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Showing posts from 2012

The Bible is Bananas

"The Bible is bananas!" Think about some of the stories that you read in the Bible. They really are bananas, as in, they blow your mind. My mind is blown pretty much every time I open the Holy Book. Today for instance, I read the story of the Transfiguration found in Luke chapter 9:28-36. This is the story of Jesus taking John, Peter and James up a mountain and proceeding to meet with Moses and Elijah. By the way, Moses and Elijah are long past dead, just an important note. It is also important to note that Jesus, Moses and Elijah are shining as bright as the sun in a moment of heavenly glorification! I'm putting myself in one of the disciples sandals and all i can think is "this is bananas!" If you don't know the story please find a Bible, google the Bible, do whatever you gotta do and read the account; it's bananas!  So, we've established that my mind was blown by this passage and after I recovered from the blow I thought to myself "what

Death to life.

I pray that those who read this would see a glimpse of the amazing love of Jesus Christ and nothing else. Yes, it is from the story of Jason Keegstra's life but this story would never have come to be without Jesus Christ at the centre. I've lived a very blessed life. I praise The Lord now because I am able to recognize his goodness that he has offered to me. I understand now that I am worthy of his gift of eternal life through Jesus death and resurrection and I can live in freedom because he has revealed that to me. What you don't yet know is that for years I lived a privileged life but it was often void of any thankfulness because I was robbing myself from living with Jesus. I was living a life of habitual sin that took me further and further away from God and deeper and deeper into death. Life was only ever about me, even though I lived out a life of service, it was done out of guilt and shame in hopes of saving myself from God's judgement against the way I was livi

What Nike taught me about Ministry

Those who know me at all know that I have a love for sneakers. They are my art. I read through various street wear websites and blogs on a weekly basis and today I came across an article about the CEO of Nike; Mark Parker. The article said something that got thinking about the way I approach ministry. It is something that I have always believed and this one sentence become very faith affirming for me today. Here is what the blog had to say about Nike... "Everything that Nike does from the top down is considered from a design perspective, not a sales, product, or marketing perspective." In the world of big business profit margins often dominate the conversations and intern dominate the end product. Not within Nike though. Nike has been committed to design and quality from the beginning and there is no doubt that they are the largest shoe company in the world. Not only in terms of sales, but more importantly, in terms of cultural influence. Nike hasn't allowed themselve

Obedience

Obedience. I never have been very fond of requirements which the word implies but I was convicted in my heart last week that I needed to take my obedience to Christ more seriously. I didn't really know what that looked like as I began this week but as I read and made a commitment to being more conscious of my thoughts I quickly became aware of the importance behind the obedience in the Christian life. In fact, obedience is foundational to the Christian life. I spent a lot of time in the book of Matthew this week looking at Christ's life and the life of his disciples and it occurred to me that the first call of the Disciples, Peter and Andrew in Chapter 3, show us that all Christ requires when he calls people to discipleship is simply obedience. Peter and Andrew didn't know much of anything about Jesus at the time when Jesus called them to "follow" him but Peter and Andrew followed anyway. Not only did they follow but "Immediately they left their nets and fo

Lead in assurance

I'm going to be honest with you here. It's been two full years now that I have been leading campus ministry within Spartan Athletics at Trinity Western University and I still do not feel equipped to represent Christ in the manner which I believe Christ should be represented. I felt like that was a bad thing when I sat down to meet with God this evening and God had a very special message for me that I now know I need to keep close to my heart. I read through the end of 1 Corinthians and the first eight chapters of 2 Corinthians tonight and as I read God revealed to me the importance of understanding His Majesty. What is Majesty you ask? Webster's defines majesty as the sovereignty and power of God. What God wanted me to understand tonight is that He is unfathomable and I am His creation. I do not possess the ability to represent God unless He chooses to reveal pieces of who He is through me. Do you see the freedom in that understanding? My fear of not being able to represe

Perfection is my end

Perfection is my end. Even to myself this can sound ludicrous and unrealistic. The reality of the human condition is that perfection should be unattainable. In fact, perfection has been deemed so unattainable by human standards that the word is thrown around to mean something along the lines of ‘just about perfect’, or as good as objectively possible. I have been okay with that definition of perfection for a long time simply because I believed that perfection was something that was unattainable. No one should strive for perfection because no one is perfect; whatever that means. And then, I read Philippians 1:6 - “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” No matter how often Jesus needs to remind me of His perfection through His Spirit and His Word I truly do believe that Jesus embodies the Perfection of the living God; creator of the universe. Perfection does exist, in God, and perfection has been a part

ministry update

Dear friends and family, If you have a desire to see people inspire one another this message is for you. If you love people this message is for you. If you value relationship this message is for you. If you have a desire to see university students have every opportunity to come to a understanding about truth this message is for you. And, if you love Jesus Christ and His unending love then this message is for you. I want to share a bit about what has been going on in my life the last couple years simply to testify to the goodness of God. I believe each human being has been gifted with their own unique testimony and that each one of those testimonies is incredibly powerful. I do not claim that my testimony is anything great on its own, but I believe, whole-heartedly, that my testimony coupled with the truth found in Jesus Christ has unlimited power. With that being said I pray that my testimony may offer each person who reads it a better understanding of who God is and challeng

Why you judgin' fool?

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1  Why do we feel the need to judge? Is it that we are trying to empower ourselves? Are we uncomfortable and use it as a coping mechanism? Are we just plain selfish and uncaring? Maybe we are just prideful and think we are better then everyone else. It could be many different reasons that you and I judge one another and at the end of the day it is a great judge of character. I encourage you to spend some time thinking about why it is you judge people. It is not a comfortable process but it is a necessary process, that continues daily, if you are to grow as a person and as a leader.  I know that most of my judgement towards others comes out of pride. I often catch myself thinking that I am pretty great. It is one thing to have confidence in Christ, which I strive for, and a completely

Beauty

Beauty  (May 1/2012) I found myself in a short, but very sweet, discussion about beauty this past weekend with a close friend of mine. We were out at Golden Ears park standing on the shore of Allouette Lake and we simply found ourselves saying how beautiful it was. Standing beside a mountain lake with big mountains towering over us with nothing around but thick forest. It was “beautiful”. Then my friend acquired a rather aggressive tone, as he often does, and spoke of his frustration when it came to defining beauty. “What is beauty Keegs?” he asks. A short two minute conversation in sues, which is pretty short for us, and I end up at a statement that we seemed to agree on. “Beauty can only be defined in terms of God.” “Beauty is in knowing what someone thinks about God and how they understand themselves as a result of their thoughts of God.” My friend is right to be frustrated by how our culture defines beauty. We have it all wrong and that is because our cu