Helllllllo!!

Dudes,

I have been trying to get back into the gym more and more and it is coming along slowly. I really do enjoy working out! I have lost about 5 lbs and there are many more to come. My in laws are in town and the great conversations are rolling along. I love God! Man, I really love God, and to rest and rejoice in the truth that the only way I love him is because he first loved me. He was the one relentlessly pursuing me when I was boozing it up day after day! He is the one by His Spirit through regeneration, who took my stone heart and gave me one made with flesh. He is the one who has written his law upon my new heart. He is the one who has made a way for me where there was no way. He was the one who sent his Son because he loves me. His Son took on flesh and lived a perfect life. A life that I could never live because of the fall and sin. Jesus went to the cross where he willingly laid down his life for me, his friend, and by the shedding of his blood on the cross, made forgiveness for my sin. Jesus was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb and then three days later he rose from the tomb proclaiming the reality that death cannot hold him and sin has no power over him. Jesus is now at the right hand of God ruling over his people.

I have a place in this and understand this and know this alllll because of God! God did it all! Jesus has paid it all!

Thank you God, for loving me, for coming after me, for wrecking me, for showing me the greatness for your Glory!

I owe everything to you.

Large and not very in charge

Dear Reader,

The last week have been blasting myself at the gym because when I got back from Florida I weighed myself and wondered how in the world the scale did not break. I believe i am the heaviest ever. Well at I least I can say that I have some room, well a lot of room, to work with. Like I said before, Im going to post on my blog now and post how i am doing in my year long endeavor to get back into shape. Im around 255-259 lbs and desire to be below 200 when the year is finished. I believe this is completely attainable. However most importantly Im looking forward to knowing My God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. He is the triune God and worthy of nothing less than everything.

Since coming to seminary, I have noticed that there is much spiritual warfare here and it is so easy to miss it. It is so easy to get caught up in the work of theology, in reading theology, in thinking theology that you miss who you study in theology. In the last year and a half, I have recognized that I carry around a lot of baggage especially from my time of rebellion 6 months before I came to seminary. I have to realize that God has forgiven me through Christ therefore I need to let go of the guilt and condemnation and walk in the freedom of the Spirit. Amen

One would think that seminary is safe for the ones enrolled, but IT ISN'T! Sin lurks at every turn and corner to devour us. The Enemy is looking to steal joy, kill passion, and destroy the work of the Gospel through the lies He entices us to believe. On this note, we must know ourselves but more importantly we must know God. To know God is to see ourselves more clearly.

I leave the post with much work, but trusting in the God who never slumbers and His Son Jesus Christ who has completed the work on my behalf. God, search me and know me, break me over my rebellion and the rebellion of others!

THe WOrkouts

THe workouts have been going pretty good. I tell you what.....not working at chick fil a has made it alot easier to eat healthy. I have been going to Urban Active almost everyday doing cardion from 30-45 minutes and then doing weights. The workouts have been going great and I am really enjoying the way it makes me feel again. I forgot how much better my body feels when Im working out regularly.

Im going to weight myself on monday but the last time i weighed myself was this past monday. I lost about 5 lbs in about one week. That puts me at 240-242! I know, i still have a lot of work to do.

More posts to come........

Today

Today has been a good day so far. I woke up and read the last few chapters in Exodus and then read my devotional verses for sunday night. I think back to the latter part of exodus and how God gave direct detailed instructions for moses to build the tabernacle. Why is this? This is the question that is on my brain right now and concerning the devo, my mind is racing because the verses are awesome!

I pray that my life, actions, words, thoughts, and everything else that is me would be further conformed and shaped by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I long to be home!

Today, Im going to see the doctor. I just want this appointment to be over! But my prayer is that through this God would bring about healing and wholeness. My hope is that it would be so radical, everyone involved would be left with no other choice than to chalk this one up to the Lord Most High.

More blurbs to come!

Losing Weight!

I started working out yesterday and it felt great! But here is the deal, I was hit by the reality that I am a fat slob! hahaha I need to get my bod back! So I will be blogging about my spiritual and physical journey back to being rocked up from the floor up. Its going to be a long arduous journey but nonetheless this needs to be done. My goal is to get to 180-190 lbs range. I know, I know, this is a little much but I know it is attainable. So here is to the next 6 months to a year of work.

NOOOO SLEEP!

This semester has been a very long semester.  I pridefully tried to take on too many classes believing that I could just rise to the occasion.  How foolish huh?  I look back over the semester and realize that it is a blur.  Nothing really sticks out but it is all just jumbled up with incoherent thoughts.  I have missed the real reason I am here at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  The real reason is not to clock in and do my time as quickly as possible but the reason I am here is to be trained for the ministry.  What pursuit is greater than the pursuit to know God?  There is no GREATER PURSUIT in all of life than to know God.  Yet, this semester honestly feels like a waste, however, I am a slobbering, bible loving, calvinist and know that this semester is what the Lord ordained.  So why am I here?  I have been pondering this question all semester.  Why am I here, 18 hrs away from home, at seminary?

TO KNOW GOD!  Why am I so prone to forget?  I am here to know God, we are created to know God.  This pursuit should consume our lives, our minds, our hearts, our universe.  How do our priorities get so Jacked up?  Oh how i hate sin and how it is so deceptive and easily blinds believers.  

Father God,

I pray that I would fear you.  I pray that I would seek you with all of my being, loving you with my heart, soul, mind, and strength.  School has become an idol and through my idol worship it has become ultimate.  I am guilty of idolatry and ask that you would forgive me.  I pray for the grace and strength to repent and have my mind renewed with your supremacy as ultimate.  God, I want you, I want to know you, and I want make you known.  Teach me your ways and make me walk in your ways because I am prone to wonder God.  Help me, Break me!

Quite some time

It has been quite some time since the last blog and I believe the last blog was about being the next blogger man.  Wow, how I have fallen short!  I just finished my book review over Dominion and dynasty.  This book is incredible.  I could not believe how many intertextual links Dempster drew from scripture.  It blew my mind!  The book left me encouraged to read the bible as a narrative and to take it on its own terms.  To take it on its own terms means to see the bible truly as one text and to read in a more holistic manner instead of compartmentalizing the different books.  To sum it up: BIBLICAL THEOLOGY.  I love it man!  God is at work and has been since the day of creation to have his Glory cover the earth as the water covers the seas!  How amazing is that?  This brings so much more significance to life by giving a fuller picture of salvation and what it means to be saved.  Hallelujah.  Anyway, I plan on using the blog to think through more of the things i am learning at school.  There is much to learn and much to think through so i hope you enjoy the upcoming blogs.