Some of these are no brainers, but here they are none the less:
1 Islam will call for the eradication of Israel.
2 The economy will get worse before it gets better.
3 Hot, cold or just right, it’ll be blamed on Global Warming.
4 Lots of people will do amazing things for others everyday, but the news will talk about something stupid that a celebrity did instead.
5 Technology will advance in a way where we say, “How did I live without this just last year.” Including a new term to go along with; google, blog, myspace, facebook and twitter (tweet).
6 President Obama will do no right in some eyes, no wrong in other eyes and make decisions that will shape this country for the rest of our lives.
7 3rd-party politics will make an even bigger push.
8 The government will spend money it doesn’t have… and both Democratic and Republican leaders will be to blame.
9 Jesus will still be the only means of salvation.
10 God will still have it all under control and we need not worry.

It’s not a term you hear a lot. But I think it should be. The word “salvific” means pertaining to the power of salvation or redemption. As in, “What theological issues are actually salvific?”
As Christians it seems that sometimes we are more focused on being right than righteous. This is an understandable dilemma as we are called to “Earnestly content for the faith.” But what issues are we allowed to disagree with each other on and which ones are points where there can be no compromise, the sticking points… the dare I say issues in which we can call someone a “heretic” for disagreeing with us?
These are the salvific issues.
Salvific issues have to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Two non-salvific issues which Christians often differ on are: “How does the Christian life look?” – socialist, communist, anarchist, capitalist. And “How do we do Church?” – Pentecostal, Brethren, Baptist, Emergent. These are important issues, but are not in themselves salvific.
When having a disagreement with someone about a spiritual issue, it is important to ask, “Is this a salvific issue?”
Some things in the Christian faith are negotiable, however the Gospel is nonnegotiable!

Frank Warren has collected peoples’ secrets. And he’s kept them… sort of. Post Secret is a series of books and a website by Warren, in which people send him an anonymous secret on a postcard and he compiles them for the world to see. The books are both popular and very powerful!

I sat down with one of those books yesterday and was reminded of what the Bible clearly lays out about sin. “The wages of sin is death…” Reading about the secret sins people hold close to their heart, you can feel the death that they live with. But even sadder is those whose secret stems from someone else’s sin, for example having been abused or raped. Based on their writing, you can see that part of them is in fact dead.

Thankfully we know that while the wages of sin are death, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

You know that picture of Jesus that you see. He’s got a beard and the longish hair and just that look about him, you know which one I mean? Well guess what, that’s not what Jesus looks like. That’s not what he looked like when he was living on Earth 2,000 years ago. In fact, the only thing we can know for sure about that picture is that it is wrong, because we don’t have any 2,000-year old pictures of Him. So anything that we do have is a guess at best, and wrong for sure.

I attended Imago Dei in Portland last week for the first time. I had heard of the well-known fellowship for many years but I don’t live in Portland, so had never been in person. The message by pastor Rick McKinley was excellent. In fact, I enjoyed the whole experience except for one thing. The pictures of some guy who isn’t Jesus watching me the whole time. You see the projector had pictures of “Jesus” up for the whole sermon. Why? Am I wrong in finding this annoying at the least and wrong at its worst?

I’m inspired to change the world. I believe that we cannot change the world for good apart from God. That includes the will of God, the strength of God, the leading of God and opportunity (or appointment) from God. So how do we change the world? Here is what I have in mind:
• Share the Gospel of Jesus.
• Pray for people.
• Attending church (Christian fellowship meeting on Sunday).
• Encourage others to attend church.
• Let people know how much I love them.
• Attempt to make others lives better everyday.
• Try to meet peoples physical needs.

That’s what I’m going to try and do? What about you?

It’s an old saying and famous song, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” I know that it’s true. And I’m afraid that it’s true when it comes to our freedom. I have yet to lose my freedom, but I’m sure if I do, I’ll realize that I never gave it the respect that it deserved. Dick Cheney said, “It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.”

What do you think of when you hear the word freedom? The movie Braveheart, the military, the USA or perhaps Jesus (the greatest freedom giver ever). The heart of Christianity is freedom. We as Christians have been set free from our sin. We have been freed from the bondage that is ourselves and we have been freed from the prison that is eternal hell.

Freedom is the motivation behind most of man’s great causes. Those who seek to end the trade of sex slaves, those who fight against abortion, those who provide medical resources or food or shelter to the poor, are all attempting to give those people freedom. The Gospel message itself is a message of freedom.

I’ve been thinking about the freedoms we enjoy as a non-Muslim country. That’s right Mr. President, we are not a Muslim country. With the recent controversy over the Iranian elections, I’m reminded of how we must respect our freedom. That means standing up it and even fighting for it. We are so blessed with the freedom that America has granted us, let’s show it the respect that it deserves.

Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.

Some testimonies are dramatic, others more simple, but if you are a follower of Christ, you have one and it’s a story still being told.

Chris Norden’s Testimony is a bit more dramatic than most.  I had the privileged of interviewing him yesterday to help tell part of his story.  I now present it to you:

A friend of mine was nearly killed by a drunk driver a few days ago. He was hit head on and thank God is doing well considering. I had been thinking about drunk driving since Angles’ pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed by a suspected drunk driver earlier this month.

I’ve been thinking about when I’ve heard that it was someone’s 2nd time drinking and driving or maybe even the 5th or 6th DUI they have received. How does that happen?

I’ve got a question; are our DUI laws to lenient?

I have an idea for what the DUI penalty could be, but am I being too extreme? I may be, but here goes.

3 DUI strikes:
1 You can never have a license in America again. If you are from a foreign country, you are banned from America.
2 One year in prison. Outsourced to a foreign country, like somewhere in Asia, as our prisons are too full.
3 A permanent ankle boot that won’t let you ever operate a car again. It would be from the knee down and could never be removed.

I’ll acknowledge right off the bat that these penalties are a little over the top. But you do think the penalties we have now are working? I imagine that someone could read the above and come at me with a WWJD? So what would Jesus do? He’d be perfect right, He’d forgive right, He’d do the right thing… YES! I believe He would. So here is my question when people use WWJD? whenever you are talking about penalties for crimes - ready - OK, if Jesus would never punish anyone for their crimes, why are people going to spend eternity in Hell? I don’t want anyone to go to Hell, I really don’t. If I had a vote, I’d vote for Universalism, but I don’t have a vote. Things are God’s way and not man’s way and He is perfect.

So maybe my penalty ideas are bad and wouldn’t work, but do we need to change something when it comes to DUI? What do you think?

“What you believe is crazy!” that’s an edited nice version of what I’ve been told countless times. So, is what I believe crazy? To some it certainly is, to others not so much. Why have I been told that my beliefs are ridiculous more than the average dude? Two reasons I think, number one I have beliefs about most things and number two I’m unashamed to share those beliefs.

I have this theory and it goes something like this: If you have things that you actually believe and you are willing to share those beliefs, someone else is going to think that you are ridiculous! It’s a pretty simple theory I know. One thing I’ve found out in this process is that usually those who claim to be the most “open-minded” and “tolerant” are the quickest to call someone else a “bigot” or call their beliefs lame.

I’ve grown used to being called an idiot and the like, so I have no problem sharing some of my “ridiculous” beliefs. I’m going to give you a list of some of my personal beliefs, feel free to bash me for them. Feel free as well to take a moment and think about what you actually belief. I would start with what you believe about these basic things, how did life begin? What happens when we die? Who decides what is right and wrong? Are we alone in the universe? You get the idea. If you feel so inclined, share your beliefs, I promise not to call you crazy or ridiculous ☺

Here are some of mine:
• God created everything we know, man, the earth, etc. sometime between 6,000-10,000 years ago.
• Jesus is the Son of God and after dieing on the cross, He rose from the dead.
• Humans have always been humans, we don’t have any simple animal in our ancestry.
• People used to live to be many 100s of years old.
• Abortion kills a living human.
• There is a standard of right and wrong that is set by God and applies to all humans.
• Angels and demons operate around us, we just don’t see it.

The beliefs listed above I hold strongly to, just for fun, I’ll throw out some theories that I tend to lean toward, but wouldn’t put them in the same category of the above, which I hold as absolute truth:
• There are still dinosaurs on the earth.
• We’ve never put humans on the moon.
• When people see what they think are aliens, they are actually angels or demons.

I’ve seen lots of facebook status updates in reference to Easter today, but none more clear or important than those that simply say “He is risen.” So true and so important to the very essence of our existence and our hope for this life and eternity.

He is risen indeed!