Boo Cheetos

How many of you have seen the new Cheetos commercial? A women is at the laundry mat and another women says something rude to her. The women who has been spoken to rudely looks and sees the mascot "Chester" sitting at a table. Chester says to her "go ahead those are her whites in the dryer." The women then opens the dryer and places some Cheetos in the dryer to ruin the rude women's cloths.
What in the world is Cheetos teaching us by this? I remember years ago they were playing off the idea that Cheetos are "dangerously cheesy" or something like that. That was Cheetos right? But what are they trying to say now? Eat Cheetos and give into your evil desires?
It is no wonder the high school students I teach act like is such cruel ways. I have been aware for the longest time the negative vibes sent out by some Movies, Music and Video Games, but this was the first time I had seen a TV ad encouraging you to act out in anger against someone.
Praise God that He has a different view of Grace and Mercy than Cheetos does!
The deeper issue is that we all have the same urges that woman in the laundry mat had. We want to slash another rude drivers tires or something wrong. I encourage you to take that sin to the cross. Sins you only think and don't act out are sins too. Repent. Set your hearts and minds on things above! Colossians 3:1-2

What's Your Price?

What's your price? Hopefully you don't have one, but most of us do. Some of our prices are lower than others. I am talking about sin of course. What is your price when it comes to sinning? Does it take a lot for the devil to buy you or do you sell for low? I usually feel like I am on the bargain rack.
I recently was listening to a Ravi Zacharias sermon and he told a very interesting story on the subject of how easily we buy into sin. The story goes like this; there was a women on an airplane and the man next to her told her she was very beautiful and he would pay her 1 million dollars to spend the night with him. She was taking back at first but later agreed. They set the time and location, but as they were exiting the plane the man said to her, "I would like to only pay 10 dollars for you to spend the night with me." She was shocked and responded, "what do you think I am some kind of prostitute?" In which the man responded, "we have already established you are, we are now just negotiating the price."
So what is your price? Judas' price was 30 pieces of silver? I usually find my price is no amount of money but a feeling of pride or power that I get when I indulge in the things that draw me away from my Father. Is there truly any price we want to pay to be drawn away from our Father? So why do we act like there is?

Ohh Roger

Well maybe we will have a better glimpse at how athletes of different races are treated when they find themselves in similar circumstances. I came across this article that addresses what we were talking about a few posts earlier (Questions about Race). Check it out (click here).
What do you think? Does Clemens deserve this bad press? What about Barry? Did he deserve what the media put him through? Maybe maybe not let us know what you think.

Where They've Gone Wrong

I wanted to take just a minute to contrast the Christian faith and Mormonism. I had a conversation with my friend James the other day and we had a great conversation about this. It came to our attention that many of our Christian brothers and sisters know little about the differences between Christianity and Mormonism. Hopefully this will provide a small glimpse of the differences.
While there are many differences in these two belief systems (views of God and Jesus, etc.) I will just focus on the largest part I have seen and that is the particular view of Salvation.
The Mormons basically believe that Salvation comes by faith through baptism and works. "For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all that we can do." Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 25:23. This is a huge difference from what the Christian Church holds to be true. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through-faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9.
So why do the Mormons seek to tack our works onto Salvation. The simple answers is, they can't fathom that "Grace" can be that simple. The Mormon Church often accuses Christians of teaching "cheap grace." But Paul refutes the teaching of "cheap grace" in Romans 6. Should we go on sinning so we can experience more grace? Paul's answer is "No! We died to sin." So not only is Salvation not by works it is also NOT an excuse to live a sinful life. Our grace is certainly not cheap. It cost our Savior his life.
You see the Mormons have greatly corrupted grace by tacking on our personal works. Paul sets the record straight in Galatians 2:21, "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" There are no amount of good works we can do to gain Salvation. And praise be to God for that! If it were by works, even some minor amount of works, we would never, in this life or the next, be able to taste and see how truly glorious our Savior really is.

I Missed the E-Mails...

I am sure most of you have heard about the new movie that opens this Friday, "The Golden Compass." Most of you have probably received e-mails speaking out against the movie. I did not get any of those e-mails, but my wife did and her Mom had done some research on the upcoming film. We began to talk about this movie (created after the books) and I was shocked to her the anti-Christian themes in the book. I am not going to go into great detail about it because I have a great link that will lead you to many articles that will allow you to examine the content for yourself. Here is the link: http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/2007/11/a-golden-compas.html
Well I hope you spend some time reading about this. Let's take a stand. We can abstain from going and inform friends and family that our money this Holiday Season can certainly be better spent.