Vilnius Mayor A.Zuokas Fights Illegally Parked Cars with Tank

Video really speaks for itself. If only this happened in America. =T

Lets Drop the Rituals

     A couple nights ago I was reading my bible and currently I’m reading through Mark. The passage I read happened to be Mark 12:13-40. I read the whole thing then read it just one more time to gain some more clarity, but one thing stuck out to me the most. The spot happened to be Mark 12: 29-33, where Jesus is talking to a scribe, right after he was talking with some other high ranking religious leaders. The scribe had basically asked Jesus what was the greatest and most important commandment that God has ever given. The story unfolds like this:

     Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher, You have truly stated that He is One; and there is no one else besides Him; And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

     The most important thing to take from this, when coupled with the rest of the passage, is that God wants our hearts, not our actions. He doesn’t want complex answers to complex questions and He certainly doesn’t want our prideful actions either. He really only wants us and our hearts, not the “burnt offerings and sacrifices.” He calls us to follow him and leave our own agenda’s and to-do-lists somewhere else, preferably is a dark, bottomless abyss. It’s time to drop the empty rituals and start giving our hearts to Christ.

Busy Brick

     I think recently God has been trying to teach me the importance of some alone time. Recently I have been working a decent amount of hours, along with the internship and various other fun opportunities that pop up here and there. Just tonight I decided I would go on a walk after work and a fun opportunity. I think all the stuff has just compounded all together into one large "busy brick," which then formed my week. As I look back to examine my brick, I notice that there really wasn’t too much alone time in there. I personally think that just being able to sit and think about something other than what needs to be done or will be done is quite soothing, but truth is if you don’t make the time to do that then what soothing will actually get done?  I’m going to challenge myself to make an honest effort to try and put that soothing time into my day before I run myself into complete insanity.

Goodness and A. C. Grayling

This morning I happened to be reading Ravi Zacharias’s, “Slice of Infinity.” The article was commenting on A. C. Grayling’s, “Good Book,” but something stood out to me while reading the article. It was the topic of Goodness. When thinking about goodness, there has to be a standard to measure from. Without a standard, God, to measure from, I’m not sure if anything can really actually be good in the fullest, purest form of the word. While this is short, I’m going to leave it at this, “Without God, what is goodness?”

Jealousy: Needed and Necessary

     Yesterday I went up to DC with my fellow Sub30 Interns (Katelyn Smith, Michael Adams, Elizabeth Everett, and Cheyenne Self) to go to National Community Church. The site we went to was their Ebenezer location. Basically the site there is a Coffee Shop with a church downstairs. The idea is absolutely awesome and it’s done very well.

     The message at NCC was absolutely amazing and Mark Batterson was the man to bring it. It was aimed toward love, but in the sense of jealousy. Mark pointed out that God is jealous FOR us, and not jealous Of us.  He then went on to describe his own jealousy for him Wife’s love and his children’s love. Last night it hit me that God is extremely Jealous FOR our love and I realized it in a deeper sense. I had always heard the standard, “ohhh yeah man, God loves you so much he died for you,” but I never really internalized that he is absolutely Jealous for our love. His love for us is the kind of love that when you wake up, you begin thinking of that person, the kind of love that turns your stomach inside out just thinking about them, the kind of love that is between a husband and wife, the kind of love that is Jealous for their full love.  

     Because God has jealous love, He wants all of us which sometimes means we have to get rid of those things in our life that take His rightful place, a.k.a. our idols. Last night Batterson talked about Ezekiel 8:12 where God reveals that each of the seventy elders from the house of Israel had shrines to their Idols. Today while we do not carve out little things of wood or gold and worship them, we have become “sophisticated sinners” and worship the sins in our lives and leave out the “graven images,” but are nonetheless Idols. If we claim we truly love God, we need to cut out these idols that sometimes fill the place of God. ‘Nuff said.

The End of Childhood, Harry Potter, and The Beginning of the Future

     Today marked a largely felt end to my childhood. Today, I saw the last part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The movie was really good and the picture looked amazing, but towards  the end of the movie I began thinking to myself, “poop man…I’ve been growing up waiting for the next movie to come out and it’s pretty much over. =T” As I’ve been away at Liberty the feeling of growing up seems pretty awesome. I’ve gained more responsibility, more freedom, and more choices, but there has been a feeling of surprise and realization that in just a few short years I will hopefully be out on my own with a wife by my side, and will likely have to worry about finances and all of the other mess that will occur. The future seems scary, but also potentially exciting, and I know God will teach me through the storms and comfort me when comfort is needed. Scary future is getting a reality check…or maybe just a kick in the face.

Alex Mitchell and Electric violin

This guy is absolutely amazing. Every time I listen to his stuff it makes me want to figure out how to do stuff like this with my Electric Violin. Definitely takes some thinking about how the music works and everything. I wish more people played the electric violin so it could maybe one day get as popular as an electric guitar. These days seem to be a little far into the future tho. =\