Blog of Teh Voges

So this is the 2nd time I’m writing this…thank you Mr. Computer for randomly decided to shut down when I’m just finishing. I’m not bitter or anything….LOL. Na God probably wanted me to get this in my head more or something. Sorry I haven’t blogged much about sandals lately. I’ve been too busy….way too busy. Even for my standards. Which sucks. I missed blogging the last 3 weeks of remix, so I definitely recommend going to the Sandals Website and check out the messages…they will rock your face off! Church this week was awesome. Everything was awesome. PRD did the dj’ing for this week and also was freaking amazing during worship too. If you weren’t there…you missed out.

This week is about Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I’ve struggled with this off and on through my life. Does he forgive everything? How can I forgive others? What we need to do when we pray is constantly remind ourselves of how much we have been forgiven. What does that mean? We have to know every single thing we did wrong? No what it means is we need to know what we have been forgiven from…ourselves. God has taken our sins and threw them as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103:12). Jesus did not just die for our past sins, He died for our present and future ones to. But what we do need to do is pray, and ask God and others if there is anything we must confess to Him. I know I can be so blind to the things I do wrong. Through God and others I can accurately see what is wrong in my life and how to fix them. We must truly ask forgiveness and seek healing, not use God as a free pass to sinning. The thing is Jesus said we must give grace and forgiveness or we will not receive it (Matt6:14-15). What’s that to me? The ability to extend grace and forgiveness to others plays a direct role in how powerful and effective our prayers are. Jesus tells us we can pray for anything but if we are holding a grudge against someone we must forgive them first before He will even begin to listen to us. Which is soooooooo hard. Pastor Matt gave an example from a clip from Grey’s Anatomy (a show I’ve never really watched). In the show this girl had been cheated on by her boyfriend and she decides to forgive him and help him in his time of need. The dude asks her why are you doing this? She replies, “because Jesus freaking did it!” We can write, sing, or say all we want to forgive others, but are we really doing it? Jesus tells us we HAVE to forgive others, but we don’t HAVE to let them keep hurting us. Why? Because as a Christian, we must forgive because Jesus freaking did it! Even Peter in the Bible asked Jesus, how many times we need to forgive. Jesus replied, “seventy times seven!” (Matt 18:21-22). I have a hard time after one! Pastor Matt brought up this point. Wouldn’t it be convenient if we only had to forgive once? So after the person hurt us or cut us off on the road the first time, the second time we can get pissed! The thing is Jesus isn’t just throwing some arbitrary number out. He’s saying we should keep forgiving over and over again! Why? Because how many times do we need to be forgiven by God? (I’m sure I’m sure I’ve gone WAY over 490 times!) How do we forgive like this?
1. Be clear about the injury and what happened
2. Share the hurt with your small group (others)
3. Make a commitment to submit to Jesus
4. Understand what biblical forgiviness is NOT
a. saying what happened was right
b. having to stay in a relationship
c. having to save or protect the person who hurt you
5. Get Biblical perspective – we are all broken people
6. Bless those who curse. Pray for those who hurt you (Luke 6:28)
7. Trust God with your anger and let Him judge
8. Move on.

What we need to do is do what Jesus freakin Said!

(ht: Snap Photography)

Another thing i love about Sandals, is how hard they willing to make things new and fresh. We are starting a new series….i think on Easter called Inked. Its suppost to be we need to be inked with the mark of God. All my life ive been told not to get tattoos, and now my church is doing a series on it….I love it! I got this from my favorate blog…Raggamuffin Soul. If you havnt been there, Do it!

(sorry los, not tryin to steal your thunder!)

(re: Raggamuffin Soul)

Im finally getting around to posting a few pictures from the Sanals Refuge Trip. It was such an awsome time, i dont think ive relaxed like that in a long while. Ill go more in detail about the trip when i get a few more pictures ready. So enjoy!

Amanda, Karina, & Stevie.

Travis (he loved choping the wood)

Im back! Again. I was gone on a Sandals Church Refuge for the weekend, and ill tell you guys about that probably if I have time tomorrow. I was thinking tonight…I haven’t had time to blog about what going on in Sandals. I’m 3 weeks behind. Luckily I’m going to be able to do two weeks into one…read on and you will see how! Ok…second and third week (I think?) at Sandals we had DJ Crafty. Who had words on his shirt that moved…yeah it was crazy. I actually missed the 2nd remix because I was out of town at Michelle’s grandparent’s house, so I listened to the podcast. Now here is the crazy part, the third week of remix was actually the same message as the 2nd. Why? Because Pastor Matt felt that God was telling us we weren’t praying together like we should. Praying Together? Oh yeah, I haven’t started telling you guys what it was about!

Ok. We have been going over the Lord’s Prayer, and we are at the part ‘Our Father in Heaven’. Pastor Matt emphasized that it specifically says ‘Our Father’, which means that prayer is meant to be prayed together. If our prayers are to take hold of God, we must move from ONLY praying alone to praying together. In Acts, there is a story about Peter and John being thrown into prison, they are released and told to not preach anymore about Jesus. What do the do? They go and pray with fellow believers, and their prayer was so powerful that it shook the ground they were standing on (Acts 4:23-31). What was so powerful about this prayer? They prayed together. God’s heart has always been for his people to come together and pray. How do we know this? Jesus wasn’t angry when they killed him, he was angry when people didn’t pray in his temple (Mark 11:17). Prayer is such a powerful tool and when we pray together, what happens is we amplify our prayers toward God. Unfortunately us as Christians would rather pray alone, we even think that Jesus condemned public prayer. Jesus in the Bible sees people praying for their own benefit to look good in front of people. He yells at them saying, you guys are hypocrites! The people who pray for others to see them will receive their rewards by what people think of them. What we should do is go in a secret place and pray away from people, and then God will reward you. Also don’t babble like pagans, because they say all those words just so they will be heard. Don’t be like them because God knows what you need before you even ask (Matt 6:5-8). Jesus isn’t saying that he doesn’t want us to ever pray out loud, but to pray in such a way that we are intentionally praying to God and not to impress others. The problem is it’s hard to pray out loud. Most of us feel inadequate, be alone when we pray, or don’t even know what to pray about. What we have to realize is special things happen when we pray together. If we humble ourselves and pray together God will hear us (2 Chronicles 7:14).

In week 2 Pastor Matt stresses to us how powerful prayer is. He tells us that we are not in a Christian relationship, friendship, or family if we do not pray together. He gave us a statistic about marriages, 50% of marriages in America end in a divorce (including Christians), but only 1% of the marriages were they pray together will divorce. Prayer is such a powerful powerful thing. In this service Pastor Matt brought up his wife and prayed together on stage. Showing us what we should we be doing in our lives.

In week 3, Pastor Matt shared a few stories of when they came together to pray that amazing things happened. This week he wanted to take a different approach, he led an invitation for Christians to come forward and make a commitment to pray together throughout the rest of our series. After we had done this we found someone and prayed about 5 different things with them. Wisdom, the need to go deeper with God, Hope, our leadership, and our obedience are what we were told to pray for. Such a powerful experience, where the whole church came together with each other and prayed. Prayer is something that is meant to be done together.

(ht: Snap Photography )