If there was one message that God sent me to teach. It would be that God just wants more for us. What is more? More is what we don't have. More is what we need, that we don't choose to receive. More is the blessed future that God wants us to have, and his daily presence in our lives. This is what we have: power, technology, things that make our lives easier, families, great minds, our own jobs and businesses, houses, cars, you name it. On the other hand, our power takes over our lives, the technology and things that make our lives easier break down, our families are dysfunctional and people commit suicide, our jobs prevent us from having good relationships and aren't fulfilling to us, our houses get old. Even our government system does not support justice as it should, and the list goes on. There is something terribly wrong with the world that we live in.
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God wants more for us than this! I'm not saying that he will fix our world and make everything fine and dandy, but he will intervene in our lives personally. There is however, a catch. We must put everything that we have, and all of our dreams in his hands. We must trust him daily. We must let him come into our lives daily, and take over, and trust him to heal us from our sins and our weaknesses.
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One last thing. Everyone will die or slip out of this world; it's ordained. After that, we will be in one of two places: heaven, or hell. Heaven is a place where we can live with God and see him forever. In heaven there will be nothing wrong like our world, and there will be no pain. On the contrary, hell is a place where people will suffer in great pains forever. Forever. Only people who are forgiven of their sins, and trust God with their lives daily, will enter heaven. Everyone else will go to hell. God wants more for us than hell. He wants us to be in heaven with him. It's a choice.

The Hurting Ones
11/26/00
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They cry alone in the darkness
Wailing in grief of such unbearable pain
Dark shadows fill the room
Tap water dripping in the background
Drip Drip Drip Drip
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Louder and louder the sobbing gets
They clench their stomach with their fists
They cover their faces and sob
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They regurgitate their hearts with every loathsome wail
Their spirits rejecting the pain inside
Yet the pain sticks steadfast in their hearts
The demons twisting till another cry is heard
Drip drip drip drip drip
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The echo reverberating like a shadow tracking its pray
Silence
More silence
Finally a muffled sob
Drip drip drip drip
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No one knows why
They just cry
What perplexity could be lurking inside of them
A monster
A darkness closing in on a sterile land
They have no power to rise up
So they cry
They sit and sadly do nothing
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Like a cancer the pain keeps growing
Not long now until it takes the last objective
Drip drip drip drip
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How long until death takes me they ask
Will death come at all
Or will the pain just keep coming
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No doctor can heal their pain
No hope for an empty tin can
Nor any light in this cold dark nowhere
Reality is all around
Drip drip drip
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Where did the hope go
What about love
How about the man with stripes on his back and head
With holes in his hands and feet
Who will step up and give the love
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They are out there
The hurting ones
They don’t know who they are
In chains
They can’t live or walk or be who they are
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Let me be their light
Let me show the way
Present the cure
Help me stop the
Drip drip drip drip
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Now is the best time to remember those who are hurting and have no one and no where to go. We can reach out to those who we know, and be Jesus to them. Come down to their level and touch their hearts with hope. Jesus would do it.

I had an English teacher who was an atheist once, or at least an agnostic. I asked him why, and he asked me how there could really be a God if people everywhere were suffering. I told him, it's not because there isn't a God that people are suffering. It's because of sin that people are suffering. I didn't get to remind him that Jesus came and died in our place, in order that we would not have to suffer under at least our own sin. However, I hope that someone tells him that, and I hope that some one will live the kind of life in front of him, and he will see God working in them.
I do want to thank God for the hope though. For the peace that he has let me enjoy, and his love. However, I want to challenge you, the reader, to reach out to the suffering. If you know someone who is shut off to God, it's because they suffered at some time in their life, and they saw what they thought was God, on the side of the oppressor. Also, those who hurt others; they where hurt sometime, or are still being hurt. They need relief, and healing. Only God can give the best medicine for that.

Glory (the movie)

He looks around and people are just clueless about the war that is being fought. Blood, gore, death, struggle. Someone offers to put him in charge of a regiment. They think they are doing him a favor, but there is no favor in it. Just death. But he makes favor of it. He takes charge of a black regiment that becomes very successful even though if they get caught there will be a severe penalty. In the end, he makes the choice that his men will be the first to charge a very well guarded fortress, even though he knows that all of his men will die. He does it because he knows that he has nothing to lose, and because he knows that it will lead to an eventual victory, and they will have died for the cause.
This is what Christians are about. Making glory out of being a servant. Going to the lowest place, picking up death, and marching with it into the battle of life. There is a penalty if we get caught - persecution. That is why we must die everyday, and consider martyrdom as an optional way to live, or even leave our bodies. We have nothing to lose when we pick up that cross, because we have nothing left to lose. We have gone all the way to the bottom to serve others, and what we earn is stored in an eternal environment, on the other side of death… and because the victory has already been won.
In that movie every one of those soldier's bodies were buried in a trench. But those who lived that day died another. Our choice is the same. Live today and die tomorrow, for eternity, or die now, and live for eternity. Everyone will die, but who will pick up death and march with it. Who will give it their all, and live in eternity.

Grace... A mercy or gift received that one did not disserve.
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Stop and look around. See all of the grace around you. On our own, we don't deserve to live. Who let us live another day? Grace is written all over the Bible. God chose Abraham to be a "blessing to all nations" out of grace. By grace He chose Jacob, the deceiver over Esau. By grace he saved Noah's family. By grace he saved Lot's family. By grace he chose Saul, a persecutor of his church, to be the messenger of the gospel to the Gentiles, you and me. By grace he lifted Peter up out of the sea when he lost faith. By grace he forgave Peter for denying him three times. By grace, he chose those twelve scruffy disciples to be his leaders. By grace he sent his Holy Spirit to be with us. By grace, he came to die for us himself. Get the picture? There are graces everyday that we don't recognize and don't thank the Lord for. Who am I to be in God's family? His love is obviously too strong to let sin get in the way of his blessing us. How much will we love him back? He actually deserves it.