Last modified November 9, 2009

The following is a collection of miscellaneous thoughts over the last 11 years of my Christian life. They have been written on Post-its, napkins, receipts and any other surface I could find, if paper wasn’t readily available. They have been written at stoplights, in my room, outside, in church —anywhere that God would inspire me. The following thoughts include topics on: Jesus’ sacrifice, creation, art, culture, science, society, Bible lessons, love, pride, forgiveness, sin, and a host of other topics. Many hours of reflection on life in general, and in my personal walk with Jesus Christ went into these pages. My hope is that you will find these thoughts encouraging, enlightening and edifiying and that they may draw you into a deeper relationship with our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. —Proverbs 9:10

1998

• People are willing to accept the free “gift” of sin (through Adam), but not the free gift of salvation (through Jesus Christ). Man brought death into the world. God brought life into the world.

• A free will is naturally a rebellious will.

• What is it about babies? Something about them seems so virtuous and innocent that not even the atheist can deny. Innocence is something that everyone looks up to. Perhaps because humans cannot obtain it? Where did this idea of “innocence” come from? From some organic soup? No. Only from God Himself. And it’s through Him alone that He gives us a chance at real innocence.

• On Judgment Day, Life will be the price. You will either pay with Jesus’ Life or with your own. It’s either His blood or your blood.

• If we could comprehend everything about who God is and why He does certain things, would He be a very great God?

• Christians should take a lesson from the moth: The moth, when in darkness, will flock to the brightest source of light. With unfailing perseverance and fortitude, his goal is to get to that light. He pays attention to nothing else. For us Christians, that light is Christ. We must seek Him at all times. When we are surrounded by darkness on all sides, it’s comforting to know that Jesus, that Great Light, will keep us from darkness and will not forsake us. Ever.

• The messages, promises, blessings from God carry a common them which runs like a golden thread throughout His Word: Love.

• Do you think any other great “religious leader” would’ve taken the time to teach and love children? No way! Jesus took the time.

• People don’t want to be subject to God’s rule. But it’s like trying to get away from gravity: Impossible. You’re subject to gravity’s rule whether you like it or not. God’s rule and inevitable earthly kingdom is no less demanding.

• It’s a good thing man hasn’t touched the stars: he’d ruin them. That’s part of their beauty; man hasn’t gotten a hold of them.

• In a sinful world, He who is sinless calls the shots. He is the one who deserves our worship. He’s the One who we should listen to and obey and love. “For God (the Greatest Lover) so loved the world (the Greatest Disappointment), that He gave His only begotten Son (the Greatest Sacrifice) that whosoever believeth in Him (the Greatest Invitation) should not perish (The Greatest Escape), but have everlasting life (the Greatest Gift).” — John 3:16

• Both Adam and Jesus had their sides opened for their bride.

• Eternal life is like a $100 bill lying on the floor in a department store: you can be indifferent to it (I doubt it), you could just not want it and walk away, or you could want it and pick it up and keep it.

1999

• You’ve heard it asked, “Can God create a rock so big that He cannot lift it?” My answer: make a checklist of all of God’s attributes: Omnipotent, Omni-benevolent, Omni-rational, Omniscient, Immutable, etc. Now go through the checklist and mark all his attributes that would be in alignment with “creating a rock so big he could not lift it”. Omniscient would be checked off. Omni-rational would not be. Already we have our answer. Whatever God does has to be in alignment with ALL of his attributes. For if even one attribute is not pleased, He won’t do it. His nature is so interwoven into what He does. Who He is is what He does, so to speak. So creating a rock so big that He could not lift it, would be out of alignment with His Omni-rational attribute, as well as other attributes that I didn’t list (like Omni-loving, Omni-creative, etc). So the answer is obviously a resounding “NO!”

• I would rather have God as a friend than a stalker. To the unbeliever God is a stalker.

• I would like to propose that God doesn’t send people to hell. People send themselves to hell. Hell is separation from God. He gives them exactly what they want. In fact, heaven, for someone who does not love God, WOULD be hell. God is actually more “merciful” in sending someone to hell, than forcing them into heaven.

• The Law of Cause and Effect necessitates the existence of God. The big bang “cell” could not create itself from nothing. It defies logic. Evolution can’t explain: 1. First Mover. 2. The Gap between Nothing and Something. 3. The Gap between Something and Life. 4. The Gap between Life and Humanity. 5. Order/Design/Purpose. My conclusion: Atheists aren’t not born, they’re made.

• If I paid someone $1 Billion to go to hell for eternity, would they do it? I highly doubt it. But everyday people go there and willingly pay a much higher price: their soul.

• If your happiness is based on what you have materially, you’re going to be a most unhappy person.

• We live in a Telecommunications World. We can communicate with astronauts, unmanned space probes, satellites, underwater machinery, etc. I can talk to anyone in the world with a phone, modem, palm pilot or Fax. But you know what? I can talk with the God who created the heaven and the earth. Now that is communication!

• What philosopher ever saved anyone from their sins by their taught philosophies? Jesus Christ was no philosopher; He was the answer to the philosophers’ questions. He came to save the world from the philosophers’ philosophies.

• What good is a “Messiah” if He just died and stayed dead? That would be no Messiah at all. My Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach DID rise from the dead. I don’t put my faith into some long-dead “messiah” who’s rotting away in a grave somewhere. I put my faith in the God who came back from the grave!

• Life is not about creating art; it’s about the Creator and my relationship with Him and how I love Him and how I know Him. Every moment counts in this life; let us not forget the Giver of the moments.

• Sacrifice is innocent life traded for sinful life. That’s why God can fellowship with us today—His sinless Son gave us His own innocent life for our sinful life.

• God made the first sacrifice (the killed animals for skins for Adam and Eve) and He made the last sacrifice at Calvary.

• If a father and a son are walking and the son falls in the mud, do you think the father will not pick him up? Are you kidding? That father will pick his son up with his own arms and get dirty.

• You’re either a slave to sin and free from righteousness or s you’re a slave to righteousness and free from sin.

• Only God could have saved us. An angel could not have been our Savior, for an angel still has the potential to sin (Lucifer’s rebellion). Not only that, but an angel isn’t eternal like God. We need an eternal Savior and One that we can worship: God Himself. One final thought: Only God could pay a God-sized debt. And He did!

• God’s nature is infallible. God’s Word is infallible. But the people who interpret those things are fallible.

• Jesus was not ashamed to be crucified publicly for me. His holiness should have been ashamed to even think of my unrighteous rags. How then can I be ashamed of that Great God who was not ashamed of me?

• Why did Satan tempt Jesus in the desert? Because Satan is an idiot. He thinks all men have a sin nature. Well, He would’ve been right every other time if not for this Just, Holy God He was trying to tempt. Was there a possibility that Jesus could’ve listened to his temptations and followed them? Absolutely not. Jesus has a perfect, sin-free nature and it is impossible for Him to sin in the littlest of things. He’s absolutely holy. There was no chance that He could’ve sinned. So what was the point of the temptation? To PROVE that He was sinless. It’s one thing to keep talking about how holy you are; it’s quite another to actually prove it in the worst, real-time circumstances. Jesus did.

• If you want to know what’s beyond the grave, wouldn’t’ it make sense to find an expert on the subject. Wouldn’t it behoove you to talk to someone who’s gone through it and has come back? Jesus is here and He’s willing to teach you all that’s beyond the grave. His credentials are His nail-pierced hands and feet.

• People with weak faith have a little God.

• Jesus could’ve come at any time in history. He could’ve died by shooting, stabbing, etc. But He came at the time of crucifixion. He chose the cruelest method ever devised by men, to die for me. Nothing else could have been so painful. His stigmata will be a reminder for all eternity of the price He paid for my redemption.

• Jesus paid the penalty for the His own Judgment that we would’ve had to pay. He saved us from His own Judgment.

• The sinners who reject Jesus’ sacrifice reject the fact of it and the reason for it. It’s a fact that He died for the sins of the world. They can accept it or reject it, but it still remains a fact (and your eternity is based on your belief in that fact). The unregenerate send themselves to hell everyday they don’t accept Jesus’ gift.

• God doesn’t allow anything to happen to us that will not contribute to our mutual good. He allows everything to happen only in His love.

• Why do the righteous suffer? I think Jesus asked the equivalent of that question on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” But of all men in history, He is the only one that could’ve asked it honestly. For everyone else isn’t righteous.

• God majored in suffering on the cross. Don’t tell me He hasn’t experienced what we experience! He experienced worst things (indeed, THE worst thing) than we’ll ever experience.

• God loves you for who you are and sees you as you can be.

• A Christian is a soldier who joins a battle of a war that has already been won.

• If you can’t call God “Father”, then you can’t call Him. Period. You can’t call Him until you’ve accepted the Only Way He’s given to heaven. God has only given one option. Don’t think that you can make more options. God could’ve chosen 5, 10 or even 500 ways to get to heaven. But He only chose One; that way is Jesus Christ.

• People always want the newest things: cars, houses, clothes, vacations, movies, CDs, etc. How ‘bout a new life? I got one in Christ Jesus.

• I heard this from someone: “The world says: ‘Show me and then I’ll believe.’ God says: ‘Believe me, then I’ll show you.’”

• What is the point of a God-given art talent? It’s not practical! It’s not food or a power tool or a household appliance. It has the same point as a flower: it gives glory to God’s creative power.

• Jesus was so made sin for my sake on the cross, that He couldn’t even call the Father “Father”. He called Him “God”. The Father cannot look upon sin; therefore Jesus was made the subject of total abandonment by both the Father and the Spirit on that cross.

• The whole gospel story revolves around the humbling of two parties: God and me.

• The Bible is THE BOOK where you can fellowship with the Author while reading. You can even ask questions!

• God expects 100% perfection 100% of the time. If you committed 3,000 sins in your lifetime, you’re destined for hell. If you committed 3, you’re destined for hell. Now, what if God decided to wipe out your sin debt to Him. Would you take it? Jesus did just that for each of us.

• Evil men are never satisfied with one of anything (money, gods, wives, ways of salvation, etc.)

• If you honestly think that you can keep the 613 Jewish laws, then you’re obviously perfect and don’t need Christ. Christ is for those who can’t keep the law (like me). Christ is the human example of keeping the law. He is the fulfillment of it. The law is the highest standards ever devised in the history of the world. God expects no less than a perfect man who kept the law. Jesus was that Man and whoever believes on Him, will be made perfect like Him.

• The glory I give myself will die when I die. The glory I give God will last forever.

• If we were to tithe our time, God deserves: 10% of every 1 minute ( 6 seconds), 10% of every 1 hour (6 minutes), 10% of every 24 hour day (2.4 hours), 10% of every 1 week (16.8 hours), 10% of 52 weeks (5.2 weeks) and 10% of every 365 days (36.5 days). I don’t know about you, but I fall nowhere near this. God deserves much more than this, however. He deserves every second of our life.

• If your philosophy isn’t good enough to live and die by it, then dump it. Christianity is good enough to live by and to die by. 100% guaranteed.

• The longer you are in the dark, the more adjusted your eyes become to it. When you first see the light, it’s a shock at first, but is much more enjoyable than the dark, because you see!

• What amazes me is that public schools teach evolution which teaches no moral law or ANY law for that matter and in the same classroom, on the wall, is a list of “Don’ts” (Don’t drink in class. Don’t knife people on campus. Don’t do drugs on campus, etc.) The evolutionists can’t have it both ways. There is either a moral law or there isn’t.

2000

• Eternity isn’t time that goes on forever, eternity is the absence of time.

• People think that getting to heaven is like when I give my dog a treat: If he can jump up and get the treat that I’m holding out, then he deserves it.

• God makes the rules. We should live by them. It’s not that He’s trying to make us conform to His way of doing things, but He is God: He knows what is best for us. He loves us! He wants to give us life more abundantly—not take it away!

• Man wants to be omniscient. That’s why he invents an encyclopedia or an internet. Man wants to be omnipresent. That’s why he invents automobiles and cellular phones. Man wants to be omnipotent. That’s why he invents the hydrogen bomb. Man wants to live forever. That’s why he ignores death. Man wants to be all these attributes that God holds, except one: Man doesn’t want to be omniloving. He wants to hate.

• It’s not like people are rejecting an evil God. They are rejecting a God who loved them SO much to die for their sins and rise from the dead for them. They are rejecting a loving God. And, that is the worst mistake anyone could ever make.

• People think that Christianity is about what you can’t do. But, it most definitely is about what you CAN do: have a relationship with the God of the universe!

• Why are wedding ceremonies such a big deal on TV shows? The characters on a TV show can have all the sex they want throughout a season, but for the season finale (or season openings)—the characters get married! No matter the ratings boost for these episodes, the fact that these characters had sex before marriage makes the ceremony of marriage a mockery. It makes the characters and the event for these characters lose its power. However, the institution of marriage does NOT lose it’s power! The wedding ceremony still fascinates people and is shown respect even in the most disgusting of TV shows.

• God is love; love is God. God abides in me; I abide in God.

• Isaac is the son that never should’ve happened. By all human reasoning, Isaac should’ve never been born. Do you think the fact that Gentiles were grafted into Israel was any less of a miracle? Praise be to God!

• Art never used to satisfy me before I gave it up to God.

• Christianity isn’t plausible only if you believe that death is the unconquerable enemy.

2001

• The world cannot stop the blessings my God showers me with.

• Love is going out of your way to die for a person in need, but who doesn’t want your help.

• Faith takes you to places where you have never been before.

• Common sense isn’t faith. Faith in God is more than common sense in man. However, both faith and common sense can let you down. For example, I know that General Motors makes good cars, but that common sense won’t stop my car from breaking down. Also, I can have faith that God will make me a millionaire, but if it’s not in His will, it won’t happen. In one instance, GM failed. In the other, God did not fail. God can never fail doing His will. FM, faith and common sense can all fail, but God can never fail.

• Everything I do I want to please my Daddy.

• God doesn’t give second-rate gifts.

• The world so needs Jesus Christ. But it isn’t going to ask us for Him. We need to share Him freely. When we are ridiculed, we mush show Jesus; when we are judged unfairly we must show Jesus. When we become martyrs we mush show Jesus. How easy it is to let these people go to hell; how easy it is to ignore their desperation. But “they” used to be “us”. What if someone hadn’t reached out to us? We’d be the ones hell-bound. We would be the ones scattered. We need to pull up the shades and let our light shine through.

• I can’t stand it when I hear people say that human nature is basically good. “Good?!” How come we lock our cars and houses? How come we’re searched at concerts? How come we have jails and laws and have to sign ten times to borrow money? How come there’s no crime in ghost towns? Men are evil in nature.

• The Law is a mirror; it shows us how sinful we are. It never made us sinners, it just reveals the sin that is already in our hearts. We don’t measure up. Next time you try comparing your “goodness” to some “lowlife”, first see how you measure up to the Law.

• When I use white paint in my paintings, my brush has to be devoid of any other color. I want pure white. If there is a little bit of any other color, it will ruin the white; it won’t be pure anymore. That’s how our sin is to God. Even if I committed a few sins today, it’s enough to get me on the wrong track away from God. Repent of your sins when you’re convicted of them. Move on; but don’t push them back until your pureness isn’t pure anymore.

• The challenges facing the Christian artist of the 21st Century: 1. Keeping abreast of the newest technologies. 2. Letting our Christian work be known. 3. Keeping our art Biblically accurate. 4. Not being opposed to new media, but embracing it and using it for Christ. 5. Doing art that is more pleasing to God than to the public.

• I don’t care how “holy” a project may seem; if it takes you away from God then it’s not right.

• People will take the world God has given to humans. And they will take the oxygen and the water and they will take his institutions like marriage and government, but they won’t take the one thing He has given humans that He really wants us to have, the one thing that humans need: Salvation in Jesus Christ!

• There are two worldviews: the one that says, “ I need a Savior” and the one that says, “I am my own savior.”

• The opposite of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is found in the spiritual realm. 2 Corinthians 4: 16: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”

• It’s pretty easy to turn a good situation into a bad one. But try turning a bad situation into a good one. That’s hard, if not impossible. However, God did just that. He turned my sinfulness into righteousness. He brought me from death into life. He saved me from hell and brought me to heaven. He’s good at reversing a bad situation into a good one.

• I think God doesn’t answer us the way we want sometimes is because we couldn’t comprehend the answer He would give us. It’s like the kid that I heard that asked his dad, “What are cars made of ?” The dad could have tried and given his boy the answer, but he wouldn’t get it.

• I can’t persuade people that God loves them. People can only believe that when God taps them on the shoulder. I can prove God’s existence by His creation, but the creation doesn’t prove His love. Only from a supernatural source (God’s Word) would one find that God loves them. And only after they believe that Word would they know that He loves them. But what bothers me is the fact that people believe in God, but they just stop there. They don’t go any further in their quest to KNOW God. It’s like people are just content in knowing that He’s out in the cosmos somewhere. But what kind of comfort is that if they don’t have a relationship with the God of the cosmos?

• God always makes the first move in a relationship that He wants. He always shows His love first before the person does. He always makes Himself vulnerable in asking first, “Do you love me?”

• Jesus gave up the thing He held most precious: His relationship with the Father. He did it all for me.

• Righteousness hung for us sinners.

• Paul says to think on whatever things are true, honest, just pure, lovely, things of good report, virtue and praise (Philippians 4). When I watch TV or movies or read comics or magazines or the newspaper I CAN’T THINK ON THOSE THINGS!

• Just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean you’re alive.

• From the Father’s perspective, I was saved before the foundation of the world. From the Son’s perspective, I was saved 2,000 years ago on Calvary. From the Holy Spirit’s perspective I was saved in the Summer of 1994. And from my perspective, when I leave this world, I will be completely saved, praise God!

• Out of death (Sarah’s womb or Jesus’ tomb) came life (Isaac or eternal life).

• There is only 3 things that change at any given time in history: language, fashion and invention. Man doesn’t change; he’s still the evil creature that was cast out of Eden.

• The best that the world can offer is hell in a box.

• If God can take a dead branch that Aaron had and make it blossom with buds and almonds, He can take any rotten sinner and use him to bear fruit as well.

• An analogy for life: We have a boysenberry bush in our front yard. Any one who knows about boysenberries knows how good they taste and how thorny the bush is. It seems that the biggest and tastiest boysenberries are always in the back, in the shade of the leaves. I want that boysenberry! I am willing to get my hand cut and scraped by the thorns to get to the back of the bush and get it. Most people are willing to accept the other, not-so-quite big boysenberries in the front that are pain-free to obtain.

• The Lord put His Name on the line when He chose me. Everything we do reflects the Name we hold so dear to us.

• I don’t understand the thief on the cross who was lost. He was condemned together with Jesus. He had the Savior of the world next to Him. Yet he didn’t believe on Him. Is that stupidity or what? He went into eternity his own way. The other thief did believe on Jesus and is in heaven for eternity.

• The saddest, most horrific words ever uttered were uttered by Jesus on that cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” That question answers God’s question to man, back in Eden, “Where are you?”

• The Greatest Man in history was a servant to all and He didn’t even have to be. Talk about getting out of your comfort zone.

• Jesus is the only Man that has ever been able to look back on His life and say “It is finished.” Every other man’s aspirations reach further than a single life span. Jesus finished His work in a mere 33 years; he lived a more abundant life than any other man in history.

• Humans love to give each other awards and congratulations and pats-on-the-back. How about a pat-on-the-back from your Savior: “Well done good and faithful servant”?

• “Your life for My Life.” That’s essentially God’s offer to each of us. It’s hard to imagine God wanting to make a deal like that, but He is more than willing to do so.

• The summary of the Old Testament is: “Messiah is coming.” The summary of the New Testament is: “Messiah is here.” The summary of the Bible is: “Jesus is the Messiah and He is here.”

• As I study Paul’s life, I never see him selling the gospel. I do see him going out of his way to preach it for people’s sake. I see him making a living doing something else so that he can preach the gospel. I see him becoming a Jew to the Jews and a Gentile to the Gentiles to win the more. I see his strong relationship with Jesus. I see his humbleness and self-sacrificing and the limitations he had. I never see him asking for a donation or to pay for the gospel. I see his love and his devotion and his unwavering focus on his Savior. I see him take the criticism and the beatings for the truth he held dear. I see him running the race and never giving up and always hoping in God. I see him always going to the unbeliever, meeting them where they are. I see his faith in God to supply all his needs and his security in his Savior. I see his inventiveness and his stubbornness and his loneliness. I see his leadership. I see him fellowshipping and giving and helping. I see him defeated yet never really defeated. I see him finishing his course with the utmost enthusiasm to meet his Lord. I see his writings and his legacy. His name lives on because the gospel was more than a strong conviction to him; it was the very basis as to how he lived his life. He is a tremendous example as to how each of us should live our lives in light of Christ.

• It is easy to die for Christ; it’s hard to live for Him.

• God will reinvent this world in love.

• God has so much existence He can give existence away.

• Men rise to the heights when they are in the depths (by God’s grace). War, pestilence, poverty, famine, depression, persecution, etc bring new heroes to the surface—Heroes who would not have been in more peaceful settings.

• God asks us not to be unequally yoked with a mate. God follows His own advice: His bride isn’t someone foreign to Him. His bride is just like Him.

• Without God nothing is possible. But with God nothing is impossible.

• The paintbrush doesn’t make an artist, nor the guitar make a musician. An artist would paint with his fingers if not with a brush; he is an artist regardless of what he has. And the musician would make music with rocks or sticks if not a guitar. “A man’s life doesn’t consist in the things he possesses.”

• The devil’s strengths are my weaknesses. The devil’s weaknesses are my strengths.

• God doesn’t give His children easy destinies that can be accomplished humanly; He gives us destinies that seem impossible but we have to totally rely on Him to fulfill them for us. God doesn’t specialize in human-strength destinies of the world. He has so much planned for our lives than the world could ever think of on their own.

• Real power is not found in having the ability to stop evil, but rather choosing to be merciful.

• Jesus was never so Kingly as when He carried His cross. Jesus was never so servant-like than when they were nailing Him to the cross. He was never so gracious as when He asked the Father to forgive His murderers. He was never so obedient as when He was in Gethsemane. He was never so strong as when the stone rolled away and He walked out.

• The weight of my sins alone were enough for me not to be able to carry; and yet, Jesus carried everyone’s sins. Tremendous.

• Buddha or Confucius or Zoroaster or Mohammed never had the marks of self-sacrifice. You can verify my God’s love by looking at the nail prints in His hands and His feet and slash in His side.

• A prophet represents God to the people. A priest represent the people to God; Jesus and is both.

• Only the artist knows how many hours goes into a painting. And the pain, and the frustrations that went into it. Other people can only enjoy the art not knowing what went into it. Likewise, only God knows how much pain went into getting us saved.

• What am I really striving for? Excellence in art or excellence in prayer?

• What you gain by NOT buying a TV is more than the money and the time you would waste by watching it. In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. The same thing goes for TV.

• People think that it is inconceivable that God allows evil to happen to this country. But I find it more inconceivable that God has let this country have peace for so long in spite of us kicking Him out of our schools, abortion, corruption, materialism, homosexuality, etc or did we forget about those things? I don’t want evil to happen to this country, but we have brought it on ourselves! Stop the evil inside first, then we can be in a position to protect ourselves from the evil from the outside. And lest we forget: God isn’t foreign from the effects of evil. He knows what it’s like to have lost a Son.

• With every last will and testament, there must come the death of the Testator, before a new last will and testament can come into effect. (Read Hebrews 9).

• Jesus died with His arms reaching out to me.

• It actually grieves God’s heart to allow sin to continue, and yet He is so patient with us. He is not willing that any should perish. But there is coming a Day when God will do away with sin. Yes, He will send unbelievers to hell, where they can practice their sins in solitude. For God will actually remove His omnipresence from that place, so His heart won’t be grieved anymore and He won’t know what is going on there. He won’t have to, because there will be no chance of escaping. Maybe that’s what it means when Death and Hades are thrown into the Lake of Fire (Rev 20:14-15). It doesn’t mean that they are destroyed, but hell is a place of the “second death”, a continual death everyday. And, sin and death go together. So, you think unbelievers will be having a happy little time without God? No way! They are going to be sinning, but all by themselves. God won’t even know what they are doing anymore. I think He will actually limit His omnipresence from the Lake of Fire, because He Life cannot exist in a place of death. And, death is a place without God. God and death are mutually exclusive. When He says “Goodbye you workers of iniquity”, He really means it. When He says “Goodbye”, you say “Goodbye” to everything good in the universe, including what it means to feel love. The sins of the unbelievers won’t affect anyone else either. They will be in their farthest dark corner of the universe, 10 Quintillion light years away.

• God does His best work when people are sleeping (i.e. Adam, Apostles, Abraham).

• There are two ways to destroy sin: 1. Take the life of the sinner, or 2. Give a new life to the sinner. God used the first option on Sodom and Gomorrah. God used the second option with Jesus on Calvary. Either way, God hates sin and will destroy it one way or another.

• You could have the most godly parents and heritage and yet, within one generation, that heritage could be corrupted by sin. That’s because the heart is exceedingly wicked above all things.

• Atonement is covering over sin; not getting rid of it.

• Do you think the four living creatures stopped singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the Lord on September 11, 2001?

• People expect miracles, especially in tragic circumstances like the bombing of the World Trade Center. What is a miracle, though? A miracle is God going out of His way to do something extraordinary. So, in every sense of the word, Jesus dying for our sins is a miracle, because God went out of His way to do something extraordinary. When He has done that miracle and we believe in that miracle, we need no other miracle to look to like God preventing the WTC bombings. (And how many times do we know of that God actually prevent the WTC from being destroyed? Do we know the answer to that?) God still does miracles today, but on His terms; not ours. We need not look for an excuse that God should do this or that. He’s done more than I could ever have hoped to have done on my own.

• If God is omnipotent and He deeply longs for you to believe in Him, then obviously He doesn’t see allowing evil to happen as a huge barrier for people believing in Him. In other words, if He thought that the allowance of evil was a stumbling block to someone’s belief in Him, then He would, obviously, stop the evil before it happened. So, the excuse, “I’m not going to believe in Him.” Isn’t a valid excuse in His eyes. But get this straight: He will stop evil once and for all in His own time. He will come to this earth and establish His Kingdom and put all evil under His foot. You don’t worry about that. You worry about whose side you’re on before that Day comes. One last thought: If God got rid of evil, He’d have to get rid of free will.

• The Giver of Life. The One who has so much life overflowing from Himself and He gives it to others. The very definition of life: God. That God died and willingly sacrificed Himself for us, when all He ever knew was life. He was Life and is Life. And He continues to live today.

• Jesus bled love.

• The only way one can make sense of the world is if he sees the spiritual side of it. The world isn’t made up of just stuff that we see. How can one make sense of only ½ a photograph? Or, what if he only saw ½ of a movie? Life is no different; the whole picture is needed and it’s found in the Bible.

• The world has nothing to offer me; it showed me its best and I was still thirsty. Jesus alone quenches my thirst.

• Judas wasn’t the first or last to betray Jesus. Satan betrayed Jesus long ago. One third of the angels in heaven betrayed as well. In fact, for 15 years of my life, I betrayed Him.

• God is a God who set the maximum penalty for sin and paid it, Himself, with His own blood.

• This is the truth: you and I will both die someday and meet our Maker. Our entire lives are but a preparation for that inevitable meeting. Every thing done in this life can be a positive or a negative for that meeting with God. If you’re not forgiven by Him now, you’re a dead man. If you’re a “good” person, you’re a dead man. God wants perfection. He only meets with perfect people. He only spends eternity with perfect people. If you’re not IN Christ, His perfect Son and Savior, you are not perfect and you are a dead man.

• Romans 13:10 states that “love is the fulfillment of the law”. In other words, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law.

• People say that God doesn’t give second chances. Read Numbers Nine. If a person was unclean or away on a journey and couldn’t keep the Passover, God said they could keep it on the 2nd month on the 14th day. God WANTS your offering. He wants your fellowship. He wants you to come to Him. He always gives a 2nd chance on this earth. God is the God of the 2nd chance and 3rd chance and 4th chance. . . How many times did Jesus tell Peter to forgive someone? 70 x 7? Do you think we should expect any LESS from God? He wants to forgive us and be with us. But He also can’t just ignore our sin . . .He has provided the Sacrifice. And He provides as many chances as you need to come to Him. We constantly need to be “passed over”. He is our constant Advocate.

2002

• I good thing about living in an evil world—it’s easy to shock people with acts of kindness.

• It would take all the powers of hell to stop one bird from chirping. Billions of birds chirp everyday and glorify God. Unstoppable.

• It seems to me that “science” is the study and process of something. “Art” is the end result. Examples: Grand Canyon, a butterfly and a waterfall; science is the means, art is the end result.

• If having a Porsche was the point of existence it makes you wonder why Jesus didn’t come to earth in the 20th century and not save sinners, but cruise around. It’s ridiculous to think so. Jesus’ way of living, sacrificially, is much better.

• “Redeeming the time” means spending more time with the Creator of time.

• Dead grass burns faster than alive grass. If you’re not in Christ, you’re dead already. If you are in Christ, you’re alive and won’t burn.

• If materialism was living, then how come when you die the more things you have and the more things you’ve done won’t bring you back to life? If it is life and it is living, then it should defeat death. But it doesn’t. Jesus is Life. He defeats death. Knowing Him is Life.

• If you want to succeed, then count the cost. If you can live without God for eternity, then don’t accept His son. If you can’t, then turn to Jesus.

• Here is Christian liberty in a nutshell: I can do whatever I want, but why would I want to hurt the One I love?

• Does God know what fun is? Does He know how to have a life? Follow His example. He gave His all for the joy that was set before Him. Think about it: the God of the universe KNOWS what a satisfied existence is and it has to do with giving yourself away.

• The best and only way that men will believe the gospel is if it is carried on the backs of God’s sons. If writing it in the sky would’ve made believers, He would’ve done it a long time ago. But Jesus was a Man and He brought it to us that way. If there was a better way, I’m sure He would’ve done it. But people believe when they see their friends’ lives changed and the action they now take. That’s God’s method; it’s the only method.

• Even though your sin may not have hurt anyone else and no one else even knows about it—God knows about it. You’ve still broken His Law. Sin isn’t honorable. It doesn’t accomplish anything. You hurt yourself. You hurt God. You waste time. You damn yourself. You’re laughing all the way to the guillotine.

• I’ve never seen a “Darwin Bless America” sticker yet.

• God gives men gifts everyday. Whether it’s His Savior or forgiveness or eternal life or your very next breath. What can we give to God that He hasn’t already given to us?

• I think the world looks to Hollywood for advice. People want to know how to live their lives; people in Hollywood are the counselors, the examples, the mentors and the standards that people look to. They should turn to God; they’d have better advice from Him than what Hollywood ever could offer.

• If you die before you’re dead, you’ll live before you’re dead. John 12:25: “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

• The Christian life is: Soldierhood, Spouse hood and Sheephood.

• The Father’s best for Christ was that He would be sacrificed for me.

• The God who destroyed Sodom, the Amalekites, Jericho, the Philistines and tons of other evil people was the same God on Calvary who became the weakest of men, beaten, bruised, and bloodied and still had yet another victory. God doesn’t lose.

• Jesus finished His “To Do” list while on this earth (1/3 of the old testament messianic prophecies). He’s coming back to finish His other “To Do” list.

• Jesus came to save the underdog by becoming the underdog. Now He is the Victorious One.

• After 3 years of teaching people, I think Jesus had the strongest vocal cords on earth. I think the reason He wanted the drink of vinegar on the cross was because He wanted to make His victory yell: “It is finished!” I think His victory yell” was the loudest yell in history and He most certainly had the vocal cords to do it.

• I was born in darkness; I was born again to light.

• The nails didn’t make Jesus stop. The stick, the crown, the spitting, beating, whipping, bleating, sweating, cursing didn’t make Him stop His mission. His mission was to deliver me from much worse punishment. Mission: Accomplished.

• The American Dream isn’t the best God has for you.

• Why is God so great? It’s not only because He’s absolutely lovely, gracious, perfect, holy, just, patient, good, etc. but because He humbled Himself to even be concerned with a miniscule planet and some sinner named “Robert”. God wasn’t too busy to do all that for us; are we too busy to do things for Him? Are we any more busy than God?

• Jesus wasn’t just a sacrifice on the cross, but He was a living sacrifice His whole earthly life and continues to be a living sacrifice at the right hand of the Father. There is definitely a connection between “love” and “relationships” and “sacrifice”. Love IS sacrifice.

• Follow your Daddy’s footsteps. They are right in front of you.

• I wonder how most church people would react if they were to lose everything. You know, like how Job did. Would they take it like a man like Job or would they curse God? I wonder how I would react to losing everything. Thankfully I don’t have much to lose. Jesus lost a lot more than I will ever lose, on that cross.

• No one can say, “Life is too rough” or “Life isn’t fair”, because God Himself lived this life. And He didn’t even have to. He went through more hell than you’ll ever go through.

• The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God” and God will say, “There is no you.”

• You are either “in Christ” or “not in Christ”. There is no “sort of in Christ”. In the Great Flood you were either “on” Noah’s ark or “not on” Noah’s ark. There was no middle. In Sodom’s destruction you were either “saved” or “killed”. There was no middle ground. I hope that settles the issue of any “purgatory”.

• Who else other than Jesus, the Creator of life, could have the cure for death?

• The problem in keeping the Ten Commandments isn’t with the Ten Commandments; the problem is with the evil person trying to keep them.

• A gift from God is irrevocable; especially One drenched in blood.

• Creating art is of no value to me if it does not bring me closer to Jesus. And the finished piece of art is of no value to anyone else if it doesn’t bring them closer to Jesus.

• Mediocre Christians never were a witness to me before I was saved.

• God gives you so you will draw closer to Him; God takes away so you will draw closer to Him.

• If you have a sin problem, you have a love problem with God.

• Why would I put my trust in mere mortal men, who couldn’t save themselves if their life depended on it. I put my trust in the immortal Man.

• There is nothing secure in this world. Don’t even bother putting any stock into it. There is no foundation for which to put your base your life on. Science is ever changing and art is so relative; nothing is safe and secure. Philosophies, tastes and preferences change. Governments rise and fall. Men and women live and die. The only secure foundation is found in Christ Jesus.

• Someone who doesn’t know Jesus isn’t condemned because of that fact, but is condemned on the fact of himself being a sinner. If you are an unbeliever, and you know you are a sinner, wouldn’t it behoove you to find a cure to your sin. You’re condemned because you didn’t bother to accept the God-given cure for sin!

• If you don’t have absolutes, you have indifference. An indifferent life is a walking death.

• Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law; He came to fulfill. Ask yourself: Why would Jesus want to destroy His previous work (Laws, Covenants, Prophets, etc.)? He made that foundation! It would be illogical to start over. He makes NEW from the OLD.

• Saying God doesn’t exist makes one an idiot. Saying God exists and ignoring Him makes the person more of an idiot.

• Go through the encyclopedia: you’ll see pages and pages of great men and women who lived different philosophies, but their philosophies couldn’t keep them alive. Each of them have a birth date a dash and a death date. Jesus had a birth date and a dash!

• If every Christian was doing what they were supposed to be doing, this world would be a different place!

• Every man is a prisoner to reality, regardless of what his philosophy may be. The reality is always there. A philosophy must incorporate and take into account and explain the following: 1. The external reality (the universe), 2. The internal reality (what’s inside man). The philosophy must also be sufficient and final for all men and women throughout time, space age, continent, and every other possibility in which men have lived. It must also provide an answer for man vs. God, man vs. himself, man vs. man and man vs. nature. And finally it must provide an answer to life and death. If the philosophy cannot do all the above, then it is inadequate. Only Christianity does this and more. You can follow it through in a straight line past eternity.

• If your philosophy of life is right then it is true and truth is universal. Is your philosophy universal? Can it be applied to every man in every situation in every age? Truth is truth no matter where you go. 2+2 equals 4 in 4th Century Siberia as well as 19th Century Madagascar. It doesn’t change. Christianity is proven to be truth and universal.

• On one hand men say that humans are just a collection of molecules kicked up by chance in some unnamed past and on the other hand they are trying to give these “molecules” a purpose for existence. How can one give a accidental molecules a purpose, let alone self-esteem or reason?

• Freedom without love = chaos.

• The evolutionists’ universe: If you begin with nothing, you end with nothing. But that doesn’t explain the something right here and now.

• Jesus practiced what He preached. His three-year ministry was about love. He told people to love one another, love your enemy, love God. His way to Calvary is the culmination of those teachings. He loved His enemies (me) all the way to the cross. Had He not done what preached, He would’ve been a hypocrite not to mention a liar. But He did do it. His actions lined up with his teachings.

• Life without God is not a life worth living.

• You can take Christianity as an “idea” all the way to the end—all the way to its conclusion—and not be afraid of what it will lead to. The world’s “ideas”, on the other hand, one should be very reluctant in taking them to their conclusions because their conclusions lead to suicide or Hedonism. Therefore, hardly anyone ever goes that far with the world’s philosophies, but just hold onto one happy section of it that they like. They stop far short of the cliff. They wimp-out basically.

• No one ever says, “Give me your worries. I’ll take care of them for free.” But God does. So how come we don’t take Him up on it?

• “Ask and you will receive” is absolutely true. But it assumes that your will is so aligned with God and His will that your will is His will. “The Father’s will be done” is your will be done at that point. But even Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane wasn’t answered—at least not by “taking His cup away from Him”, but in the “Not My will be done, but Your will be done.” The best for Jesus was that He should be humbled all the way down, eventually dying on a cross and being separated from the Father.

• Anything not done in love is a waste of time to you and will never benefit anyone else.

• The greatest achievement in my life will be to be the masterpiece God intended me to be. I’m an artist. But don’t forget: God is an Artist too and I am His artwork.

• There is more to Christianity than it being “non-destructive”; it’s “pro-positive”. There’s plenty of “nice” music that doesn’t mention God; but what good is it if it isn’t “pro-positive”?

• There is no unity to life apart from God. There is no way to bring actions, experience, evidence, history, science art, etc into a meaningful whole without God. God is the unifier. Without Him, all you have is a bunch of f r a g m e n t e d half-truths.

• The critics are the ones behind you, ridiculing you, because you are doing what they could not , because they were too fearful.

• My art table is an altar.

• Almost all our toil in this world is just so we can fill up our stomachs temporarily.

• The hero is the martyr. The martyr is the hero.

• The hero always has a weak spot in which the villain can hurt him through: the love for another.

• Do you think that if you are good enough, you will make God a debtor to you so He will let you stroll into heaven? No my friend; you are a debtor to him.

• God uses at least 4 ways to communicate to men: 1. Creation, 2. Conscience, 3. Christ, 4. Scripture

• If you're using art to show how different you are, if you're living a life to show the world how weird, crazy, obnoxious, psycho, off- the-wall you are: you don't have to dress weird, do weird art, or even talk weird. You don't have to do weird things, do weird things to your body, or have weird beliefs: ALL YOU HAVE TO BE IS A CHRISTIAN! That's right! You want to offend someone? Be a Christian. You want people to think you're weird? Be a Christian. You want people to think you are so off the wall? Be a Christian. You want people to hate you? Be a Christian. You want people to persecute you for your beliefs? Be a Christian.

You will drive people nuts! They won't understand you. They won't be able to figure you out! People will be offended by your lifestyle. People will think you're weird, hate you, and persecute you. Because your lifestyle is so off the wall that no one wants to be a Christian! People think that cussing, tattoos, nose rings, pink hair, drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, Satanism, etc, is offensive? You take all those things in the world that offend people and add all those who are offended up, and the number of offendees will not even come close to the number of offendees Christianity creates! So, offend some people. Do it today! Do it for Christ! Be a Christian!

• Satan has so blurred the ideas of good versus evil, and have made people so indifferent in this world that the movies and entertainment that are made today can’t even be compared to the movies of yesteryear. The movies of yesteryear expounded upon right and wrong, good and evil. Today’s movies do not. Today, movies are made by indifferent people for indifferent people and are works of hideous nonsense, for no one cares about right or wrong. If the ideas of right and wrong are done away with (or worse traded in for new morality) then the very fundamentals of entertainment are destroyed. Isn’t entertainment supposed to teach us a little more about the human race? But, instead, we are just left confused. One’s ideas of right and wrong are not the same as another’s ideas of right and wrong and we are left with moral relativism. Today’s movies lack a spirit of good and evil; you can’t take one side of reality (the physical) and separate it from the other side (the spiritual)- and I think that is the reason for the lack of any virtuous characters in movies. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who the hero is supposed to be... What we’re essentially dealing with is good and evil, and good and evil is a spiritual reality that manifests itself in the physical. I suppose that even satanic movies have more of a “spirit” to them than a “normal” movie- just the wrong spirit. There are no longer any characters that have high ideals of making things right, they only want to make things “their” right.

2003

• There is more to manhood than football, hot rods, sex, audio systems, etc. There is a manhood beyond all that. It transcends space and time and Jesus was that First Man. He’s the man’s Man. He knows what manhood (and Godhood) is.

• Only those furthest away from God know how far God can reach.

• Hell and justice go together. Likewise, Heaven and love go hand in hand. If there is no hell, there is no justice. If there is no heaven, there is no love. Ah, but God IS Justice and He IS Love. Therefore Hell and Heaven Do exist. People want ultimate justice without a Hell.

• Heaven will be God’s art gallery. And who will God be displaying? His special people, his children, his elect. I’ll be happy to be displayed for the glory of God for all eternity.

• If my purpose in life was to just do art, that would be a pretty pitiful existence, would it not? And yet my body, everyday strives towards that pitiful end. I was meant for more. I was meant to serve the Lord.

• There are not too many opportunities in this life to show how much you really love Jesus. Being a martyr is one of those few opportunities. Don’t miss that one.

• The traits that we all look for in a hero are all found in God. The traits that we look for in a suitable companion are all found in God. The people we wish we could be, the traits we desire to have are all found in God.

• Death is the unseen, inevitable enemy of which we all will face someday. You will either shrink in defeat , or you will conquer to the glory of God. Will you be able to say with Paul, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55)

• Western civilization cannot be conceived apart from Christianity. Christianity can’t be conceived apart from Jesus’ resurrection. Both hinge on the fact that Christ rose from the dead.

• Is the world passing me by, because I don’t immerse myself in its media? Or am I passing the world up as they see me move ahead?

• The Lord delivered Israel from their outside enemy (Egypt). Then He had to deliver them from themselves. That’s what God does for all of us.

• You do not appreciate life until you’ve experienced death, or close to it.

• The highest mountain in hell won’t even come close to the deepest valley in heaven.

• Someone trying to convince me that God doesn’t exist is like me trying to convince them that your parents or brothers or sisters don’t exist.

• God’s love prevails because He can draw any sinner to Himself. God’s love prevails because it is more satisfying than the life man can create apart from Him. God’s love prevails because it is more powerful than Satan’s will to stop a sinner from going to Him. You can’t keep two lovers apart.

• The world puts the names of their gods on their cars; why shouldn’t I put the name of my God on my car?

• God has His master plan for this world. You can be a part of it or not be a part of it.

• God’s covenants are irrevocable. If He adds one, the previous ones are still in effect. This is amazing to me, because with each subsequent covenant (Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic), He limited the possibilities of the Messiah only coming through all of them. Jesus went through each “hoop” all the way to the cross.

• It’s easy for people to condemn David for his sins. “He sunk to the depths of unrighteousness” they say. That may be true, but how many of the condemners have ever reached the HEIGHTS of his relationship with God? He sunk to the depths—true. But how many have soared to his heights?

• I’d like to ask the atheist if the sun is shining at midnight. (“I don’t see it”).

• People worship their fiberglass gods. They may not have gods on a shelf in the living room, but they sure do have one in the driveway. They wash it, ritually, every two days. They shine it up. They even put the god-cover on it at night. They look at it through the window before they go to bed and dream of their god. They go to work to provide for their god. All this for a god who will rust before the owner does.

• Before God can use someone, it’s got to be clean. You don’t use a dirty bucket to clean your can and you don’t use a dirty glass to drink form. The Holy Spirit has to bring you (clean you) into the Kingdom first, then He can use you.

• The smaller you are, the less you have to lose.

• A story is only as good as the conflict it takes to get to the goal. A hero can’t just walk up and take the prize; he must go through hell to get it.

• You want to know what power is? Try opening your grave from the inside.

• Without God in your heart, you have NO proof that God loves you. You don’t know if He does! You don’t know the first thing about God’s love!

• Christians have always separated themselves from the society in which they live. But 21st century Christians are more compromising than 1st century Christians ever were. I don’t see Christians turning off their TV or not going to rated R movies! They are freely immersing themselves in the evil society in which they live. Also, Christians are being more subtle in their message to the world (no crosses on churches, no mention of Jesus in Christian music, sermons from the pulpit are a blend of post-modern psychology mixed with stand-up comedian-level entertainment). Guess what! For all the subtleness and antics and facades that Christians are putting on today: the world is still turning its back on us! Why are we bending over backwards when the world certainly won’t? Why are we watering down the gospel? The world needs 100% gospel! It won’t come for anything less! Instead of worrying about entertaining the “poor heathen” who may happen to enter your church, may I suggest you worry about getting 100% gospel of Jesus Christ to them?

• The quality of my life is determined by the quantity of time I spend with my Lord.

• God doesn’t call you to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. He doesn’t call you to vote for the best of the Republicans. God calls you to vote for the RIGHT person. God doesn’t call us to vote for the winner! He just asks us to vote right! Vote for the person who is in line with the Word of God! And if there is no such person on the ballot, then don’t vote for any of them. If all the Christians in this country were voting for who they were supposed to be voting for rather than for who they think should win, this country would be a different place. I’d rather vote for the loser, doing God’s will, than vote for the winner and disobey God. Who you vote for, you will be held accountable for. I answer to the Lord, not the polls.

• Love is when you want to shine the spotlight on the other person.

• Don’t try creating art on an empty spirit.

• Think of the insults that the Israelites must have had thrown at them by the Jerichoites. Satan will try anything to discourage you. Jericho underestimated—not Israel but their God. Pharaoh underestimated—not Moses, but his God. Goliath underestimated—not David, but his God.

• God uses small people to do His BIG plans. He can’t use BIG people to do His BIG plans, because they get in the way.

• If anyone could’ve made it, it should’ve been Adam. No ghetto. No abusive parents. No traumatic childhood. Everything he ever wanted. He still failed. Do you think you could’ve done a better job?

• If you break one clause in any modern-day contract, you are guilty of breaking the contract. God’s contract (the Law) is no different.

• Calvary isn’t pretty to look at. No one said it was. But it’s only through that blood and disgust and that death that our redemption is made.

• Whether humans realize it or not everything they do is proving that they are incapable of self-rule. Come quickly Lord Jesus!

• If I can teach someone about God, through art, then why not? If I can bring joy through a piece of art to someone, then I ask, “Why not?”

• There are so many things that tug at my heart, for it to follow. God tugs at my heart from the inside.

• When I gave my life to Christ, I was in it for the long haul. What makes anyone think that they can drag me away from Him? What can they offer that is better than God Himself?

2004

• If you don’t want to love God, you really don’t have to. Guess what? He will give you exactly what you want: an eternity separated from Him (hell).

• Isn’t it interesting? Atheists claim they have no hell to fear, because they deny its existence. Christians have no fear of hell because God is their Savior. Two different solutions to the same problem. Too bad only one of them will work.

• If there was no conflict in the world, would we really turn to God? That’s what the Garden of Eden proved and that’s what the Millennium will prove.

• God must punish sin. God doesn’t send good people to hell. He sends sinners to hell. His justice must be satisfied. Satan’s iniquity was punished and so will humanity’s. What He did for one He will do for the other. Sin is sin in His book: it doesn’t matter who commits it, only that the punishment must be paid. Blood must be spilled. It will either be your blood or the blood of Another.

• God has never done anything that He didn’t have His whole heart into.

• Jesus gave His blood so I could give my heart to Him.

• I was thinking of how God is with a person throughout his lifetime. He’s with him in Kindergarten, Junior High, High School, college, Marriage, career, 75 and death. God has no favoritism. He can use an 80 year old just as much as a teenager. He’s with each of us continually. How sad it is then when we ignore Him in our life. Young people think they are indispensable. The Senior Citizen wonders if God can still use him. Why doesn’t the young person make the decision now to serve God? He will have a whole life of love ahead of him! Don’t ignore Him! God is with you through it all, every day, every age.

• Take away Christianity; go ahead; what will you put in its place?

• Jesus has such a beautiful heart.

• I shudder to think the judgment these female models will incur on the Day of Judgment. These super models for cosmetics, Victoria’s Secret, Playboy etc. will be judged by God Almighty for all their paid labor to entice men to sin. God will say, “Why did you tempt men? Why did you use the beauty I gave you for your own sinful gain? Men have enough sin apart from you. Depart from me you workers of iniquity.”

• When do people most often give up? When they are almost there! Don’t give up on whatever God has called you to do! What if Jesus would’ve “thrown in the towel” in Gethsemane? Our redemption never would’ve happened. Pick up your cross and follow Him!

• Influence the influencers.

• One of my understandings of demons from the bible is that they are continually in search of a host (someone or something with life in them, to feed off or). When they separated themselves from the Source of Life (God), they willingly stepped into an eternity of wandering; an eternity of continually searching for other not-so-good sources of life (animals, people; preferably people).

• Who’s to say that one of my ancestors wasn’t one of the Romans who beat Jesus? Or, are you only exempt from the human family’s plague of sin? Don’t tell me the gospel is Anti-Semitic. It’s not any more Anti-Semitic than it is Anti-Gentile. But it’s really Anti-Sin. It’s Anti-Human Nature. It’s Anti-Death. It’s Anti-Satan. Don’t try to distance yourself from the cross; it’s the source of your new life.

• It’s through His shed blood that we find life. It’s through His blood that we find forgiveness. It’s through His pain that we find restoration with our Heavenly Father. He took the fall—our fall—freely—so we could be with Him in eternity.

• The Transfiguration of Jesus perhaps shows the glory that men had before the fall. The glory that Jesus has brought back for us.

• The Pharisees wanted to argue with God. They wanted “God’s Word” God-free. They wanted their own little system to get to heaven; it’s called “religion”. They wanted to get to God’s home and “kick out God”. And that is what religion does: it sets the individual on the throne and has no place for God.

• The price for our redemption was a piece of God’s heart.

• Every person Jesus healed was potentially another “vote” for His Kingship. Every person’s life that He touched should’ve backed Him up when it was time. Where were all the people He healed when He was being condemned to death?

• I’ve heard it said, “You know, there have been other people who have suffered more than Jesus did.” My question for them is, “Name one.” Even if it came close to the physical brutality He suffered through, it in no way acknowledges the spiritual suffering He endured; suffering that no sinful-born human can even begin to fathom. He was absolutely separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit for our iniquities. It wouldn’t have hurt us spiritually, because we’ve never been close to God to begin with. But Jesus—He hurt for us. I am the proud recipient of a God-given grace.

• There is amazing typology in the story of Isaac’s bride: Abraham (antitype God) sends his “oldest servant” (antitype Holy Spirit) to find a bride (antitype Church) for his son, Isaac (antitype Jesus). How beautiful!

• Solomon said “All is vanity”. And that is true, if you leave out the spiritual perspective of things. Creating corruptible pieces of art that will be destroyed someday IS vanity, but not if it has an impact on someone’s relationship with God. If it was JUST a piece of art, then, yes, it’d be vanity. But if it’s a piece of art that God has commissioned you to do and His Spirit can work through it to affect someone’s life towards God—then, no, not vanity. At that point it has eternal significance even if the artwork is destroyed the next day. It is powerful.

• On Jesus ruling this earth: Only a man in David’s lineage has the promise of ruling the nations. Only a God could rule flawlessly. Jesus has both natures. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

• Jesus’ Passion was the “laboratory” for testing all of His teachings of the previous three years (“love your neighbor as yourself”, “don’t be overcome by evil”, etc.). His Passion (the betrayal, sweat, whippings, beatings, thorns, mockings, crucifixion, separation from the Father) was to show that His teachings weren’t just “hot air”. He kept them. He followed His own advice. He never lashed back at His enemies. He has never asked us to do what He hasn’t done Himself.

• A virgin womb and a virgin tomb.

• A short answer to why bad things happen to good people: John 9:3: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” This was Jesus answer as to why the blindman had been born blind.

• About the bread that Jesus dipped and gave to Judas: Why did He dip it? Was Jesus offering Himself even then to His betrayer? Did the dipping symbolize Jesus’ forthcoming sacrifice? Did it symbolize the blood that Judas was betraying? Would it have had the same impact had Jesus not dipped that bread?

• It’s not “faith” and “works”. It’s “faith” and “love”. Are you a “worker” for God? Then you are a “lover”.

• Love/obedience/action go together. How can we be blessed if we don’t bless God first? Blessing comes from love/obedience/action.

• When you read the word “Levites” in the Bible, try substituting “Christians” in your mind. For both Levites and Christians were “set apart” for the service of God.

• You know, the Resurrection isn’t without its precursors in this world. Every Spring the world witnesses life coming out of death. Have you ever had your skin burned? My dad tells the story of my Grandfather having his arm burned to a crisp by an exploding welding air tank. There was no check valve on the tank and the flame got sucked back into the tank and it exploded. Well, my Grandfather, to protect his face, had his entire left arm burnt. His skin was all crispy-dead. About 8 months later, the doctor came and cut away that crispy skin and right underneath was vibrant pink skin like a baby. Life from death. Have you ever put a clear, thick, plastic sheet on the grass in 100° weather? Well, I did and the heat cooked all the underlying grass. But, within a few weeks, green grass had begun to appear again. About a month later it was 80% green again. Life from death. And finally, in 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. The lava destroyed miles upon miles of vegetation. And yet, within a few years, vegetation had begun to grow again. That is life from death. Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead isn’t that hard to believe. Yet somehow, people will not believe it because it is too “extraordinary”. How “extraordinary” are the four aforementioned examples of life from death?

• Nehemiah was so upset when Tobias had made a room for himself in the house of God.(Nehemiah 13:4-9) So, Nehemiah chucked all of Tobias’ belongings out of the room. People aren’t to make themselves rooms in the house of God. It doesn’t work that way. God makes a room for you. You don’t make room for God in your life; He makes room for you. “ You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . .” (John 15:16a)

• I can’t stop time, but I can stop wasting time.

• When Jesus forgave the adulteress (John 8:11), He didn’t just do it arbitrarily. He did it because He knew without a doubt that He would be sacrificing Himself for her sins on Calvary. There was no possibility that it wouldn’t happen, therefore, He could forgive her beforehand.

• For the evolutionist :If something works well one way, then why try it another way? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Isn’t that how the theory of evolution works? If an organism was evolving just fine one way, then why would it try other ways and risk stopping the whole process? However, evolution doesn’t explain the diversity of kinds in the world. There are myriads of different kinds of the same animals. Evolution, it would seem, would not have “taken the chance” to “step out on a ledge” just to create different kinds of the same kind.

• When I was in High School, I was asked a question in US Government class: “If smoking Marijuana was part of a person’s religion, does the government have the right to stop that person from smoking Marijuana?” I naively answered, “If it is genuinely part of their religion the government has no right to take their religious ritual away.” I had an ulterior motive for answering that way. If the government was going to take away these people’s religious rights away, then the next step would be to take Christianity’s religious rights away. Now, nine years later, let me answer the question correctly: “Yes, the Government DOES have the right to stop these religious people from smoking Marijuana.” Human government is established by God to protect people from others and from themselves (hence the laws forbidding suicide, drugs, not wearing seatbelts, etc.) If someone is hurting himself, the Government has the right to stop him. The Government has no other purpose for existence than to protect its citizens, yes, even from themselves. It is a scientifically proven fact that Marijuana kills brain cells, hence, the Government is mandated to stop them. Now, back to my naïve answer of “genuineness”. A person could be genuine and be genuinely evil. A person could be genuine and be genuinely ignorant of the fact that they were killing themselves slowly. Consider the same question asked like this: “If human sacrifice was part of a person’s religion, does the government have the right to stop them from sacrificing humans?” And the answer is, of course, “Yes”. Genuineness of a person’s actions doesn’t absolve the Government’s decision to stop them. The Government is mandated to stop evil (at least in theory; look at the tobacco and alcohol industries). Religion isn’t above human government. That is what the Bible teaches. Now, about the Government taking Christianity’s religious freedoms away: the time is coming. There is not much that I can do to stop it. But let it be known that tolerating other evil religious rights won’t buy Christendom any time.

• As you look around know one owns their houses and cars, or even their education. The banks have made people slaves. So, when the Mark comes, they are going to make it very appealing. They’re not going to say, “We have something new and we expect you to take it.” They’re going to say, “We have something new AND we will forgive you all your previous debt if you accept this Mark.” That would be very appealing to the world and, unfortunately, to most of Christendom. Who wouldn’t want the chance to be forgiven of their debt. Where did they counterfeit that concept of forgiveness from? May I encourage you to try and live without debt?

• On Shroud of Turin, Pieces of the Cross, James’ Ossuary, etc. People will bend over backwards to believe in anything other than God. People will stake their faith in anything as long as it is not God. None of those things can ever save you. Now, granted those things may be legit. So what? Will it make any difference between Jesus and me? As for me, I’d rather reserve my little-as-it-is faith for Jesus alone, because it is going to take all I have to keep walking in faith.

• Excellence in Christian art shouldn’t be confined to bumper stickers.

• Satan disguises death as life.

• God will not be defeated in His creation of this world. He won’t destroy it and leave it destroyed; He will destroy it to make it new (which was His plan the whole time). Nature on this earth (including animals, plants, bugs, etc) can not be defeated as God’s original creation. (Which is why, in my theory, I believe that we will see our pets in heaven). He will not be defeated in creating humans with free will; He will not destroy a person for eternity. They will keep their free will, be separate with God and be punished for eternity by their own choice.

• Paul talks about “…I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent concerning evil.” (Romans 16:19). That means don’t be looking at racy stuff or anything that you know you shouldn’t be looking at. You shouldn’t be looking at evil things. The world does enough of that; why should Christians add more evil to the world?

• Jesus never promised physical blessings; He did promise irrepressible life (as Oswald Chamber said). You only get out of a life that which you give. You can give Jesus all day long and never run out. He should be flowing through each of us continually.

• Temptations are opportunities to do good or evil.

• The Law condemned sin in the Spirit (Romans 7:14) and Jesus condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3)

• A hero saves people along the way to his goal. He helps people who can’t help themselves out of situations. He’s not just a selfish hero on a journey who blocks out all non-essential obstacles to obtain his prize. No! When he sees someone in need, along the way, he helps them. He does good to people. Then, he gets back on his journey. The Hero’s journey is the road to Calvary.

• Jesus wasn’t just the Second Adam; He was the Second Noah, the Second Abraham, the Second Moses, the Second David and the Second Robert.

• How do you think Moses felt when he read “Thou shalt not kill” for the first time? God uses people even after their mistakes.

• When God doesn’t bless people in the way they want to be blessed, they start looking for ways to bless themselves: gambling, sex, alcohol, etc. They are willing to sin against God in hopes of being more blessed than what God would’ve given them. That’s kind of what sin is: it’s a hope placed in something else other than God for the purpose of being a blessing more than God Himself. (i.e. “Let’s live together and save money on rent”.) Sin is all about taking shortcuts to “blessings”. Sin is thinking you have a better plan than God has for your life. Sin is thinking you can do a better job of running your life than God can. Sin is a misplaced hope. Sin is a deception of Satan. Sin is the opposite of love, hope, faith. And the wages of sin lead to death itself.

• When you lust after a woman, you set her up as a goddess, which not only makes you an adulterer but an idolater.

• No one can kill Christianity. They can kill me, but there will be 10 more to take my place. Christianity is UNSTOPPABLE! Christ will rule this entire earth. The sooner you realize that, the happier you’ll be.

• Do something heroic today.

• If I’m not a hero in the little things, I’ll never be a hero in the big things.

• It’s only in the midst of incredible evil that incredible heroism is displayed.

• Being an artist is about saying what needs to be said to the world, at tremendous cost to yourself.

2005

• Jesus was the King of sorrow.

• Applied scientists (engineers, doctors, etc.) benefit mankind on the outside. Artists benefit mankind on the inside. Of course, it could be argued that engineers and doctors are just other types of artists that are being creative. But their craft has more to do with function than with form. Artists deal with form to affect people’s hearts.

• To be an artist is to carry pain. To be a Christian is to give that pain to Jesus.

• The world is your enemy in not only taking things from you—jobs, finances, you very life— but also in giving things to you —prestige, acclamation, pats-on-the-back—things that will destroy you either way.

• How can pastors criticize congregations for being so fickle and vacillating, moving from church to church, when the pastors themselves, at the drop of a better salary, will leave their congregations flat?

• Love is anti-evil.

• In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus said, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” “If it is possible” for what? That there was another way to redeem mankind? No. Jesus knew that if mankind was to be redeemed, which is what the Scriptures promised, that only the Deliverer would be able to do it. Jesus was locked into it. He knew that. So why did He ask “if it is possible”? Because His flesh certainly didn’t want to go through it. And yet He did. He stayed true to the Father’s will and the unbroken Scriptures of old.

• Jesus died at His own time; exactly when He wanted to. No doubt about that. But His broken body also lost all of its blood. In 16 hours, His body was completely dry. It even amazed Pontius Pilate. The High Priest’s soldiers and the Roman soldiers beat the blood out of Him before He was even on the cross. I think He lasted as long as He could. He had only one last cycle of heart pumping left and He died before His heart beat its last. He died in the precise time He wanted to. But, let it be known that He did not “wimp out”. He gave ALL His blood. He knew His blood was the answer to our sins and He wanted to give it ALL. Everything He does, He does with His whole heart in it.

• For those people who are against the 10 commandments (both liberal Christians and unbelievers), I would like to ask you a question: Name one of the commandments that shouldn’t be followed. See, these people can criticize God’s Law all they want, and try and make it antiquated, but when it comes down to it, they are fighting something that is good to the core (which makes them look evil). The Law is God’s character. It is absolutely holy without a shred of injustice anywhere in it. It has never been revoked by God, whether you’re a Christian or not—if you’re a Christian, it’s written on you’re heart. If you’re not, it’s still on those tablets of stone. So, who can keep it? You can try and make it a religion (and try and follow it), but you will fail. Or, you can submit to God and have him live inside of you. Only God knows how to follow God’s Law. There is only one solution: faith, not religion, when it comes to the 10 commandments. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. He is the completion of it. He’s the one that makes the Law a completed package, able to obey. You either follow Him, or don’t bother trying to follow His Law.

• To any man who seeks to betray, subvert, change or distort Jesus into anything other than who He is, take a lesson from Judas: for your future is only death.

• “Good Works” is more than just creating art.

• I will live by your Law even if it kills me.

• All artwork should be done to praise God, to worship Him. How could one worship Him subtlety?

• God didn’t create art to be secular. All art was designed to be “Unto the LORD.”

• A universal truth is a true Truth.

• After an earthquake, the News reporters can only ask questions. The preachers are the ones giving the answers.

• No Messiah but Yeshua.

• Being a hero is about counting the cost and doing it anyway.

• There are great men and then there are great men of God.

• If something (or Someone) brighter and larger came from behind the sun, it would certainly be darkened! (This is in regards to the sun being darkened in Matthew 24:29).

• Every time you step out in faith, you are testing God’s faithfulness.

• To know God is to obey God. To know God is to fear God. To know God is to love God.

• Honesty and Reality have taken the place of right and wrong—both in storytelling and reality shows. Someone can be honestly right or honestly wrong; people really don’t care as long as they are honest. Reality shows give an excuse to glorify sin.

• The closer you art to Truth, i.e. abiding in Christ, the freer you will be from error.

• It is pretty sad that non-Christian artists exhibit more faith in getting their artwork done than Christian artists who actually have a God to give them strength and are still afraid to sit down and do artwork.

• Satan doesn’t want you to be happy. He wants you to have the illusion of happiness.

• Use your influence to influence.

• Jesus freely gave Himself to the cause of making my life better. Jesus died abundantly, so that I could have life abundantly. Jesus identified Himself with sin, so I wouldn’t have to. .Jesus took the fall so I wouldn’t have to.

• Satan made himself the underdog of this own story. He wanted to portray God as a bully and one who was to be rebelled against. But his “underdog” status should be seen for what it is: the result of pride. Jesus’ underdog status was due to His immense love for each of us.

• Sin is always: a result of pride, self-centered, a lack of faith destructive estrangement from God, a waste of time, despisement of Jesus’ blood, makes you the god of your own demise.

• Christ is eternal. When you are in Christ, your freedom is eternal. When you are outside of Christ, your freedom is finite.

• God will never do anything that contradicts His nature. He can’t.

• I am unwilling to label myself anything other than “Christian”. I think labels are beneficial for creating wars, spilling blood and causing disunity, but really do not benefit the solidarity of the body of Christ.

• To say that Christ’s death is the only thing that saved us is too simplified. Technically it was Jesus’ suffering AND death. You couldn’t have the death without the suffering. And you couldn’t be atoned for without the death. Same goes for the death and the Resurrection. You couldn’t have a resurrection without death. And you couldn’t have a new life without the Resurrection. It is all connected. You can’t separate them.

• God gives men bodies. He gives them bodies, he gives them air to breath and keeps their heart pumping. And what does man do? He uses his body to sin against God. Ingrates.

• Separation from God is always man-ordained.

• Am I a Calvinist or an Armenian? Let me answer that question with a question: “Is salvation the best thing you ever put your faith in or is it the best thing Jesus ever gave to you?”

• A spirit cannot separate itself from the Source of Life and expect to still live. That goes for humans, angels and demons.

• “Absolute Autonomy” is a misnomer. God’s autonomy is limited by His Nature. He cannot do anything above (or below) His Nature. Take for instance His love for us. It’s not that He won’t turn us into robots to love Him; it’s that He CANNOT. Every decision He makes is limited by His own Nature. Everything God does or allows to happen, He has His whole heart into. He cannot do anything else.

• God is not the Author of sin. He is the Author of free will. God cannot be blamed for our taking that free will and doing what we will with it.

• What can man do to me? I’m already dead.

• You don’t deal with temptation by submitting to it, nor by fighting it, but by giving it to God to kill it.

• My flesh is too weak, my imagination is too strong, my evil is too great. I cannot be holy apart from the LORD.

• God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows that will he also reap. If you sow it in your mind, you’ll reap it in your mind. If you sow it in your heart you’ll reap it in your heart. If you sow it in your spirit you’ll reap it in your spirit.

• It’s easy to fight the devil; you rebuke him in Jesus’ name. But, how do you fight your flesh?

• To be free from God is to be an indentured servant to Satan.

• Satan taught me the ropes: lying, cheating, stealing, backstabbing. For years he had me in his grip, doing those things to my fellow man and to my God-the God that he backstabbed many millennia ago. I became a Christian in 1994. Now I use what I’ve learned from Satan against him. He hates it. I’ve backstabbed God’s backstabber. Heh, Heh. That makes me a double-crosser twicefold. Thankfully, though, God has forgiven me and I’m now working in the enemy camp.

• Jesus is the only one in history who was specifically born so that He may die. All other men were born to live.

• Spending time with family and friends—as good as those things are—does not supercede spending time with the Lord of the Universe.

2006

• The love of God defines my existence.

• I have to believe that obeying God is infinitely more gratifying than disobeying Him.

• I want to grow up into that “perfect man” to the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

• There is a difference between “compromising” and “being balanced”. Compromising is going to the middle when only one side is true. Being balanced is going to the middle when both sides are true.

• Salvation is a free gift. Not a cheap gift.

• Wasted time is essentially time spent on things I think I need.

• There is not a sin out there that will bring value to my life.

• The first country to throw off the reigns of Darwinism will be the first country to lead Science into the new millennium.

• Getting something you don’t deserve is more thrilling than if you deserved it. For instance, making a green light is great, but it’s not exciting. Making an orange light is exciting, because you don’t deserve it. That’s how salvation is. If I deserved heaven how exciting would that be? It’s because I don’t deserve it and the fact that it has been given to me—that makes it something I long for everyday.

• If God can forgive you for things you deliberately did to hurt Him, can you at least try to forgive Him for the things you think He did to hurt you?

• Women live to tempt men and men live to be tempted.

• Evolution says that “this” is the way things are supposed to be, so don’t fight it. Christianity says that “this” is the way things are not to be, so fight it with all that is within you; that is, Christ.

• For the evolutionist: if God is cruel than how do you explain life, nature, love? Would a cruel God create those things? And then if there is no God, then you have nothing to be upset about. Just accept it.

• How does a Christian Evolutionist reconcile his conscience that says” Do good to others” with the theory of evolution that says, “Stomp on others”?

• What Adam was not able to do in a perfect garden, Jesus did in a dry wilderness.

• The greatest villains are the attractive ones. Not just physically, but in wisdom, power and cunning deceit. You can forget depicting the devil with horns and pitchfork.

• Satan is his own tragic hero. He is fighting for something that he can never obtain: the throne of God.

• I’m putting all my stock into Christianity, because it is Truth. Truth doesn’t share its reign with falsehood.

• I try to speak the Truth in love, but sometimes it doesn’t come out that way.

• You can’t outrun death, but you can outwit it with Jesus’ wisdom.

• I see a lot of Christians following after brand-name pastors and brand-name churches. If that isn’t idolatry then I don’t know what is.

• The good thing about evil is that it is finite and will not last forever.

My convictions toward God are stronger than my convictions towards any political party.

• I’d rather be despised in the world’s eyes so that I may be exalted in God’s eyes.

• A good artist stays one step ahead of his audience’s expectations.

• People think that the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color space is a new invention. God was using RGB way before the advent of computers. Check out rainbows, sunsets, the Northern Lights and nebulas for examples.

• I want to love God and do His will forever.

• The most famous people of today are the most quickly forgotten of tomorrow.

• Marriages fail because one or both spouses are after what they can get and not what they can give.

• Sin is distancing yourself from God and the hurting of others.

• The beauty of a woman is something that should be protected, not exploited.

• Data is only as good as the media it’s stored on.

• God’s love is unrelenting.

• Men are born to fight battles. Whether it’s on the job, projects, himself, the world, or the devil.

• To love the gift more than the Giver is sin. (This is in reference to art, women, finances, family accomplishments, etc.)

• Creativity is something to be controlled; not to be controlled by. Art Sabbaths are essential to the Christian artist.

• Controversy will always be evident in your life when you’re on the side of Truth.

• Showing sin in all its glory is not a sign of maturity it’s a sign of immaturity.

• Love is always beautiful, not matter what the means.

• The opposite of compromise is standing for the Truth. The opposite of tolerance is passion.

• Not all inactivity is of the devil and not all activity is of God.

• Our salvation was excruciating.

2007

• The only donor/patron I have is God.

• The surface temperature of the sun is about 5500°Celsius. Rest assured, hell is a much hotter place.

• Evolutionists talk out of both sides of their mouth. They ridicule Creation as nothing more than chance, and yet they are still in awe of it.

• The idolization of youth is inversely proportionate to the disrespect of parents and elders.

• The future isn’t so much as something we “get to” as it is something that is shoved “to us” by God. The future is a gift from God; He is continually feeding it to us.

• You don’t have to obey your flesh. It does not control you. You control it. You are dead to sin. Crucified with Christ. The Holy Spirit is the engine of sanctification. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Discipline is our power working with the spirit. The holiness of God is both what destroys us and what gives us life. The first encounter with God’s holiness is to cry out for death.

• My identity is wrapped up in Jesus. If you took Jesus away from Robert, there would be no Robert.

• God went above and beyond His “duty”: He not only atoned for our sins (got rid of them) and made us clean. But He put His Spirit in us to actively do good works. It’s not about just stopping sinning; it’s about actively doing good!

• You will only do with a wife (i.e. prayer, worship, love) what you do before a wife.

• We were once aliens toward God, but now we are aliens towards the world.

• People are so fickle. If God shows mercy, they question His justice. If God shows justice, they question His mercy.

• The world can only have tolerance if all truths are equal. Tolerance is only possible if all truths are equal. But that is not the case. There is only one Truth, the gospel of Christ.

• God had to rule over each man’s heart before He could rule the world.

• The Christian life can be summed up as inputting and outputting. You should be inputting: the Bible, good teaching, your conscience, preachers, friends, nature, etc. And you should be outputting: witnessing, creating art, relationships with people. The problems occur in a Christian life when you are only doing one and not the other. If all you are doing is inputting and not outputting, consider yourself like Hoover Dam about to break. If all you’re doing is outputting, consider yourself a dried up tree with no more fruit to give.

• Jesus is my peace treaty. He is my covenant.

• There is no shame in excellence. It is a gift from God.

• God’s will comes in pieces. It’s a serial.

• Christianity says there is a problem and there is a solution. Evolution says there is not problem and there is no need for a solution.

• You will either love God or love money. You will either hate God or hate money.

• Jesus didn’t prolong His suffering on the cross AND He didn’t shorten it. He lasted as long as any man could. He gave it His all. The whipping alone should have brought His time on the cross to an hour; but He persevered. He wanted sin eradicated from the universe. He wanted to please His Father to the utmost. He completed His mission.

• Every attribute of God is found in humans, though in limited form: omnipresence>presence, omniscient>scient, omniloving>loving, etc.

• God knows that you are valuable, that you are the image of God and that you belong to Him.

• When you find a woman who is everything you want, you are willing to make yourself a fool to win her love.

• Satan has misconstrued the idea of heaven. He says it will boring, uninteresting, with nothing to do. It will be totally exciting—things that we can’t even imagine. That is why Satan confuses people with the concept of heaven. The concept of hell he also confuses. He just lies that it doesn’t exist.

• Worship of God is in the small things.

• You cannot separate your creativity from the God who gave it to you.

• Life is either about being your own god, or, serving the true God. Most people choose the former.

• Infidelity to God is hazardous to your health.

• You can try and please people for your whole life or you can be yourself.

• The heart of the Law is written on our hearts.

• The highest price paid for anything—ever—was Jesus’ blood for my soul.

• Protestants teach their kids to love God and not to fear Him. Catholics teach their kids to fear God and not to love Him. Somewhere in between is the balance.

• There is always a cost in defending the Truth. And there is always a benefit.

• You can’t have a happy ending until you enter Calvary first.

• The fact that God has created men in His image is the source of man’s nobility.

• Stories aren’t escapism; they’re education for the writer and the audience.

• Lucifer, like Adam, had everything they could ever want. And yet they both fell.

• Satan wants to possess or destroy the Throne of God. If He can’t have it, he will try and make sure that no one else will.

• I don’t want to do things that are not expanding the Kingdom.

• Love exists beyond the physical.

• Evolution is about the abolition of God and of sin.

• If you don’t love God you can’t love anyone. And if you do love God you can’t hate anyone.

• The path to victory is the destruction of pride.

• Why is there evil in the world? Because there is free will in the world. Not to mention my sinful nature and the devil himself.

• Satan created all the religions of the world. He did it to muddy the waters so people couldn’t see the Truth of Christianity. He doesn’t care if people don’t worship Him, just as long as they’re not worshipping God.

• Pornography will chew you up and spit you out.

• God doesn’t start something that He is not going to finish.

• Why is there free will in the world? Because God loved us enough to give us a choice. If you were an artist/writer and you had the opportunity to make your characters come alive, would you do it? And once alive, would you make them do your bidding or would you give them freedom?

• Why would God create us to love if He didn’t need us to love? Because God is love. He cannot stop loving or expressing His love any more than a singer can stop singing, a painter can stop painting or a boxer can stop boxing. He opened Himself up to heartache for ONE chance to show His love to another. And what did we do? We ran from Him.

• Every story starts out with an innocent hero who eventually takes the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (i.e. exchanges innocence for experience). But to win, he has to use the knowledge he has learned with his long-forgotten innocence.

• There are songs TO Jesus and there are songs ABOUT Jesus. But, everything needs to be done “unto the Lord”.

• The Father and the Son: “You wanted to see me, Father?” “Yes, my Son, please sit down. I wanted to talk to you about something very important.” “I’m listening.” “I have a mission for you… and you’re the only One that can do it for me.” “What is the mission, Father?” “I need you to sacrifice Yourself for my subjects. You will be beaten, mocked and killed for their sake. You are guaranteed success in your mission, but you are also guaranteed excruciating pain and sorrow. You will also need to be separated from me for a season.” The Son looked at His Father with tears in His eyes, “If this is your will for me, Father, then I will do it.”

• When God spoke the cosmos into existence, where did those words go? They didn’t just reverberated and stop; words from an eternal God are also eternal. They, like Him, are always “in the now”. In other words, the words that spoke the universe into existence—since they were first spoken—are still reverberating. They are literally still upholding/sustaining creation. Jesus spoke words of spirit and truth. Those words are also eternal. Those words are also still reverberating in people’s lives. Eternal words (i.e. eternal truth) spoken from an eternal God cannot be stopped. His words are the “code” that not only started the universe, but also keeps it running. It’s the language behind the universe. It’s interesting to note that the phrase “the Word of the LORD” appears 1200 times in the Old Testament. Those weren’t just sentences from God, they were the Word of God, the person of Jesus Christ. (See Psalm 19:1-4, Isaiah 55:11, Colossians 1:16-17, Romans 11:36)

• Sin= the object of your faith that isn’t God.

• Nothing will ever derail the plan of God.

• The Only Reason. The only reason my hands are soft is because His hands were pierced. The only reason my face has a smile is because His face had a frown.

The only reason I can stand is because His back was bent. The only reason I have joy in my life is because He had sorrow in His. The only reason the earth was created is because of the love that was shown at Calvary.

• God is an “all-or-nothing” God. He either wants all of you or none of you. There is no “half-way” following God. Can you imagine any coach of a football team saying to his team, “You don’t have to give me your all, just do whatever you feel you need to.” Or, a sergeant to his brigade: “You guys don’t have to put forth your full effort in this battle.” No way! Any football player or soldier who is not giving his all is a liability to the team! God wants you on His side only. Any effort not being used on God’s team is actually helping Satan’s team. That’s why God spits out lukewarm Christians: they are as useful as a Benedict Arnold, Brutus, or a Judas. Who needs them? God wants all of your time or none of your time, all of your talent or none of your talent, all of your riches or none of your riches. Pick your side now, because God is moving His team forward with or without you.

• People would rather read thousands of other books over the course of their lifetime rather than the One Book that will change their life. The Bible is the only Book that I don’t have to be on my guard; it is absolute truth that will expose my sin. It’s the only Book that I can talk to the Author, while reading.

• The way of a hero is always: 1. Humble yourself first 2. Exaltation later. That applies to Jesus and every Christian.

• What’s the difference between humbling yourself and self-sacrifice? Self-sacrifice is the end result of humbling yourself.

• There are basically two different kinds of stories: 1. Something invades the hero’s world (war, disease, a new person, etc.) and 2. the hero invades another world (new job, new goals, etc.)

• The comforts we enjoy are born from the seat and sacrifice of others. What are you sweating and sacrificing for?

• Love can seem like such a weak attribute at times. And yet God exhibits it perfectly. The strength of love is most commonly seen when both parties are in perfect union together.

• A good artist is always reinventing himself. (i.e. bending the rules of a genre)

• I don’t want people to like me just because of my talent; I want them to like me for who I am. And that is no different for God either. He doesn’t want people to love Him for what He’s done for them. He wants people to love Him for who He is.

• On Proverbs 31: besides the fact that this passage describes the woman of my dreams, it describes the woman of God’s dreams—His Bride!

• Men are born to rescue a woman. And yet, they themselves need rescuing from God.

• God never makes a covenant without blood.

• God abides in me like sap abides in a branch.

• Adam nor Eve were formed from a sperm or egg and yet they were fully human. Therefore, because Jesus wasn’t formed from a sperm or an egg (He was virgin born) makes Him fully human. But, actually, “human” is more than just being formed from a sperm or an egg. Being human is beyond the physical. God is more human than we are. “Human” existed before the physical universe. To be “human” is to truly live as you were created: as the imago deo—the image of God. Jesus is the Second Adam, specially created for a new race.

• People have leprosy of the soul. Putting bandages of good works over oozing sores of sin isn’t going to cure the disease. And the cure for leprosy of the soul is submitting your life to Jesus Christ.

• God defeats the enemy AND gets the girl! That is two missions accomplished!

• 1Samuel 2:10 is the first prophecy of the Bible that says that the Creator will destroy all His adversaries with the help of His “anointed one” (literally, Messiah). It’s also interesting to note that most of these messianic prophecies can be seen from a different angle. For example: “the adversaries of the LORD shall be broken in pieces” doesn’t necessarily mean just Jesus’ physical enemies. It could very well mean demons and Satan, in which case, most messianic prophecies could be looked at as ½ fulfilled since He demolished Satan’s forces at Calvary and the Garden Tomb.

• You can have a million thing in common with your wife and your marriage still won’t last. Or, you can have ONE thing in common—your love of Christ—and your marriage will last!

2008

• When Jesus rules this earth, all art will be Christian.

• I can’t be dogmatic in this, but it could be said that the father speaks through the Son (Heb 1:2) and the Holy Spirit speaks through the Word.

• Satan would destroy me if he had the chance. Thank you, Jesus for protecting me and all believers from his murderous tendencies.

• God could’ve chosen any archangel to redeem us from our sins if He wanted to. But He didn’t. Instead, He chose to become our Hero. He would do it right and He would do it best!

• If you destroy the enemy’s weapon, you render your enemy harmless. That’s what Jesus did “… that through death he might destroy him that the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14c.)

• “Apostle” means “one who is sent”. Jesus is called the “Apostle of God.” (Heb 3:1).

• Every blessing is given to give. You are blessed so you can bless others. The harvested will become the harvesters.

• The Father worships the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son worships the Holy Spirit and the Father. The Holy Spirit worships the Father and the Son. Always loving. Always giving. Always praising. That’s what each part of the Godhead does. That’s how I want to be with my woman.

• The greatest bossing God could give us is Himself. He brought us into a relationship with the Godhead.

• Here is real irony: the mob was accusing Jesus of blasphemy when they were beating and mocking (blaspheming) their God. At the very moment His prophecies were being fulfilled the mob was denying Jesus was a Prophet.

• What you’re willing to suffer for is what you identify with.

• You defeat temptation by praying fervently. Confess what you’re going through to God!

• God’s cup of wrath was going to destroy Jesus. That’s what the Passion is about. He became my sin. That’s why He had to be “destroyed” (i.e. separated from the Father on the cross).

• His justice said “leave”. His love said “stay!”

• Love is taking a wrong someone did to you and giving it to Jesus. Not so He can absorb it, but so He can destroy it!

• We use God’s image against Himself. We’re the identity thieves. We’re the evil ones. We’ve used our freedom against Him. We misrepresent Him. We’re the rebellious ones.

• God isn’t just love. He’s love and justice. He is balanced. We are the ones that try to push God to the extremes of ALL love or ALL justice.

• You’re not selling. You’re buying salvation from Jesus Christ with your faith.

• Satan is a pervert. Do you want to worship the Chief of the perverts? Satan preys on the weak. He’s a child-molester.

• The temptations that demons throw your way are useless. Remind the demons of that, and the fact that all their work is for nought and that their future zip code is in the Lake of Fire. Always rebuke demons in Jesus’ name.

• Satan says the same thing to us that he said to Jesus: “IF you are A son of God… prove it.” I don’t have to prove ANYTHING to Satan! I don’t answer to him. I answer to my Creator! I answer to the One who doesn’t answer to Satan: Jesus!

• In Matthew 6:30, Jesus is telling me not to worry and calls me, “O you of little faith.”. So—worry is a sign of lack of faith. God says we are to “walk by faith, not by sight.” Why does He tell us that? Isn’t that obvious? Satan and the world has conditioned us to not trust anything. And yet God designed us to love Him and know Him through innocent faith.

• Sin is impatient and is unkind. Sin envies; sin parades itself, is puffed up Behaves rudely, seeks its own, is provoked, thinks evil. Rejoices in iniquity and does not rejoice in the truth; Does not bear all things, does not believe all things, does not hope all things, does not endure all things. Sin always fails. (1 Corinthians 13 in the negative tense).

• If God says He has forgiven me, then I AM forgiven! Why Because He declares it so. It’s His universe. He makes the rules. If He has taken my sin and guilt then I simply need to believe that. That’s how powerful Christ’s blood was. To not believe Him makes His sacrifice useless and is a kick in the face. Quit thinking about your past. It’s destroyed by God. And God allowed it to happen. “Any man with his hand to the plow and looking back is not fit for the kingdom of God.

• God is omni-humorous. Some of the situations He sets up are really funny!

• The same reason that I didn’t want a woman falling in love with me for my accomplishments but for who I was, applies to God. Thank God for Who He is, not just what He’s done for you.

• There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You are in Christ. You are forgiven and forgiveness frees. I don’t have to guilt myself for the mistakes I’ve made. That’s the devil’s lie. Fear of sin? No! There is no fear in love (God).

• You want something negative or imperfect or disgusting to think about? Think about Jesus dying on the cross for you. He was made sin for us. Now that is disgusting.

• I was once an enemy of God. Now, I am a child of God!

• You can never fear doing God’s will. His rules. His universe. Your obedience.

• The first commandment (love God with all your heart, soul and strength) should be done first. It is like main pole for a big circus tent. Once that is done then everything else comes up with it.

• Whatever you’re going to believe, believe it in the throne room of God. Whatever you’re going to do, do it in the throne room of God, because He sees it and knows it that closely anyway.

• All fears disappear when you don’t want to disappoint your Father.

• The Helmet of Salvation equals the Helmet of Yeshua equals the Helmet of Jesus equals Thinking on Jesus’ person and His works.

• Satan says the same thing to us that he said to Jesus: “IF you are A son of God… prove it.” I don’t have to prove anything to Satan! I don’t answer to him, I answer to my Creator! I answer to the One who doesn’t answer to Satan: Jesus!

• In Matthew 6:30, Jesus is telling me not to worry and calls me, “O you of little faith.” So, worry is a sign of lack of faith. God says we are to “walk by faith , not by sight.” Why does He tell us that? Because Satan and the world has so conditioned us to not trust anything. And, yet God designed us to love Him and know Him through innocent faith.

2009

• You need to beat your body into subjection. Paul and Jesus did. Both fasted and got exercise. They only had water. Don’t treat your body good. It takes things for granted and then its pride brings issues or embraces the fiery darts of the wicked one. Treat your body bad until it starts obeying Christ.

• My will is to obey Jesus in me.

• Everyone has to grow up sometime. Growing up means trusting in God more and more as little children.

• God is the giver of time. It’s His; not yours. So give Him His deserved amount already! (All of it!)

• Jesus is above, inside and around me and my woman. There is no love relationship except when God is in the middle of it. And I thank God for the woman He has given me.

• I there is anyone who deserves to be bitter or angry, it’s God—not you.

• Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt by you.

• The devil tells me, You’ll fail, Robert. It’s time to freak out.” But, God tells me, “You’ll succeed, Robert. Put your faith in Me.”

• When I don’t give God my time, I’m not allowing Him to do His work in me. And that’s frustrating to Him.

• Don’t doubt God’s sovereignty and His power. You can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens you. You are STRONG in Christ—not weak! God will work out everything! You let Him worry about the details. You worry about taking the first steps He told you to take.

• Jesus isn’t just my Savior in 1994 and 1998; He’s my Savior EVERYDAY! He wants to save me from myself EVERYDAY! And nothing pleases Him more when I put my faith in Him everyday to save me from my flesh, the world and the devil.

• Regardless of the consequences, you need to obey God.

• God has every hair on your head numbered. He will take care of you and your anxieties. Doubts are truths that you make up for yourself, but there is only ONE truth that you should be believing: Jesus!

• Keep doing what God wants you to do. Jesus will NEVER fault you for doing what He Himself has done! “He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant… He humbles Himself…” Ph 2:7-8. If God could do that then I could do that. He will never blame me for following in His footsteps.

• Unfaithfulness to God is disobedience to God is obedience to Satan is faithfulness to Satan.

• Satan is not worth serving. He’s not worth my time. God is worth serving because He served me! Satan knows nothing about servanthood. Jesus’ nature is servanthood!

• Other people’s sins are not my responsibility. I need to keep myself in Christ.

• There are counterfeit everythings: friendships, Christians, success, love, lovemaking, etc. The Christians’ job is to determine what is real and what is counterfeit (i.e. counterfeit guilt).

• God says to me, “Do you honestly think I don’t know what I’m doing? You think I make mistakes?”

• Put your fears (OCD) to good use and start fearing God. Anything else that you fear is your god. Fear the One who can cast body and soul into hell.

• You are supposed to respect your parents and you are not to love them above God. That is the balance. They are the dispensers of life, but not the creators of it.

• If you have: humility plus fearing the Lord, you will get riches, honor and life. (Proverbs 22:4)

• I bow my will to Your will, Father. I bow my wisdom to Your wisdom, Father. I bow my ideals to Your ideals, Father. I bow my ideas of beauty to Your ideas of beauty, Father. I bow my story to Your story, Father.

• If you follow: righteousness plus mercy, you will find: life, righteousness and honor. (Proverbs 21:21)

• God only does good. God only says Truth.

• To be content is to be humble.

• Forgive yourself when you sin! Have mercy on yourself and live! Get out of your unforgiveness mood and enjoy life!

• It’s kind of scary to think that the only One holding back evil from happening is God. But not if you believe He’s powerful enough to do it. He’s the ONLY One that keeps you from doing evil; not yourself. Not fearing others, not fearing the government, or your conscience—fearing only Him! So put your faith in Him to keep you from doing evil. (It’s either really scary or really peaceful to believe God keeps us from evil).

• “What if” statements regarding sin = you doubting God’s power to keep you from that sin.

• My flesh doubts God’s power. The world doubts God’s power. The devil doubts God’s power. So, are you going to doubt God’s power to keep you from sinning? Or, are you going to believe the lies and the temptations that come into your mind? I choose God and His power!

• I’ve seen the face of evil and I’ve lived to tell about it. Here is what I have learned: the only thing keeping anyone from doing evil is God Himself. That goes for believers and unbelievers. Evil is man’s default. By God’s grace and omnipotence, I don’t have to think it’s all on me not to do evil. I don’t have to bear the burden of not sinning. It’ on HIM only to keep me from sinning. My job is to put my faith in His holiness—not mine.

• I’m confident in God’s ability to forgive my sins of doubting Him. He’s the ONLY one that keep me from sin. And, He will give me the power and strength when I need it; not a second sooner.

• Faith in God is an applied science. God says a truth. You decide to test it and it works! Truth is always found to be true! Our joy is in the discovering of God’s truth.

• Destroy your flesh. Trust in Christ.

• You put all your faith into a Man whom you’ve never seen with your eyes. And, yet you know He’s real. You’ve never seen His scars and yet you know He has saved you. That is trust. And that is the exact trust you need to put into Jesus every second of the day! He will keep you from sinning.

• God hates complaining, because if anyone could change a situation, it’s Him. And, He chooses not to. So, when you complain, you’re questioning His judgment for your life.

• When you’re not doing evil, when you’re not sinning or messing up, it’s almost like you’re “earning your salvation”. And, whenever you feel like you’ve earned your salvation, you become prideful and not thankful.

• Doing good can lead one of two ways: holiness or pride. If it leads to pride, then that leads to being unthankful, which leads to sins, which leads to issues.

• It is VERY important to be thankful to God. Being Anxious for Nothing means being Thankful for Everything (Ph 4:6)

To worry is sin. Jesus said 3 times “not to worry.” Paul said it once. To not worry means you keep trusting Jesus and keep trusting Jesus and keep trusting Jesus.

• Jesus became sin for ME! He transferred my guilt to Himself. He transferred my pain to Himself. He transferred my evil heart to Himself. Whatever sin I committed, He became it. Whatever guilt I’ve felt, He turned into it. Whatever evil my heart has thought of, He took it upon Himself. He DESTROYED all sin and guilt and evil! He destroyed death! So what am I holding onto? Give your sin up o God. He wants it, so He can put it on Jesus.

• There was never a time that Jesus didn’t love me.

• Your fears are a result of your need for control. And your need for control is a result of your need for happiness. So, ironically enough, your fears are for your happiness. What?! You desire not to sin for your happiness. You desire control for your happiness. You desire perfection for your happiness. But, what you fail to realize is that each of those desires is already sin. They’re the result of pride. Your pride thinks that it can lead itself to happiness. But it can’t. All these desires, as good ad they may sound, is sin because it bypasses trusting in Christ! These are YOUR desires feeding other desires which will never lead to happiness. It’s sin leading to sin which will never lead to happiness. Happiness is ONLY obtained by trusting in Christ. The trust and love for Christ will lead to more trust and love for Christ.

• Sometimes, I don’t admit my sin to God, hoping that if I ignore sin that He will ignore it too. I try to keep myself busy, trying not to think how much of a sinner I am. But does any of that really matter? Does any of that make me clean? I can’t earn my salvation. None of my good works can get me into heaven. And then a small still voice inside of me says, “You’re the one I forgave. You’re the one I saved. You’re already holy for what I have done for you. You already know how to live. So trust me already. Trust me for your life. Trust me to forgive ALL your sins. Trust me in spite or your trustlessness.”

• Do you ever think evil or blasphemous thoughts because you just want to “get them out of the way”, or “to make sure that” you wouldn’t do such things” or to show yourself “how disgusting that evil is”? I do. But, I don’t need to do that. That’s laziness and faithlessness. I’m doing exactly what Paul said not to do: “thinking evil that good may come.” Instead, think the thoughts Jesus would think and put your faith in Him.

• Satan can’t stop anything that He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand love and therefore can’t stop it. He has no idea of the power of love.

• It’s not easy being selfless. But God does it flawlessly. Being selfless just flows out of Him. He’s never done anything NOT selfless. He’s never asked us to anything that He Himself hasn’t already done.

• God can ONLY give the best.

He can ONLY make the best. He can ONLY do the best. Because He can ONLY do those things in love!

• You should NEVER feel sad or a waste of time when you have done God’s work. It’s all God’s time anyway. He brought you through things to teach you lessons.

• Are you close enough to Jesus to get His blood stains on you?

• God has allowed everything to happen in our lives. We can either blame God or celebrate His wisdom.

• God holds the atoms of everything together—both good and evil things. He holds together rapists, pornography magazines, strip clubs, adult bookstores, prostitutes, etc. he holds those things together, not for what they are, but because He is a gracious God. But, also, at the subatomic level, an atom is an atom. Just because humans have turned these atoms into evil things, doesn’t make God subsidizing evil. He is holy and gracious, and He gives freedom and forgiveness to those who want it.

• When you realize that God has ALREADY given you the best, namely Himself, the silly little things of this world, red lights, car troubles, deadlines, financial problems all fade away! The best doesn’t equal things going my way; the best I being brought into a relationship with the Trinity! Nothing compares to knowing God: His power, holiness, love, patience contentment, grace are amazing! And, He wants to teach me those things!

• God is the most amazing Being in the universe! No petty blasphemies or sin are going to hurt Him! Go ahead: keep rebelling. You’re only hurting yourself!

• Having regrets isn’t Christlikeness. Beating yourself up over the past isn’t Christlikeness. Atoning for your own sins isn’t Christlikeness. Being unforgiving to yourself isn’t Christlikeness. Believing in His work on the Cross is Christlikeness.

• To not forgive yourself means you are not doing what God has done for you. It means you are carrying your own burden. It means you’re going to be bitter carrying it. It makes you the lord of your life. Don’t go that way. That road is a dead end.

• If you want to know the evil of your heart, just look at how hard it is to forgive someone.

• You cannot be ruled by your sexuality. It will inevitably turn to evil desires 100% of the time. You need to hand your sexuality over to God. It’s His. He knows how to use it. You are not your own! Your sexuality is not your own, for you were bought with a price!

• “God is no respecter of persons”. That doesn’t mean that He doesn’t give some people the “Christian Ideal” and not others. God doesn’t favor anyone! He gives everyone their lot in life; a lot custom made for them and no one else. There is NO Christian ideal. You’re either in God’s plan or you’re not. Oh, and you can forget envying others since no one has or is inside of an idea. The happiest couples are the ones inside of God’s will.

• I stand in awe of God’s ability to create such beautiful and functional things! Considering, God had no raw materials, no blue prints, couldn’t reverse engineer or base His designs on anything before. There was NOHTING before He started creating! He thought all this world, animal and plant life, gravity, light, electromagnetism up out of His head! What diversity, creativity, grace and love! I love you, Lord!

• If I had to earn God’s love, then the love that He was offering wouldn’t be worth it to me. But what kind of love DOES He give me? Unconditional love, apart from works. That’s the kind of love I want from Him! And He can show me how to love like that, too! (Anyone that you have to earn their love, isn’t worth the works you have to offer them.)

• Trillions of tiny water droplets act as tiny prisms that reflect the light from the sun and create a rainbow. And just like each of those tiny water droplets, we too, reflect the light that Jesus gives us and create beautiful works for Him and the world to see.

• As soon as Pharaoh got what he wanted (the end of a plague) he would curse God in his heart. (I.e. Hardened heart, proud, forgetting God) just like the 10 lepers minus 1.

• If I’m going to be spending the rest of eternity with Jesus, (which I am) then wouldn’t it behoove me to get to know Him everyday? It’s just me and Him for all eternity. Start spending some time with Him! Jesus took all the “what-ifs” (sins) upon Him and it killed Him. Sin isn’t something to be thought about. What-ifs kill you from the inside out. Give them over to Jesus, since He’s already killed them once.

• The very nature of a tattoo is “Hey look at me! Look at how cool I am!” Therefore, the concept of a “Christian tattoo” is oxymoronic.

• Germs are like demons. They attack the healthy ones so they can suck all the nutrients out of them. And, after they’ve taken everything you have to offer, they leave you for dead.

• Something tainted can never make the untainted tainted. Unholiness can never make the holy unholy. The devil’s scenes can never overwrite God’s full story. Whatever sins or taintedness, or imperfections we think we have, it doesn’t matter because Jesus conquers all things. On the cross, He took all the evil we committed and He became sin for us. Our lives were bought by His sacrifice. I am no longer my own. I want to obey my Lord. Sometimes my story doesn’t sound like the best, but because God wrote it, it IS the best story for me. God showed grace to me when I was dirty. All I know is if I hold onto Jesus, I will have the brightest future. And, if I take control, my life will only be pain and loss.

• God is holy and just in what He does and what He allows to happen. Things like natural disasters, diseases, poverty, war and death happen because He allows them to. At the end of time, Christians will see how God was holy and just in allowing these events to happen. And, that’s if God even wants to show us! He doesn’t have to show us anything or justify Himself to us in ANY way! He is holy apart from anyone’s approval. Christians know that and have faith, that, in eternity, they will begin to see the big picture. Unbelievers, on the other hand, will never be allowed into God’s holy mind. They never wanted to understand His ways here on earth. What makes you think they would want to learn from Him in eternity? Eternity for the unbeliever will be a small box (of their own view) that they can peek through and nothing more. They will never have their questions answered for they will have no chance of ever knowing the Answer Giver. They will go into eternity with confusion, ignorance and hatred. The idea of a world outside of them won’t exist, because they shrunk their world down to themselves by the power of their own selfishness and pride.

• Before Christ came, God was basically untouchable. No one really got to know Him unless they called out to Him. And, even those who didn’t call out to Him, but got to know Him, it was only because of God’s grace that He wanted them to know Him. But, now God IS touchable! We have access to His heart, spirit and mind through Christ! Don’t take that for granted. We have a God that we can talk to and see—truly se—in Christ (because He is fully God). Before 4 BC, God didn’t have a face. (Yes, I know there were theophanies of the 2nd person of the Godhead, but those were specific events; not long term relationships). God was, for the most part, very far away. Our sin separated ourselves from God. Men could draw near to him to some extent by having faith in Him, providing sacrifices, praying, etc, but, God was far away. He is close now, though, in Christ. He wants to know you and has provided a way for you to know Him! Take advantage of the fact that we can know God! We don’t have to pretend that we’re living in the centuries before Jesus came! He has come and wants to have a relationship with us!

• What keeps your heart pumping? There is no physical evidence, mechanical explanation or law of physics that explains why your heart should be pumping 70 times a minute. No reason why it should pump 50 million gallons of blood in you lifetime. How does it work? How does it keep working? How does it start? The only explanation is that God’s power keeps it pumping. (I imagine His hand pumping my heart throughout my entire life). When the heart stops pumping, there is no life. Likewise, without God behind this entire physical universe, nothing would work. There is simply no explanation for why things should work so well, other than God.

• The only way to be the god of your own world is by the power of pride. You can’t get rid of God and those around you, so the next best option is to just believe that no one else exists, and that is the definition of pride.

• When someone is dead, you’re just happy enough to see them alive again. That’s why we shouldn’t judge others—forget the sins of the pasts—welcome them to Jesus!