“This is my generation, and I will not watch it die. But, you are the only hope. It’s our destiny to stand tall at your side. You are the only hope. Beyond comprehension, your voice will shake the earth. You are the only hope, so I bring you praise.”

I love For Today. Their lyrics always make me think more deeply about my faith and what I really stand for. Am I willing to fight, get hurt, and possibly die for my beliefs? And even more, I believe a less asked question, am I willing to tell and show my generation that my God, my Savior, my King, is the one and only way to true happiness and joy.

Here at the BI we’ve been going through the book of James as well as reading the book “Be Mature” by Warren Wiersbe. The book of James is so revealing to the true human nature and failings of the “modern “Christian walk. One of the things that stuck out to me the most is love. Do I truly love my friends? Do I truly love those who I pass by on the street? If I do, then why don’t I tell them the most important message they could ever hear. That Christ came to this earth and died for them. He is the only way to true life. His word is better then any food or pleasure we can get on this earth. And that God loves them more then they can possibly comprehend.

That joy that I should have and the passion for that message should overflow through every action, word, or deed I can/will do. No one should be able to pressure me to shut up, or not talk about my God.

I come in to contact with a lot of people. But I have never felt the absolute need to tell them what I believe, at least not right away.

I can’t say I haven’t had good examples. My father being a big one. I don’t think I’ve ever personally met anyone else with as strong of a conviction to not shut up about what he believes. Growing up it kinda of embarrassed me at times that he always had to bring up something about God or the bible almost every conversation he had. He was constantly telling people he loved them and he was praying for them. And I think it does freak some people out, but who cares. Man can do nothing but hate us or kill us. But Christ was our redeemer and took us in even though we could never deserve it. Looking back its one of the biggest things I’ll carry throughout my life. I’ve always been told my dad is a cool guy by the people around me. Everyone know’s that he genuinely loves and cares about them. And that’s a testimony to his life.

Being young I don’t often think about my legacy I’ll leave. But today has gotten me thinking, what do I want people to remember me for. Do I care if they thought I was a decent guy, liked to work, was way to nerdy. Do I want it to be that shallow? Life is so much more then what we’re good at. So much more then my talents or ability’s. Ultimately I think people remember at least one thing in particular about a person. And that is if they loved them or cared about them.

So for anyone reading this, or even for my own prayer life in the future, please pray that God will give me that genuine love for people and Him.

 

Posted by Ethan - 24/09/11 - 0 comments

 

I was checking my Facebook, like I do about 25 other times of the day, and I see a status message that went something like “I AM A CHRISTIAN, if you’re a true follower of Christ repost this as your status…”Does this remind you of anything? Maybe half of the email forwards you used to or maybe still recieve?Now at the heart of it their is nothing wrong with these kind of status updates. If you feel the cumpulsion to repost these, be my guest. But don’t under any circumstances tell me I’m not a true follower of Christ or I’m ashamed of Him because I don’t. That is ridiculous. It’s like saying if you don’t own a pair of jeans you don’t ever wear pants. And not to single anyone out, but a lot of times I see these kind of status updates from people who don’t show “fruit” in their daily walk. Why is that? Well I think the statement STATUS is quite appropriate. A lot of times its more of a showy thing, then a true heart felt thing.I was at a local social media meeting for small businesses and one of the statements made by an attendee struck me as interesting. He said he believed the social networks, such as facebook, are

Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by Ethan - 30/03/11 - 0 comments

 

Several weeks ago I purchased a LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile, in the hopes that I could get a smart phone for an affordable monthly bill.I was sadly mistaken.After receiving my phone in a timely manner I was happy with it. Until I tried to get a connection. Even in the town of Batavia, NY I could get absolutely no 3g signal. Even though their map says I should get a great signal. And I couldn’t even make a call for that matter.So after being disappointed I called Virgin Mobile and asked that they return me my $170. They said they would be happy to do that for me and gave me an RMA number. So I went to fedex, and was told I couldn’t use the number to make a free return. I ended up being angry after being told on the phone by a VM rep that I could return it at no charge to me. I ended up returning the package and paying the $9.Fast forward 14 days. I contacted them and asked for my refund and according to FedEx my package had been received and they had been holding it for 12 days. “Mrs. Thompson we will have your refund in your paypal account within 4 hours. Thank you so much for your patience.”BS!First of all I’m not a “Mrs.”Second of all it has now been 3 weeks since that 4 hours have passed by and I have still not received my refund. I have now filed a paypal claim and I’m hoping paypal awards me my money. After all this I must say this has been my worst buying experience ever. Virgin Mobile, I despise your company and your service. To everyone else don’t go near them with a 100 foot pole.

Posted by Ethan - 15/03/11 - 0 comments

 

The title of this post is a line taken from one of  my all time favorite songs. Its a song done by a Christian metal band called The Great Commission. Its based on Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Although the band is quoting the NLT translation which states it as “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Either way, you get the point.But as I was doing research on the web about the verse and the context of it, I came across this quote on Yahoo! Answers “Sometimes I don’t think this proverb is a positive one. the sound of iron on iron is not a pleasant one…” And I was left thinking, “Dude, what?”.So lets take it apart a bit shall we?“Iron sharpens iron…” So what is the process that goes into actually doing this? Well after doing a bit of research I found this quote in the comment of this article. “In the sharpening of iron with iron, both change — the sharpener and the sharpenee, if you will.”That’s an interesting side I have never totally thought about. When friends grow spiritually together and continue to keep each other accountable its not a one sided growth. Its continually building up both of you in your faith. From previous glancing at this verse I had always taken it from a one sided perspective. For example, my friend Destin and I are constantly learning together. Technology wise, and spiritually. And when one of us corrects the other I usually see that as a “sharpening” of that person being corrected. But not only is it “sharpening” the person being corrected, its also “sharpening” the correcter. If we take that look through all of our relationships I think we’d see a lot more growth then we normally do. My dad is always telling me you can learn something from everyone, whether its something to do, or not to do. And I think this is a great example of that, as in not only should we be building others up and encouraging them, but we should look for what we can learn through that process.So in response to the “not being positive”, I think its a HUGE positive. Growing in our faith and maturing as a Christian is always positive in the long run. How we get there, isn’t always “positive” from our limited perspective at times, but God’s infinite wisdom is sometimes beyond our comprehension.As the Word of Life quiet time has taught me through the years, now that we’ve stated and looked at what the writer is telling us, how can I apply this to my life? Personally my goal is to look for a growing moment in all things, whether I’m the one being taught, corrected, etc. or whether I’m the one doing the teaching, correcting, etc.

Posted by Ethan - 12/01/11 - 0 comments

 

After starting a website several years ago that featured interviews with Christian young people, I found out I needed to learn how to connect and make acquaintances with people online, quickly, easily, and effectively. Being a pretty outgoing person, I’ve never really had a fear of chatting with and meeting new people face to face. But after running the site for several weeks I found out that “meeting” people online is a bit different then meeting people face to face.One of the big differences is in your presentation. When connecting with someone in real life, most of the time you try to establish common ground with the person first. Whether it be sports, politics, beliefs, etc.  This works online, in certain situations. When I contact people to interview them, I don’t necessarily find something I have in common with the person. I usually cut straight to the point and tell the person about myself and the reason why I’m contacting them. Now if your looking to make a friendship with the perspective person, then I would suggest finding common ground. But if you need to interview a new person every week, then you may not have time to do this.Another thing I’ve learned is if you contact the person via social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, your likely to get a quicker response. I personally usually find it strange to be contacted by someone by email before I hear from them via social networks.  I believe the reason for this is because social networks are for just that, networking. Now there are exceptions to this “rule”. If the person you would like to contact hardly ever checks their social network profiles, then your probably better off with contacting them via email.How about you? Do you have any tips for connecting and making contacts online? Let us know in the comment section below.

Tags: , ,

Posted by Ethan - 13/02/10 - 0 comments