It is amazing how fast they grow.  Avery is our only one(for now), and she will be 2 on the 24th of Feb.  Where does the time go.

“Jesus looked him hard in the eye – and loved him!  Jesus said, There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor.  All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth.  And come follow me.  The man’s face clouded over.  This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart.  He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.(MSG)

I was listening to a sermon yesterday by a good friend of mine, and he was talking about this verse.  Jesus was looking for the man to give up everything to follow him.  Jesus was basically telling the man, that if you are going to follow me it is going to cost you everything.  Rick went on to talk about how we should exhaust everything that we have so that God can be glorified in our life.  God began to speak to me very clearly about this.  He asked me if I would be willing to give up certain things in my life so that he would be glorified.  Are you willing to do the same thing?  Are you willing to give up a job, a TV show, a dream, so that God can be glorified in your life?  Remember, to follow Jesus will not cost you a little, it will cost you everything.

In light of the new president, there seems to be a spirit of hope and optimism that is sweeping our country.  Why shouldn’t there be?  We have elected to first black president in the history of our country which in my opinion in this country is huge.  I do have a concern though, where is America’s, and for that matter my hope.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.  From where does my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  Ps. 121:1-2

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.  So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”  John 6:66-69

The only true hope that anyone of us will ever find is the the person of Christ, the Messiah, the Risen Son of God.  True hope is not found in a president(no matter the color or political party), it is not found in America or being an American, it is also not found in money, success, possessions, or fame.  I pray that everyone who would read this would find true hope in the one who can bring hope, Jesus.

With the craziness of this political season, I thought that I would lighten it up a little bit.  Hope everyone enjoys and has a little laugh.

This is the song “While I’m Waiting” by John Waller from the movie Fireproof.  It is an incredible song, and this section of the movie is very powerful as it relates to the song.  Enjoy.

We played Bocee Ball(I think I spelled that right) at my Mom’s lake house today and it got me thinking about one of my guilty pleasures in life, Curling.  I love the Winter Olympics for Curling.  I will stay up until 2:00 am to watch Curling.  I know most of you are saying to yourself, you are a freak Jaime, but if you will watch it, it will suck you in.  So needless to say since Bocee is like curling on land I got pretty fired up.  Go USA curling.  I am waiting anxiously for Vancouver in 2010.

As Christians, we make thse big deals about how much we hate sin.  But how often do we sugar coat our sins, or make excuses for why we commit sins.  Case in point happened to me last night.  While here in Dallas we are doing different things to spend time with family, one of those ways is with movies.  I am not going to name the movie we watched, but 55 min. in to the movie we stoped watching it.  It took me an hour to get to sleep because God was dealing with me because I watched that movie, and allowed my wife to watch it.  I had to apologize to her for my poor leadership.  Let’s not just say we hate sin and then make excuses for why we contine to sin.  If God hates sin so much that He would turn His back on His own son on the cross, shouldn’t our view of sin be the same?

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy MLK day.(Yeah I know it is early)  But it is an especially great day, because it is my wonderful wife’s birthday.

We are all in Dallas for the weekend.  Laura, Avery, Laura’s Mom, and myself all came down for the weekend to spend some time with my mom.  We drove to LA, to see Laura’s brother last night.  We are back in Dallas tonight, and will be visiting with some more of my family tomorrow.  Really looking forward to hearing about tomorrow’s Downpour message.  I will be downloading it as soon as possible so that I can keep up.  Look forward to seeing all of you in a couple of days.

And just a side note to everyone, I actually did watch this show.

I haven’t posted a review for the movie yet, but WOW.  This was an incredible movie with a very bold proclamation of Jesus as Savior, and the sanctity of marriage.  I strongly encourage any of my married readers, or even my engaged or older youth readers, see this movie.  And bring your tissue along with you.