The Source at Central Baptist Church Luling

This is the challenge card from the Great Love Rally this weekend.  Here’s the definition of a real man.  Being able to present this card to your bride on your wedding day.  Chandra tells of a story of a guy that sent his soon to be wife his framed true love waits card before she walked down the isle.  In today’s world it takes a real man to accomplish that.   On the flip side, I couldn’t think of a better gift for either spouse to give the other.  This is truly a gift to be treasured…so keep your duck tape sticky.

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Chandra Peele absolutely rocked the kids this weekend.  God absolutely moved in the school and kids came out of the woodwork to hear her message of Save Sex.  The most awesome part is that many of them now understand the biblical importance of staying pure.  It is so awesome that as old as the Bible is it’s still relevant to our lives.  God has always had a plan for us and purity is a part of that plan.  About 30 kids made a pledge to stay pure until marriage.  What an awesome gift to give to your spouse.  I think it would fall into the category of Priceless.  God is absolutely about to change the direction of the entire town of Luling. This is only the beginning.

Chandra Peele absolutely rocked the kids this weekend.  God absolutely moved in the school and kids came out of the woodwork to hear her message of Save Sex.  The most awesome part is that many of them now understand the biblical importance of staying pure.  It is so awesome that as old as the Bible is it’s still relevant to our lives.  God has always had a plan for us and purity is a part of that plan.  About 30 kids made a pledge to stay pure until marriage.  What an awesome gift to give to your spouse.  I think it would fall into the category of Priceless.  God is absolutely about to change the direction of the entire town of Luling. This is only the beginning.

On Saturday January 12th from 9-3 at Central Baptist Church author Chandra Peele will be sharing biblical strategies for staying pure in today’s culture. I am pumped because we can spread the message of biblical purity to a ton of kids.  There are lifelong consequences by not understanding and following God’s plan for dating and relationships.  Don’t miss it.

I love studying about the history of the church.  I know you can call me a nerd later.  There are a few things that have fascinated me this week.

1. The spread of Christianity through the world was amazing. God used a handful of faithful people to turn the world on its head.  It exploded like a weed, or the mustard plant he talked to the disciples about.  It spread south into Africa, north and west to Europe and east as far as India.  All this growth in the life time of the apostles. 
2. He called people from all types of backgrounds to join His redemptive mission to reach all cultures.
3. It takes courage and perseverance to impact the world like that.  If you read about how these apostles died, it wasn’t pleasant.  They faced death everywhere they went.  They believed in the message so completely they were killed for it.  The more the followers were persecuted…the more it grew.
4. After they established the churches, everyone thought they had the answer about everything.  The nature of Christ…was he man, was he God.  The laws: did Jesus abolish them or do we still have to follow them.  Arguments broke out, people were martyred for the views, cut off from the church.  In all of their learning, they forgot the KISS principle.

Here’s the point.  Theology, bible study, and scripture are all important but I feel Christ has been asking me this question over and over lately Mark 8:27-29.  Until you answer this and come into a life changing encounter with Christ we are just studying for a test that we can’t pass.  When he has transformed us then…He will use us to change the culture.

Great Love is coming.  I can’t tell you more about this right now.  This event could have the biggest impact on your life so far.  I’m serious. This event will absolutely change the way you live.  Keep posted for details.  I cannot wait to tell you more about it.

Gena and the junior high and high school girls are starting a book club Wednesday called Priceless.  It is written by author Chandra Peele.  I am pumped because we are getting to the point where we can address some of the issues that our youth are facing. I am so glad that we can help reinforce the message that our girls are worth more than they can imagine.  It seems like generation of teenage girls have been selling themselves short and settling for ungodly relationships and guys who have no idea how to be a man of God.  Our girls are priceless and I hope they can catch a glimpse of that through this time of fellowship and discussion.

It appears as though Ben is more of a theologian than I thought.  I got all of the details from his sermon upon reading my latest post to my wife.  He actually said…"Jesus…put stars… up high…in sky…we can see him."  He is nodding his head vigorously as though everyone should know this.  Nodding his head again, he patted the ground and said ""Jesus…come sit grass…Ben." 

The bible tells us that God created the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.  I love studying the bible.  Love it.  I could spend hours a day learning about languages, history and culture.  As my knowledge grows so does my understanding of how truly ignorant I am.  Here is the proof of that.  Last night Benjamin, my self professed 2 year old "Little Man", told me something about Jesus that we could all learn from.  He told me that Jesus created the stars.  Will work out the details later on the specifics. Gena agreed and then Ben sat down in the grass and patted the ground next to him and said, "Jesus…visit people."  Amazing, a 2 year old understands that God has created the universe and and that he is pursuing each of us.    He wants to sit down with each of us and really be in true fellowship.  He didn’t exactly use those words but the simple message he spoke is helping me to refocus.  Often, we are the ones who do not take the time to look at the stars and sit down on the grass and say, "Jesus, thank you, come and stay a while."  Thanks Ben. 

We have been working our way through Genesis and it has been awesome.  I know…who would have thought.  Genesis? Awesome?  The one thing that has hit me is that we really don’t have much faith in God and that we are really just a little impatient.  It is so clear in looking at the first 3 chapters that God already has a plan for us and it is all about relationships and trust.  We can trust the God who created the world by speaking to follow through on His Word.  We see that from the beginning of creation that he meant for us to spend our time loving him and loving others.  He meant for us to serve each other in our relationships.  Especially dating and marriage.  We often get tired of waiting and take things in our own hands. My prayer for our youth is that they would be patient and fall madly in love with God.