April Madness is over! 

Attention readers...

I want to thank all that read this for coming to read my blog and commenting whenever you do. I appreciate that you're willing to listen and discuss. I will no longer be using this specific blogsite. Adam Harris (originally of bubba09.blogspot), Dave Groen (originally of davegroen.blogspot) and myself have joined together and started a blog at http://www.dumbsheep.blogspot.com.

It works out so that we can all post on the same blog under different (user) names. The blog just got started and there are no official posts yet. We may have to wait until exams are over (or at least until the period between papers and exams) before we get a full post. If you will be patient with us, we would love to have you come visit our site and interact with us and our ideas.

Thanks again for your time guys. I hope to see everyone around at our new site!

.JH.

this is a test...

this is quite interesting so i thought i'd save a draft of this useless babble.. and see if it recognizes it as something joel wrote.. or dave wrote.. ok i'm done.

Boo Ya.

Right now I am getting into my bed. This isn't just any old "going to bed" though, this is an historic event. This is because I am going to bed before my roommate Joel Martin, which hasn't happened yet this year in two months of school.

.JH.

G-Unit...

So I've been hearing a lot about this party for Redeemer students in an off-campus house (and I know there are more like this). Sounds like it was a "smashing" good time. Drunk people everywhere, huge amounts of noise at a very late hour in a quiet subdivision, etc. It turns out that the neighbours called the cops and they broke up the party. Certain people (person?) got driven home in the cruiser. That's a damn good representation of Christianity and Redeemer that these people are giving. Most of the people participating in the debauchery at this party claim to be Christians, but I wonder how true a lot of their claims are. Are they really trying to serve God? Do they really care about glorifying God in their actions? Do they (most of them) really care about being a witness to those around them (their neighbours, etc)? I would question that.

One thing that pisses me off was that this wasn't just some Christians who gave in to temptation at a "secular" party, but this was a huge group of people that call themselves Christians. There was no "convincing" or "unbearable peer pressure" or "accidental drunkenness" here, this was simply people who planned before-hand to get hammered, and thus the evening played out just as they hoped.

I understand that people who are truly trying to serve God and want to become more Christ-like every day do struggle with drunkenness. I think that's awesome. If you're actually struggling with it and trying to avoid it, but you fall into sin, I have a huge respect for you. If you claim to be a follower of Christ and take the name "Christian," but yet don't give a shit about whether something like drunkenness is a sin, because you simply have too much fun without God, then I would encourage you to either change your name or change your ways.

I'm not questioning the claims of Christians from just one party....it seems to be a pattern with a lot of Redeemer students. I realize that I'm not perfect either, nor will I ever be, so I hope that you guys would challenge me in my sin as I'm trying to do now.

Reading Between the Lines

I find this to be quite funny.

Scripture

Is the bible infallible and inerrant? What authority should the bible hold in our lives? Can we be sure, in our fallibility, to ever know or understand the truths of the bible? What do you think?

Your attention Please.

Mr. Adam Harris has written some thoughts on Christian Humanism, something which he claims that most of us suffer from. If you at all care about being faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ without adultery, please read this post. God bless blunt people.

The Fab Four.

The four greatest words in the english language are: grace, love, truth, and sleep.

Attention All Males!

I was talking to a good friend last night, and I got some very valuable information that I think all men should know. This is information that will guide us in our battle to win the heart of a female. The information on this post applies to single males, and also to males in relationships! The guidelines don't escape you when you enter into a relationship, but are what helps the relationship to grow and move forward. There are a few things to know, and I will list and explain them now:

• Initiate - Men, we need to get up off our sorry butts and initiate. Sitting around won't do us any good. [crammit - ed] Women yearn to be pursued, and don't like having to take the responsibility to pursue into their own hands as a result of a lazy male. God created us to be pursuers, out to conquer the female (metaphor...so we're clear), so we need to act on this!
• Dig Deeper - While we have the desire to pursue and conquer, females have the desire to be pursued and to let the male into their world. A woman is like a flower; the more we water her and shower her with encouragement, the more she will open up to us. This happens by us digging deeper into her person. We have to want to know about her, and to know her. We have to be interested in her thoughts, her views, her past, etc. We have to make her feel comfortable while opening herself up, and make her feel secure about who she is in Christ! The more comfortable, confident, and "interested-in" she feels, the more she will open up. We need to keep probing into her thoughts and her life, desiring to know her more!!
• Build up her confidence - You can refer to the point above for this one...but also, we need to go out of our way in everyday life to affirm her as a person and complement her. Girls tend to lack self-confidence. They tend to place their view of themselves on how others view them. We need to make her feel full of value and worth!!
• Take risks - This can be related to the "initiate" point, but it can go farther than that. We need to do things that are out of your comfort zone! Things that make us feel awkward or uncomfortable, but that make her feel pursued/valued/comfortable. She will notice the extra effort we are putting in, and will notice how much risk we are taking by laying ourselves on the line. They realize that we have put ourselves forward, making ourselves vulnerable to rejection. They will either embrace this effort and affirm/open up to us, or they will [hopefully] respect (cough cough "koolkat" cough) our efforts but gently/respectfully (without laughing) let us know that we are not the male they wish to upen up to, without hurting us. For all the females reading this, it is IMPERATIVE that you respect our vulnerability and try not to hurt us or reject us too harshly!!
• Make her feel unique - The last thing that a female wants is a man who's "done it all before" and "knows the ropes." It doesn't make her feel special to have something done to her that has been done to other females in this male's life. Females want a male who does things from the heart, not from the book!! She wants a male to do things for her that are meaningful to him/her. She appreciates it when we go out of our way to do special things for her. Instead of the typical flowers, we need to do things for her that show our interest in her and show her what she means to us. This one is huge guys.
• LIGHTEN UP and trust God - My pastor and his wife told me last weekend that young people (men in particular?) need to loosen up about relationships. We tend to get all worked up and uptight about them, but they are meant to be fun, and meant to be enjoyed. Ya, they're a lot of work to keep healthy, but it is not meant to be gruesome work. Enjoying it is easier when we trust that God is sovereign and he is in control. When we take the risks and initiate things, we know that either God will use our feeble efforts to help the relationship develop, or else he has something better in store for us! There is no need to be anxious as to whether or not the girl will accept our efforts, because that is in God's hands.

So that is all of the things I can remember from the conversation with a friend (and a little piece from the pastor). I hope that these insights may inspire a few males to make their move, or will inspire others to start treating the female in their lives as the valuable, unique child of God that she is. (By the way, ladies, please feel free to add to the list if you so desire, or comment on your agreements/disagreements with anything in the post!)

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Dr. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York wrote this about the bible, and I think it is very blogworthy.

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome...religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey'. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.
Dr. Timothy Keller

This is so true, and so easy to "believe" and talk about, but much harder to manifest in your life. After every sin, I struggle with realizing that God is not going to hold me accountable to that sin, because I have taken on the righteousness of Christ by grace. I guess that is the Christian journey though; becoming more and more aware of the goodness of God and more passionate about living as he commands!

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One more thing...I found this very interesting. A slogan for a company was, "The Miracles of Science." Tell me what you think of that slogan!

In Christ,
.JH.

I'm here...

I apologize for not posting in a very long time. To tell you the truth I have just had absolutely no motivation to post anything. There hasn't been anything pressing or otherwise that I felt I needed/wanted to share. Hopefully something will come soon.

For Melodee - I have updated my sidebar and now have a link to a site in which you can learn ALL about the free methodist denomination.

If anyone hasn't read, "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell, I whole-heartedly recommend it. Short book, and very good.

In Christ
.JH.

What does it mean to love God?

"Loving God is being so satisfied in Him and so delighted in all that He is for us that His commandments cease to be burdensome."

John Piper

Luther...

Mr. Luther seems to have a lot of good things to say. I would like to pick up one of his books sometime and learn from him.

Faith and Works

"So there are two parts of Christian teaching that we must emphasize for Christians daily. Neither faith nor works can be ignored. For when faith isn’t preached—when no one explains how we are joined to Christ and become branches in him—then everyone resorts to their own works. On the other hand, if we teach only about faith, it leads to false Christians. These people praise faith, but they don’t show any fruit or power. That’s why it's so difficult to preach. No matter how I preach, something goes wrong. Someone always goes off on a tangent. If I don’t preach about faith, the result will be useless and hypocritical works.  If I only emphasize faith, no one does any good works. The result is either useless, faithless do-gooders or believers who don’t do any good works…we must preach to those who want to remain in the Vine, put their trust in Christ, and put their faith into action in their everyday lives.”  Martin Luther

Seek Christ alone...

“…we should always keep Christ before our eyes. The devil continually tempts us to abandon Christ and seek the Father, saying to ourselves, ‘This or that will please him’. Meanwhile, we ignore Christ—the One the Father sent—so that we might listen to Him alone…We wonder, ‘Where is the Father?’…This is the greatest temptation to your faith. You must devote yourself to the Word of Christ and train yourself to hold on to it so that you never lose sight of Jesus.”  ~Martin Luther