I pray that you would pause today and reflect on the truth and the reality of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ this Good Friday. I am moved by Jesus’ suffering and death to bring me, a rebel against Him and His purposes, back to into relationship with Himself and with the Father.

From time to time I try to imagine where I would be if Jesus hadn’t died for me? I shutter to think of where I would be and I praise Him that I know Him and that I’m not there.

Where would you be if He hadn’t died for you?

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

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Good evening, or should I say good morning. I just rolled back into my crib (a.k.a. my house, or place of residence) and I thought I would log on the net to check my email and a few blogs. And to my delight I found a massive entry about the claims of the resurrection over at Driscoll’s blog.

One of the things that draws me to the teaching and writing of Driscoll is that he was impacted by Jesus as a 19-year-old college freshman, just as I was. Whenever I hear his story I hear bits of me and my story of coming into relationship with Jesus. So when he talks about looking for the evidence to actually believe that a man rose from the dead 2,000 years ago it hits home. In my life it played out a couple years after I had made a decision to follow Christ. One morning I woke up and I was staggering with doubt. It is the weighable evidence that is found in Scripture and outside of Scripture that God used to give me peace. Here is the intro paragraph to Driscoll’s post and click here for the rest.

Jesus Christ was born nearly 2000 years ago in very humble circumstances to a young teenage virgin girl named Mary. Jesus life on the earth was a mere 33 years, and only three of those years were spent doing ministry and teaching publicly. Jesus never traveled more than two hundred miles from his home, never held a political office, never married or had children, never wrote a book, never ran a company, and never made much money. Yet, today Christianity which is the religion left in His wake is the largest world religion with nearly 2 billion people who claim to be Christians and worship Jesus as their God.

Many of my friends and those who encounter me know that I have been impacted and discipled from afar by the preaching and teaching of Mark Driscoll. Driscoll is a pastor and church-planter out in Seattle and in many ways the way he communicates and teaches is similar to the way I want to and also in ways that connect with my heart and mind. About a month or so ago Driscoll responded to a post by a Christian leader about a “hard” subject and Driscoll blasted him and another leader. I have to confess, I laughed at it and enjoyed it. One reason is because I totally disagreed with what this other leader was saying and, two, because I have a sarcastic demeanor that cuts people down. The ladder, and not the former, is the problem, because it’s not living a life congruent to the Gospel.

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Today for our Monday curriculum at the Training Center here at Athletes in Action’s home office we read a chapter from Os Guinness’ book, “The Call.” I have yet to read the whole of this book, but the chapter, entitled “A Focused Life,” we read for our workshop on “Time Management and Time Famine” blew me away and has me wanting to buy the whole book (which I don’t need to buy another book at the time, but the temptation is there). The whole chapter floored me, but what really struck a cord with me were some quotes from Dorothy L. Sayers.

Here they are for you!

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Happy Thursday! Today I have had the day off and I took full advantage of it! I slept in and got to chill a bit, which has been a blessing! See the last 4 days have been our Athletes in Action Spring Break Urban Immersion in downtown Dayton! It consisted of working at the Life Enrichment Center (LEC) and also hearing some great talks. They put us to work at the LEC and it was a privilege to serve there and also reach out to those who are less fortunate than many of us.

Over the next couple of days as I process a ton of things that God has been teaching me I will be posting some reflections of race, the marginalized, how seeing God’s heart for the disenfranchised affects the way we see and live the Gospel, and lastly some reflections on challenging the status-quo of our day. I figured if I actually wrote this that I would be disciplined to actually get these thoughts up on the blog. But until then, I thought I would share some lyrics and thoughts from the Jeremy Camp and Bethany Dillon concert I got to check out last night.

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For those of you who watched the Olympic coverage this evening and happened to see the coverage of SnowBoard Cross you might have seen a Czech named Michal Novotny ripping it up! He finished 13th and I’m stoked to say I know him and that he is a friend.

Michal attended the Sports Faculty University in Prague where I worked to see Czech students respond to Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and a full life! It was fun to hang out a ton with Michal while I was in Czech. We even went riding together a couple times and he taught be all about Skier and SnowBoard Cross. Sorry to say I’m not as good as Michal! Czech out this link to see the results! By the way Michal way to work the duct tape on that helmet! You’re keeping it real bro!

Okay I need to get on the phone! There happens to be only $83 of monthly support left to raise! Praise Jesus!

While I’ve been down here in Daytona Beach at New Staff Training I’ve been struggling with meeting and spending time with the Lord. It just seems as I’m sitting in hours upon hours of meetings and I have very little down time this creates a situation where I’m not practicing spiritual disciplines. So this morning as I was sitting in a another meeting (I have a confession – I’m not excited that I have to sit in this meeting room at 8:30 am. I have been praying that the Lord would help me with my attitude.) I was surfing and I found a great little piece, from CJ Mahaney, about spiritual disciplines. I pray it speaks to you as it spoke to me. He was asked to describe his present practice of the spiritual disciplines and this was his response:
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This past weekend we actually had time off! I didn’t know what to do with myself! I didn’t have any chapters to read, or a final exam to study for! So 10 of us made our way to the Magic Kingdom, at Disney World, this past Saturday and had a blast. I was with several new staff friends that had never been to Disney before and it was fun to see how they responded to the “Disney Experience.” There is so much that I could write about that came to mind throughout the day. But I’m going to zero in on two things; 1) the legacy of Walt Disney and beyond, and 2) a vision of heaven.

the legacy of Walt and beyond

Now I want to offer a disclaimer before I get rolling into this thought – I’m not sold out a 100% about everything that the Disney corporation does and/or supports, but it is amazing to think of the earthly legacy that the man Walt Disney has had on our planet. Think of how many children have smiled, and for that matter how many adults have smiled, due to his dreams that have come true.

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