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Ronin628
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Name: Brad
Country: United States
State: Missouri
Metro: St. Louis
Birthday: 6/28/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: My number one interest is God. Second is of course my wonderful bride-to-be (remind me to change this part after October 7th!!!). After that (and the new focus of this blog) is ministry. In the next few years, I will hopefully be making a career change into ministry. That's right, I want to be a Pastor. First you saw me join a Fraternity (go figure), and now watch as I join a brotherhood of a Godly kind. *shrugs* LOL, praise God for rollercoaster lives and new life in Christ.
Expertise: Guitar (or so some people tell me), government/law/law enforcement related areas, and (a work in progress) Theology.
Occupation: Military
Industry: Government
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Ronin628
Member Since:
2/23/2004
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| House HusbandWow. A whole 3 weeks (over) since I posted last. Since then, I have gotten married (best part), spent a week in Mexico for the honeymoon (second best part), and graduated from the Army's MP School (third best part). I also moved into OUR new apartment, set it up, AND purchased a shiny new awesome TV. Life is good. The only thing I am waiting on is my job at Target. I got it, and I know I'll be working in the Alton, IL store, but I have to wait until the background investigation is complete before I can start training. I guess the Secret Security Clearance I have with the world's most powerful military isn't good enough for Target Corporation. Heh. Aside from that, I have been soaking up the opportunity to really dive into God's word and do some hardcore scripture studies. It has been awesome but is also kind of a double edged sword: It excites me and fulfills me unbelievably, but it also makes me impatient to start acting on it. But, I have lots of things "in the works" too, so that is exciting (cryptic for a reason). Sadly, this will be the last xanga post for a long time. We do not have internet hooked up at the apartment yet, and I dont know when that will happen. Probably not for a whle. Until then, I chill out and St. Louis Bread co. and use their internet for free. The bad part is that xanga is for some reason blocked on that site. So, I will most likely be making blog entries on facebook from now on (or at least for a long time). I am sorry if I don't read your xanga, it is because I am unable to. Do remember, though, that facebook will let you feed your xanga right into its "notes" feature, basically copy-pasting your xanga entry on there. It'd be cool to catch up with you all that way at least. Until then, thank you for all the amazing well wishes, gifts, and encouragements. Hannah and I are very blessed to have so many awesome friends. We are both in St. Louis now, full time, so please give us a call or drop by. We love having people over. God Bless! | | |
| ChangesWow. So, if you live under a rock, you may not know that I am getting married Saturday.... Wow... Doesn't that just sound awesome? I think it does. Anyway, so naturally I've been thinking about it a lot. In classic Hannah-Brad style, I will also be graduating from the Army's Military Police School 3 days later, leaving for Mexico, moving in together, and starting my job the day after we get back stateside. Hehe, I guess we just had to one-up graduating college, getting commissioned, and getting engaged all in the same weekend back in May.
The difference though is not just change, but the enormity of it. I have been trying to wrap my mind around how different life will be after Saturday. I mean, I am going from waking up in a hotel room, leaving for PT at 5 a.m., and spending most of my time missing Hannah. In a week, I will be coming home to a WIFE, having people over for Monday Night Football, and generall loving every bit of my life. With that change comes... well... some HUGE responsibility. Cause, holy crap, I'm spending the rest of my LIFE with this woman! HOLY CRAP! Many people may see no need for a different mindset, many people will not expect a lot of change. Hell, I didn't think I would before I became a Christian, but having that to compare against my parents' divorce is a dichotomy that is almost incomprehensible.
Wow.
I can't wait.
I cannot believe that God has blessed and gifted me with this amazing... wow... woman.... and... heh... honestly, I seem to be running out of words. I am underserving but thankful. I am unprepared but eager to learn. I am imperfect but loved perfectly.
I am happy.
Chances are I won't post on here until I am back from the honeymoon, so I wish you all a happy couple of weeks.
God Bless! | | |
| Vintage JesusI found this on Mark Driscoll's website, TheResurgence.com. I think it rocks. It also poses some very interesting questions about the life, person, and diety that was Jesus. I am very much looking forward to the answers to these questions and more that will be discussed in weeks to come. If you haven't found the online crack -err, I mean, Vodcast- that Mars Hill Church puts out every week, go check it out at www.marshillchurch.org and subscribe (it's free). If you have any questions at all, it will be an invaluable resource for you. I guarantee.
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Mars Hill celebrates ten years by studying the life, ministry, and deity of the Savior
Jesus
No one is more loved or hated than Jesus Christ.
Jesus was born in a small town to a poor, unmarried teen mother roughly 2,000 years ago. He was adopted by Joseph, a simple carpenter, and spent the first thirty years of His life in obscurity, swinging a hammer with His dad.
Around the age of thirty, Jesus began a public ministry that included preaching, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and befriending people who were marginalized because they were perverts, drunks, thieves, and such. Jesus’ ministry spanned only three short years before He was put to death for declaring Himself to be God. He died by shameful crucifixion like tens of thousands of people had before Him.
© 1999 Churches Advertising Network
Curiously, His résumé is rather simple. He never traveled more than a few hundred miles from His home. He never held a political office, never wrote a book, never married, never attended college, and never visited a big city. He died homeless and poor.
Yet He is the most famous person in all of human history. More songs have been sung about Him, artwork painted of Him, and books written about Him than anyone who has ever lived. Furthermore, billions of people from the nations of the earth worship Him as God. Even unbelievers are constantly reminded of His influence since we measure time around His life. Our calendar is divided into the years before and after His birth, which are noted as BC (“before Christâ€) and AD (anno Domini, meaning “in the year of the Lordâ€).
No army, nation, or person has changed human history to the degree that Jesus the homeless man has. The symbol for Jesus, the cross, has become the most famous symbol in all of history. Even rapper 50 Cent and old-school rocker Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses recently wore one around their necks at the MTV Video Music Awards. Jesus has become a part of American fashion.
Every year, the media is filled with discussions about Jesus. Musicians like Kanye West cannot help but sing about Jesus even if they do not worship Him as God. Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ set a single-day box office record. No one is hotter than Jesus – even 2,000 years after He walked the earth. Even the mundane magazine Popular Mechanics had a cover story titled “The Real Face of Jesus†a few years back in which they attempted to determine what Jesus really looked like (complete with short hair, unlike the myth that he had long hair).
It seems that everyone has an opinion of Jesus. The following quotes are a smattering of what great figures in human history have said about Jesus:
Mahatma Gandhi: “I cannot say that Jesus was uniquely divine. He was as much God as Krishna, or Rama, or Mohammed, or Zoroaster.â€
Adolf Hitler: “In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.â€
Larry King “was once asked who he would most want to interview if he could choose anyone from all of history. He said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ The questioner said, ‘And what would you like to ask Him?’ King replied, ‘I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me.’â€
John Lennon: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first—rock and roll or Christianity.
Carlos Mencia: “You know what, I became more Christian after I saw the movie [The Da Vinci Code] because, I, you know, as a Christian, I was like, you know, Jesus died for our sins he suffered. But now that I know that he’s married, I’m like, wow, did he really suffer. Poor guy.â€
Friedrich Nietzsche: “Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.â€
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Socrates died like a philosopher; Jesus Christ died like a God.â€
Joseph Smith: “Mormonism is the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ; of which I myself am not ashamed.â€
Mark Twain: “If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.â€
H. G. Wells: “I am a historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.â€
Oprah Winfrey: “There couldn’t possibly be just one way . . .†[Lady in the audience: “What about Jesus?â€] “What about Jesus? . . . Does God care about your heart or does God care about if you call his son Jesus?â€
Malcolm X: “All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man.â€
People tell us all sorts of things about Jesus. He was rich. He was poor. He was black. He was white. He was God and not God. He was a liar who told the truth, born of a virgin who was a tramp. He rose from the dead or else escaped death to shack up with His girlfriend. Even within Christianity, a goofy trend recasts Jesus and the faith; apparently, a new kind of Christian has emerged.
Therefore, it only seems right that we spend some time at Mars Hill hammering out some rigorous answers to the twelve most common questions about Jesus. The Sunday sermons will include video interviews about Jesus with everyone from a Jewish Rabbi to Christian worship leader David Crowder to Thrice band frontman Dustin Kensrue to potheads at Hempfest (who I interviewed while wearing my “Jesus is watching you smoke that weed!†t-shirt). In conjunction with each sermon, I will be modeling a goofy Jesus t-shirt to provide a few additional laughs.
Of course, the entire series will be available free of charge as both high-def vodcast and audio podcast at www.marshillchurch.org and iTunes. When it is all done, the series will also be published as a book titled Vintage Jesus. | | |
| Crunch Time, Baby!!!Wow. 2 WEEKS. Sorry all for the very late update. It has been a very hectice, very crazy 2 weeks. Here's a bulllet point review:
- 2 Saturdays ago I had my bachelor party. It was pretty sweet, and I had an absolute blast. I really wish a few more guys could have made it, but those that did made it very memorable. We hit up the AB Brewery Tour, got schooled by 12 year olds in dodgeball at the "Sky Zone" (http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2006/05/22/focus4.html), hit up many tear-inducing hot wings at Buffalo Wings, and ending finally with some drinks at Cicero's in U-City. All in all it was a blast.
- I spent all of last week (Tuesday through Saturday) in the field, totally disconnected from the world. Long, boring, and complaint-ridden story short: I passed. Many of the problems I have with this crappy course were illustrated very clearly by my time in the field, and I am more than a little disappointed with some of my peers. If you really want to hear the BS that defined this experience, you will have to ask me in person becuase it really isn't worth going into detail here. I did get to shoot people (blanks of course), dress up as insurgent/terrorist scumbags, and I racked up 8 kills on the last mission including 5 "knife kills" where I snuck up on a group and tapped each one on the shoulder, informing them of their demise. That was really the best part of the field, in all honesty.
- I am now obviously back, trying to juggle several tests, leadership assignments, duties, and most importantly: helping my beautiful bride to be in planning our wedding. This is hard. Very hard. I have let my God-time slide into neglect, and I opened my bible for the first time in two weeks last night. I swear, I think this place makes it their goal to load us up with as much useless crap and pointless tasks as it can think of. Again, I can go into more detail and intense whining if asked in person, but I would get carpal tunnel syndrome trying to list it all here. *sigh*
Anyway, I know this sounds very discouraging, but I have my eyes on the prize(s). In 11 days I will be married. In 13 days I will graduate from MP School, and in 14 days I will be on a plane to Mexico. Those three things are pretty much what is keeping me going right now. I cannot wait to be married, although as the time gets closer I feel less and less prepared, and less and less deserving. To think that this amazing woman will not only agree to spend the rest of her life with me, but she WANTS to! And I don't even have to bribe her! hehe. But seriously, as most of my longtime friends will atest to, I have always prefered to be in a serious relationship and have always looked forward to being married. I am just starting to realize that it is an even bigger deal than I imagined, and I feel undeservedly blessed to be given, and given to, a woman that completes me so... heh... completely. Wow.
I hope you all are having a great week. If you need to reach me, I will probably not respond right away, as I am working 15-18 hour days last weekd and this week too. Kinda busy.
Live each day for Him, and Him alone. May it be that I am judged and condemned by many, but loved and approved by the only One that matters. | | |
| "The Truth Shall Set You Free"I have been feeling very trapped, impatient, and convicted all at the same time. As I progress in my walk, I am finding that all of my conceptions about life and about God are continually and repeatedly shattered. Luckily, it is mostly those things that I was dissatisfied with that are being thrown down.
For example, I watched a sermon of Mark Driscoll's yesterday called "Death By Love: Remembering the Cross." It was a "special presentation" to the theological organization that he leads. It caught me up thuroughly in its message.... *sigh* i feel like I am about to butcher this line of thinking so try to stay with me...
Before I was a Christian, the suit-and-tie-white-upper-middle-class-make-me-feel-good-about-myself church that I knew (the only one I knew) made me sick because it never seemed to address the problems of this world. It seemed only to tell you that your sins are forgiven, no matter what they are, and not address them directly because it was either not PC, or would cause conflict with the pride of those in attendence. It seemed so... cowardly... so... I don't know... I am a very direct, confrontational (when necessary) person. This did not sit right with me.
That, and the Jesus on the Cross portrayed by every pastor I had ever heard was one of... almost pity. They made us try to feel sorry for Jesus for dying for us, and thus almost GUILT us into being thankful for our salvation... which by definition is supposed to be freeing of guilt, so I'm not sure how that works. And yeah, that is to be appreciated, but they focus on Jesus dying so much that they lose sight of the whole picture. They forget to say that Jesus ROSE, and Jesus took upon himself the judgement of our sins in our place. That last part is so important: THAT HE TOOK UPON HIMSELF THE JUDGEMENT OF OUR SINS IN OUR PLACE. This is called the doctrine of "Propitiation." I won't go into too much detail, in part because it is something I am only just now learning anyway, but it amazes me that most churches do not even bother to mention that aspect.
Anyway, I am starting to ramble. If you want a good explanation and appreciation of the Cross, go watch The Passion, but while you do so, keep in mind and remember that NOONE KILLED JESUS, He allowed himself to be killed. He has the ability to prevent the most gruesome death that the human mind can imagine, and he CHOSE not to. Why? So we could be freed from the same judgment. THAT is Love. THAT love is dirty, gross, foolish. It is bloody, sweaty and filthy. It is politically incorrect and socially taboo. It is disgusting and frightening. It is startling. It is unique. It is Unbelievable.
Believe it.
For some reason, I don't feel like I have written enough on this, so please comment and question away.
Also, PLEASE pray for my brother. I shared the Gospel with him sunday night, and while he was very skeptical and critical, he was listening and asking questions. I cannot tell you how happy just this opportunity has made me. I miss him very much and wish that I could be there for him in some way, and I hope and pray that this may be at least one way. | | |
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