Baptism & The Holy Spirit

Francis Chan - Baptism & The Holy Spirit from Wes Woodell on Vimeo.

View the video. Listen to what Patrick is saying. Then answer the four questions.

If you need help, where ever you may be in the world, email me (grz311@yahoo.com) or call me (USA 219-678-8148). Just do not wait, do not delay.

He Did Not Run

Today,

As we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus from the grave,
we meet together in relative safety and Peace.
The sound of guns firing is far away for most of us,
and the sounds of weeping and wailing seem far away, too.

But what if the 'powers that be' decided to do away with all religious gatherings,
and what if they were coming now … with guns ... for you?

Would YOU run?

Take a minute and think about it ... just now ... and consider your answer carefully.
Just imagine how you would feel ... and what you would do.
And remember, even the apostles ran away ... the night He was betrayed.


Let this Resurrection Sunday be a new beginning in your life.
And let this be a day of thanksgiving and wonder ... because
He did not run away!

He faced the death you and I deserved and took our place ...
hanging there on a cross between two thieves ...
the Son of God giving His life for the ungodly ...
fulfilling the Father's promise in the Garden ...
crushing the accuser who would destroy us ...
by suffering on our behalf.

Today we celebrate the One who would NOT stay dead!
Today we celebrate the re-birth of hope.
Today we celebrate Jesus.

May God richly bless each of you as you celebrate the Son, the Lamb of God, who died to pay our sin-debt and open the way back home to
the Father who has never stopped seeking after us –
ever since that day in the Garden!

Celebrate the Resurrection!
Celebrate Life!
Celebrate the One who did not run!

Security

How secure are you? Or, at least, how secure do you feel? Sometimes I wonder if we're too secure. It has been over two weeks since I posted my first blog. You know why? Because I forgot my sign-in details. How amazingly silly is that?

You would have thought a relatively intelligent, fairly savvy, not totally stupid person would have thought about writing such things down. Even someone like me could remember this stuff, right? Maybe not. My brain is getting too crowded with this stuff.

A few years back I started getting a new message whenever I had to choose a password at a new site: the password strength checker. What a clever tool! Now I can type and re-type my passwords until they are so strong and secure nobody would ever be able to break them. Sadly, almost, I found out how true that was. And so began an odyssey over the years, a dance of sorts, between my ADD tendencies and these wonderful password strength checkers.

It is a challenge, is it not, to your very soul to see how strong you can make these passwords? I aklmost feel as if I would be inviting the beasts who want to decipher my passwords in, if I were to settle for less than an amazingly strong rating. And so I have gotten very good at picking tough passwords over the years. And then I got to the point where I wasn't going to use sites that required them, because it was just too humiliating to not be able to sign in to the new email address I gave my friends and family so I would actually read what they sent. And I would have ...

Now, almost from habit, I create newer, simpler, more difficult than ever to decipher, ultra-strong, herculean passwords ... almost without even trying. And I immediately forget them. But over the years I remembered how often I would forget them, so I began writing them down in places I do not forget. I was really proud of myself when I found that I could even password-protect the file I kept them in on a private piece of non-wi-fi electronics I have for such things.

But this time I forgot to write my password down. I had promised myself that this would be a thing of the past. And it has been, for what seems a long time to me. (I won't say how long ... duh!) But now I'm beginning to wonder if I have become too secure. So secure I must resort, at the promptings of others, to asking the servers to reset my wonderfully ultra-strong passwords.

At times like these I begin to doubt my sanity and the sanity of a world where you have to secure even the thoughts you want to share with strangers. And these are the times I am glad, almost giddy with overwhelming joy, that I don't have to count on a password that has to stay hidden for my salvation from this insanity. This password is freely accessible to anyone who wants to use it. It is a name. Jesus.

Forget all the other passwords and security gizmos and memory tricks. Just whispering His name is enough to make me feel really and truly secure. Jesus. Yeshua. Iesou.

Okay ... so now I am back to blogging. And I have a new password for this thing. And it isn't "Jesus", okay. So I'll be back soon, and I won't forget this time ... because I wrote it down ... someplace secure.