Currently Watching Prison Break - Season One By Dominic Purcell, Wentworth Miller, Robin Tunney, Peter Stormare, Amaury Nolasco, Marshall Allman, Wade Williams (II), Paul Adelstein, Robert Knepper, Sarah Wayne Callies see related

Your Life: The Soundtrack
So, here's how it works:

• Open your music player (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
• Put it on shuffle.
• Press play.
• For every question type the song that's playing.
• When you go to a new question press the next button.

Some songs fit perfectly.


Opening Credits:
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Waking Up:
Return of the Revolution - The Orange County Supertones

Falling in Love:
God Will Find Ya - Jon Gibson

Secret Love:
See Through - Audio Adrenaline

Mental breakdown:
Fire - Delirious?

Driving Flashback:
Before the Cross - Sovereign Grace Ministry

Happy dance:
Lean On Me - dc Talk

Regretting:
Jesus Girl - Undercover

Long night alone:
Stand Beside Me (You've Got to) -Bill Mallonee (of Vigilantes of Love fame)

Final Battle:
King of Fools - Delirious?

Death Scene:
Less Is More - Relient K

Credits:
Two Different Things - The Altered

Currently Listening Underdog By Audio Adrenaline see related

I am watching the NCAA Basketball Tournament tonight.  It is 11:42 pm in Jordan.  It will surely be after midnight by the time I finish this.  The game between George Mason and the University of Connecticut is on.  George Mason was unranked coming into the NCAA Tournament.  They were seeded 11th in their region.  No one expected them to win even one game in the whole tournament.  But as I type, there are only 17.6 seconds left and George Mason is leading by four points, 74-70. 

I love it!  This underdog team who has beaten three more highly regarded teams already is now leading the number one ranked team in the country.  Unless you went to Connecticut or have a love for that team, you are thrilled to pieces right now.  You are totally loving this!  (Now there are 7.9 seconds left and the score is 74-72!)

We watched the movie Miracle today.  It is the story of the United States Olympic hockey team's dramatic victory over the Soviet Union's team in the 1980 Winter Olympics.  I remember that game vividly.  The US had not beaten the USSR for more than 20 years (I don't remember all of those!).  But improbably, the underdog pulled out a 4-3 victory and then went on to win the gold medal.  Incredible!

(Wow!  George Mason missed a free throw, Connecticut took the rebound and their player made a layup as time expired.  The game will go into overtime!  Now back to my point...)

Why do we love to see the underdog win?  Why do we root for the little guy?  Why do we tell the story of "David and Goliath" over and over?  I think it is because deep down we all realize WE are the underdog.  WE are the ones in this world that have no hope of winning.  WE are the one's who have everything going against us. 

Since the days of Adam and Eve, we have had no earthly hope.  We have had no earthly chance.  God demanded perfection and we couldn't do it.  Satan had us all to himself.  We had nowhere to go and nothing we could do.  (In overtime, George Mason leads 76-74, think I'll watch a bit...)  Paul wrote:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

(Some George Mason guy I have never heard of just hit an immpossible shot with four seconds on the shot clock to take an 80-76 lead.  Time out Connecticut...)

Talk about underdogs!  We were objects of wrath...by nature!  We were walking according to Satan's plan.  We were dead.  There is no earthly hope here.  We were toast...

But then we read that because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  When you are an underdog, unable to do anything to help yourself, God is your only hope.  God is rich in mercy.  God is full of grace.  He alone can make those dead in transgressions alive in Christ!

God loves the underdog!  Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit..."  He spent time with the sinners and the tax collectors.  His followers were uneducated fishermen!  Zacheus was a wee little man - but he got some big help from Jesus!  Women - second class citizens at best in those days - were welcomed and loved by him.  Shepherds - also demeaned in that society - worshiped at his birth. 

Jesus himself was an underdog.  His mother was pregnant out of wedlock!  He was born in a cave/stable and laid in a feeding trough!  His family fled to Egypt because the king wanted to kill him.  (George Mason added a free throw to make it 81-76 with forty-one seconds to go)  And yet, though he humbled himself and took the form of a man, "God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11)."

(Seven seconds to go, George Mason leading 86-84)

Jesus is, at one level, the ultimate underdog.  At another, he is simply the underdogs best friend, secret weapon, wasta - choose the one you like best.  (George Mason wins!!!!  After one of their guys missed a free throw and the Connecticut player ran the length of the court and we all though, "deja vu all over again", he missed his shot!!!  Unbelievable!!!  At least now I can finish this without commercial interruption...)

Audio Adrenaline writes in their song, "Underdog":

I’m in this race to win a prize
The odds against me
The world has plans for my demise
What they don’t see
Is that a winner is not judged by his small size
But by the substitute he picks to run the race
And mine’s already won

Praise God that though the world is totally slanted toward the rich and powerful, God in his awesome love and mercy loves the underdog!  He has sent Jesus to be the substitute to run the race in our place.  He lived the perfect life God demanded of us.  He died the death we deserved for failing.  He has taken our hopelessness and infused it with hope.  He has made us alive when we were dead.  As Hannah, another biblical underdog, sang:

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.

Thank you God for loving the underdog.  Thank you Jesus for dying for me...if Paul was the chief of sinners, I will gladly be the chief of underdogs! 

Currently Reading Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens By Neil Cole, Leonard I. Sweet see related

I am reading two awesome books (in addition to the Bible) right now.  One is about the church.  It is so great to think about what church should really be.  So often we make it out to be something so different.  We make into this weekly show.  We make it into this time where we go and get entertained with a nice worship set that makes us feel good and then we listen too a nice challenging message (not too challenging mind you) and then we sing one last fun song and off we go for the week.

Neil Cole writes, "Most people today are trying to figure out how to bring lost people to Jesus.  The key to starting churches that reproduce spontaneously is to bring Jesus to lost people."  And, "If you want to win this world to Christ, you are going to have to sit in the smoking section." 

Mohandas Gandhi once said, "You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet.  But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature."

These are somewhat random, rambling thoughts and quotes, but oh well...I am processing so much good stuff right now.  I love reading God's Word and reading godly writers and mulling what God, His Word, and His people are saying.  But I also need to stop and look at my life.  Am I doing what I ought?  Am I planting seeds?  Am I living like I really believe the Gospel?  Am I treating church like some weekly show instead of making church a daily reality?

Don't have all the answers to those questions.  Not sure I want all of them.  Might be a bit scary...Yeah, I do want the answers.  And I want to make them the right ones if they're not...whatever the cost.

Currently Reading Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ's Pattern for Spiritual Transformation By Dallas Willard, Don Simpson see related

Here is my first blog of 2006...I am a bit overdue perhaps.  Life has been busy. 

"Those who are not genuinely convinced that the only real bargain in life is surrendering themsleves to Jesus and his cause cannot learn the other lessons Jesus has to teach."

                                                                              - Dallas Willard and Don Simpson

Dying to self.  Surrendering all to Jesus.  If we really, truly want to have the abundant, purposeful life Jesus promised, this is the first step.  We have to come to the place where we recognize that our lives lived on our own and in our own power are ruined.  They are tainted by sin and incapable of being made right.  Our lives cannot be "enhanced", they must be replaced.  Jesus said: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).

When Jesus calls us to lose our lives, to die to ourselves, I think he means that we must abandon the thought that I, myself, my survival, my comfort, my life is the center of the universe.  He wants us to give up the thought (whether expressed in words or merely in actions) that we ourselves should be treated as God alone should be treated. 

We are called to count the cost - to take into account all the losses and all the gains of all the possible ways we can live our lives.  We need to count the cost and see what action, what life track will be most beneficial.  And when we do, Jesus knows that we will find what Jim Elliot found to be true: "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose."  When we do, we will find "The cost of nondiscipleship is...unbearable."

You see, when Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, he is always asking us to give up a lesser self to gain a greater, eternal one.  He is calling us to leave behind a second-rate, sin-marred self for a built-for-glory, eternal self.  He does not call us to deny personal fulfillment, he shows us the way to truly experience it.

The resources we need to live this life - this life of self-denial, this life of strength and power from Jesus Christ, this life of meaning and purpose - the resources we need are available to us in abundance from Jesus and they come when we respond to him with faith - active, living, day-by-day, moment-by-moment confidence in Jesus.

We need to commit our days and our moments to walking with Jesus.  We need to greet every situation we encounter all day long as either purposed or permitted by Jesus.  As such, it is the situation or circumstance he has sent or allowed for our character to be formed.  It is a moment he has given or allowed and should be received with the recognition and faith that it comes under his loving hand to accomplish his loving purpose...

Lord Jesus, transform my heart and my life that I might walk and live and breath and act as Jesus would if He were in my place.  Make me worthy of being called "Christian" because I have become, truly, "a little Christ"! Amen