October 24, 2008 6:24 AM
Sam wrote:
Verse 27: Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house. At first glance this seems backwards (as that is the way we are---I'll explain later).. In order to DO your outdoor work and getting your fields ready for planting, you would need some sort of shelter, wouldn't you say? Otherwise you might not be able to survive (the cold, the heat, the wild animals (back then) in order to DO your outside work. But actually, what I think the writer is tying to get across to us is this: Look after others first, THEN yourself. The 'outdoor' work I liken to our evangelism--our sharing of the Gospel. This has to be done before we enjoy our luxuries (our house and all that we put in and around it). It means helping a poor person before feeding one's own face. It means putting aside your personal projects to help a friend (or enemey or someone you don;t yet know) do something. It is putting others first before yourself. BUT, we are backwards. We want to build our 'house' first. We want to set up ourselves in luxury (as best we can), and THEN help others. We want to spend our earnings on us (by us, I mean ourselves and our immediate families) BEFORE giving to God. As I have confessed many times, I don't do a full 10% tithe...more like 5-7ish. That is what I mean by us being backwards. We look out for "#1" before the other 6 billion people on this planet. I think we all need to put a better effort toward our 'outdoor work', which I might further define as what God wants us to do. We should step up our evangelism. We should step up our giving. We should step up our serving. We should step up our teaching. We should step up our love. We should....well, ...step up. THEN, and only then, should we take a step backwards and relax in our houses. Every day should be devoted to outdoor work, to teach and love non-disciples. Once our daily missions for God are complete, then we can sit in our 'homes' that we built and rest knowing we have pleased our maker. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 6:58 AM
Johnbob wrote:
Very interesting thoughts on that verse. We often get our priorities backwards - especially emphasizing the wrong things, such as housing. My wife and I bought our dream house and moved to Cumming in 2005 - it wasn't outrageously expensive, but it was a new house ($265K) in a really nice neighborhood. The bottom line is that it just stretched us too much and we ended going more and more into debt. After talking with a brother at a retreat, I was convicted (and inspired) to make changes and we put our house on the market - i think it was that same week that the housing market starting crashing with subprime loans, etc. etc. and we have what we have today. We sold our house this summer (after 9 months on the market - which was a miracle from God to find a buyer) - we lost money on it but we should break even on the deal after about 10 months - it could have been much worse. I say all this because if i put this verse into practice, it would have helped me avoid such a big mistake - 'get your fields ready' for this particular situation meant 'get your money in line - get on a budget - be disciplined - don't overemphasize the house (which is so common around here), etc. - so anyway, that what it meant for me. Thanks for your post. Reply to this
I thought it was a great idea regarding posting our conversion stories. Actually our minister asked the congregation that question a couple weeks ago, and that is where Rich's son shared. It was powerful being reminded how God orchestrated the time and place so that we could know Him. I had written something a while back for our Clemson reunion - it is probably too long to post here, but it is in a word doc if it could be posted here somehow. Reply to this
Post it....copy the words into the blog...if it is over 3000 characters, just continue on another blog entry. Looking forward to seeing it. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 7:05 AM
rik wrote:
32 I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw:
Learn from others. I have many times told my children, "do not go down that road, I did and it only leads to ruin" I can only hope they listen and pay attention to my mistakes. We should all attempt to do this all say, every day. Pay attention to others and learn not to make there mistakes. Wrote your own Proverbs, if you will, make wise decisions based on what you see around you. Macs example yesterday about his military style of parenting had ill effects on his children, we who still have children to raise should take that to heart and gain something from it.
here is what my proverb would be:
correct the heart, not the action, rebuke in love, not in anger, and your children will see there errors. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 7:38 AM
Sam wrote:
A 'military style of discipline' is NOT bad for raising children. What MY problems were, were the lack of demonstrated love and expectations too high. In addition, the military 'kept me away' (even though I could have done a lot better and instead of being married to the Army, I coulda been married to my family) much too often. Absence of a father in a household can have disastrous affects....I believe Tony is seeing that now as well. EVERY day, a father should sit down with his children and have good spiritual discussions. This would include a DAILY reading and discussion from the Bible, as well as discussions about the highs and lows of each one of the family members' day. If a child goes to bed without this, you've lost a precious moment. This need not be just for small children, but also for teens, no, especially for teens, up until the day they leave the house. Teens go through so much 'junk' in the 'school world' that it is critical that a father sit down every single evening and have a productive, spiritual discussion with those teens. No, my military style of parenting was not the problem, it was my lack of the knowledge of God and demonstrated lack of love for my family. The discipline (and it was not real hard) was only a very itty bitty small part of it. Please take to heart, for those of you who have children of any age, heed my warnings about being absent. A DAILY relationship is necessary, starting the day your precious loved one is born. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 9:47 AM
joe wrote:
I do learn from your experiences, and wisdom. It's nother like learning from a front line warrior.
I thank our Father for loaning us His children to raise according to His will. I thank Him for giving us a clear conscience by assuring us that if we live up to what we have attained, His power will be made perfect in our weakness if we do not give up.
The Accuser (satin) continues to cause regret, bitterness and judgment in our hearts. Fortunately, Father gives His word to shut evil down...Psalm 19:12 Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. 13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
Ephesians 4:16 Each part... helps the other parts grow. I read something in my quiet time this morning: When roots of trees come into contact with one another they form an underground support system. One has access to water, another to nutrients, another to sunlight, etc. The networking strengthens them all.
I trust that each of us will do "our" best individually to "understand" each of our situations. To be sympathetic ...kind...gentle, and patient. We all have the need to be understood and the need to have our feelings validated. The problem is we, as men, are in such a hurry to fix people that we don't have time to sympathize with them. My wife is a witness to that on my end
The more the eyes of my heart see the Father, the more I see myself. I've come to realize that I continue to think too highly of myself and too little of the unconditional love of God. My acts I use to consider righteous I now see as filthy rags. What a wonderful, wonderful Master, King, and Friend we have.
Encouragement. Hopefully we can help each other with the faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you. (Ro 1:12) Reply to this
October 24, 2008 9:59 AM
joe wrote:
v. 11 Save those who are being led away to death. Hold back those who are about to be killed. 12 Don't say, "But we didn't know anything about this. "The One who knows what you are thinking sees it. The One who guards your life knows it.
What motivates me to show mercy to others? God's mercy to me. I'm never asked to forgive someone more than God has already forgiven me. I'm pretty much of a wretch through and through w/o Him working in me.
I always had enough inside of me and with the help of those in my life I was always able to get back up to witness the Glory of Father. This is my genuine Hope of all in my circle.
v. 16 Even if godly people fall down seven times, they always get up. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 1:01 PM
Johnbob wrote:
Here is my story - sorry it is so wordy...I wrote it for a Foothills Church of Christ reunion a few weeks ago...
This weekend made me start thinking about the reasons I came to Clemson. No, I am not from South Carolina – in fact, I have no ties there whatsoever. I grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, and when you graduated (yes, I can use the word ‘when’ not ‘if’), you went to University of Tennessee or Tennessee Tech. Almost all of my friends went to one of those two schools, and most importantly, my identical twin brother, Mike, chose Tennessee Tech.
I remember when I first thought of Clemson. In 1981, when I was a sophomore in high school, Clemson beat UGA on their way to their National Championship year. My dad predicted that any team that could stop Hershel Walker would win the NCAA Championship. And when they did, and we received our issue of Sports Illustrated with Perry Tuttle all in orange, I knew that was where I wanted to go. Great reason, huh? Even though no one from my high school was going and all my friends were going to other colleges, I decided to be free from my twin brother and strike out on my own.
I vividly remember my first days at Clemson in 1984. In the summer, I was unable to obtain housing, so after some letter writing (no emails back then), I was able to secure a room in the Sigma Chi house (thankfully not the Beta house, Doug) with a person named Eric Tabor (known as ‘Surfer Boy’). One of his first questions was if he could have part of my closet to put one of his massive stereo speakers in. I said yes of course and he proceeded to blow the doors off our room playing the Journey song “Stoned In Love” – a song that, you could say, he lived up to quite well – that and various other unmentionable AC/DC songs he played. My first night there, I went and got a biscuit from Bojangles and got so ill I had to go into the infirmary, where the nurse’s prognosis was that I missed my mama.
I quickly decided I would go through Rush Week with the fraternities. I remember not having enough time to eat and going to a Sigma Chi party and having too much to drink. I wasn’t a big drinker in high school – I think this was primarily due to seeing my twin brother drink and to realize how stupid I would look. I remember going to bed early that night, while the party was still going on, feeling very empty and uncomfortable about having drunk too much and saying “Is that all there is?”
During Rush Week, I needed to go buy a book – I decided to buy it used from somebody from that had posted a note on a bulletin board. As I am going to this person’s room, I come around a corner, and there is Jimmy Rogers, Lowell Hoover, and Rob Davis tacking up Bible Talk posters. Jimmy stops me and asks me whether I would be interested in a Bible Talk (preying upon the freshmen…). I said yes and gave them my number. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 1:04 PM
Johnbob wrote:
Even more amazing was that a couple nights later, I was rushing the Betas, where of all the guys I could have spoken with, I ended talking to a guy named Jeff Calhoun, who started talking to me about a Bible Talk he was involved in. Looking back, it was one the oddest conversations to have in a frat house during Rush Week. So with around 30 disciples (from that particular church I have now learned), I ‘happen to’ run into 4 of them in two different settings.
I remember the first Bible Talk, where Jimmy talked about the ‘If you eye causes you to sin…’, and that was the first and only time I decided to challenge Jimmy, saying that I thought the Bible was exaggerating, and I proceeded to learn that the Bible is useful for correcting and rebuking. It was refreshing to hear it though, having grown up in the Episcopal church where rebuking/correcting was nonexistent.
I studied the bible the next week and somehow got dropped for a few weeks. I went to a coed Bible Talk that was much more enjoyable than the first one. I remember meeting Paula Ryan, who had an Olivia Newton-John bandana and lots of makeup on. I also met Amy Busby, who talked about how she had just become a Christian, and how I should become one too. Then I studied the bible one more time and went through the rest of the studies. It was great to know the truth and finally learn what it meant to be a Christian. I remember waiting for my ride with shorts and a t-shirt and my big green beetle towel over my shoulder. One of the guys on my hall asked me if I was going swimming and I told him “No, I am going to get baptized.” And he said “Uhhh…..okay”. And then I made Jesus the Lord of my life and got baptized. I walked up out of the water and started getting hugs, and Paula Ryan pointed to the sky and said, “Look, the angels are rejoicing” since the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and was just then beaming down through the clouds onto the opposite shores.
That first week I didn’t go to church because I had promised my friend that I would go to his Methodist church before we did the final set of studies (oops!). The next weekend I went to my girlfriend’s house (girlfriend??? – I believe Jimmy made a note to ensure that these issues were covered during the counting the cost in the future…). But then I got my act together and went to church – the earliest sermon I remember was from Joe Hartline – he did it on the Parable of the Sower – starting it by saying, “I know you have heard many sermons on this…” – well, I had never heard it, but I just at it up. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 1:06 PM
Johnbob wrote:
I have lots and lot of memories – mostly positive, though I am very glad the God removes our sins and ‘forgets’ them. I will share those thoughts another time, I suppose. I will finish with some reminders regarding the above story:
Why in the world would I come to Clemson University due to a Sports Illustrated issue (and no friends, etc.). Why in 1984? How was I invited two different brothers in different places (, when there happened to be a church that existed for around 10 years Acts 17:26-27 and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
Ephesians 1:4-5 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[c] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Remember, 2 studies was all it took for me (which is one more study than the Day of Pentecost, the Jailer, the Ethiopian Eunuch, and I am sure many others). I don’t say that pridefully (I hope), it just seemed simple then, and still does.
When baptism came up, this was the scripture that made it plain to me Romans 6 1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
In some ways, we did better before we knew what we were doing, if you know what I mean.
In terms of looking over the past 24 years, there are many other scriptures I hang on, but overall, I remember that God is the one who was searching for me from the beginning. I heard a preacher say recently that instead of doing a Seeking God study (which is still a great study), they were starting with a “God is Seeking You” study. And I believe He still is.
That's it - sorry the length and the fact that it might be 'old school' in any way. Reply to this
October 24, 2008 1:24 PM
Sam wrote:
Awesome, JB..... What impacted me the MOSt about your story, is that you could remember all those names and the title of the first sermon and what was said in the first Bible Studies...in the 80's yet!!! I can't remember what last Sunday's (well, that's an exaggeration, as I can for LAST Sunday, but not beyond that) sermon was about. You were really impacted, obviously, on this great event in your life. Unfortunately for me, my early alcohol years removed most of my brain cells, especially the memory ones. I DO remember getting baptized though! Great story JB---thanks for sharing. Reply to this
October 26, 2008 4:24 PM
joe wrote:
This is powerful Johnbob. I will definitely be seeking your advice on some issues that arise concerning my twin boys. They are almost 17 and at times I don't understand "their twin world" and what they are going through being identical. Reply to this
Verse 27: Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house.
At first glance this seems backwards (as that is the way we are---I'll explain later).. In order to DO your outdoor work and getting your fields ready for planting, you would need some sort of shelter, wouldn't you say? Otherwise you might not be able to survive (the cold, the heat, the wild animals (back then) in order to DO your outside work. But actually, what I think the writer is tying to get across to us is this: Look after others first, THEN yourself. The 'outdoor' work I liken to our evangelism--our sharing of the Gospel. This has to be done before we enjoy our luxuries (our house and all that we put in and around it). It means helping a poor person before feeding one's own face. It means putting aside your personal projects to help a friend (or enemey or someone you don;t yet know) do something. It is putting others first before yourself.
BUT, we are backwards. We want to build our 'house' first. We want to set up ourselves in luxury (as best we can), and THEN help others. We want to spend our earnings on us (by us, I mean ourselves and our immediate families) BEFORE giving to God. As I have confessed many times, I don't do a full 10% tithe...more like 5-7ish. That is what I mean by us being backwards. We look out for "#1" before the other 6 billion people on this planet. I think we all need to put a better effort toward our 'outdoor work', which I might further define as what God wants us to do. We should step up our evangelism. We should step up our giving. We should step up our serving. We should step up our teaching. We should step up our love. We should....well, ...step up. THEN, and only then, should we take a step backwards and relax in our houses. Every day should be devoted to outdoor work, to teach and love non-disciples. Once our daily missions for God are complete, then we can sit in our 'homes' that we built and rest knowing we have pleased our maker.
Reply to this
Very interesting thoughts on that verse. We often get our priorities backwards - especially emphasizing the wrong things, such as housing. My wife and I bought our dream house and moved to Cumming in 2005 - it wasn't outrageously expensive, but it was a new house ($265K) in a really nice neighborhood. The bottom line is that it just stretched us too much and we ended going more and more into debt. After talking with a brother at a retreat, I was convicted (and inspired) to make changes and we put our house on the market - i think it was that same week that the housing market starting crashing with subprime loans, etc. etc. and we have what we have today. We sold our house this summer (after 9 months on the market - which was a miracle from God to find a buyer) - we lost money on it but we should break even on the deal after about 10 months - it could have been much worse. I say all this because if i put this verse into practice, it would have helped me avoid such a big mistake - 'get your fields ready' for this particular situation meant 'get your money in line - get on a budget - be disciplined - don't overemphasize the house (which is so common around here), etc. - so anyway, that what it meant for me. Thanks for your post.
Reply to this
Joe...thanks for the encouraging words about my son yesterday.
Reply to this
Joe,
I thought it was a great idea regarding posting our conversion stories. Actually our minister asked the congregation that question a couple weeks ago, and that is where Rich's son shared. It was powerful being reminded how God orchestrated the time and place so that we could know Him. I had written something a while back for our Clemson reunion - it is probably too long to post here, but it is in a word doc if it could be posted here somehow.
Reply to this
Just post the first 300 characters then the nest 3000 until it is all posted.
Reply to this
Johnbob
Post it....copy the words into the blog...if it is over 3000 characters, just continue on another blog entry. Looking forward to seeing it.
Reply to this
32 I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw:
Learn from others. I have many times told my children, "do not go down that road, I did and it only leads to ruin" I can only hope they listen and pay attention to my mistakes. We should all attempt to do this all say, every day. Pay attention to others and learn not to make there mistakes. Wrote your own Proverbs, if you will, make wise decisions based on what you see around you. Macs example yesterday about his military style of parenting had ill effects on his children, we who still have children to raise should take that to heart and gain something from it.
here is what my proverb would be:
correct the heart, not the action, rebuke in love, not in anger,
and your children will see there errors.
Reply to this
A 'military style of discipline' is NOT bad for raising children. What MY problems were, were the lack of demonstrated love and expectations too high. In addition, the military 'kept me away' (even though I could have done a lot better and instead of being married to the Army, I coulda been married to my family) much too often. Absence of a father in a household can have disastrous affects....I believe Tony is seeing that now as well. EVERY day, a father should sit down with his children and have good spiritual discussions. This would include a DAILY reading and discussion from the Bible, as well as discussions about the highs and lows of each one of the family members' day. If a child goes to bed without this, you've lost a precious moment. This need not be just for small children, but also for teens, no, especially for teens, up until the day they leave the house. Teens go through so much 'junk' in the 'school world' that it is critical that a father sit down every single evening and have a productive, spiritual discussion with those teens. No, my military style of parenting was not the problem, it was my lack of the knowledge of God and demonstrated lack of love for my family. The discipline (and it was not real hard) was only a very itty bitty small part of it.
Please take to heart, for those of you who have children of any age, heed my warnings about being absent. A DAILY relationship is necessary, starting the day your precious loved one is born.
Reply to this
I do learn from your experiences, and wisdom. It's nother like learning from a front line warrior.
I thank our Father for loaning us His children to raise according to His will. I thank Him for giving us a clear conscience by assuring us that if we live up to what we have attained, His power will be made perfect in our weakness if we do not give up.
The Accuser (satin) continues to cause regret, bitterness and judgment in our hearts.
Fortunately, Father gives His word to shut evil down...Psalm 19:12 Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. 13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
Ephesians 4:16 Each part... helps the other parts grow.
I read something in my quiet time this morning: When roots of trees come into contact with one another they form an underground support system. One has access to water, another to nutrients, another to sunlight, etc. The networking strengthens them all.
I trust that each of us will do "our" best individually to "understand" each of our situations. To be sympathetic ...kind...gentle, and patient. We all have the need to be understood and the need to have our feelings validated. The problem is we, as men, are in such a hurry to fix people that we don't have time to sympathize with them. My wife is a witness to that on my end
The more the eyes of my heart see the Father, the more I see myself. I've come to realize that I continue to think too highly of myself and too little of the unconditional love of God. My acts I use to consider righteous I now see as filthy rags. What a wonderful, wonderful Master, King, and Friend we have.
Encouragement. Hopefully we can help each other with the faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you. (Ro 1:12)
Reply to this
v. 11 Save those who are being led away to death. Hold back those who are about to be killed. 12 Don't say, "But we didn't know anything about this. "The One who knows what you are thinking sees it. The One who guards your life knows it.
What motivates me to show mercy to others? God's mercy to me. I'm never asked to forgive someone more than God has already forgiven me. I'm pretty much of a wretch through and through w/o Him working in me.
I always had enough inside of me and with the help of those in my life I was always able to get back up to witness the Glory of Father. This is my genuine Hope of all in my circle.
v. 16 Even if godly people fall down seven times, they always get up.
Reply to this
Here is my story - sorry it is so wordy...I wrote it for a Foothills Church of Christ reunion a few weeks ago...
This weekend made me start thinking about the reasons I came to Clemson. No, I am not from South Carolina – in fact, I have no ties there whatsoever. I grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, and when you graduated (yes, I can use the word ‘when’ not ‘if’), you went to University of Tennessee or Tennessee Tech. Almost all of my friends went to one of those two schools, and most importantly, my identical twin brother, Mike, chose Tennessee Tech.
I remember when I first thought of Clemson. In 1981, when I was a sophomore in high school, Clemson beat UGA on their way to their National Championship year. My dad predicted that any team that could stop Hershel Walker would win the NCAA Championship. And when they did, and we received our issue of Sports Illustrated with Perry Tuttle all in orange, I knew that was where I wanted to go. Great reason, huh? Even though no one from my high school was going and all my friends were going to other colleges, I decided to be free from my twin brother and strike out on my own.
I vividly remember my first days at Clemson in 1984. In the summer, I was unable to obtain housing, so after some letter writing (no emails back then), I was able to secure a room in the Sigma Chi house (thankfully not the Beta house, Doug) with a person named Eric Tabor (known as ‘Surfer Boy’). One of his first questions was if he could have part of my closet to put one of his massive stereo speakers in. I said yes of course and he proceeded to blow the doors off our room playing the Journey song “Stoned In Love” – a song that, you could say, he lived up to quite well – that and various other unmentionable AC/DC songs he played. My first night there, I went and got a biscuit from Bojangles and got so ill I had to go into the infirmary, where the nurse’s prognosis was that I missed my mama.
I quickly decided I would go through Rush Week with the fraternities. I remember not having enough time to eat and going to a Sigma Chi party and having too much to drink. I wasn’t a big drinker in high school – I think this was primarily due to seeing my twin brother drink and to realize how stupid I would look. I remember going to bed early that night, while the party was still going on, feeling very empty and uncomfortable about having drunk too much and saying “Is that all there is?”
During Rush Week, I needed to go buy a book – I decided to buy it used from somebody from that had posted a note on a bulletin board. As I am going to this person’s room, I come around a corner, and there is Jimmy Rogers, Lowell Hoover, and Rob Davis tacking up Bible Talk posters. Jimmy stops me and asks me whether I would be interested in a Bible Talk (preying upon the freshmen…). I said yes and gave them my number.
Reply to this
Even more amazing was that a couple nights later, I was rushing the Betas, where of all the guys I could have spoken with, I ended talking to a guy named Jeff Calhoun, who started talking to me about a Bible Talk he was involved in. Looking back, it was one the oddest conversations to have in a frat house during Rush Week. So with around 30 disciples (from that particular church I have now learned), I ‘happen to’ run into 4 of them in two different settings.
I remember the first Bible Talk, where Jimmy talked about the ‘If you eye causes you to sin…’, and that was the first and only time I decided to challenge Jimmy, saying that I thought the Bible was exaggerating, and I proceeded to learn that the Bible is useful for correcting and rebuking. It was refreshing to hear it though, having grown up in the Episcopal church where rebuking/correcting was nonexistent.
I studied the bible the next week and somehow got dropped for a few weeks. I went to a coed Bible Talk that was much more enjoyable than the first one. I remember meeting Paula Ryan, who had an Olivia Newton-John bandana and lots of makeup on. I also met Amy Busby, who talked about how she had just become a Christian, and how I should become one too. Then I studied the bible one more time and went through the rest of the studies. It was great to know the truth and finally learn what it meant to be a Christian. I remember waiting for my ride with shorts and a t-shirt and my big green beetle towel over my shoulder. One of the guys on my hall asked me if I was going swimming and I told him “No, I am going to get baptized.” And he said “Uhhh…..okay”. And then I made Jesus the Lord of my life and got baptized. I walked up out of the water and started getting hugs, and Paula Ryan pointed to the sky and said, “Look, the angels are rejoicing” since the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and was just then beaming down through the clouds onto the opposite shores.
That first week I didn’t go to church because I had promised my friend that I would go to his Methodist church before we did the final set of studies (oops!). The next weekend I went to my girlfriend’s house (girlfriend??? – I believe Jimmy made a note to ensure that these issues were covered during the counting the cost in the future…). But then I got my act together and went to church – the earliest sermon I remember was from Joe Hartline – he did it on the Parable of the Sower – starting it by saying, “I know you have heard many sermons on this…” – well, I had never heard it, but I just at it up.
Reply to this
I have lots and lot of memories – mostly positive, though I am very glad the God removes our sins and ‘forgets’ them. I will share those thoughts another time, I suppose. I will finish with some reminders regarding the above story:
Why in the world would I come to Clemson University due to a Sports Illustrated issue (and no friends, etc.). Why in 1984? How was I invited two different brothers in different places (, when there happened to be a church that existed for around 10 years
Acts 17:26-27
and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
Ephesians 1:4-5
4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[c] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Remember, 2 studies was all it took for me (which is one more study than the Day of Pentecost, the Jailer, the Ethiopian Eunuch, and I am sure many others). I don’t say that pridefully (I hope), it just seemed simple then, and still does.
When baptism came up, this was the scripture that made it plain to me
Romans 6
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
In some ways, we did better before we knew what we were doing, if you know what I mean.
In terms of looking over the past 24 years, there are many other scriptures I hang on, but overall, I remember that God is the one who was searching for me from the beginning. I heard a preacher say recently that instead of doing a Seeking God study (which is still a great study), they were starting with a “God is Seeking You” study. And I believe He still is.
That's it - sorry the length and the fact that it might be 'old school' in any way.
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Awesome, JB.....
What impacted me the MOSt about your story, is that you could remember all those names and the title of the first sermon and what was said in the first Bible Studies...in the 80's yet!!! I can't remember what last Sunday's (well, that's an exaggeration, as I can for LAST Sunday, but not beyond that) sermon was about. You were really impacted, obviously, on this great event in your life. Unfortunately for me, my early alcohol years removed most of my brain cells, especially the memory ones. I DO remember getting baptized though!
Great story JB---thanks for sharing.
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This is powerful Johnbob. I will definitely be seeking your advice on some issues that arise concerning my twin boys. They are almost 17 and at times I don't understand "their twin world" and what they are going through being identical.
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