beginning...again

Romans 1:13-15 (NLT)
I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now. I want to work among you and see good results, just as I have done among other Gentiles. [14] For I have a great sense of obligation to people in our culture and to people in other cultures, to the educated and uneducated alike. [15] So I am eager to come to you in Rome, too, to preach God's Good News. (emphasis mine)

I decided I need to actually read my Bible...I keep finding silly excuses for not reading at least a little bit everyday. I keep a small Bible in my attack sack (my backpack), I have a Bible program on my computers for crying out loud. I can't use the excuse that I don't have time, because I do, I just choose to squander it on other things that are decidedly less important than my spiritual well-being.

Sunday night I had the privilege to worship with a band called Casting Crowns. They're a newer Christian band from the Atlanta GA area. The main focus of their music isn't the happy, "never have a bad day", CCM sugar coated stuff that all too often is played on radio (The Fish)...instead, they focus on kicking the church in the butt, in love of course. I felt my heart break as I thought about my church, and how we as a body are so quick to let each other settle on shallow things, rather than bleed together and wrap each other's wounds...and I know that Ridgewood isn't the only church like that, hence a generation of 20- and 30-somethings looking for love in all the wrong places, and not to God to supply the stuff of their hopes and dreams. My thought is: what am I doing to help point these people to God? Simply going to church doesn't do it...the guys I work with all know I go to church...am I living a life that show's Christ's love to them, so that I can be read by them as though I was the book? That's why I absolutely have to be in God's Word daily...