Don’t mean to be a braggart but both my local and state taxes are done and the refunds spent. Hope everyone else is done! :)

At least the Episcopalians know how to have fun! (via Christdot)

From Gospel Fundamentals Part One Chapter 3:

Our Father in Heaven loves us, and He knew we would need help. He knew we would be very sad if we could not have bodies of flesh and bones and could not return to live with Him forever. We needed someone to help us. Our Father in Heaven wanted someone to be our Savior. Two of our brothers offered to be our Savior.

Our oldest brother, Jesus, asked our Father in Heaven to send Him.
[SNIP]
Satan, who was called Lucifer, also asked our Father in Heaven to choose him to be our Savior.

Oh, yea and from Gospel Fundamentals Part One Chapter 1:

The good men who have seen our Father in Heaven have said that He is real. He lives. He looks like a man.

Our Father in Heaven is not an idol or an animal. He has a body of flesh and bones. His body looks like a man’s body, but it is different.

His body will never die. His body feels no pain and cannot become sick.

I just can’t think of anything less Christian!
(via Aaron)

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ – Mark 12:30 (ESV)

The love Jesus demands that we exercise toward God, as He cites Deuteronomy 6, springs from the whole person–heart (which, as you know, signals not mere emotion but the entire personality) and soul and mind and strength. That mind is explicitly mentioned is of no small importance. We often think of loving God with our “heart” in the modern sense, that is, with our emotions; we merely serve God with our minds. This text suggests our understanding is distorted. We are to love God with our minds, as well as with our heart and soul and strength. These are not mutually exclusive categories, and I need not probe them here. My point is that at least some of the tension you feel may be because you think of devotion toward God in categories that are too narrow. Unless you feel on a “high,” you wonder if your love has slipped. – Carson & Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way, 168.

The story didn’t end in the grave.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Romans 4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

1 Corinthians 15:12-13 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

This is Easter Sunday.

Acts 2:23
Jesus was handed over to sinful men. God knew this and planned for it to happen. You had sinful men take Him and nail Him to a cross.

Acts 4:27-28
Truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.

Isa 53:6 & 10
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;

This is Good Friday.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. – Hebrews 13:7-10

Why does the author of Hebrews, right in the middle of this thought drop in the unchangeableness of Jesus? Before and after it he is speaking of the church leaders “who spoke to you the word of God” and so the church is not to ” be led away by diverse and strange teachings”. I think the obvious answer is that what these guys are teaching doesn’t get changed or overruled by some new guys showing up with new teaching since Jesus didn’t change. He is our unchanging standard in teaching. If something new comes along we need to test it to see if it presents a changed or changing Jesus.

So now notice how he ends the section, he talks about those who serve at the tabernacle (the tent used before Solomon built the temple; it is significant) who do not have a portion in this new altar. In the Old Covenant the priest shared in a portion of the sacrifice, it is how they fed themselves and their families. But now something is new, there is a new altar in which those guys don’t have part of. So did something change? What about that bit just before it where Jesus doesn’t change? Something significantly changed. Remember earlier I mentioned that Moses was a servant in the house Jesus built. The tabernacle was built under Moses’ direction. Moses gave the law concerning the priests. Didn’t something just change if those guys now can’t get food that way?

Obviously Jesus didn’t “change” things here. What was pictured in the tabernacle was fulfilled in Jesus. You can’t keep doing the picture when the reality comes. Imagine if you were going to take your family to Disneyland. You talked about it and showed brochures from it. Your family planned out what rides each would ride and in what order. Imagine if you even went so far as to build a model of Disneyland in your backyard! (Disney would sue) Now the day arrives and you’re ready to go. Your eight-year old decides to stay in the backyard and watch the miniature Matterhorn. He refuses to take his ticket to Disneyland and clings to the paper mache mountain. He has no part in the family trip but is clinging to image. Did the Matterhorn change? Now, it has “come” and has been rejected. Even though junior is still holding on to the image, you are going to tear that mess down when you get back from Anaheim. It isn’t a change it is a fulfillment.

That is what is going on in Hebrews. Jesus didn’t change, what was pictured in Old Testament Judaism was the same thing that that came in Jesus’ death and resurrection. So now if someone comes along and says something that doesn’t follow Jesus’ incarnation they are not to be followed. Jesus didn’t change and suddenly move us back to Old Covenant worship.

I’m sure we’ve all gotten that e-mail claiming that someone has $1.5M in an account and they need to get it out of X country. They ask you to open an account they can transfer it to and you can keep some. It is a scam to get your personal information.

Usually it is the widow or son of some assassinated or deposed ruler. Here’s a new twist:

From Amed Hassan,
Abidjan (Ivory
Coast),
Tele: 22507599685.

Dear,

I am Mr Amed Hassan from Ivory Coast. I am an orphan of 18years old,
being that I lost my father a couple of a year, and some months ago. My
father was a serving director of the Cocoa exporting board until his
death .

It goes on from there. I guess the spammers are finding little sympathy for deposed dictators and now are turning to 18 year old orphans. Egh.