Well, well, well, my friends..For the next 10 days I will be unplugging from some technology... No phone calls, no internet, no houston traffic, no ipod.. (wait, the ipod, I need.. gotta get my daily dose of sermons by john piper, matt chandler and Mark Driscoll. Hehe).

After weighing our bags and stripping for security, they made us walk to the gate (got my morning exercise). I am currently siiting in the airport with my little sister, Tey, writing my last blog for a while..

I am going to El Salvador!Both my parents are from there and this will be my first time to visit the smallest country in Central America.

I will miss my lovely girlfriend.. (love you babe)I'll bring you a bright, colorful salvadorean purse that says "El Salvador" in the front.You'll love it. Hehe.
Ill also miss my moms, my bro Aber and my other sis Beca..

I am excited, first of all, to see my fatther.. Not being able to see him for 2 years, I am happy to be able to give him a good son-ly hug and spend some time with him.
I also am anxious to get rest (can you be anxious to get rest?), regain some strength and refocus my vision.

I plan on seeing some new sights, volcanoes, mountains, waterfalls, the pacific ocean and some good looking beaches..I plan on sleeping in a hammock for 9 nights..I plan on spending some time in solitude in a canoe on some lake..I am pumped!

So, please keep me in your prayers that God would keep us from la Mara Salvatrucha... aka MS13 (a terrible, famous gang). Hehe.

So long.. until next next Monday..
Ill take some pictures and come back with stories.

Make an attempt...

That was weird.. a cool weird.

Anyway, let me tell you what hapenned about 3 days ago..
I went to Barnes and Noble with my youngest sibling, Ester..
She wanted to use my laptop and I wanted to read some books... so off we went.
She could not find an outlet to plug the laptop for the computer until she found one. I dont know why they dont have more outlets.. geez, making people look crazy trying to find one.

Well, I left her and went on my way to get a couple of books that I wanted to read from.
-I got a book on Personal Finances "Youre broke because you want to."
-Another one on Picking Stocks by Jim Cramer "Mad Money"
-Another one on marriage, "His needs, her needs." (Excellent book by the way)
-And the last one was "Vintage Church" by Mark Driscoll.
(Man, I give you my whole life on this blog)

I skimmed through a couple of chapters of each book.
-Loved the finances one...
-stocks are interesting in this downturn market..
-Reread favorite parts of His needs, her needs...
-and dug deep into Vintage Church.

Anyway, this took about 3 hours and close to closing time I decide to look for my sister.
Come to find out, the only plug that was availble in the whole bookstore was in the Sex and Relationships department..

I hear a guy's voice.
Apparently there is a man talking to my sister about the bible.. of all places...
This guy looked decent and was conversating with Tey about God.
At this point, my sis was done with the laptop and doing her devotional with her bible..
I looked at her and turned to the Kama Sutra books on the shelves.. That was weird.

I turned to the man and introduce myself..
He said his name was Robert. Robert was (or is) in his mid 50s and had a church background in The Church of Christ.. He was baptized as a kid but does not attend church. He told me that he wanted to go back to his roots and get back to church..

For about 30 minutes, I heard him ask things like,
"When you say you are saved, what are you saved from?"
"How can a person that says he is Christian still sin?"
"Does baptism save you?"
"Tongues? Huh?"

I was astounded as I shared the gospel, man.
That is a feeling that you live for.
I did not have to get on a pulpit.. wasnt even wearing a white shirt and tie.

I went through the process of santification.. We will never be perfect until we see him just as He is.
I told him that we were saved from Hell.. Do you like that answer?
Well, we are also saved from our own selves. From our sin of pride, of hipocrisy, of self righteousness.

At times, I would see his eyes squint while we talked and then I would see his eyes get big, as he nodded, as if to say, "I understand."
He was a huge man.. almost topping 6 and a half feet.
A lady stopped by and told us that she had overheard our conversation and liked that every answer was backed by a text of scripture..

We said goodbye, exchanged emails and told him one last time that I hoped he would encounter the cross of Jesus and repented of his sin.

I am glad.
It is a joy that the personal finance book, the stocks book, the marriage book cannot bring. Not even a book about Church can bring that hapinness.

Pray for me and rejoice wiith me, my friends..
I leave you with this quote from Charles Spurgeon:

"Even if the souls we seek should all persist in unbelief, if they all despise and reject and ridicule us, yet still it will be a divine work to have at least made the attempt"
Wow..
Make an attempt.

The Treadmill y yo (and me)

So... I have been hittin' the gym lately (well, for the past 3 days).
Hey, that's an accomplishment for me!

I've been getting my groove back, you know what I mean?
I like running a lot...
My bro Aber is trying to get me to lift weights but I don't dig that, man.
I just love to run!

I used to run track in Middle School and loved running the 1 mile run.
Ahh, I get flashbacks... 3rd place in the district.. Yea, baby..

I also used to run a lot when I used to play basketball in 7th grade.
We went to the district championship game. We lost.
But we went!

So, now that you know that I like to run.
Guess what my favorite piece of equipment is at the gym?
You guessed it.
The Treadmill.
You are so smart.

So, I get on and start to run... I start thinking about my glory days in track. Hehe.

For the last 3 days I have done 5 miles and burned more than 700 calories.
That's what the machine said.
You see, I want to lose some of this weight.
I'm still young and want to look "good" for my girl... so this is for you baby.

Here are a couple of things that I have learned at the gym lately:

• I need to stop looking at the TV (Rockets vs. Lakers) or today (A&M vs. Baylor) watching basketball games, and running.
• Why?
• Because I get distracted and start fallin off the treadmill.
• It happened twice and the gym was full... People turned around and just stared at me. It was embarrassing.
• At least I did not fall off and bust my head. Freakin track belt on the treadmill never stops.
• I need to stop paying attention to how many miles, how many calories, how many minutes I have been running. I get tired faster.
• It sucks when you got an athletic guy on the treadmill right next to you and he never stops running, but you gotta stop like 5 times in 20 minutes because you are out of breath!
• I wonder what that guy is thinking?

So, that's my journey on my physical side.

On the other hand, I miss my girl (who is in Huntsville for college SHSU!) I cant wait to see her tomorrow and the rest of the weekend.

I'm thinking of going out to Chillis and getting me some Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers.
Have not had them in a while.

Extra ranch, please.
Thank you.

Bible-in-1-year plan..

I gotta tell you... I'm enjoying reading my Bible.

I have always thought about reading the WHOLE Bible.. All of it. Every word of it.
And I will start in Genesis 1, go through the Creation Story, The flood, Abraham's life, Isaac marrying Rebekah, Jacob puling that sneaky stunt on his brother Esau, and Joseph's life amazed me.
I mean, these stories were the stories that were told to me when I was in Sunday School so it was easier for me to read the book of Genesis.
So, I went to Exodus, it was good too. Moses and his adventures with the Pharaoh. I mean, come on... so "Prince Of Egypt", you know.

But whenever I got to the book of Numbers, I lost it. The first few chapters were good, but when it started talking about "Laws of this" and "Laws of that" OK man.... I put my bible down and pick up a book on practical ministry instead.

I know, I know... I am very bad and evil for doing that.. Hehe.
Then I would start to read the Gospels in the New Testament, some of Paul's letters, but never got around to reading books like Jeremiah, Isaiah and the "little" prophets, the one that no one talks about like Nahum, Hosea, Habakkuk (Huh?). Yeeeaaaa.

But see, I love God's word, man.
It convicts me when I'm in sin.
It lifts me up when I don't have any strength.
It humbles me when I get cocky.
It points me to the cross all the time.
It shows me His redemptive ways all over the Bible.
I love it!

So, for one of my New Years Resolution, I once again decided to read the whole Bible.
Will you keep me accountable?

I went to John Piper's website and downloaded the Bible Reading Plan that they use at their church.
And this time, I am certain that I will make it!
Why?

Well, let me tell you why.
There are a couple of reasons why I see that this plan will work.
Here they are, adapted form John Piper's website:

-You get to read short passages every day.
-You get to read from 4 separate places in the Bible every day. Meaning that, you wont be stuck on the boring Laws in Leviticus (sorry God, I know there is a purpose for them being there), but you will be reading a portion from the Gospels, a portion from Leviticus and a portion of Psalms and a portion of Paul's letters in one day.
-It seems like a lot, but it would only take you around 30 minutes a day.

-"To prevent the frustration of falling behind, which most of us tend to do when following a Bible reading plan, each month of this plan gives you only 25 readings.
Since you'll have several "free days" each month, you could set aside Sunday to either not read at all or to catch up on any readings you may have missed in the past week."

-If you finish the month's readings by the 25th, you could use the final days of the month to study passages that challenged or intrigued you.

Join me in this journey.
Read the Bible with me...
I heard its good for the soul. Hehe.

Starbucks, sickness, the museum...all in a Saturday!

I am having an awesome Saturday…
Sitting here at Starbucks, I ran into a guy that I had not seen in a long time. I met him and one of his buddies a while back at the Starbucks that I'm at right now. I spent some time at a small group with them. Those guys are in love with Jesus and it was an amazing time that I had getting to know them a little a couple of months ago.

I'm at Starbucks because Ruthie is at the Toyota Center for “The Radio City Music Spectacular” with her mother. I never come to this Starbucks but decided to stay here to meet her mom so she could go with her to the show.
Guess who I saw at the Starbucks when I walked in? Hehe..
The same friend that I had met a couple of months ago! Pretty cool! Hehe.
We talked for a bit and then I stayed for a while to read and get online.

Well, let me tell you about my Saturday.
I started out my day sitting outside of a Starbucks, another one (Its been a Starbucks day) with Joe, a friend of mine. We took in the beautiful morning and caught up since we had not seen each other since last year. Hehe (corny, so what?).
We talked about life, church planting, new year resolutions and other things.

Then I met up with my sick girlfriend…
When I say sick, I mean physically.
Not sick as in “Cool” or sick as in “Gross” but sick as in mucus, sneezing, in need for her boyfriend to cook her some sopita (soup).
So that was my job. I can now cook. Ha!
I can say that because my love got "healed" after eatin' my cookin'!

We then went over to an exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science to go see “The Birth of Christianity” They have been advertising this thing on the radio and all over the city billboards.
They were going to have original parts of the book of Isaiah, authentic parts of the Gospel of Luke… I was excited!!!


Have you ever been in a hurry and gone inside a gas station and picked out a Pepsi soda can, paid for it, ran out to your car, drove off, opened the soda, took a huge chug from it… and it happens to be a DIET PEPSI!!!??
Have you ever been in a hurry in the morning and got dressed so quickly that when you re at your job, you happen to look at your socks and one is black and the other blue?!!
AGGGHHHHHHH!

After going over to the museum and forking over something like $50, we go into this tiny room where they had clay pots, a painting that hung on a wall, jewelry, a bath tub from King Herod’s palace (although that was pretty cool), I was screaming at myself, inside my mind, almost saying words that Jesus would not have liked.
Is this it?!
I came here for this?!

I mean, its cool and all but dang show me the scrolls where Paul writes to the Ephesians!!!
Well, after 20 minutes of bumping into people in that tiny room, we went into another room and to my relief, I saw fragments of the authentic pieces of “paper” that Isaiah had written on.

But the damage was done.. I was hating it.
It was probably my mistake to think it would be more exciting.

To their credit, I totally loved the exhibits where I saw fragments of the original pieces of the Book of Hebrews.
I saw the fragments of the original pieces from Epehesians and Galatians..

My best one?
I saw the original passage of Scripture where John writes those awesome words that get me thinking all the time when I read them..
"The next day he (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” -John 1:29

If I could take one good thing from this exhibit… that would be that I saw with mine own eyes these fragments of words that are inspired by God!
Amazing that I could experience that!
I love God’s word…. With all my heart… and I want to strive so hard to follow Jesus’ teachings.

So that was my Saturday.
Pretty neat huh?
Well, maybe not for you, but for me… it was great.

Until next time, peace.
Chunk the deuce!!

From distress to a living hope!

2008 has been a good year... and here comes 2009.
With only one day left, I reflect on the things that happened this year... and I also look to Jesus for guidance in this next year.
To tell you the truth, I am kind of confused.

My plans are not His plans. Hmmm.
I can strategize and plan, but at the end not be at peace with what is about to be done.
I'm in turmoil right now.. Its turbulent and I look to Jesus to calm the storm.

I repent.
Seriously, man, He feels so far away, but still feels so close that I can smile and be reassured that everything will be OK... one day.

My life as it is, is fine... its good.
I mean, I can have more, but I have everything I need.
I am learning that Jesus is all I need.

I can conform to this world and say:
-If I only had a little bit more money.
-If I only had a better car.
-If I only had a better house.
-If I only had more name brand clothes.
-If I only had more... more... more...

God, I repent for my foolishness and immaturity when I start to desire things that don't bring glory to you and only bring glory to me.

I hear the apostle Paul muttering these words while in a prison, writing to the Philippians, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!"

How can a man having had everything and now had nothing wrote to the church like if he had everything?
He says in Philippians 4:11-13 "I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

How can someone say all that while being beaten and put in jail?
Ahh, the glorious Jesus.
I tell you, when you recognize the beauty of Christ, you can say the same thing.

In my weakest moments, I turn to Christ on the cross and like that thief, I say, "Jesus, remember me... remember me."

Some may see this post somewhat depressing in such joyous times as the new year begins, but others may see that in this post, there is an abundance of humanity, sin and weakness in my part.

And also a hint of living hope... the hope that Peter wrote about in his first letter.
"According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" I Peter 1:3b

I have that living hope...

Why do people go to church on Sundays?

I know I'm getting myself into a hole here... some will take this the wrong way, and that's okay. I don't mind.


2 Sundays ago I missed church... on purpose.

I have been visiting churches these past Sundays. Ive been to Fellowship of the Woodlands, Kaleo Church with Bill Streger, The Promise Church that my friend Daniel Espinoza pastors, Community Of Faith Church, River Pointe Church... and other churches.


A couple of weeks ago, I told my pastor that I would be looking for the next step in my ministry life and, although that was the hardest thing to do, since Pastor Rios has been my pastor forever, it had to be done.

It has been a good experience to go to these churches and see the way they do church. Some worship differently than others. Some teach different than others. Some pick up offering different than others. It has and still is an awesome learning experience.

2 Sundays ago I decided to stay home and not visit or go to a church.
Dude, when I woke up, I realized that I had slept in and I felt good!
I slowly got ready, put some relaxing clothes on and ran an errand that I had not done that Saturday. After taking my time, I went over to one of my favorite places, Starbucks, and sat outside enjoying the breeze and reading a book and my bible. It was great, man.

I started thinking, "Why do people go to church on Sundays?"
Tell me guys, why do you go to church?

Do you go because you have always been to church every Sunday of your life?
Do you go because your youth buddies will pass notes during service making fun of the lady that has big hair and gets a "breakthrough" every 5 minutes during service?
Do you go because "if Jesus hung on that cross for 6 hours, you should at least sacrifice 3 hours on a Sunday and go to church, brother."

Why do you go?
More importantly, why would any unsaved person go to your church?
Think differently. Think about your lost friends.
Why would they go to your church?

Is there a strategy that's in place for every lost person that sets foot in your church?
Is there a process?
Is there biblical teaching in your church... or does the pastor talk about tithes and picks up an offering whenever you bring a friend to church?

Why would anyone after working hard the whole week, plus Saturday, maybe worked overtime and has Sunday as the only day off....
Why would that person wake his family early and dress them up to go to a service that will not benefit his spiritual life and will cause him to dislike church? How do you think his kids will view church when they grow up?

Ah, I just wonder.
NOTE: I went to church yesterday and will "not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Hebrews 10:25)