The Mix Blog

What's God Saying To You?

2011-11-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

Aaaaahhhhh The Mix Blog. It's definitely been a while. We've gotten away from posting updates here for far too long and the Lord sort of shook me by the collar last night and...well...here I am. Lots has happened at The Mix since we last posted and rather than try to catch up, let's just start right now. We've been looking at a teaching series for the past few weeks that we've called "Yeah...But How?" It has basically been a VERY practical look at VERY practical things we can build into our lives to help grow our faith. We've looked at various different aspects of prayer, Bible study and sharing our faith with others...specifically, trying to share some tips and ideas as to how to build these things into our lives and stay consistant with them so our relationship with Christ can continue to deepen. We've shared some great ideas over the weeks and as a conclusion to the series, I asked the students to come this week to The Mix prepared to share what God had been saying to them and showing them over the past week...sort of 'put it into practice'. It could be a verse they read, a situation they found themselves in where God revealed Himself, a Word from God, etc. The night was amazing to say the least!!

We had lots of kids freely share what God has been doing in their lives. It's great to know that God still speaks and kids still listen! After several students shared their insights (of which I benefitted from greatly!!), I asked Kelcie to share some things with us...

Kelcie has been going through a rough time. But unlike many of us when we go through difficulties, Kelcie has turned TOWARDS God and not AWAY from Him. And God began to show her some things for her life that she wanted to share with the group. So with her permission, I've included below what Kelcie had to say Tuesady night at The Mix...

"God has layed some things on my heart lately that I really felt like He wanted me to share with everyone else as well. It has to do with God's will...His plan for our lives. God has amazing plans for each and everyone of us. And God wants to see to it that his plan has every opportunity to happen in our lives. God allows things to happen in our lives for His plan to work out...but this requires lots of trust and faith. Because sometimes God uses the good times...but He also uses the bad times, to help His plan happen in our lives. Its as though God says sometimes, 'Something was going wrong in your life, so I changed it.' Check out these verses from Job. (Job 5:18-19). When God allows you to go through hard times, it's your decision...it's up to you...to turn toward Him and allow Him to have TOTAL control of your life and everything in it. When tough times come, the only way to do this is to pray about it and get into His Word so He can talk to us and show us what He wants us to do.

But we have to WANT to learn about God...we have to WANT to get close to Him...we have to WANT to follow in His path. Why wouldn't you want that? If you think about it, when you follow your plan, your just setting yourself up for failure. But if you follow God's plan, He will never fail you. I've decided I don't want to be like all the other people. I don't want to live life one way at church and a different way at school or around my friends and family. I want to be the same person all the time...when I'm byself with God or when I'm with my friends and family...or even the 'popular' crowd.

If you're not following God's plan, if you're walking on a path you want...or even if you're not sure...I encourage you all to talk to God, ask Him, get in the Word, get excited about what could be...and ask Him to show you the right path, and then accept that path. God gave up His One and only Son to die for us, what are we willing to give up for Him?!!"

WOW!! Nothing else for me to say! Kelc hit it right on the head! I truly believe that God is and will continue to use youth to say what He wants to say to our world...and I'm excited to hear what that is!! When we begin to interact with God regularly...having discussions with God and just hanging out with Him as friends do...it brings an excitement to our faith that we can't find any other place. I have a suspicion that as long as these students continue to hang out with God and hear what He has to say, their faith will be life-filled and they will stand a much better chance of staying on the 'path' the Kelcie talked about. Thanks for listening to God, Kelc...and thank you all for checking out the blog this week!

-Bob

Recognizing God

2010-03-11T11:49:00.000-08:00

How noticeable is God? Do we always see Him when He's working and moving around us? How much of what God does around us goes un-noticed? How often do look right past the "God-Stuff" that is right in front of us? This week finds us in-between teaching series at The Mix so this week's discussion falls into our "One Hit Wonder" category...a stand alone discussion. And it all has to do with 'Recognizing God'.

There's an interesting story told to us in scripture about an encounter Jesus had with 10 men who had leprosy. You can check out the story here. The interesting thing about this story is the way the Jesus responded to the circumstances of the men and they way they responded back. If you read the story, you know that Jesus healed them all of this dreaded disease. You also know that they all got pretty excited because Jesus had intervened in their circumstance. You also know that after the fact, 9 went about their way while 1 came back and "threw himself at Jesus feet and thanked Him" (Luke 17:16). There's some interesting things I think we need to recognize about this whole situation...

First...They all got healed. They came to Jesus with a particular need and Jesus met that need in every one of them. They all got what they wanted...they all got to experience Jesus...even the ones that did not return to thank Him. I don't believe that Jesus, having noticed that the other 9 didn't return, re-nigged on His healing! "Psyche!!! Just kiddin! You guys aren't thankful enough so I'm going to take it back!" No--they all got healed...they all experienced Jesus. The end result of their physical circumstance was the same. Interesting that Jesus had a level of experience for the general populace, regardless of their response to Him...

Second...The Bible specifically points out that the one who returned to thank Jesus was a "Samaritan" and a "foreigner". The Samaritans were second class citizens to the Jews (and of course Jesus was a Jew). Jews wouldn't even walk on Samaritan soil, let alone interact with them. They were the epitome of "vile-ness" because their ancestry was not purely Jewish and that was absolutely unacceptable to the Jews. And yet, the Bible specifically recognizes the fact that this man...the one who returned...was NOT a Jew but was a Samaritan. Why? Why does the Bible point this out? Of course, God wants us to know that His love is open to everyone. But I think there may even be a deeper meaning here. You see not only did the Jews hate the Samaritans, the Samaritans knew it. They knew they weren't accepted or viewed as equals by the Jews. And therefore, there was no sense of entitlement that this man felt that he "deserved" to be healed by Jesus. Sometimes, we can confuse believing in faith for God to move and act in our lives with a type of spiritual arrogance or entitlement. The only way we are "entitled" to anything God might make available to us is because of our relationship with Jesus and that alone. We are not entitled to anything...Jesus is. And because we know Him, we are blessed with the fringe benefits of that relationship. God "owes" you and I nothing. Anything He chooses to bestow on us is purely out of His grace and mercy on us...and for that, we should be very, very thankful. When we recognize that there's nothing we can do to deserve God, we stand a much better chance of recognizing when God moves and acts in our lives...and being very thankful.

But maybe the most important issue we need to soak in from this account is this: There's usually a deeper level of experience for those who recognize what God is doing around them. You see, this man recognized God at work. And because of it, he had a much deeper level of intimacy with Jesus and he received a deeper blessing than the other 9. Notice that in Luke 17:19, Jesus announced that this one man that came back to worship Him was made "well". Remember, he was already healed of his leprosy...as were the other 9. Jesus was not referring to the superficial circumstances of his leprosy, even as serious as it was. Jesus was basically helping this man to understand that there is a deeper level of "wellness" than his physical well-being...which is what the man initially asked for and thought he needed most. God is willing (and actually desires) to move us to being "well" in our souls and our spirits. This is primarily eternal life through salvation in Christ, but its so much more than that. God wants to help us become "well" in our souls...to think beyond our immediate circumstances and realize that God wants to touch every part of who we are. If we get good at recognizing God and what He is doing around us, we might have the opportunity to go beyond just having God change our circumstances. He might actually make us "well" at every level.

Maybe a good start to moving towards "well" is the realization that we should want to please God, not just get what we ask for from Him. I don't about you, but I want to get better at noticing God at work around me. I want to be "well".

Thanks for reading!

-Bob

Dating, Love, Sex-part 2

2010-03-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

We don't like boundaries. I guess it's sort of a "human nature" kinda thing. We don't like to be told what to do and what not to do. Maybe it's arrogance, or pride...or maybe just plain o' stubborness. But we humans definitely do NOT like restrictions being placed on us. Unfortunately, we need boundaries. Actually we need them very badly. Maybe we just need to change the way view boundaries...

I've noticed people tend to fall into two different categories when it comes to thinking about boundaries. Many people view boundaries like this...

Unfortunately, when a lot of people think of Christianity, this is the image they get...a prison cell that we are locked inside of. God won't let us out and His entire purpose is to keep us from experiencing anything fun or enjoyable. We are locked away from life and there's no getting out. Pretty dismal state of existance. Thankfully, this is NOT what God has intended for any of us. Let me show you a different type of boundary...

This is a picture of the mesosphere. The mesosphere is one of the layers of our earth's atmosphere. Compared to the others, it's actually a fairly thin layer. It's about 50 miles above the surface of the earth and it sits at about -150 degrees F (which means I would be very comfortable there). If we were to jump into a rocket ship (which would be really cool by the way...) and took off for outerspace, it's sort of the "in-between layer" as we would leave the earth's atmosphere and just start to enter space. But the mesosphere serves a really important purpose. First of all, it serves as sort of a filter for the sun's UV rays. People like me (who have fair skin and red hair) are very thankful for the mesosphere because without it, we would look like a bunch of giant fried chicken legs running around all the time (there's an image you didn't plan to see in your head today I'm guessing). Anyway, it keeps the UV rays of the sun from burning down full force on the earth. But even more importantly than that, it keeps the earth (and us) from being pounded into a pulp. Experts tell us that around 40 tons of meteors enter our atmosphere every single day. That's a lot. And as these meteors hurl towards the earth and enter the mesosphere, the gases that are there cause lots of friction...which burns up the meteors and keeps them from ever actually striking the earth. Oh a few every now and then get through...we call them shooting stars and they eventually burn up anyway before they hit the earth. But the mesosphere protects us in a major way from being burned up and getting the crud beat out of us. I've discovered I'm thankful for the mesosphere.

What does this have to do with Love, Dating & Sex? Well God has put boundaries in place for us concerning sex. And these boundaries are not a giant prison cell that keeps us locked up from enjoying life and doing anything fun. These boundaries are more like the mesosphere...they protect us in a major way.

God tells us all throughout the Bible that ANY sex outside of marriage is sin (regardless of age by the way...you're not off the hook if you're an "adult".) That's a boundary. And its a boundary that He put in place to protect us. God knows us very well (He should...He built us) and He knows that if left to ourselves, we very rarely make wise decisions...especially when it comes to something as tempting as sexual activity. He also knows all of the pain and guilt that come from sex outside of marriage...not to mention the possibility of STD's and unplanned pregnancies. He understands the consequences WAY better than any of us do. He knows the painful consequences of sex outside of marriage and because He loves us so much, He wants to keep us from experiencing that pain. So He established boundaries...a huge mesosphere to keep us from getting pummeled.

So if God establishes boundaries for us...and we are supposed to imitate Him as Christians...wouldn't it be wise to estblish personal boundaries for dating? If we claim we don't need them, we can be described by only one word...stupid. We all need them. So here are some thoughts to help us establish some dating boundaries:

Putting our trust completely in ourselves is unwise
"Alone" removes self-restraint--Self-restraint is usually good

We were built to need accountability

Boundaries are easier to abide by if everyone involved understands them

Boundaries are only effective if we commit to them whole-heartedly

So with that, here are some dating boundaries that our high school students came up with...

Make sure you only date Christians who share the same convictions and morals that you do.

Don't date alone.

Don't end up in a house with your date with no one else home.

Establish conservative physical intimacy boundaries.

Talk about those physical boundaries with your girlfriend/boyfriend ahead of time.

Establish an accountability partner who will ask you often about the temptations you face while dating and how you dealt with those temptations.

Have a proper attitude towards dating (keeping my future marriage in mind and the fact that I and my date are both temples of the Holy Spirit).

Pretty wise for a bunch of high school kids if you ask me. Dating is an exciting part of being in high school. But it also holds so much potential for long-term consequences of bad choices. We have to take it seriously and we MUST establish boundaries as we date in high school...otherwise we might end up looking like giant friend chicken legs running around...

Hope to talk with you next time. Thanks for reading...

--Bob

Dating, Love, Sex-Part 1

2010-02-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

Well its February and that means 2 things. First, it is FREEZING COLD in Southern Illinois right now! And Valentines Day is right around the corner. I have a remedy for the 1st one...I'm leaving Florida in 6 hours and 45 minutes (not that I'm counting). But the second one is a real conundrum (yes that's the right spelling...I had to look it up.) Anyway, Valentines Day has always been kind of a waste to me. My wife likes flowers and chocolates and all that stuff and I like to give her things she likes but does it really mean anything if its expected?...if its SUPPOSED to happen then? Where's the feeling and emotion in that? "Here honey...here's some flowers that I bought you because every other husband in the entire world is buying their wives some this week so I thought I should buy you some too." See what I mean? (Alright...I realize that is a really lame excuse for NOT buying flowers but its the best I've got right now. If you have something better, let me know.) So Valentines Day isn't really that big of a deal at our house. But it is a big deal to me for another reason. Every year at this time, we take some time at The Mix to talk about the HUGE topic of love, dating and sexual issues. And this year is no different.

In my 18 years of youth ministry, of all the conversations I have had and counseling I have done with kids, BY FAR the most frequent topic has something to do with dating, boyfriends and girlfriends and sexual issues. Probably 85% of the time when a student comes to me and wants to talk, we end up talking about their dating life in some form or fashion. It's a big deal because the stakes are really high and the potential for long-lasting damage is enormous. And the thing I've noticed is that many times, students have unrealistic and very wrong attitudes and ideas about dating, love and sex, before they ever get to a point in their lives when they begin to think about dating. Check out these quotes from grade school kids concerning love, marriage and dating:

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?

Alan-age 10--"You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports...and keep the chips and dip coming."

Kristen-age 10--"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides all the way before and you get to find out later who you're stuck with."

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

Lynette-age 8--"Dates are for having fun and people should use them for getting to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough."
Martin-age 10--"On the first date they tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date."

WHEN IS IT OK TO KISS SOMEONE?

Curt-age 7--"The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that."

Howard-age 8--"The law goes something like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. Its the right thing to do."

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

Ricky-age 10--"Tell your wife she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck."

Now obviously these little guys and gals will have their ideas changed for them as they get a little older! And its easy to see where they get these ideas from in most cases. But its important to realize that we all start to form ideas and attitudes about dating and love and marriage and even sex, from a very young age. And kids carry those ideas into high school with them and right into dating relationships. So what ARE the right attitudes for students to have about dating? Our goal at The Mix is not necessarily to come up with hard and fast rules for our students to follow. Obviously, their parents have a lot to do with all of that for them. We are more concerned that they have a right attitude towards dating and that starts with some realizations about why God cares so much about their dating and sexual life. We came up with 3 big reasons why God cares so much about the dating life of high schoolers:

God sees the big picture--You don't! (God always sees how our choices and decisions right now will affect our future. We don't always see that. So by depending on God for our wisdom, we are depending on the One who really can see the future for us!)

God always looks out for your well-being--You don't! (God will ALWAYS lead us into what is best for us...His plans for us are not to harm us but to give us a hope and a future, according to Jeremiah 29:11. We don't always have our best interest in mind. We get caught up in the moment and make bad choices that lead to harmful things for us...it happens all the time. We don't have to ever worry about God doing that to us.)

God always has the purpose of dating, love and sex in mind--You don't! (Again, we get caught up in the moment, give into temptations and allow or focus to shift all over the place. God never gets caught up in the moment and always has His focus exactly where it should be. He knows the real purpose and intention behind dating and eventually marriage...He should, He invented it! And He can help us to do the same if rely on His direction and operate within the guidelines He has established for us.)

So what is God's purpose for dating and eventually even marriage? Well I think God seeks to accomplish a lot of things through our dating processes and eventually our marriages. But the one thing I want our high school students to understand is this: God allows us to experience a lot of things in the physical sense here in this life on this earth that are representations of deeper, spiritual truths He also wants us to experience. He gives us a physical picture we CAN understand of something spiritual that is much harder to wrap our arms around. Dating and marriage are part of this. Its hard for us to understand the intimacy that God wants to have with us in our relationships with Him. He longs to love us and experience deep, intimacy with us. But that's sort of a vague concept to us because we can't see Him with our physical eyes and touch Him with our physical hands. So He gives us marriage...something we CAN experience in the physical. And as we experience a God-honoring marriage, it helps us to understand the kind of intimacy God wants to have with us on a spiritual level. Might sound weird to you...but I believe there's more truth to it than any of us understand. Check out Ephesians 5 for more insight on this.

SO...as we date, we have to keep in mind that some day, God wants to allow us to experience a marriage that will mirror our relationship with Him. And how we date as high school students DOES AFFECT our future marriages!! Even though we may have a long time before we get married and we have no idea who we will eventually marry, we are training ourselves as we date in high school and shaping how we think about marriage someday. So here is a good goal as we date in high school:

Our dating experiences in high school should help our future marriages to be...

-God-Honoring

-Healthy

-Life-long

If we have the future in mind as we date (especially because we don't know who we will eventually marry down the road), we take big steps towards having a marriage with our future spouse some day that will be God-honoring, healthy and life-long. That's a good attitude to have towards dating in high school!!

In Ecclesiastes, God talks about a triple-braided cord that is strong because it has three cords wrapped around each other...the husband, the wife and God. When a marriage is set up like this, it is strong and God-honoring. So as high school students who are dating, we have to ask ourselves this:

Are my actions, attitudes and behaviors concerning dating going to lead to a triple-braided cord-type marriage down the road that isn't easily broken?

Am I destroying the cord before it even starts?

How we date matters to God...and it should matter to us. Over the next few weeks, we are going to talk about some practical things we can build into our lives to help us date in a God-honoring way. Hope you check back in with us! Now I have to go figure out if my wife is getting me anything for V-day so I know if I have to get her anything...and we wonder where our kids get their ideas...

Thanks for reading!

-Bob

What's Love-Part 3

2010-01-27T07:43:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone! Thanks for checking out this week's entry of The Mixblog...the best way to find out what's happening at The Mix (Whittington Church's high school youth ministry) outside of stopping by and hanging out with us. We are starting to wind down a teaching series that we have been calling "So What Exactly Is Love?" and this week's discussion focused on 'Sacrificial Love'. Sacrificial Love is a lost art in our day it seems. Unfortunately, most of the 'love' we know about is totally based on whether someone else deserves our 'love' or not and what we might get in return. News flash...THIS IS NOT SACRIFICIAL LOVE! So...

IF...

Love is a choice

Love is OUR choice

Love is OUR choice regardless of what the object of that love does

THEN...

Love is going to involve sacrifice!

King David in the Old Testament seemed to understand sacrificial love a little bit. Check out this story from 2 Samuel 24:18-25. King David wasn't going to express his love to God unless it cost him something! Why? Why not just take the threshing floor and the ox and the wood for the fire for free and promise Araunah he'd remember him during tax season? Or just promise him a 1st class tour of the palace sometime? Why did David insist on paying for everything? Why did he want it cost him something? Maybe it was to prove to God he was serious but God knows the thoughts and intentions of a man's heart so God would have known either way (by the way...I think even God has trouble knowing the thoughts and intentions of a woman's heart but that is another discussion). I think David wanted it to feel to himself as though it really meant something. He wanted there to be no doubt within himself that this act of love wasn't based on convenience or the pressure of those around him...he wanted to be sure he didn't do it because of what he would get out of it. He wanted it to be very clear to everyone but most importantly to himself that this act of love towards God was genuine sacrificial love...it cost him something and he was more than willing to pay it. So that brings us to big question of this discussion...

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LOVE?

Have you ever thought about that? I mean, I don't think it was created to be fodder for 1000's of songs. I don't think it was created so Blockbuster could have another isle in their store. I don't think it was created so rose bushes would have a place in the world and nasty little heart-shaped candies would actually be used for something. If God created it and he wired us to be able to feel it and give it, what's its purpose? Love defitinely leads to pain many times. So why create it all? Well I think the answer can be found in God's ultimate act of sacrificial love...the sacrificing of His Son Jesus. Romans 5:6-8 tells us that Jesus showed us sacrificial love not only by the amazing act of giving up His life for us but also by the circumstances surrounding it. He didn't wait until we deserved it, or until we did something to give Him a little bit of hope that we might turn out ok. He didn't wait until we proved how "good" we could be. He didn't wait until there was some indication that He might get something back in return. While we were absolutely helpless and hopeless...still sinners...Christ died for us. No gaurantees, no "deserving-factor". That's sacrificial love. And by doing so He revealed His own character and nature. Afterall, God IS love. And as His kids, He wants us to allow His nature and character to be revealed in us. God created us with ability to give and recieve love so that we could be with Him and be like Him! And the best part is that through Christ's sacrificial love for us, we have the opportunity to be with Him (see Colossians 1:13-14).

As Christians, we have to ask ourselves (and God) 2 questions...

How can I show true sacrificial love towards God?
How can I show true sacrificial love towards other people?

By doing this, we immulate God and stand the best chance of reaching people around us for Him. The greatest evangelistic tool we have is not any program or plan...its not a pamphlet or brochure...its not a tract or an event...its not even how many worship songs we know or how many Bible verses we can quote or how much we pray. The greatest evangelistic tool we have is love...loving God and loving each other. Jesus said Himself that people would know we are His disciples by the love we have for each other. People notice that and it has the potential to change their lives. It might just change ours too.

So I'm on a mission: How can I love sacrificially? I have a sneaking suspicion that if I really want to find ways to love sacrificially, God is going to provide them for me. I just have to keep my eyes open. I also have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be easy...but it WILL be worth it. It always is. And hopefully it won't involve those nasty little heart-shaped candies...

Thanks for reading. Hope you check back with us next week!

-Bob

What's Love-part 2

2010-01-22T10:52:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! Thanks for checking out this week's The Mixblog entry. Today we have a "guest writer"...Sheri Hargis fills us in on what was discussed this week as we continued our current teaching series on "What Is Love-Really?". Here are Sheri's thoughts...

This week Shon Hargis spoke about love and how Jesus loved. He talked about people often use the catchphrase "WWJD". Shon said that instead of WWJD, what we should be saying is "What Would Jesus Be Doing"...WWJBD. : ) Jesus is the ultimate example of how we are to love and there are many examples of His love throughout the Gospels.

Mark 1:40-42... A man with leprosy came to Jesus and begged ot be healed. Jesus was "filled with compassion" and immediately healed the man. Jesus saw his need and looked for a way to meet it. He does this with us too...He looks for our needs and looks for ways to meet them--because He loves us !

Mark 5:18-20... After Jesus cast the demons out of the man, He told him to go and tell everyone what He had done for him and how merciful He had been. Again, He met his need and showed mercy.

Mark 8:1-3... For the 2nd time (that was mentioned in the Gospels), Jesus met the needs of the people who were following them and fed them. He felt compassion for them because they "stuck by Him" for three days and He knew if He sent them away, they would faint before they made it home to eat...so His compassion prompted Him to feed them.

Mark 10:13-16... When the people were bringing their children to Jesus, the disciples tried to send them away so they didn't bother Him. But Jesus let them know that the children were very important to Him and that they were always welcome. He loved the children because He knew the kind of faith they had. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had the faith of a child? Isn't it sad that as we get older we become jaded and lsoe that faith? And think about the way that children love others...unconditionally, like Jesus. If only we could love that way...

John 11... This is the story about Jesus' friend Lazarus who gets sick and dies. Jesus does not immediately go to his side to heal him and Lazarus's sisters blame Him for their brother's death. Jesus goes to Lazarus' grave and when He sees Mary and the others weeping over Lazarus, He becomes "deeply troubled". Then the scriptures state that "Jesus wept". This is one of the most loving examples in the Bible...Jesus crying over the death of His friend. We know what happens next, when Jesus raises Lazarus form the dead and gives glory to God for that. But it is such a human characteristic of Jesus to be so saddened by the death of someone He loves...even though He knows what is going to happne next. He showed love for that family by sharing in their grief. Jesus does that for us too. We should remember that the things that sadden us also sadden Jesus too. When we lose a loved and we feel so alone in our grief, just remember that Jesus is with us and He feels sadness too. He is the great comforter and will help us deal with our pain and loss.

John 13:1-5... Jesus washes His disciples' feet. This was the ultimate example of servanthood. Feet washing was a job that nobody wanted to do and only the lowest of servants got stuck doing it. But Jesus His love for His disciples by getting down on the floor and washing their feet...right before He was to be crucified on the cross for their (and our) sins!!! He loved them...and He loves us...even though we are all sinners.

So how did Jesus show His love...what was He doing? He was serving, He was meeting our needs, He was showing us His mercy, He was constantly giving of Himself. He was showing us the way God loves us. He is our example of love and He is who we should aspire to be like. So...I guess the question for discussion or pondering is this: How do we love like Jesus?

Thanks for reading!

--Sheri

And thank-you Sheri for sharing your thoughts with us! I think we all probably need to let God show us how to love people more like Jesus loved them. I know I do. Hope to see you back here next week for The Mixblog.

What's Love?-part 1

2010-01-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Thanks for checking out The Mixblog this week. We are starting a new teaching series that will take us through the rest of January. We are calling it "What's Love?". No...there is no "Got To Do With It" on the end (that's Tina Turner) or "How Do We Know When It's" at the beginning of it (that's Van Halen). I tried to crack a joke about this at The Mix this week and about 2/3 of the way through the joke, it dawned on me that none of these high school kids were born yet when either of those songs came out. Almost daily I'm reminded in some way how old I really am. But on to "Love"...

First of all, how do you really define love? I'm talking about all kinds of love...romantic love, love between friends, love between parents and their kids, love for God, love for other people in general. It really does depend on who you ask. We hear about love all the time, see movies about love all the time (although I do have an anti-chick flick gene that keeps me from being able to enjoy these), listen to music about love all the time, see "love" thrown about on TV all the time...you get the idea. Love seems to be everywhere and yet we have a really hard time explaining what it is. Some would say its an emotion...some would say an action...some would say a feeling...a choice...a commitment...a destiny...a tennis score. Does it happen "at first sight" or after lots of "sights"? Can you choose to love someone, then not love them...then love them again? How do I know if I really love someone? How do I know if I really love God? Well before we can dive into the 'love discussion', let's establish a couple of really important things first:

First, most of the good things that God allows us to experience in our lives are symbolic pictures of spiritual things He wants us to experience as well. For example...marriage. The Bible seems to indicate that one of the biggest reasons God invented marriage (which He did invent by the way) is to give us a physical picture here on earth of what a covenant relationship is like...the kind of relationship God wants to have with us. Its hard for us to understand things that we can't see, smell or touch (like a relationship with God). But marriage helps us to have a deeper understanding of what a deep level, intimate, covenant-based relationship is like. Its a physical symbol of a deeper spiritual understanding. This is also true of love. God allows us to experience 'love' so we will understand just a little bit, how He feels about us.

Second, since God designed the concept of love, built us to be able to experience love, and showed us the first example of what love looks like...it only makes sense that we look to Him for the correct definition. We get lots of definitions of what love is from lots of different places. The best definition of something always comes from the inventor of it.

So what is God's definition of love? Lets check out the instruction manual: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

So how often do you love someone like this? I mean, the 'love' that I show to people a lot of times is more of a "love is usually patient when they do things my way, love doesn't envy unless I deserve it more than they do, love doesn't boast unless I'm really better than they are, love isn't rude unless they seem to really want me to be rude to them based on the idiotic way they are acting, love is not easily angered unless its those certain people...you know who you are, love keeps no record of wrongs (except all the people I deleted from my Facebook account and the ones I stopped sending Christmas Cards to this year...but they deserved it)...sometimes protects, rarely trusts, occasionally hopes, and actually perseveres sometimes"...kind of love. Anyone else in my boat? I think probably if we all got honest, we're all in the same boat if we are trying to love anyone in and of ourselves. In the flesh, Biblical love is absolutely impossible.

And then to make matters worse, God throws another log on the fire by saying that 'love' is more important than alot of other things. Read 1 Corinthians 13:13. God says strengthening my faith is important..but not as important as love. God says trusting in Him for amazing and powerful things is important...but not important as love. I gotta get this 'love thing' right!

So this causes me to ask some really tough questions of myself. Why do I love Jesus? Really...why do I love Him? If I'm not careful, here's some wrong reasons I can love Jesus:

He's a good luck charm. If I keep Jesus around, good things will happen.

He's a vaccine against 'bad stuff' in my life. If I love Jesus, he'll make sure life is a little easier for me.

He's a Spiritual Walmart. If I keep Jesus around I'll be able to get everything I think I want or need all the time. One stop shopping...Always Low Prices-Always!

Because someone else told me I should. Everyone thinks I should love Jesus so I do.

Because someone else expects me to. I need to love Jesus because others will be disappointed if I don't.

Some of these are things that can definitely happen as a by-product of loving Jesus but if my love for Him is based on these things, I'm going to decide I don't love Him anymore when He doesn't do what I thought He should.

OR...I could love Jesus:

Because I realize who He is and what He has done for me by dying on the cross and allowing me to have a relationship with God forever.

All too often, I think we decide to love Jesus based on what we hope He will do for us in the future. Instead, we need to love Him because of what He has already done for us. Our love for Him is based on the fact that He loved us first by taking the punishment for sin that we deserved. He rescued us from a spiritual death! And for that, we should love Him!!

If our love for Jesus is based on what we want Him to do for us in our lives, we will eventually turn our backs on Him. Sometimes He does what we want Him to...but sometimes He doesn't. He never stops loving us and He never stops showing that love to us. But He also doesn't always do what we think he should. What then? Unfortunately, I know way too many Christians who only loved Jesus because they thought He would always make life easier for them or give them everything they wanted or keep bad things from happening to them. And when it didn't happen this way, they tossed their faith out the window and turned their back on God, who loves them very, very much...and decided they didn't want to love Jesus anymore.

Please don't misunderstand. We should definitely believe for God to do awesome things in our lives...and He wants to. BUT...if He chooses not to, we must make sure our love for Him is based on what He's already done for us. I love to study the Apostle Paul. Paul was a guy who was an absolute jerk before he knew Jesus. He was more than a jerk...he was evil! He was basically the 1st century version of Osama Bin Laden. He wanted to kill as many Christians as possible and see to it that Christianity died off. Then when Jesus got a hold of Him, everything changed. But the thing I like the most about him is that he never forgot why he fell in love with Jesus. Here was a guy that God used in miraculous ways...he wrote 13 books in the New Testament, started churches everywhere, healed the sick, saw 1000's saved...God used him powerfully. But his life was anything but easy with Jesus. He also got beat with a cane, flogged with a whip, stoned until they thought he was dead, thrown in prison several times and eventually was beheaded for his faith. That's not exactly the path of least resistance. That's not the easy road. But it is the path of most fulfillment. The path of most purpose and destiny. And in Romans 7:21-25, we see Paul remembering all over again why he loves Jesus. It wasn't because Jesus made his life easy, its because Jesus gave him life to begin with by exchanging the sinful stuff inside of Paul for the perfect-ness of Jesus. That's a good reason to love Him!

Next week, we are going to look at what God has to say about loving people. I have a feeling I might need to work on that part too... Thanks for reading! See you next time.

--Bob

Poor Me or Pour Me?

2010-01-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

I like milk. I really do. I drink it several times a day...but only the 2% stuff. I can't handle skim milk. I know I'm unhealthy and all of that but I can't help it. So imagine with me for a second that we pour a tall glass of cold milk right from the fridge. Go ahead...take a sip. Pretty good huh? OK...now set your glass of milk on the counter top and walk away. Now imagine with me that we come back to our milk on the counter top...4 weeks later. It doesn't quite look the same...or smell the same or taste the same. As a matter of fact, something that tasted good and was good for us 4 weeks ago is now nasty and putrid and will make us sick! Fresh milk = good...old milk = nasty! The only way to keep the milk fresh is to constantly keep refilling the glass. And the only way we can constantly refill the glass is to constantly empty the glass. It's a never ending process. The glass gets filled...the glass gets poured out...the glass gets filled again. Fresh milk.

The same is true for us a Christians. God wants to continually refill us and keep us fresh. But the only way He can do that is if we are constantly pouring out what He has already placed within us. God's plan for you is huge and amazing and detailed. But one thing I can promise you...God wants to use you to minister to and meet needs of people around you. That's how we pour out what he has placed within us. And only when we do this can He refill us with fresh milk. So if you are finding your faith a little stale, try pouring some of that milk out on some people around you so God can start over within you.

Well this is exactly what a young lady that is a part of The Mix recently did. Katie (who is a 16 year old young lady from Benton) recently spent a week in Mexico in a city called Playa Del Carmen. She spent the week as a part of a missions team that did construction work on a local church building there. But it in the midst of hauling concrete and working with building supplies, Katie ministered to the people in all kinds of ways. She got a chance to help teach English to the Spanish speaking people of that area and lead Bible Schools for the children. She also served the people through her willingness to help in everyday tasks such as cooking and serving meals and cleaning. Katie says, "My favorite part was actually realizing how big God really is...and working and falling in love with all of those kids!" The most important thing Katie did was allow Jesus to shine through every part of her life as she ministered there. She poured out her milk in a huge way. We could all learn from Katie...I could learn from Katie.

I want to encourage all of you to follow Katie's lead. Oh you don't have to go to Mexico. You may not need to go anywhere. You just need to notice the opportunities God has placed around you for you spill a little milk. How can you pour out a little of what God has poured into you today? Who needs to be poured onto? If we all spent a little more time telling God "Pour me" instead of "poor me"...well I think we'd experience a lot more freshness in our lives.

Check back next time and find out what's happening at The Mix. Thanks for reading...

--Bob

All Things Made New!--Heaven

2009-12-28T14:33:00.001-08:00

Thanks for checking out this week's blog. This is the last blog in the Alpha & Omega teaching series at The Mix! Seems like its been weeks! Well...actually it has been weeks. But this is the grand finale' of the series. If you've been following along throughout the series, you know we have been moving through the events known as "The End Times" with last week's topic being The Millenium or 1000 Year Reign of Christ. Check out this timeline to help make sense of all that we have talked about:

This week's discussion is all about Heaven. And the key word for this blog is NEW...as in 'everything becomes new'. Immediately after the 1000 year reign of Christ and all of humanity has been judged according to whether thier names were found in the Lamb's Book of Life, those who have a relationship with Jesus will allowed to enter His presence and the place He has prepared for us for eternity. The Bible gives us some glimpses into Heaven and what it might be like. But its important to realize that we can't even begin to comprehend the amazing-ness (I try to create at least one new word in each blog...there's my 1 for this time) of what Heaven is really like. Our human minds are just too limited to begin to understand it. But let's take a look at what the Bible does say.

First of all, we see right away from Revelation 21 that Heaven will actually exist on earth. A "New Jerusalem" will be created and will come down from the heavens to the earth and God will be with men. So check out these verses to find out about all the "newness" we will get to experience:

New Heaven (Rev 21:1)

New earth (Rev 21:1)

New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2)

New Paradise (Rev 22:5)

New sourced of light (Rev 22:5)

New place for God's throne (Rev 22:3)

New 'everything'! (Rev 21:5)

You get the idea...NEW. And I like new. Revelation 21 & Revelation 22 gives us a little more insight into what Heaven might be like:

No sea...so its completely inhabitable

No sorrow, crying or pain

Constant daytime

No temple (A structure within which to meet with God will no longer be neccesary!)

Complete & perfect access to God

No more sun or any other light source...God Himself will light up everything!

No more curse from sin

And best of all...no more death!

Its hard to imagine an existance with no sin and no results of sin but that will be our future if we know Jesus. And I like to think of it this way... God made us from HIs own imagination. He obviously knows us even better than we know ourselves. So it's pretty cool to think about how He has designed Heaven to be absolutely perfect for us in every way...and He knows what is "perfect" for us! Check out what Revelation 21 & Revelation 22 says about the specs of this "New Jerusalem" that we will get to live in:

It will have a great high wall (so it is exclusively ours!)

It is a city of "12's"--12 Gates, 12 Angels, 12 Name of Tribes of Israel, 12 Foundation, 12 Names of the Apostles (12 is the # of government & administration in the Bible)

It is a city of great size--1500 miles x 1500 miles x 1500 miles (a population of 20 billion people would enjoy 1 cubic mile of living space each!...HG TV could do a lot with that!)

Gold streets and solid pearl gates

A city of many colors--check out the picture below that shows all the colors of Heaven!

Its going to re-define "beautiful" to say the least! The most important part of course, is that we will be there with God Himself and with all other Christian forever! Again, our human descriptions can't do it justice, but these scriptures give us a little glimpse of what Heaven might be like. This is the Omega...the End. But it is not actually the end...it is actually the beginning of eternity for us. Our prayer at The Mix is that everyone who reads this will at some point in thier lives come to a point where they realize they need to have a relationship with ths God that we talk about every week. The Bible says theony way to have a relationship with God (and therefore go to be with Him in Heaven some day) is to invite Jesus Christ into our lives and have a personal relationship with Him. He died on the cross over 2000 years ago, taking the punishment for sin that you and I deserve...all for the purpose of allowing us access to God and to the life God has for each of us. It's the most important decision we could ever make and it will truly allow us to experience the "Alpha & Omega" personally! We hope you do.

Check out The Mixblog next time as we hear from one of our high school students (Katie Pemberton) about her recent mission tirp to Mexico! Thanks for reading!

--Bob

Back To The Beginning-The Millennium

2009-12-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome! Thanks for checking this post of The Mixblog! We are quickly wrapping up this series on The End Times as a part of our much larger series topic of "Alpha & Omega". Today's post is about a unique and interesting period of time that comes immediately after The Second Coming of Christ to the earth and The Battle of Armageddon (which Jesus wins quite handily of course : ). This period is referred to as The Millennium or the 1000 Year Reign of Christ.

According to Revelation 19:19-21, as The Battle of Armageddon wages, the antichrist and the false prophet are thrown into the 'lake of burning sulfer'...2 down, 1 to go. Immediately after Jesus' victory at Armegeddon, the Bible tells us that Satan is locked up in 'the abyss' for 1000 years (see Revelation 20:1-6)...after which time he will released again. The Bible also tells us that during this 1000 years, Satan will not be able to 'decieve the nations'. Remember that right now as you and I live, Satan is not in hell. He is here on the earth and he is very busy lying, decieving and tempting human-kind. But during this 1000 year period, there will be no temptation, lying or decieving form Satan...hard to imagine what that might be like!

The Bible also tells us that during this 1000 period, Jesus (along with believers who have already experienced physical death) will establish His Kingdom and reign on earth. So think about it...1000 years with no sin, no Satan, Jesus on earth again and in complete control and Christians everywhere! Sounds pretty cool to me! But I can't help but wonder why God would choose to do this? Why would He choose to establish this 1000 year period, and then (according to Rev 20:3) release Satan AGAIN from 'the abyss' before His final judgement over the earth?

While this question probably has way more answers than we can possibly understand, these verses might give us a little bit of a clue as they describe this period of the 1000 Year Reign of Christ.

Isaiah 65:20-25

Micah 4:3-4

Zechariah 14:6-9

If you've read all of The Mixblog posts in this 'Alpha & Omega' series, some of this description might sound vaguely familiar! This sounds a lot like the earth before the flood and before sin way back in Genesis! Is almost as if God is giving us a picture, through the 1000 Year Reign of Christ, of what the earth was originally intended to be like! Chek out the chart below to see the similarities!

After this 1000 year period, the Bible tells us that Satan will be released one final time to try one final assault on God's people...and he will fail miserably (Revelation 20:7-10). Finally the end has come for Satan! These verses tell us that Satan will finally be thrown into 'the lake of burning sulfer' for eternity! God's people will be deemed Holy & Righteous based on their relationship with Jesus Christ...and everyone else will be thrown into the lake of burning fire based on their refusal of God's offer of a relationship with Jesus (Revelation 20:11-15).

Be sure to check our next post as we look at what the Bible has to say about the eternal home for everyone who has a relationship with Jesus! It is most definitely the Grand Finale'! Thanks for checking out our blog.

Bob

Taking Care Of Business-Jesus Style

2009-12-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks for checking out this week's post on The Mixblog. As you can tell, we've gotten a little behind on posts but we are catching up! We are drawing near the end of our series on the End Times. In our last post, we discussed The Tribulation Period on earth as God systematically goes through a process of wiping out earth as we know it! But as is the case with everything God does, He has a purpose for doing this and a plan. And this week's discussion draws us closer to that plan as we talk about The Great Battle of Lord (sometimes referred to as The Battle of Armageddon) and the Second Coming Jesus to the earth.

As I read through and study about this time period, I can't help but think about the great epic movies that I've seen through the years. You know...the movies where there are several subplots all going on all at the same time and then as the end of the movie draws closer, all of those subplots begin to coalesce and meet in the middle. In the end we see how it all makes sense and how it all worked together to create an awesome story. Well this period of the End Times sort of work the same way, except this is no story...this is the future according to God's Word.

Lets set the scene a bit. The world is in absolute shambles. Multitudes are already dead, the environment of the earth is unrecognizable and an absolute mess, the antichrist is in control and has the inhabitants earth either under his complete power or fleeing for their lives if they've refused to bow down to him. Fear and death are everywhere. Life on planet earth has never been so catrostrophically abismal. And then it happens...

Heaven literally splits open, almost as if it's revealing another realm beyond the sky. Through the pealed back atmosphere, a huge white horse with a rider on it appears. The rider is wearing a white robe that has been dipped in blood and his eyes are blazing with fire. He has a sword coming out of His mouth and behind is a massive multitude that has been made pure and clean and are now wearing robes of fine white, linen. It's Jesus. And this time He's not coming to planet earth as a little helpless baby in barn. This time when He touches His feet onto planet earth, He has a different objective. Revelation 10:11-21 gives us a gorey details. This time Jesus' goal is to remove all remnants of sin and sinfullness from the earth. As the beast, the false prophet and the inhabitants of earth who have not accepted Christ into their lives are all destroyed by Jesus Himself, this Battle of Armageddon becomes the most lop-sided victory in the history of the earth. Joel 3:9-16 and Isaiah 63:1-6 give us further insight into this great battle. I don't about you but I'm glad I'm on the side that wins! The map here shows the most probably location of the Battle of Armageddon in Israel.

This Second Coming of Christ and the battle that follows, will be the final victory over all the remnants sin for Christ...mission accomplished once and for all. It is important for us to realize that this Second Coming is very different than the rapture that we discussed at the beginning of our End Times series. The chart below shows in detail, many of those differences...

The Second Coming of Jesus will lead directly into a unique and interesting period of time that we will discuss next time, called the Millinium or the 1000 Year Reign of Christ. All of this is leading very quickly to the establishment of God's Kingdom for eternity! Check back soon for additional posts as we finish up this series on The End Times!

God's Ultimate Judgement On Earth-The Tribulation

2009-11-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. Thanks for checking out this week's version of The Mixblog as we continue looking at "The End Times" at The Mix on Tuesday nights (The Mix is the high school youth ministry at Whittington Church). We are in the middle...well actually getting close to the end...of a huge teaching series we have been calling "Alpha & Omega". We looked at the beginning of the earth and humanity as we know it during the "Alpha" portion of the series, and now we are looking at the "Omega"...the end of the world and humanity as we know it, according to the Bible. This week, we talked about the period during the end times known as "The Tribulation" period.

As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the end times basically will be kicked off by the rapture of Christians to Heaven (see the Oct 22 Mixblog). Once this takes place, the earth will immediately enter into a 7 year period of time often referred to as The Tribulation Period...which might not be strong enough words! It will be 7 years of absolute destruction and catastrophe on planet earth, brought about by God Himself. These "judgements" will crescendo over the 7 year period and will climax at a point when the earth will basically be left in shambles. Lets talk about why God would want to do this...

The tribulation will be part of the process of God putting an end to sin once and for all.

In addition, God will destroy this "sin-damaged" earth that we live on.

This period of time will be very instrumental in drawing God's chosen people (the Jews) back to Himself.

This period will pave the way for the final destruction of Satan and the ushering in of God's Kingdom on earth

Basically, God will go through a process of removing what is here so He can start over with perfection. And the cool part of it is, if you are a Christian, you will get to experience that perfection! But more on that in a couple of weeks...

This period of judgement or tribulation, will come about in 3 phases that are described in the book of Revelation...three sets of seven judgements, so 21 judgements in all. These judgements are described all thoughout the book of Revelation so for the sake of space in this blog, we will link to lots of different sections of scripture for you to read at your own pace. But described below is a BASIC, shorthand description of what those judgements will entail. You will notice right away that many of these judgements seem like they come right out of a science fiction movie! But this is no fiction. God, who created the natural world with it's natural laws, has always reserved the right to operate outside of those natural laws if He chose to. He has done this thoughout history in various ways so it shouldn't surprise us that He will do it during the end times as well. Again, reading about these judgements for yourself in the book of Revelation is the best way to find out more about them. So on to the first set of judgements...

THE SEVEN SEAL JUDGEMENTS: Revelation 6

1st Seal: The rider on the white horse...the coming of the antichrist

2nd Seal: The rider on the red horse...war across the world

3rd Seal: The rider on the black horse...famine (lack of food)

4th Seal: The rider on the pale horse...death (1/4 of the earth's population dies)

5th Seal: A massive martyrdom of Christians..."a great multitude that no one could count"

6th Seal: Earthquakes, volcanic activity, meteors shower the earth

7th Seal: Silence in Heaven for "about half an hour"...initiate the next series of judgements

THE SEVEN TRUMPET JUDGEMENTS: Revelation 8 & 9

1st Trumpet Judgement: Hail & fire mixed with blood...1/3 of the earth, 1/3 of the trees and all green grass burned up

2nd Trumpet Judgement: A "Huge mountain all ablaze" is thrown into the sea...1/3 of the sea turns to blood, 1/3 of the sea creatures die, 1/3 of the ships in the ocean are destroyed

3rd Trumpet Judgement: Meteorite called "Wormwood" hits the earth...1/3 of all the rivers and springs turn bitter (Many die from the bitter water)

4th Trumpet Judgement: 1/3 of the sun, moon & stars turns dark, 1/3 of the day and 1/3 of the night without light

5th Trumpet Judgement: Smoke from the Abyss darkens the sun and the sky...locusts with the ability to sting like scorpions torment non-believers for 5 months

6th Trumpet Judgement: 200 million mounted troops kill 1/3 of all mankind with fire from their mouths

7th Trumpet Judgement: Angels and 24 elders around the thrown in Heaven praise God...this initiates the next series of judgements

SEVEN BOWL JUDGEMENTS: Revelation 16

1st Bowl Judgement: Painful sores on everyone that has the mark of the beast

2nd Bowl Judgement: Entire sea turns to blood...every sea creature dies

3rd Bowl Judgement: Rivers and fountains turn to blood

4th Bowl Judgement: Sun scorches people with fire and sears them with intense heat

5th Bowl Judgement: The "Kingdom of the Beast" plunged into total darkness...possibly the city of Babylon

6th Bowl Judgement: Euphrates River dries up

7th Bowl Judgement: The most severe earthquake in history occurs and 100 pound hailstones fall from the sky

As you can tell, by the time these 21 judgements are completed, the earth will be an absolute mess and on the brink of total destruction in every way. Think about it...no grass, no sea life, all the water has been turned to blood (imagine the putrid stench of dead animals and plants and the rotting blood itself!), most if not all buildings and structures have been leveled (earthquakes, meteors, 100 lb hail stones, etc), at least 1/3 of all the trees are gone (probably means a lack of oxygen on the earth), and at least 1/2 of the earth's population is dead! Life as we know it on planet earth would no longer exist! I think the term "Tribulation Period" doesn't quite cut it!

But we have to remember a couple of things. First, those of you reading this who are Christians..who have turned your lives over to Christ...won't have to endure this! We will already be with God! Secondly, this is all very necessary in order for God to establish His Kingdom here on earth in absolute perfection. He has to remove what's broken before He can replace it. This Tribulation Period will culminate at the end of the 7 year period with the physical return of Jesus Christ to planet earth to take care business once and for all and begin to establish God's eternal Kingdom. So check back next week and find out more about the "story"! Thanks for reading.

-Bob

Who's In Charge?-Antichrist & False Prophet

2009-11-05T11:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome to this week's entry on The Mixblog! We're glad you stopped to take a look. We've been discussing The End Times at The Mix on Tuesday nights, starting a couple of weeks ago with a discussion on the rapture (the event that will start the sequence of events that we call "the end times"...see the Oct 22 Mixblog entry). This week we started talking about some of the things that will take place after the rapture...specifically, who is going to be in charge? If God takes Christians home to be with Him, then that will leave mass chaos on the earth. With the salt removed (as Jesus referred to Christians as 'salt of the earth')...the rotting will begin soon after. And a major player in the entire "end times" course of events will be the being known in the Bible as The Antichrist.

The Antichrist is basically exactly what it sounds like...someone who will be the exact opposite of Jesus Christ in every way. It's important for us to stop for a second and remember who Satan is and where he came from. The Bible tells us that Satan used to be a beautiful angel named Lucifer (check out Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 for more on Lucifer). Lucifer became prideful and was thrown out of heaven by God Himself. He wanted to be like God...and he still wants to be like God. Satan wants to be worshipped and revered and admired because of the pride that still exists in him. And all of that pride and the desire to be like God will come rushing out during the end times within the being known as the Antichrist. Check out the comparison below between the Antichrist and Jesus:

The Bible describes in the verses below who the Antichrist is and what he will do. His main purpose is of course to try to take the place of Christ and set himself up as "lord" over the post-rapture earth. And of course he has a destiny but it isn't good!

2 Thessalonians 2:3-12

Revelation 13:1-8

Referred to in the book of Revelation as "the beast out of the sea", the Antichrist will experience a rise to power. He will unite the world under his authority in 3 main ways: governally, economically and religiously...one world government, one world system of economics and one world religion. He will set himself up as the head of all that happens during the years after the rapture. Ultimately, the Bible seems to indicate in the verses above that the Antichrist will be fatally wounded (just like Jesus) and will resurrect (again, just like Jesus). After his resurrection, he will become inhabited by Satan himself and will perform all kinds of counterfeit signs, miracles and wonders...ultimately demanding the worship of every inhabitant of the earth and forcing them to do so.

During this time he will also have a sidekick...every "bad guy" needs a sidekick! The Bible calls this 'sidekick' the False Prophet or the beast out of the earth. He will basically be the enforcer and his job will be to ensure that all that the Antichrist seeks to accomplish will happen. You can read more about the False Prophet here.

As described in the verses linked to above, this False Prophet will also ensure that every inhabitant on the earth will worship the Antichrist by forcing everyone to receive a mark of some kind to establish their allegiance to the Antichrist. This mark will somehow involve the number 666, according to scripture. Anyone who receives the mark, will have chosen allegiance to the Antichrist and ultimately to Satan. If anyone refuses the mark, they will not be able to buy or sell or function in society and will eventually be killed. Again, Satan's main concern is that he be worshipped...even if it isn't genuine!

Ultimately, the Bible tells us that the Antichrist, the False Prophet and even Satan himself will be defeated and thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:19-20). But up until that time, the Antichrist will be a major focus of everything that happens on the earth in the years following the rapture. As we look at these years (referred to as 'The Tribulation') over the next couple of weeks, the Antichrist will be discussed a lot more.

Even today, there are many things that happen on a regular basis that seem to lead towards the time of the Antichrist. The adaptation of the euro (European money that has been adapted by 16 countries so far to try to unify the economics in Europe), the growing of the power of the United Nations (a form of world-wide government) and the establishment of councils and organizations like The World Council of Religious Leaders (a group consisting of leaders from many of the worlds most prominent religions) seem to fit right in with what the Bible says will eventually happen. The World Council of Religious Leaders is very intriguing as its stated purpose is to "form a community of different world religions in order to establish peace and mutual understanding" and to promote "human values shared by all religious traditions and by uniting the human community for times of world prayer and meditation." (From the World Council of Religious Leaders website.) Even their logo, displayed here, shows the "unifying of world religions into one".

The most important thing for us to remember is that right now, WE STILL HAVE A CHOICE!! We can personally choose Jesus on our own accord. Someday, we won't have a choice anymore!

Hope you can check out The Mixblog next week as we begin to discuss The Tribulation Period. See you next week!

-Bob

The Beginning Of The End

2009-10-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at various different issues surrounding the beginning of the world and humanity, up until the time of the Flood of Noah described in Genesis. That was the "Alpha" part...the beginning...of our teaching series we are calling "Alpha & Omega" at The Mix on Tuesday nights. Well this week we hit the fast-foward button...

We began talking about the "Omega" part of the series...the end of the world and humanity as we know it. And it starts with this event we call the Rapture. But before we understand the rapture and all the events that follow it, it's important for us to realize the importance of talking about the end times. Why even worry about it if we aren't going to be here? Well here are 3 good reasons:

It's important to God. More than 20 books of the Bible refer to or teach about the end times. Jesus talked about it a lot as well. If its important to God it should be important to us.
God promises anyone who reads the book of Revelation (where we find out a lot about the end times) a special blessing (See Rev 1:3). I'm all about God's blessings!
It helps us understand that God has had a plan all along for us as individuals and for humankind in general. We aren't just randomly bouncing off of one another on this big playground called planet Earth and life is not a big recipe of chance and happenstance and meaninglessness (is that a word?). Instead, God's plan involves a beginning (which we've talked about over the past few weeks) and it will involve an ending...its a complete package designed by a very intentional God who created you on purpose for a reason with an amazing plan for your life. Studying the end times helps us realize the purposeful-ness of God's plan for humanity! He has a destiny for you!

(Let me also take this time to make a quick disclaimer...there are many different ideas and theories, even within Christianity and Bible research, as to how the series of events that we refer to as "the end times" will play out. Most people agree on the ingredients, it's the order of those ingredients within the recipe that we sometimes disagree with. I'm teaching this series based on what I believe the Bible teaches concerning the end times...if you disagree, no problem. Let's at least agree that God's desire is to get all His kids back home to Him somehow...)

The beginning of what we might call the end times, I believe, will be the rapture (which literally means "caught up"). And the main purpose of the event called the rapture can be summed up in one word..."harvest". God is a farmer and He has been in a process of planting seeds for a very, very long time. But like any farmer, the excitement isn't just in planting seeds...you eventually want to harvest the fruit of those seeds and get a return on what you've sown! The rapture is God's return on what He has sown...His people. These verses give us an idea of what the rapture is (click on the links...)

We know from these verses that the rapture is the event that will occur when Jesus comes to gather all Christians who are still alive at that time, and take them to be with God. It will occur without warning and no one knows when it will happen...not even Jesus! We also know that not every person will be taken to Heaven...only those who have committed their lives to Christ. Some will be taken and some will be left. It's our responsibility to make sure we are ready for the rapture when it happens. The good thing is, we also know that God wants all of us to be with Him (see 2 Peter 3:9). But we have to make that decision and invite Christ into our lives. Click here to watch one of the most realistic videos I have seen concerning the rapture...

The rapture will start the time clock ticking for the rest of the end times...it is literally 'the beginning of the end'. What might life be like immediately after the rapture? That's tough to comprehend. We can imagine some of what it might be like. First, there will be no Christians which means that the "salt" of the earth will be gone. The rotting of society will happen very quickly. There will be no children...at least children who haven't reached a maturity level of realizing their sinfulness. There will be massive holes in society where Christians once were. There will be wide-spread depression, fear, hysteria and eventually anarchy...at least until the rise of the anti-christ (more on the anti-christ in coming weeks...). The earth will not be a fun place to be. Once the rapture occurs, a series of events will begin that will eventually destroy the earth and its inhabitants so that God can re-establish what He initially desired for all of us...perfection in every sense of the word and being in the constant presence of God Himself! More on all of this in the weeks ahead. Hope you check back weekly and jump into the discussion with us. See you next time...

-Bob

All In The Family

2009-10-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

This is the last week of the "Alpha" part of the "Alpha and Omega" series at The Mix! This week we looked at how all races of people came from one family. We know from the Bible that only 8 people survived the flood in Genesis...Noah and his wife, and the their 3 sons, Ham, Shem and Japheth...and their wives. This means that the diversity of people in the world today all came from these 8 people! At first glance, this sounds pretty amazing. But when you take a closer look at the human race and the genetic possibilities, it isn't that hard to believe. First, we look at what the Bible says...

In Genesis 10, the Bible gives us an extensive geneology of the descendents of Noah. One the amazing things about the Bible is that it does give us dates and ages and geneologies, and this adds to the credibility and reliability of the Bible. The Bible tells us that the descendents of Noah went different directions...

Ham's descendents traveled south and east...to what would later become Africa and southeast Asia...and would later become the dark skinned races of these regions

Shem's descendents basically stayed in the middle east area...and would become the olive-skinned races of that area

Japheth's descendents traveled north and west to what would later become europe and northern asia...and would later become the lighter skinned people of these regions.

Through adaptation in their various environments and through the amazing diversity in human genetics, the different skin colors began to surface...maybe within a few years after the flood! Reseachers tell us that the potential for all skin colors resides in the genetics of all of us...some just never surface. For example, there have been documented cases of fraternal twins born to darker skinned couples where one twin was dark skinned and one twin was light skinned! (Check out this picture of these twins and their parents!)

Its amazing what God has built into our bodies and genetics! Obviously in our modern world of travel, immigration and technology, we realize that the races aren't as segmented as they were after the flood...and that has allowed even more diversity! But we all are descendents of the same family...the family of Noah that God decided to save.

Next week, we begin to look at the future...to the end of time. We will check out a lot of what the Bible has to say about it and try to make sense of it all. Our goal is to simply realize that God has had a plan and purpose for human-kind all along...and He will finish what He started! See you all next week...

--Bob

Lucy, Cavemen & Mannequins

2009-10-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

We are moving right along with our "Alpha & Omega" series at The Mix and this week we looked at the idea of "pre-human" humans. How do we make sense of the idea of "cavemen" and all the things we read and hear about "missing links" and the evolution of humans from ape-like creatures? Maybe they drove cars like this one? Obviously there is way more concerning this topic than what we could discuss in 1 night, but here's the scoop on the discussion last Tuesday night...

First of all we looked at some of the common high school Biology text books that are out there. Basically, we have to be very cautious what we read even in text books! For example...

"But all researchers agree on certain basic facts. We know, for example, that humans evolved from ancestors we share with other living primates such as chimpanzees and apes."

-Miller & Levine, BIOLOGY, 2000, p. 757

All researchers agree? Really? Obviously this is not a true statement, but the idea here is that there are certain beliefs that are going to be forced on us and our children (regardless of the truthfulness of the claims) and those that force this belief will do anything they can to "prove" it correct...even lie, or at least refuse to recognize the falsehoods that exist. For example...

Nebraska Man discovered in 1922 and was used to support evolution in the 1925 Scopes Trial...later found to be the tooth of a pig.

Java Man found in 1891. A small piece of the top of the skull, fragments of the left thigh bone and 3 molar teeth all found in a 70 foot radius area, mixed in with numerous other bones from other creatures and the bones were not petrified led researchers to believe they had found a new "pre-human"...later found to be the bones of an extinct elephant

The Piltdown Man Hoax-Supposed 1 million year old fossil of "pre-human" that was later revealed to be a manipulated jaw bone of an ape, treated with acid and made to look "old" so the discoverer could gain some glory and fame.

Or take for instance Neanderthal man. Originally thought to be very primitive and "un-human", now we know that Neanderthals used jewelry, played musical instruments, painted, talked and even buried their dead...sounds very human to me! In addition, researchers have gone to great lengths to prove that DNA testing reveals that the very small sample of neanderthal skeletons we have found have different DNA than humans. In reality, those few skeletons that were found had different DNA than 92% of humans. That means that 8% of you reading this blog have similar DNA to a Neanderthal! When we look at the diversity of the way humans look on earth today, is it that hard to believe that a few people in Germany a few thousand years ago might have looked a little different than most of us do? What if we had found these bones in Australia where the Aboriginal people live (who share some different physical characteristics than we might be accustomed to)? Or in the arctic north, where some of the Inuit people have some different physical characteristics than most? The diversity of human appearance is amazing...and a nod to the awesome creativity of our God. Neanderthals aren't that "un-human" after all.

And lastly, we have the "Lucy" debacle. Lucy is, of course, the common name given to a skeleton found in the 1970's in Africa. The creature has been given the name Australopithecus afarensis and has been dated at 3.5 million years old...a "pre-human" link to humans through the evolutionary line of the apes. The only problem is that the skeleton of Lucy actually shows her to be a knuckle walking, tree dwelling creature with ape-like hands and feet as well as other parts of her anatomy. She would have acted and lived like an ape... But many in the science world do not want her to viewed as such because it destroys the idea of humans evolving from apes so she is always depicted (falsely) very human-like. Notice the picture here of a model of Lucy from the St Louis Zoo. The zoo has admitted that the model is wrong but has said that if they depict her as she really would have been, then it wouldn't give off the message that they want to send...that we evolved from apes.

Time and time again, supposed "evidence" that we evolved from apes has been called into question and dis-proven. The Bible gives us the account in Genesis of how we...humans...were made in the image of God on the 6th day of creation. We have encouraged the students at The Mix to study and research for themselves concerning evolution. In the end, we will find out something very amazing. YOU were created, intentionally, on purpose, by an awesome God who has a purpose for your life.

Next week...Many Races From One Family. How did every race on earth descend from the family of Noah?

See you then...Bob

Lucy, Cavemen & Mannequins-Part 1

2009-10-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

This week at The Mix we took a break from the "Alpha & Omega" discussion and did ministry instead of talking about it. We helped in the HELPS ministry at Whittington Church...sorting clothes, organizing clothes and basically saving the HELPS ministry team 3 weeks of work. Great time...great experience...and great for the kids to do some things to help some people that they will never meet. If we aren't careful, we can all get to inward focused...God calls us to more. But next week...

Next week, we will jump back in with the "Alpha & Omega" discussions and we will be tackling "Lucy, Cavemen & Mannequins"...sounds like the name of a punk band doesn't it? We'll be talking about the whole idea of "pre-humans" and "cavemen" from a Biblical perspective. Should be great stuff. Here's a 'pre-look' at some stuff we may cover...in question format:

What are we to make of the fossilized remains of all of the supposed "pre-human" hominids...cavemen?

Have the claims of discoveries of "missing links", "ape-men" and lesser evolved human-like creatures always been accurate?

What about "Lucy" (the 40% complete skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis found in Ethiopia in 1974 supposedly dated at 3.2 million years old)? Does she prove anything at all? Are the claims made about her actually supported by the evidence?

What about Neandertals? Maybe the Geico commercials are on to something?

Is there a deeper issue with all of the "pre-human" claims besides just cavemen and evolution?

And the most important question...what does the Bible have to say about all of this, if anything?

So check back next week! Or better yet...if you are a high school student within driving distance of Whittington Church, come check out The Mix next Tuesday (7 PM)! Should be an interesting discussion!

See you next week...

--Bob

Dinosaurs & People-Is It Possible?

2009-09-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

First of all let me say 2 things...

First, I never get tired of talking about this stuff (pre-flood earth, creation, extinction, fossils, flood theories, etc.)

Second, I am very encouraged by the Godly wisdom of many high school students to figure some things out on their own and not be fooled by the comfort of what is commonly thought to be 'truth'. In short, these kids are on the right track and that comforts me greatly! Lots of great questions last night and lots of great, Godly, thoughtful deductions by our high school kids. They're using the minds God gave them rather than just buying everything they've been told..."hook, line and sinker"...as the saying goes. So last night...

We talked about dinosaurs and the Bible...two things normally not lumped into the same conversation in most discussions. Here's the VERY short version of what was discussed...

The study of dinosaurs is relatively new (1st fossil discovered in 1822 and the word 'dinosaur' contrived in 1840) and therefore, the things we think we "know to be true" about them seems to change VERY often. The truth...we don't as much about them as we think we do and that leaves the door wide open for some other things to be "true".

Even though it is commonly taught that dinosaurs lived millions of years before humans, there is evidence (even outside the Bible) that seems to indicate that humans and dinosaurs might have crossed paths...cave drawings of extinct animals (how did those early humans know what they looked like? They didn't get to watch "Jurassic Park" or "The Flintstones"?)...fossils showing up in rock layers that put them in the wrong "evolutionary timetable"...OR

What about the "dinosaur lore" that is out there (Loch Ness Monster...Medievil dragon tales...Native American Thunderbird...Mokele Mbembe in The Congo-sketched here by a native of that area.)? Could some of it be due to the fact that at some point in history, a human actually saw a dinosaur and the tale was told verbally through the centuries? If not, how did some of these native, indigenous people know what these things looked like? They describe them and draw them out to be very similar to some of the fossilized dinosaurs that we know existed. Again, these people couldn't see what they looked like on the Discover channel.

So then we talked extinction...

Science tells us there have been 9 major extinction events in history of the world. Of course most evolutionary biologists will say these events took place spread out over millions and millions of years.
The interesting thing is that the Flood of Noah could have (and probably did) cause EVERY one of these events...within a few months or years after the flood! Such as: sea levels going up down, drastic changes in climate, ice glaciers, an ice age, cooling & heating of the seas...even a meteor impact (how did God choose to initiate the "fountains of the great deep" bursting forth that is described in Genesis 7...meteor striking the earth possibly)?

Couple this with the Biblical account of 2 different creatures described in the book of Job (the behemoth and the leviathon) that aren't like anything that is alive today (Job is probably the oldest book in the Bible...possible within 200 years of the flood), and it seems to be reasonable that Dinosaurs and man co-existed before the flood. And just like many other species of animals, they couldn't survive the changes in the world's environments after the flood and became extinct.

And the coolest part of this whole discussion has been that the high school students we are talking with have been wise enough to "see" some of this on thier own...and that is the beginning of wisdom.

NEXT WEEK: We will be talking about "cavemen", early humans and the origins of the many races of people on the earth, according to the Bible...should be interesting!

We welcome your comments below!

Canopies, Floods and Giants--Huh?

2009-09-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Okay everybody...I don't know about you but I am freaaking about all of this stuff Bob & Mark have been talking to us about over the past 2 weeks at The Mix! I think it is so interesting because most of this stuff I haven't even heard before! I have so many questions about all of it and I wish it were a real science class I could have taken in school...what do you guys think? Do you have questions too, or do you find this boring? Maybe the youth leaders are the only ones that are really into it--I don't know. Why don't we write down some of our questions on here (just post them as a comment below) and maybe Bob can find some answers for us (ha ha--no pressure, Bob!)

Here are some questions I have...

Were there really cavemen and cavewomen?

Did the children who died in the flood go to Heaven (Asked by Nathanial last night I think...)?

Is it really true that out of the millions of people on earth, only Noah and his family honored God? How did the world get SO bad?

What about the race of Giants born before the flood? How did that race survive (Goliath was after the flood)?

What is carbon dating all about and how did the flood change that? How can carbon dating "prove" that the earth is millions and millions of years old?

Add your questions to mine and lets see if we can get some answers!

Happy studying!

-Sheri

The Alpha & Omega

2009-09-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

2 things that have always fascinated people...the beginning of the world and the end of the world as we know it. Literally, the Alpha & Omega...the beginning and the end. And that is exactly what is happening for the next several weeks at The Mix (well...not the end of the world...just discussions about the beginning and the end.)

We began this week with a little introduction but if you weren't there, you haven't missed anything yet! Come next week! For the first several weeks, we will be discussing what the earth might have been like when God created it as recorded in the book of Genesis. What was the world like before the flood of Noah? Where there really dinosaurs, and if so, when did they live? How did the flood change the earth? Where did all the different races of people come from? And of course the most important question of all...did Adam have a belly button?

After we dive into "the beginning" stuff for a few weeks, then we will jump forward to what the Bible has to say about the end of the world as we know it. We will tackle topics such as the rapture, the Tribulation Period, the antichrist, what will happen to Satan, what will happen to Christians and non-Christians and even a little bit about what Heaven might be like, according to the Bible.

Should be a great set of conversations and we hope you can come be a part of them if you are a high school student within driving distance of Whittington Church (or you coud fly I guess...that would be a first.)

We're excited to see what God will do with it all! Till the next blog...C-Ya.

Bob

Water, Flour & Baby Shampoo

2009-08-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Water, baby shampoo and some flour...about all you need to have a good time at The Mix on Water War night. In something like it's 15th year, the annual kick off to the new school year known amongst The Mixers as "Water War" happened last week (see the pix!). Almost everyone got wet and several were even "floured" from the roof of the church (nice sneak attack Andy J and company...). Great night...great time...great people.

Looking ahead...

Over the next few weeks @ The Mix we will be diving into a teaching series I'm calling "Alpha & Omega". We'll start off looking at the "alpha" part...what the world might have been like before the flood of Noah. Then we'll hit the fast forward button and check out what the Bible says about the end...as in the end of time...lots of Revelations stuff. So we really will look at the "Alpha & Omega"!

See you at The Mix...

:: BOB ::

2009-08-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new home for The Mix Blog!! We're excited you stopped by. Check back often to see what Bob and the other youth leaders have on their minds (scary thought, I know...). Or better yet, subcribe to this blog so that each time a new one is posted, you will automatically receive a link to it. Just think of all the amazing things you'll learn...like how to pronounce Epaphroditus!