve.

There will be times when we disagree with a leader or parent, but should obey and respect His decision because God has put Him in charge and the decision is not morally or ethically wrong—its just different than we would make if we were in his place.

There will be times when we don’t see a matter eye to eye with other believers, but where the difference in belief should not hurt our friendship, because its not moral or does not change the way we worship God together in our larger gatherings.

There are times when someone holds a strong personal conviction that we disagree with. As long as its not directly in conflict with Scripture, we should avoid thinking that God has told us what that person must do. God rarely gives us insight into His instructions to someone else. We must trust and pray for them to hear God’s voice clearly, and allow them to act on what they believe, even if its wrong. If they make a mistake, they will learn from it. Our goal is to encourage and advise and pray, not to play the role of the Holy Spirit or hear the Holy Spirit for someone else.

I’m behind on many movies since Eli came along, and just recently got to experience the second installment of the new Spiderman movie…which was a total disappointment to me. I am still in love with the geeky, awkward, cartoonish Spiderman that the original trilogy portrayed, and here’s a little of why I don’t like the new one.

Shallow Characters:
Harry Osbourne, Max, Gwen Stacy – wow. Can we get more oneliners, more cheesy moments, and more unrealistic acting than this? Why does Harry Osbourne die in a matter of days when his dad lived so long? Why does he need and inject the spider venom the moment he finds it? Can’t he be more prepared and threatening than a wimpy kid?

Max – This guy is the ultimate creeper. He has no social skills or personality. He’s not even a cool bad guy. he looks stupid after his transformation, and his ability to shoot electricity is wasted. so many better things they could have done with the action scenes on that.  Find some better candidates.

Gwen Stacy – the tipping point in her relationship is the words “I Love You”? We’ve already established that. No one debates it. Geez people, let’s spend a moment on the fact that she can’t listen to her father’s warning. That she’s an emotional, lovesick, silly girl who dies because Peter Parker is not willing to let her go. Not to mention that this simply adds noise to the other storylines in this movie. Also, why is it that she is the one who has all the answers in this movie so conveniently? She knows who Max is. How to reset the power grid. How to keep Peter’s web shooters from overloading. Really?

Peter Parker – Why does Spiderman fight crime except because it’s fun? Shouldn’t he have a better reason than simply to be a hero because he likes to beat up bad guys and be in the spotlight. What a crappy hero. The spiderman I like had deeper convictions than that.

Over the top, Unrealistic Action:
Why is a tow truck running over cars, stealing plutonium at the beginning of this movie?
Why does Spiderman leave the car chase where countless people are dying to save Max?
Why the elaborate plane scene where Peter’s parents are killed?
Why does Peter’s dad have an underground, elaborate, secret lab that Oscorp or the city of New York doesn’t know about?
How can Gwen Stacy simply switch the power back on when Electro and Spiderman have just destroyed half of the grid?

Stupid Pivotal Moments and Key Themes:
Why does Peter suddenly feel better about his parents based on a short little video about his dad’s experiments?
Why does Peter get over Gwen by listening to her speech? It’s nice and relevant, yes.
Gwen dies from an impact to her head? Realistic yes, but there are a thousand other ways that would have been more romantic to die.

Bring back the old Spiderman, who fought and struggled with the responsibility that his gifts burdened him with.
Bring back the geek who fought to express himself to a woman he saw value in when no one else did.
Bring back the villan who was power hungry and cunning and deadly.
Bring back the Harry Osbourne who was sly enough to destroy Peter’s romance and kill his heart before trying to take his life.
And bring back the action that was slightly unrealistic, but still had a great deal of drama and emotion to them I mean when the goblin almost killed Peter in Spiderman 1…spitting blood and sheer luck. Now that was amazing! That was a high schooler fighting for his life!

If that’s not enough, watch this movie rack up cinema sins:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H53183mVc2o[/youtube]