Today, November 1st, 2006, a date which will probably live in no one’s memory but my own.

For today marks my very last SonRise Show, and this Sunday will be my last Word 4 Life program; both on KWFH, 90.1 FM.

SOME HISTORY:

I’ve been involved as a volunteer at KWFH since shortly after I arrived in Parker 19 years ago. At first I was just monitoring the board, playing some prerecorded shows, etc.

Then came my big break! The host of the Friday night “youth show” was going to be out of town and needed a fill in. Bob “Ranger” Giles called me and asked me if I’d do what was then a two hour program.

I said yes, and then freaked out! I had never spoken live on the air, and in just a few hours (did I mention he called me Friday morning?)I’d have an entire show to do all by myself! So I set to work and a ministry was born.

We decided to name the show Light Tracks, later became LighTracs, and finally 2 X-tremes, before I left the show after about 10 years playing Christian Rock, Rap, Metal and Alternative music. The show grew from 2 hours to 4 and for a while we had our own web page, newsletter, etc.

I had several partners during those years. First was Ranger Bob and later a few others who didn’t stay long. But by far my best partner, and still my good friend was Keith. Better known as The Positive 1 or as I liked to call him, since he played the rap/hip-hop music – The Rap Master! For some reason he never liked that name!

We worked on that show for years and at one point had it going pretty darn well. We promoted two local concerts, the first one of which sold out our local theater and featured Jason Sacks.

Ranger Bob and I also co-created the SonRise Show. A morning drive time AC/CHR music show. It’s always had a different volunteer host for each weekday, and grew from 3 half hour segments that were separated by a half hour program, to a 90 minute program, which for the last 8 years or so has been pretty consistent with it’s sound.

In it’s early years LighTracs was a battle ground over whether or not we could play that kind of music. We also had skirmishes over the music issue on the SonRise Show as well.

HOW IT FEELS TO END AN ERA

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[Here's another devotional I've written, this one from the booklet I wrote to accompany my series on Ephesians.

I've been very busy lately and coming up with fresh material for the blog had been a challenge. Thus my resorting to previously written material. I've also been working on some new and rather large material that I hope to unveil here someday fairly soon. Hope you don't mind my recycling of my own material]

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:2 (NIV)

If you look at something long enough, you cease to see it. We’ve all experienced the truth of this. What was once thought beautiful now goes largely unnoticed.

We have seen Paul start so many of his letters using the expression “grace and peace” that we don’t see it anymore either. But we must force our minds to focus on this short opening line. Because it contains two vital components for living a spiritual life.

One almost everyone admits to needing and wanting, the other is often either ignored or denied. We all want and need peace, but often reject the very thing that produces it—grace.

You cannot have peace with God until you first accept and experience His grace. It’s not until your lay down your pride, your belief in your own ability to please God, and accept that your entire relationship with God is based on Christ’s grace that peace is possible.

Once I know that my acceptance with God is a gift that Christ purchased on the cross, and then accept it gratefully, then I can really experience peace with God.

Paul does not begin with this phrase simply because it was traditional. He does so because it’s the perfect beginning to this letter. This is the one and only start line on the journey to Authentic Spirituality.

Paul proves this by spending three chapters showing us all that Christ has done for us in Christ. Over and over again we are going to see the marvelous grace of God in Christ.

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This is the 3rd post I’ve written about Core Values, and is about something I talked about in my 1st sermon on the subject yesterday!

Go figure!

I began this sermon (which you can stream or down at the CCR sermon page) by laying out what the first Core Value is, and then jumping right into how to actually create the desire to do it in our hearts.

CORE VALUE #1 – CCR is CHRIST CENTERED.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (NIV)

I decided to really zero in on what I believe is the most important passage of Scripture in the New Testament about Worship is this one:

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:21-24 (NIV)

I won’t go through all 5 of the critical facts about Worship that I underlined in the passage above, instead I just want to focus on the last one.

God is searching for people to worship Him the way Jesus describes in this passage.

Of course I had seen those words of Jesus for years, but somehow I had never really given much thought to them. I was too focused on Spirit and Truth etc. to really stop and consider that according to Jesus, God the Father is looking for me to worship Him!

He’s been looking for me to discover how to worship Him in Spirit and truth for longer than I’ve even known about this passage. He seeks for me to pour out my heart to Him even when I’m distracted, or disgusted or just plain giving into temptation and sin.

Just like the father of the prodigal son, God carefully watches for each one of us to enter into spirit and truth worship. Which, when you read those words of Jesus carefully, is the only kind of real worship anyway!

You might be asking, “Why is he talking about this on a Monday? I just finished worshiping yesterday!”

Which is of course, why I’m address this! Jesus makes it clear that worship isn’t confined to any one place or day or time. Worship should move our hearts to continually recenter themselves on Christ many times during each day.

Everyday, no matter how busy, presents us with multiple opportunities to worship in spirit and truth, and to realign ourselves with God’s Spirit of Truth.

Could there be a better way to start the week than by taking just a few moments today to do just that?

I’ve got two posts for you today. Hopefully you’ll have fun with both!

Short Rounds #30 is up, but before that is my first post in a new category called I Just Don’t Get It. I plan on commenting on things in the news, politics, religion etc. that I just don’t get! Today I look at the Madonna adoption.
Have a great weekend!

I’m sure you’ve all heard something about the whole Madonna adoption farce whether you wanted too or not!

As usual she has proven to be a master (mistress?) of marketing herself all over the world. Who else could make a phone call and get on Oprah in just a few days?

Not many that’s for sure!

To be fair, Madonna has given money to the poor in Malawi, with the goal of building an orphanage. Unfortunately she’s doing this with the provision that some of the tenets of Kabala (or Cabala, or Kabbalah, etc.) are taught to poor unsuspecting tots.

Naturally as a Christian I disagree with this and find it alarming. But I get it. I completely understand why she’d want to promote her faith, bogus as I know it is.

Here’s what I don’t get.

Why on earth did she “adopt” (I’m not going to argue what really happened since I have no idea) a child which has a living parent?

About 14 months ago I spend two weeks in Malawi on a short term mission trip, and can tell you for a fact that there are thousands of orphans in Malawi! Kids with no mother or father, many of them with no family to speak of either.

I spent several hours in a tiny village “beyond the dust” (in the countryside) one day helping to feed and teach some of those orphans. There were at least 25 or 30 in that one small village alone! Most of them are AIDS orphans, and are very poor.

With thousands of children to choose from, what would possess Madonna to choose a child who has a father? Granted his future is pretty bleak by our standards. But it’s far, far better than the probable future of those thousands of his friends who have no parents at all.

Had she done that, we’d have been spared all this controversy.

I Just Don’t Get It!

Can you believe it? We’re reached 30 editions of Short Rounds! Wow – I’ll have to throw a party when we hit 50!

BTW – I’ve saved the best for last, so read all the way to the end.

When Galaxies Collide!

Check out this picture – amazing!

Maps of War

This is a great site to better understand history, and our current world as well. Try the first map there, the Imperial History of the Middle East to better understand the wild history of that region. Other maps are also available for view.

Firefox 2.0 Is Here!

If you are still using Internet Explorer you really ought to give Firefox a try. It’s smaller, has many more features, and is much safer from virus attack!

IE’s new version has tabs, something Firefox has had for a long time. The new version has many new features, including a spell checker to help you fill out internet forms correctly. That’s great because I now have a spell checker as I type up my blog every day!

It’s too cool to miss – and of course it’s free!

50 Books You Should Leave on the Shelf

I shared with you last week Christianity Today’s 50 Most Influential books, now here’s a list of the opposite. I don’t happen to agree with a lot his entries, which include the Purpose Driven Life, The Ryrie Study Bible & Scofield Reference Bible as well.

But he does nail a lot of them, including a Benny Hinn Book, the Bible Code garbage, the Satan Seller by Mike Warnke, etc.

But here’s the one that really surprised me:

48. Experiencing the Presence of God – Charles G. Finney

You’ve got to be kidding!

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How often do we find that we know more than we thought we knew? Which means that we often don’t know what we know!

I had a conversation recently that got me to thinking about this. In the course of our conversation the person I was talking to went from claiming she had not problems, to discussing her problems, to saying it was other people’s problems, to admitting she might need to come to our Celebrate Recovery ministry to help her with these problems!

Whew!

Please don’t take this as a criticism of her, because I’ve done exactly the same thing many times, and I’m sure you have also.

Isn’t is strange how we can be absolutely sure one minute that something is true, and the next minute be absorbed in explaining how it’s not?

Okay, it might take more than a minute in most cases, but it happens so quickly that there can only be one explanation for it – we actually do know what we know, we just don’t know it!

Uh, hold on here, I think I’m getting a little confused here. How about you?

We know it, but then we are saved from having to acknowledge and act on our knowledge by a couple of old friends. These pals are always ready to step in a lend us a hand whenever we are in need of an escape from reality!

They are: Rationalization & Denial.

Dictionary.com defines rationalization as:

to ascribe (one’s acts, opinions, etc.) to causes that superficially seem reasonable and valid but that actually are unrelated to the true, possibly unconscious and often less creditable or agreeable causes.

And Denial as:

1) an assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false: Despite his denials, we knew he had taken the purse. The politician issued a denial of his opponent’s charges.
2) refusal to believe a doctrine, theory, or the like.
3) disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing.

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Below is an excerpt from a devotional I wrote in 2004 to close out my Spiritual Growth Campaign titled, “40 Days in the Spirit.” I’m presenting it here today, because I’m tried and can’t think of a thing to write!

All these devotionals were edited by my dear friend Maggie, who’ll soon have a new last name and a new husband to match! Congrats to her, and I hope you enjoy the thoughts below.

Knowing the Spirit – The Holy Spirit’s Names

Day Eight: The Holy Spirit – Luke 11:13, Psalm 51:11

Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” Galatians 4:6