If you want to read this article just click here to view it on FOXNews.com…

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I feel like I’m a person that does place Christ in the center of a lot of things in my life, but you know what? I have realized that I am failing at placing him in the center of ALL things in my life. So the question arises: How do you place Christ into the center of ALL things?

I will be honest. I don’t know exactly how. But I think I have some good advice. But first off, please forgive me for not having a Bible verse for this, but I know that we need to have him as the center of all we do, so anyway… How do we do this? How do we get to a point that Christ is thought of and centered in every aspect of our lives?

The first step I am going to take will be studying the Bible more thoroughly. I am going to study things that are in my life. By doing this I am taking the word of God and letting it teach me and guide me through certain situations. Another step I am taking is going to be fasting more. I want to fast just to seek God. I don’t totally understand fasting, but I do know that when people begin to seek God in the Bible, they often fast. And the last thing I can think of right now is getting an accountability system going in my life. This accountability system isn’t because I have such a hard time struggling with so many different sins, but it is a way for me to be accountable on a weekly basis for my walk with Christ. It will help me keep in perspective what I am actually doing.

How else can we keep our selves seeking Christ’s will in all things that we do? Any suggestions? Bible verses?

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If you want to read the official story from the Reno Gazette Journal click here…

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Through the relationship I learned something about myself though. I struggle with jealousy, and anger. As you may all know, these are not talked of very highly from a biblical standpoint. So as soon as I realized I had these issues I began to work on them. I found myself struggling with them, but I wasn’t ran by them.

This past week, I really had a hard time with it. I let my emotions control the way I acted, and I let myself treat that person whom I care about so much like she really didn’t mean that much to me. I saw this as a problem obviously, but I didn’t think that it would be so bad as to end our relationship. But it did.

I understand that my anger was the root of this. I am not sure what else could have been. Even if she doesn’t know it, I am pretty sure that it is what really moved her to make the decision. But whatever, I could sit around and wonder why forever. But I am going to just have to move on even though I don’t want to. I am going to have to trust God more than I have lately, and I am sure that he will bring me through this okay. I hope that he does the same with her. As much as I wish that this could all be undone, I need to stop worrying and rushing it. That will do no good because that is not God, that is me!

Do any of you have any encouragement? It would really be appreciated… Thanks!

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If you would like check out blood:water mission by clicking this…

p.s. I haven’t gotten any photos of it, but I hope to get some next time…

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I hope you are not getting the wrong picture. I am not saying that I am addicted to porn, that I have fits of rage constantly, or that I find my self contemplating murder. But I find myself stumbling less often everyday with the less evident versions of these like lust, frustration, and jealousy. Although I am a Christian and I know that I am not saved because of how good I am but by the grace of God, I still feel like the world is over when I realize that I have been stuck in a rut with these hidden sins.

So what should I do? The first thing I always do is pray. I know that God wants to see me live for him. So I ask him to give me the strength to not fall back into these sins, I also ask if he could help me discern situations that would tempt me to fall into these as well. Then I will usually think about it and feel bad about it for a long time, but I don’t think God wants us to linger on the sins of our past.

Although the sin may have been committed 2 minutes ago, it still was in the past. If we sit and linger on that sin we will only let the glory we should be giving to God, go somewhere else. And that is no good. We should glorify God in all things, including our sin.

How do we glorify God in our sin? We can glorify God in our sins by not continuing to sin. We can strive to live pure and holy lives, and when we come to a point where we stumble we shouldn’t allow it to take our eyes off of the greatness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ who died for the forgiveness of our sins. If we get stuck and depressed because we have sinned in such a minute way, I don’t think that we really are glorifying the work of forgiveness which he accomplished through his love for us, on the cross.

What do you think? Is it possible to glorify God through our sin by seeking to become more pure? And if so, is it also possible to steal his glory by lingering in our past sin?

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This time I noticed something, and I am not quite sure what to think about it, but I will tell you what my gut reaction is. I saw a man, from my church, who brought in a cloth. This cloth looked somewhat like something that a Jewish Rabbi would wear. It was white, long, and had stripes and tassels on it. As he began to pray he took the cloth and placed it over his head, and he placed his hands in the front of it so it wouldn’t touch his face, and so that he would still have room to pray.

I remember my Pastor once talking about how when Jesus talks about prayer in Matthew chapter 6 he brings up this same exact situation. To be more exact it is actually Matthew 6:6:

6But when you pray,^(A) go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.^(B) And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

You see, some people will say that you are supposed to go into your prayer closet, and that is what Jesus was talking about. I will be honest. I don’t know if that is what he meant. It sounds to me like he was saying go pray in private, but it isn’t too specific into where or how. But what I found to be interesting is that this man must have felt so strongly that Jesus was saying that we must go and pray in our prayer closet that he went and found out how the Jews would enter into there own prayer closets. I found this on the internet which talks a little bit about what the “shawl” was for:

In biblical times, Jewish men wore this garment called a TALITH, TALIS, TALIT or PRAYER SHAWL all the time — not just at prayer. TALITH contains two Hebrew words; TAL meaning tent and ITH meaning little. Thus, you have LITTLE TENT. Each man had his own little tent…

Six million Jews could not fit into the tent of meeting that was set up in the Old Testament. Therefore, what was given to them was their own private sanctuary where they could meet with God. Each man had one! His Prayer Shawl or Talis. They would pull it up over their head, forming a tent, where they would begin to chant and sing their Hebrew songs, and call upon Elohim, Yaweh, Adonai. It was intimate, private, and set apart from anyone else — enabling them to totally focus upon God. This was their prayer closet! (http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-8/Prayer_Shawls_2.htm)

Why did this man feel that he had to imitate Jewish traditions to be biblical? I will be honest. I see this as very Pharisaical. By this man doing this and not one other person, I felt that he was trying to make a point, he was trying to say that he had the right way. And you know what is funny about right ways? There is usually only one. So that means that if he was right in doing that, then we were wrong by not, and that is not something that I believe. I believe that we pray correctly. We don’t need our prayer closet. We need the Holy Spirit! That is how we communicate and enter into the presence of God, not by some shammy or shall, or whatever you wanna call it.

I’m sorry I didn’t mean to start ranting… But what do you think? Is it okay for people to feel that if they do things a certain way they will have more favor with God? Or is this even accurate? Is there another place in the Bible where it talks about this? Help me out!!!

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The reason I am posting this on my site is because I think that this is a great way to get to know what the people of the city I live in are all about. I figure since there is a whole entire month dedicated towards art, maybe the people in Reno enjoy it… Just a hunch…

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I know that once we get a firm understanding of who Jesus is, and we begin to venture into a world of knowledge and not emotion it is really easy to forget about the condition of our hearts.

Do you know what I mean? It is seemingly so easy to take the time to read your bible, write a blog, listen to a sermon, read a book, and discuss issues surrounding theology; but it isn’t always that easy to actually apply what you are reading, writing, listening to, or talking about to your own personal life. For example, if you take the time to read the Bible you will quickly learn that lust and sexual sins are greatly hated by God, but it isn’t always easy to actually take that truth and remove that form of sin from our heart. We can also see that we are not walking in the footsteps of Christ if we have filthy mouths, but it isn’t always the easiest or most satisfying thing to try to control. But I want you to listen to what I have to say… It is so important that we do take the time and the effort to control all things in our lives.

We should not go around sinning against God, yet feeling justified because we do truly recognize that what we are doing is wrong. We must pray, asking Jesus to give us the strength to purge those sins from our hearts. We need to make sure that we don’t let the little things grow into larger things, which will eventually make us crumble, and the only reason that we will crumble is because we are not building our house on the solid foundation of truth of Jesus Christ, which we think we know so well, but instead we are ignoring what we have read and are building our houses on the sinking sand of our own knowledge and deceitfully apparent wisdom.

What do you think? Are do you see this in your life? How about in the lives of others? What have you done to get rid of this kind of sin?

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…As the lights turned on I found myself so excited that I almost forgot the real reason I was there. I stepped forward and grabbed the microphone… “Thank you all so much for coming out here to see us!!!” And the show began. Hard song after song made for an incredible night, and everybody thought that I was the man! Wearing my crazy punk rocker jeans, and my little white t-shirt that was covered with sweat from rockin’ out so hard….

…”Woah! my egg is burning.”

The funniest thing about this was that I was thinking about one of my favorite Christian rock bands, and you know what I was most interested in? I was interested in the image of being in the band, not the image of Christ being set forth through the music. I found myself more concerned with the way people would perceive me as a rockstar instead of how people would hear the message of Jesus Christ.

I know that this is totally random and I’m not too sure if you completely understand why I’m getting at here, but tell me… Are Christians to consumed with the image which they have? Or are we not concerned enough?

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• Is it by the way they dress? The way they talk?
• The friends they have?
• How much they read the Bible?
• How much they pray?
• How they talk about Jesus?
• How much they show their convictions outwardly?

This is a list of a bunch of things which we can see. Every person should have at least a few of these things in their life. But in a Christians life they should be different, and consistent with Christianity.

The Way You Dress and Talk

This is one of those things that will get make certain people turn away from the church. They will feel like they are judged at times because of the way that they dress or talk. Sometimes this is true, but it doesn’t mean that it is right. When a person is a Christian I would hope that they would stop wearing shirts that expose their chest if they are a girl, and if they are guys I would hope that you couldn’t always see their boxer shorts. Also, why are they dressing the way they do? Sometimes people get so caught up on their appearance that it will consume the way they live, and trust me this is not something that Christians should be hung up on.

The Friends they Have

When a person becomes a Christian they won’t have the desire to sin anymore. So I think that means they also won’t have the desire to have people who are sinning constantly as their closest friends. Friends influence the things that we do, and as a Christian you should be sensitive to the way that the people around you may affect you.

Reading the Bible

As soon as I became a Chrisitian I wanted to know God more, and you get to learn more about God by reading the Bible. Christians shouldn’t count the Bible as burdensome, if you truly are a Christian you should have a hunger inside of you which will drive you to read the Word.

Prayer

Prayer is talking to God, and becoming vulnerable with him. I am not sure why so many Christians have a hard time being committed to prayer. I too have this problem, but there are some people that can’t pray all the way through a prayer service, or that don’t pray unless they are at church. Chrisitians should be excited to pray and not bored!

Talking about Jesus

If Jesus has really changed a person’s life, then I would assume that it would be hard not to keep one’s mouth shut when it comes to talking about him. Christians should have Jesus at the center of everything that they do, therefore they should talk about him a whole lot!

Showing Convictions

Christians should all have convictions. Some of these could even be over some of the things which I have just mentioned. A Christian should have enough convictions that you can see them in their life. For example, I am convicted when I watch movies that are just super dirty, so I try not to watch them. I also don’t enjoy listening to music that talks about how great we are as people, so I too try not to listen to it. I get really concerned when a person seems to have no convictions, because it is not our spirit which convicts us, but it is the spirit of Christ, you know, the Holy Spirit!

So I hope that this is helpful to some of you who wanted to know what some of the simplest parts of a Christians life should look like. I am not saying that if a person is struggling with one of these that they are not a Christian, but I am saying that they should be at least struggling, and if they are struggling they should be overcoming in time.

What are you’re thoughts? Is this accurate? What should the outward appearance of a Christian be? Is it possible to have all of these down like china town and still not be a Christian?

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If you are currently a customer of ATT’s then you must be eligible for an upgrade or else the iPhone costs $599 for the 8 gig! This pretty much sucks! I was so excited thinking that Apple was choosing to place a new face on the world of over priced phones, but I guess I was wrong. And just in case you’re wondering, there is no way I would spend $599 dollars on a phone, it just isn’t worth it… Come to think about it, it would be cheaper for me to cancel my service and reinstate it…

How about you? Any of you bummed by the sound of this noise?

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… I plan on buying this book today. It is supposed to be able to be read in about an hour, so I am anxious to order all four from the entire series, but I am sure I don’t have the funds for that right now, but I want to encourage you all to take the time and read through the series as well. As Christians it is good to know what we believe in and why we believe in it.

Enjoy!

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I honor that place in you where the whole universe resides. When I am in that place & you are in that place, we are ONE.

I hope that you see all the reasons here that this bugs me. First of all the universe does not recide within ourselves; we reside in the universe! I am not too sure why or how people find this to be more comforting than the truth that there is a sovereign God whom created all things in this universe, he created one universe, and it is the same for everybody. We don’t contain separate realities within ourselves.

I think it is hilarious how there are people who try to talk about Yoga as if it is harmless to your spiritually if you are Christian. I think the quote above should be enough. It goes completely against all things we believe as Christians, and it is completely derived from the spiritual side of Yoga…

So there is my rant, and I promise I won’t do that too often…

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Whether it is larger scale ministry, a romantic relationship, making money, or knowing our future; God will reveal it all in his timing. It is really helpful to think of it like this… Take what God has given to you, and grow with it. Be faithful with it, and prove to yourself that you are able to handle more. That is what God wants you to know. He wants to see you trust in him, and not in the things that he has given you…

What do you think? Does God want us to be faithful and patient with what we have now? Or does he want us to be impatient and strive for more?

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But I want to tell you something. As Christians we should all understand love in a totally different way than the world does. The reasoning for this is simple: (Romans 5: 6-8)

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Love is shown by God in the most real form ever. He gave his life that we may have life. There is no greater love than this. It is a great example, and it is how we should approach love. I don’t mean that we should all go and die, but I do mean that we should be completely selfless in our love towards others. We don’t love others so that we can gain, but we love them so that they can benefit, because we want to help them, and we want to see them do great thing. The reasons could go on forever, but here is a great passage of scripture, it is Paul telling the church what love is and what it isn’t: (1 Corinthians 13)

The Way of Love

13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, [1] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

So let us take this and learn to love others in our patience, and kindness; and let us also show it by not being irritable, or resentful; and lastly let us show our love by not envying, or boasting. Paul wrote the book of Romans, and he also wrote 1 Corinthians, so that means that the love which he is describing in this passage is a description of the great love he described earlier, and let us never forget that great example.

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