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If you're interested in buying a home, a great place in Downtown Boston has just come on the market. Just blocks away from Fenway Park, Manny Ramirez, Boston Red Sox leftfielder and 2004 World Series MVP has decided to sell his crib. It's a 4,500 SF penthouse pad atop of the Boston Ritz-Carlton hotel. Asking price: $6,900,000. You can see the place here http://re.boston.com/+Comshare/VUListing.asp?Lid=1750-1 and get a virtual tour. So this is what $20 million a year buys you.
Is it a good thing or a bad thing when you ring up the local Chinese restaurant and the guy knows your name as soon as he hears your voice? As soon as I started giving my order last night the young guy on the phone said "Is that Keith?" and when I said yes he replied "Thought so." Wonder if his memory is that good for all his customers, or perhaps it's just that we eat far too much Chinese take-away.
Permission to speak frankly? One of the things that drives me crazy is people who criticize by criticizing :) Don't point out a problem unless you're willing to be part of the solution! You know what I'm saying? The Pharisees criticized by criticizing! There was nothing redemptive or constructive about it. Jesus was a truth-teller and grace-giver. I'm just not into boycotting--a form of criticizing by criticizing. Paul could have boycotted the aeropagus because they were worshipping false gods. But he decided to compete for the truth. I'm not saying there isn't a time and place to boycott things, but I think the church is called to present better alternatives across the board. I can't believe I've never read this before as much as I read, but I just came across a Michelangelo quote. But it's more than a quote. It was Michelangelo's modus operandi. He said, "Criticize by creating." I love that. Alot. That gets so close to the heart of what I believe. I think God wants to redeem and sanctify our competitive streak just like he wants to redeem and sanctify every other part of us. We're called to compete for the truth! The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet. Let's not just curse the darkness. Let's light a candle. Let's not just criticize. Let's create.
Being the good brother that I am, I took my brother to lunch this week because that's what good brothers should do....After stopping by Colters BBQ and finding out that they were out of the BBQ spare ribs, I decided to take him by probably the best Szechuan restaurant in the DFW metroplex are called Lao Sze Chuan where I ordered my favorite Szechuan dish called Chef's Special Dry Chili Chicken. Take a look at this dish ( but BEWARE - you'll feel the heat just looking at it!):Isn't that just absolutely evil? Oh man. I ate leftovers for lunch yesterday and my mouth was ON FIRE. Dry Chili Chicken is made of small bits of chicken lightly dusted with flour and other spices, fresh garlic and ginger slices and then stir fried with a LOT (and I mean A LOT) of red chili peppers. This one will definately make you slap your grandma! WOW.Gotta go...need a drink!
Is there any better feeling on a Friday than an empty inbox? It's literally been weeks since my email inbox has gotten down to zero! But it just happened. Well, almost...I'm down to 1 (thanks for the email Melissa!) Man, it feels good. It feels like the occasion should be celebrated. You know how there are dog people and cat people? I think there are phone people and email people. I'm definitely an email person. I love it. But sometimes there is this internal angst because there is almost always an email in my inbox. So I'm enjoying the moment until my inbox informs me "You've got mail."
Had a funny experience yesterday afternoon :)A few months ago I bought a shirt that said No Tengo Dinero. For all the non-Spanish speakers out there that means "I have no money." I bought the shirt because my brother Lance and I have this longstanding joke about how poor my Spanish is. But I claim to be his "Spanish mentor." So I bought the shirt to flaunt my Spanish skilzs. Anywho... I went over to the bank yesterday, and I was wearing that shirt. It was totally unplanned. I've only worn the shirt twice. But it dawned on me as I was walking in to the door: I'm going into the bank wearing a shirt that says "I have no money." It cracked me up!Fortunately, I don't think any of the bankers spoke Spanish! Hasta Luego!
Romans 12:1 says, "In view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices."It doesn't say "In view of your righteousness." It doesn't say, "In view of your brilliant mind or witty sense of humor." It doesn't say, "In view of your impressive spiritual resume."It says, "In view of God's mercy."The prerequisite to worship is mercy. And the prerequisite to mercy is doing something wrong. So if you've done something wrong you qualify for mercy. And if you qualify for mercy you qualify for worship.Here's my point: don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God.Here's the challenge. I came across some research last week that suggests that we talk to ourselves 50,000 times a day. And studies have found that, on average, 80% of self-talk is negative. "I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. And, doggone it, people don't like me."One of the enemy's tactics is to get you to focus on what's wrong with you. Why? Because you'll get so fixated on your problems that you'll totally forget how good and how great God is. We need to stop focusing on what's wrong with us constantly and start focusing on what's right with God. I honestly think that is the key to worship!I like the way The Message says it, "Embracing what God has done for you is the best thing you can do for Him."Here's the difference between religion and Christianity. Religion is focused on what we can do for God. Christianity is focused on what God has done for us.
Every once in a while I'm impulsively goofy. Alright, pretty frequently :)When I paid for breakfast yesterday I got three pennies in change and I threw them on the floor of Chick-fila. One of my co-workers looked a little bewildered like "Why did you do that?" I impulsively responded, "It's for the kids."I know that throwing change on the ground seems like poor stewardship, but finding pennies on the ground can make a kid's day. I loved finding change as a kid! That totally made my day!So all day long I decided to throw my change on the ground and say "It's for the kids." Try it out. It's for the kids!
Ephesians 2:8 says, "God saved you by His special favor when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so that none of us can boast about it."A few weeks ago I had a thought: without God we're Jack Squat. I had a similar thought this week: we don't deserve diddly-squat. That's my spiritual starting point.A sense of entitlement is the beginning of the end spiritually. Repentance is coming to a point where we recognize that we don't deserve diddly-squat. When you start there then you recognize the reality of James 1:17--"whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above."Here's the bottom line: It's not about what you can do for God. It's about what God has done for you.Every time we kneel at the foot of the cross we are reaffirming that truth. We go back to where it all began. We go back to the place where our sin met its match-the grace of God. And we discovered that "where sin abounds, grace does much more abound."Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of His grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace. Every day should be a day of relating to God on the basis of His grace alone.
I know this is "old news" but I just read about Andrew Fischer in the November issue of Entrepreneur magazine. He is the founder of humanadspace.com . He got a great idea for a business venture earlier this year. He decided to rent his forehead as advertising space. He went on ebay and auctioned it off. A pharmaceutical company won with a bid of $37,375. That's one expensive noggin! For what it's worth, I'll rent out my forehead to any blog readers for half-off! $18,687.50 and my forehead is yours for a month!!
Call me crazy, but some of the most enlightening and inspiring parts of the Bible are in the appendix. Turn to the back of your Bible and look at a map of Paul's missionary journeys. Malta is in the southwest corner. It was a detour. Malta wasn't on Paul's itinerary. It took a shipwreck to get Paul to Malta. But sometimes it takes a shipwreck to keep you on course. Sometimes it takes a shipwreck and a snakebite to get you where God wants you to go!
I'm not suggesting we sabotage ourselves. Don't put a hole in the bottom of your boat. Don't play with poisonous snakes. But God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. It often seems like the wrong place at the wrong time! But give it some time. See what happens. God may use this delay or this detour in ways you never imagined. That is really the story of Scripture.
The prison sure seemed like a detour to Joseph. But God used it to position Joseph as prime minister of Egypt. The lion's den sure seemed like a detour to Daniel. But God used it to position Daniel as Prime Minister of Babylon.
For that matter, the cross seemed like a detour. The Via Dolorosa seemed like a wrong turn for three days. But God turned that detour into the road to salvation.
One reason I love this time of year. I've had at least 6 of these in the last week and a half.
If a grande caramel apple cider from Starbucks is wrong...I don't wanna be right!! Amazing!
I'm going to see the Dallas Stars play the Chicago Blackhawks tonight here at the American Airlines Center in Dallas with my brother and some friends from church. I got my Stars jersey on as I type this (the green one, and not that nasty looking 3rd jersey they have now with bull on the front...what does that have to do with stars???).I was watching ESPN last night to catch some of the NHL highlights, and couldn't believe how high the goal scoring has been. I know it's all due to the recent rule changes, but who would believe you'd see a score of 8-7 in an NHL regular season game....KA-RAZY!
I've been thinking a lot about Kyle Lake and his family this morning. My heart goes out to his family and church right now. In a way, we can all relate (to some degree) to what UBC is going through right now. So all of this got me thinking about journaling - which is a discipline that I've recently begun with greater consistency. That is part of the reason I've decided to focus in more on journaling. Don't get me wrong, I don't write anything profound or earth shattering - just what I feel like God is saying to me right now in my life, events going on and then of course, things that I can't necessarily blog about.Probably more than anything, it's a great way for me to look back and realize that God is indeed at work in my life. In fact, just recently, I pulled out a journal from a few years ago and I was amazed at how many of the "concepts" and ideas have become a reality in my life since then. Things that were blurry and not too clear back then are now a part of my life. It blows my mind. I'm thankful.So.......here is a picture of the journal I now use. It's a Moleskine journal which interestingly enough was recently written up in Fast Company magazine as being the "new" PDA. Anyway, it's a great journal and one that I would recommend. It's slim and not to big - so I can carry it with me in my backpack or laptop bag.
One of the things that I stay very intentional about is not pressuring myself to journal everyday or when I DO journal, I constantly remind myself that I don't have to write a novel. There are days that I write down a quick prayer or just a couple of thoughts. Do you journal? What have you learned by doing it?
