Kenton J. Kutney

Just right for the season.  Merry Christmas! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1E-9Z8sFyRs

And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians ‘being born again’; it talks about them ‘putting on Christ’; about Christ ‘being formed in us’; about our coming to ‘have the mind of Christ’. Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out .... They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him ... and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God—though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain. C.S. Lewis From The Problem of Pain

I was pondering some true friends in a story Luke tells in chapter 5 (after listening to an excellent lecture I downloaded by Barbara Mutch),  who were trying to get into a house meeting Jesus was speaking at. She described how the pharisees were already there with their critical thinking at work and so many others jammed shoulder to shoulder these friends could not get in.  People were spilling outside the doorway trying to hear. These friends had brought a fellow along who was so sick he was on a stretcher. Stumped, one of the friends spied a set of stairs leading up to the roof where the family cooled off in the evening breeze coming off the lake.  ...Here’s where I saw myself in the story and started to laugh until I cried: They decided to try to haul the mat up the steps, leveraging it carefully so as to not dump their cargo off the stairs.  Once atop the roof they then got the goofy idea to pry off the ceiling tiles and made a hole. Bigger and bigger t

A goofy 'Mo-vember' pic for all you guys. I know you dread a Dr. visit but if you are over 40 this serves as a reminder: Time to man up and get a physical. I just did it. If not for your own body awareness, you owe it to your loved ones to check in ... or check out.

You won't hear this very much nowadays but here it is:  The pursuit of holiness leads to fulfillment, assurance, and makes for happiness like nothing else.  True freedom. 1 John 2:29   "If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him." Recommended reading:  Keeping In Step With The Spirit , by J.I. Packer

'Breaking down is as sign of health - only a psychopath doesn't break.'

'The world is a bridge. Do not build your house on a bridge.'

"Youth and age touch only the surface of our lives." 

BUTT PRINTS IN THE SAND One night I had a wondrous dream, One set of footprints there was seen, The footprints of my precious Lord, But mine were not along the shore. But then some stranger prints appeared, And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?" Those prints are large and round and neat, "But Lord, they are too big for feet." "My child," He said in somber tones, "For miles I carried you alone. I challenged you to walk in faith, But you refused and made me wait." "You disobeyed, you would not grow, The walk of faith, you would not know, So I got tired, I got fed up, And there I dropped you on your butt." "Because in life, there comes a time, When one must fight, and one must climb, When one must rise and take a stand, Or leave their butt prints in the sand."

C.S. Lewis Insight: Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either. From Mere Christianity

"My dear girl, the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through. If when we talk, I repeat the same thing a thousand times, don’t interrupt to say: “You said the same thing a minute ago”... Just listen, please. Try to remember the times when you were little and I would read the same stor y night after night until you would fall asleep. When I don’t want to take a bath, don’t be mad and don’t embarrass me. Remember when I had to run after you making excuses and trying to get you to take a shower when you were just a girl? When you see how ignorant I am when it comes to new technology, give me the time to learn and don’t look at me that way... remember, honey, I patiently taught you how to do many things like eating appropriately, getting dressed, combing your hair and dealing with life’s issues every day... the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all

  Preposterous(?)  Matthew 6 Psalter Parental Praise Prone Paradox Pleasing Priority Prolonged Promise Persistent Persevere Precise Patience Passionate Potent Prophetic Pious / Pure Pledge Provision Protection Penitential Pentecostal Powerful Partnership Priesthood of all believers Personality type Perpetual Purging / Purifying Proactive or Past Private and Public People and Places Pervasive

Congrats Robyn on being voted MVP by her soccer team for her hard work in the last game of the regular season.