Dealing with Offense part 3

¹ The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: ² "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." ³ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.

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Today I want to look at someone who did things the wrong way. Everyone knows the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale and how God rescued him, and a few people know why he was in the whale in the first place. But do you know why he was running from God? You may have guessed from the title, but he was OFFENDED!!! God wanted him to go and preach in the one place that Jonah hated more than anything else. We don't understand slavery and oppression like he was going through, but we do understand what it's like to get picked on.

I think Jonah knew God, and knew that He would punish people who did evil. In fact, the only thing that was keeping Jonah going was knowing that God would punish the people of Ninevah for all of the horrible things they had done. I wonder if he often prayed for the destruction of that city. I bet he did. So imagine his surprise when one day God tells him to go to Ninevah and preach repentance. He didn't want them to repent, he wanted them to SUFFER!!! So instead of following God's plan, he decided to try and avoid God, and because of that He was swallowed by a whale.

The moral of todays story? Let go of your offenses and listen to God, or you might end up somewhere you don't want to be.

-Jeff-

Dealing with Offense part 1

How important is respect? When I asked this question in youth last night, nearly everyone in the room gave it a 4 or 5, on a scale of 1 to 5. As I was mulling over last nights activities, I thought of a few other examples of what we talked about, but rather than dragging this series on for another 3 weeks I figured that I could just say what I need to in a couple blogs. But before I get to the topic, here are a couple quotes on respect:

My uncle's dying wish was to have me sitting on his lap. He was in the electric chair.

I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.

When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.

If you're breathing, respect is probably a big deal for you. Last night in youth we talked about the how hurtful offense is, and how it gives the enemy a foothold in our lives. I'm convinced that this is one of the number one ways that he attacks us, because it makes us ineffective in the Kingdom of God. Ephesians 4 says this:

²⁶"In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, ²⁷and do not give the devil a foothold.

When we allow ourselves to harbor bitterness, we give the devil a chance to attack us without even realizing. The problem with offense is that often times we have the "right" to be angry. If someone hurts us, we feel justified talking about them behind their back. But that's not what God wants for us.

I'll explore this more in later posts, but this one is getting too long.

-Jeff-

What should I do after I get saved?

Below is a letter that I wrote to a girl who recently got saved in one of our church vans coming home from playing mini-golf. I started looking around the internet for resources about what to do after salvation, and since I couldn't find anything I liked, I thought I'd start a series on my blog. This letter will be part one of many:



Hey I just wanted to write and tell you that I think it's awesome that you took this step tonight. I really feel like God was in the whole experience, and I hope you do too. If you ever have any questions about what happened tonight, please ask. The bible says that all you need to do to be saved is what you did tonight, but there is a lot more to being a Christian than just saying one prayer. Here is a recap of the talked about tonight, just to make sure you understand what's happened.

1) God Created You and Loves You Alot. He created the whole world just so he could have a relationship with you. He thinks you are absolutely amazing.

2) Everyone has sinned. It doesn't matter who you are, everyone has done something wrong in their life. The problem is that God is perfect and because He's perfect imperfect people can't have a relationship with Him. We can never do anything right enough to get back together with God, therefore we are destined to be punished.

3) Jesus took our punishment. The reason Jesus came to this world was to take care of the sin problem. Think of sin as a prison, with no way out. Jesus came and took our place in the prison so that we can have a relationship with God.

4) We can live for Him. God wants us to be with Him, and just like any friendship we need to spend time with Him in order for it to grow. We do that by praying and reading the bible. Prayer is easy, you don't need to memorize any fancy sayings or anything like that, you just talk to Him. Tell Him all your feelings, your hurts, and your desires. He just wants to hear from you. Reading the Bible is God's way of talking to us. I would suggest reading in John. Try and read a chapter a day, but if you miss a day don't give up on it.

Well, that's about it for now, since I've already written you a book. Do you have a bible? Let me know how you're feeling when you read this, if you're confused about anything just ask.

I'm proud of you,
-Jeff-

What should I do after I get saved? pt 5 of 8

How to read the Bible

If you've been following along on our simple process to becoming a mega-christian superstar(or maybe you're just trying to survive without sinning every 10 minutes), then eventually the question turns to: What do I do with this book? By now you should have gotten a bible (the church you're attending can help you with this if you haven't) and maybe you've thumbed through it a couple times. You may even have decided that you're going to read the whole thing through so you started, like any book, at the beginning, determined to get to the end. I would encourage you to do it a little different.

You see, the bible isn't like any other book you've ever read. In fact, it's a compilation of 66 different books, divided into 2 sections (called testaments), written by different authors and spanning almost 1500 years. Normally I'm not the type of person who reads the end of the book first, but with the Bible you should start in the middle. In fact, start in the book of John (that's in the New Testament, right after Matthew, Mark and Luke). John tells the story of Jesus, the God who became man for you and me. After that, continue on to the end of the bible, reading over the story of the early church in the book of Acts, and then going into a series of letters that were written to encourage the first Christians, 2000 years ago. Pay close attention to these letters because they address a lot of the topics that you might be struggling with. There's some powerful stuff in those letters. And finally, once you've read the ending, go back to the beginning.

There are a few tools you can use to help understand what you're reading in the Bible:

• Devotional: This is a book that takes a portion of the bible and cuts it up into easy to understand sections. A Christian bookstore or your church can help you find one that's on your level.
• Concordance: Some Bibles have these in the back, this is a tool that cross-references all of the words used in the Bible, and allows for easy searching of themes and topics. Ex.: If you wanted to find verses about salvation, you look up the word and it points to verses like these: Acts 4:12, Romans 1:16 and others. If you'd rather look online, Biblegateway.com has a keyword search feature that's really handy.
• Christian Friends: Even among strong Christians, we don't talk about the Bible enough. So ask us questions about it, because it's through dialog that we really grow.

Hopefully this points you down the right path. Comments or questions? Send them to me and I'd be happy to try and help.

-Jeff-

What should I do after I get saved? Pt 6 of 8

Today we're going to delve into a very potent and very misunderstood facet of the Christian life: Prayer. Prayer is, in it's most basic form, a conversation between us and God. In fact, most of the time we try to complicate it and turn it into something else.

Jesus gave us a model for prayer, but He didn't say that this was the only way to pray. Before we read through this model together, take a moment to tell God about how your day is going so far. Go ahead, I'll wait. Good job! That was prayer right there, and that's all it takes to begin building a relationship with God.

However, there is more to prayer if you feel like taking the next step, and Jesus told us how we should pray (Matthew 6:9-13). I'll color code this section, and you can see my comments below.

9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
10 May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today the food we need,
12 and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

• Jesus begins by taking time to praise God. He's done so much for us, we need to express our gratitude for how God is working in our lives.
  
• God is our King, and as believers we are a part of His Kingdom. We need to learn to obey Him in everything we do, and submit ourselves to His guidance and correction. Jesus is telling us to submit to God.
• All of us have needs, and God is interesting in helping us. He wants us to ask Him for the silly things, as well as the important. But know that He is A LOT smarter than we are, and He knows what's best for us, even if the answer is no.
• If you've messed up (and all of us have) He wants us to take the time to say we're sorry.
• And then ask Him to help keep you from sinning again.

There is a lot more that can be brought out of this teaching on the Lord's Prayer, but my goal here is to wet your appetite for more. Hopefully you're beginning with your day with Bible reading. Take a minute before you open the bible to pray and ask God to show you the truth in His Word, and when you come across something that challenges you, pray about it.

What should I do after I get saved? Pt 7 of 8

Matthew 28:19 says "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". Water baptism is clearly not a requirement for salvation, according to the Bible (see Eph. 2:8-9, Rom. 10: 9-10), but it is a command that Jesus made. If you are serious about living as a Christian, this is one of the steps you will need to take, and it's better to do it sooner rather than later. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Jesus modeled it. Matthew 3 tells of Jesus going to John the Baptist to be baptized in water. While there He says that it must be done "to fulfill all that God requires (Matt 3:15, NLT)". This event marked the beginning of His public ministry.
2. Jesus commanded it. In Matt 28:19 (see top) Jesus doesn't give the option of baptism, suggesting that it was to always be done.
3. Baptism is symbolic of what Jesus did for us. Romans 6:3-4 says that in being baptized we identify with Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. It's a picture of what happened to us at salvation, and a great reminder of the cross.
4. Baptism is a public act. When we are water baptized, we publicly tell everyone of the change that Jesus has made in our lives. It provides accountability by allowing others into the personal decision we made to follow Jesus.
   

Water baptism isn't talked about nearly enough in the church. Salvation (saying the prayer) is easy, but it's hard to walk out this life. We need people around us to help us out in the tough times, and through water baptism we allow others access to what God is doing in us.

-Jeff-

What should I do after I get saved? Pt 8 of 8

Well, here we are, the end of the basics, but the beginning of this journey for you. If you've enjoyed what I've written here, please leave a comment to let me know. I want to leave you with one final thought, one last tip to get you started on the right foot: Tell someone what's happened to you. Find a Christian that you look up to, and tell them what's going on in your life. Don't assume they're too busy, and don't put this off. It's too important. Try and meet with this person and ask them what it means to be a Christian. Besides talking with God, this is the most crucial step, and yet it's so easy to overlook.

Again, leave me a comment if you have any questions, otherwise may God bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you, and give you rest. Amen.

-Jeff-

Do our words matter?

I found this interesting article and I'm interested to get your take on it. Click here to read the article, then you can read my comments below.

Being a youth pastor, I know students have learned to censor their language when their around me. Also I spend a lot of my time working with Christian students at church, which isn't an atmosphere conducive to swearing (although Tiffanney would tell you she learned to swear in a church youth group). I have noticed a lot more hateful language coming from our teens. Even words said in jest are powerful, and we have to be careful with the words we choose. One girl in our group constantly is saying "I hate you." And I know she means for it to be funny, but the bible says that life and death are in the power of the tongue, and words like those can be easily misunderstood. You have to be cautious when you throw around words like that, because the words you speak go on forever. Words can be powerful weapons, we need to treat them as such.

Through God's Eyes

This is an incredibly inspiring blog posted by one of my youth leaders who's only been saved a couple of years. I think all of us need to learn to look at ourselves through God's eyes.

Through Gods Eyes

I know that sometimes people have a hard time feeling good about themselves, so this is something I think may be helpful...I guess I'll start by saying we've all made ''bad choices'', we've all done something that we look at and just wonder....why? After we feel like we have made a huge mistake we begin to judge ourselves, put ourselves down, and believe we are a failure. The problem with that is, that you are not seeing the whole picture. You need to stop looking at yourself through your own eyes. Now I know some of you are probabley thinking...well duh! Isnt that the only way I can look at myself? No. You can look at yourself through Gods eyes. That means that rather then going by how you see yourself, go by how God sees you. I guarantee he dosent look at you and see a failure. He already knew you were going to make mistakes, but Jesus kinda took care of that :) God looks at you and sees someone that he loves soooooo much, and someone he has an amazing plan for. You know, God has a plan just for you...and he wouldnt have givin it to you werent capeable of doing it! So never let your opinion of you get in the way of Gods plans. Next time you feel down, just remember that God sees who you really are....and he thinks your amazing!!!

*If your from my church and your reading this, you should get one of thoes forms in the youth room that tells you who you are in Christ, it will really encourage you!!! Love you guys!!!

What a great post from an amazing woman of God.

-Jeff-

Punished for Cleaning up?

I had an interesting conversation with Kadin the other night. It went something like this:

ME: Do you know why you're in trouble?

KADIN: But Dad, I was just trying to clean up all my toys in the living room so you and Mom wouldn't have to trip on them.

ME: Was that what you were supposed to be doing?

KADIN: But I thought you always wanted me to clean my stuff up.

ME: Unless we already told you to get in bed.

KADIN: But I thought it would make you happy...

ME: I love it when you clean up stuff without us asking, it makes me very happy, but I'm even more happy when you do what you're told.

In 1 Samuel there is a story of King Saul. In chapter 13 he was given clear instructions that he was to wait for Samuel for seven days, and that when Samuel arrived he would offer the sacrifice and God's blessing would be upon the people. Towards the end of the seventh day the people started to get restless, and Saul decided that he would offer the sacrifice to God. Here is the conversation that resulted from this decision:

11 "What have you done?" asked Samuel.
Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, 12 I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."

13 "You acted foolishly," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command."

To paraphrase, King Saul said, "But I thought it would make God happy..."

I think an even more telling story is in chapter 15, when Saul is told by the prophet to kill everything in a particular area, and yet he decided to save the best stuff to offer a sacrifice to God. That's when God reveals to him the same thing I was trying to get across to Kadin, namely that doing what He says is more important than doing what we think He wants. Here is the way God put it in the bible:

22 But Samuel replied:
"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king."

God was trying to stamp out the same attitude that caused the Pharisees in Jesus time, and causes a religious spirit today. This is the attitude that made the Pharisees balk when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, or when He chose not to have His disciples fast on certain days like everyone else did. We need to learn to do what God is saying now, not what we think He wants.

With Kadin, his heart wasn't to clean the living room, it was to try and stay up a few minutes longer. I think with King Saul, he wanted to please the people more than he wanted to please God. God is good at exposing the attitudes of our hearts, and He wants a people who a fully devoted to Him, not using Him for our benefit. Ouch.

Learning to walk with Him daily,

-Jeff-

Eyes on the prize

Last night while I was reading from the book of Galatians I noticed something that really stuck out to me,

1Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

Our Senior Pastor announced on Sunday that he had accepted a position at another church. This introduced all sorts of uncertainty in our lives, but God, knowing my human tendencies, practically screamed this verse at me Sunday night, letting me see that He has everything under control. Then this morning I came across this story from ESPN's Page 2:

Studies of crashes during aircraft landings under difficult circumstances, he said, showed that pilots who made bad mistakes when approaching an airfield and crashed, but lived to tell the tale, reported that they had been focused on avoiding obstacles. Pilots who made difficult landings without incident reported they had focused solely on the runway. Business and artistic success, Costello continued, follow the same pattern. Setbacks result from constantly trying to avoid obstacles, worrying about what might go wrong. Achievement results from keeping your eyes glued to the prize and endlessly repeating to yourself, "I can do this." Or, as I once wrote, "Keep your gaze in the distance, and though you will stumble, you will reach your destination."

God is in control of our lives. He directs the events that happen and He is in everything we are doing. I'll leave you today with this thought from the apostle Paul:

8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

If we keep our eyes on Heaven, we will not be shaken either.

-Jeff-

About Fasting pt 2

Fasting brings power in our lives. In case you missed it, here is my first post on fasting. I wanted to show an example from scripture about the power of fasting, and I came across this interesting little nugget in the book of 2 Chronicles:

1 After this, the armies of the Moabites, Ammonites, and some of the Meunites declared war on Jehoshaphat. 2 Messengers came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast army from Edom is marching against you from beyond the Dead Sea. They are already at Hazazon-tamar.” (This was another name for En-gedi.) 3 Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news and begged the Lord for guidance. He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting.

As you can see there was a vast army approaching Israel and they were given very little warning. Typically they would send out messengers to the corners of the land to raise up an army to defend their country, but with the speed of this attack there was no time to do that. Jehoshaphat recognizes that their situation is desperate and he knows that the only way out is through prayer and fasting.

Sometime during their prayers he must have heard from God, because what he does the next day is VERY strange. Let's pick it up in verse 21:

21 After consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead
of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy
splendor. This is what they sang:

“Give thanks to the Lord;
his faithful love endures forever!”

I wouldn't want to be one of those singers! But because of their prayer and fasting, God showed up and delivered them. In fact the army of Israel never had to lift their swords because by the time they got to the battlefield, the armies from the other nations had killed each other off and Israel just walked around and picked up the plunder.

And that's just how God works. In the darkest and most desperate times, He fights for us and provides victories in ways that we can never even imagine. What are you going through today? What are the giants facing you in this life? Through prayer and fasting, God wants to provide a way where there doesn't seem to be one.

About fasting

Wednesday night we had a pretty interesting discussion in youth about the subject of prayer and fasting. I believe that with fasting comes power. God wants us to see that this life is not the end of everything, but the very beginning. If we live with this life in focus then we grab whatever we can now, because tomorrow doesn't matter. But when we live for eternity, we realize that denying ourselves in the short term benefits us forever. The power in fasting comes from giving up something that gives us pleasure in order to focus on what God wants. As I challenged the students on Wednesday, we need to give up something that going to be hard for us.

I love this story in the book of 2 Samuel chapter 24. David has sinned and knows it. Now there is a plague ravaging the country and the prophet has told David what to do to end it. He must go and make a sacrifice to God in a particular spot. The man who owns the field offers to give it to him, but David refuses, and watch what he says:

But the king replied to Araunah, "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."

David recognized that when we serve God there should be a sacrifice. Eternal Life is free, but it costs us everything we have. It's important to remember that it was God who created us for His pleasure. We need to live for Him and see His plans accomplished in our lives.

What's the fun in hiding all the time?

If you've ever owned a turtle, you know they're no fun when they're in their shells. They don't do anything. Tiff and I had a turtle for a while, but Kadin was scared of it most of the time, and our schedule meant that we were always needing people to watch it. The joy of having a turtle was outweighed by the cost of ownership. Especially since he spent a lot of time inside his shell.

Last week was See you at the pole. I had a couple students peek their heads out and it was a thrilling experience for me. I was so excited to see them step out of the safety and comfort of their shells and put their neck on the line by declaring to their friends what they believed. God was moving in that moment, and I hope these students are beginning to see what God has for them. Because this christian life is meant to be lived, not hidden away from.

-Jeff-

My view on the third world

One of my main ministry goals is empowering people. If I can do that, it eventually makes my job easier (read: I can take on other tasks, it doesn't actually free up any of my time). Sometimes I feel like it's just easier to do the job myself. Training people takes time, money and resources that I don't always have readily available. I'm trying to teach 3 people to play instruments right now. I know that if I can train up a bass player and a piano player that I won't have to do either, and yet making the time to get together with these guys has been impossible (on my end, not theirs).

So what's all this have to do with the third world? Well, my view of late has changed considerably (to read more about this, check out The mexi-blog pt 8: A story of God's love). Before Mexico I wanted to ship out all of the illegals, because they were criminals (because they had come here illegally). What I found down there is that the American ideals of being able to work hard and get ahead in life don't apply to the rest of the world. Just because you're willing and able to get a job doesn't mean that you will be payed enough to survive, or that you're guaranteed a job in the first place.

So what can be done about all of this? I love that churches are moving towards becoming more active in social issues. I think it's neat that some of the largest churches in the world are leading the charge towards eliminating poverty and disease. Many churches are supporting missions like they haven't in years. And yet the need seems to be so great.

Standing down there in Mexico the need became very specific. As I looked out over the houses I was overwhelmed by the pain, not for the entire area, but for the individuals in the area. How can I help and what can I do to make a difference, not for everyone, but for one person. An idea that's always been of great interest to me is microfinance. This seems to fit in with my love for (or at least understanding the need for) empowering people. The concept is a pretty simple one. A poor person has some sort of skill (say seamstress) but doing it by hand takes too long to make a profit. A company comes in and loans this lady $500 for her to buy a sowing machine, she starts to sell more and earns enough to repay her loan. If it doesn't work out the company is only out $500, but if it does then they've just changed the life of that entire family, possibly forever.

The problem people seem to run into is when the company is trying to make a profit exploiting people who are poor. Those who's businesses don't work out find themselves not only poor but also in debt, compounding the situation. This only works well when it's run through a non-profit company, because I personally would give to this without expecting money back. World Vision is one non-profit that is trying to aid in this effort. Here are a series of articles on microfinance, also put out by world vision. They state that 97% of their loans are payed back!

This story by the Stanford Social Innovation Review makes the point that while these loans might help those interested in starting a business, what of the 90% of the world that doesn't have the drive to make a small business successful? I guess that's why we need companies like Nike to outsource all their jobs, because to someone in Mexico making $5 per week, making $5 per day is like hitting the jackpot.

Proverbs 19:17
He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD,
and he will reward him for what he has done.
Proverbs 28:27
He who gives to the poor will lack nothing,
but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

I guess to sum everything up I'd have to say that it's too bad that those that want to work and make there lives better only end up being squashed whereas those who take advantage of things like Welfare get to sit around all day. If only we could export the lazy and bring in those with a drive to do better. Then America would be a lot better place to live.

-Jeff-

Training Camp opens!!!

The Seahawks are back at it. Training Camp is officially underway and I am so pumped for the coming season. I even started openly asking my wife for Madden 2008 for my birthday (August 26th) and I watched a recap of the Patriots 2004 season, plus a little arena football yesterday. We (yes I refer to myself as part of the Seahawks - 12th man baby!!!) are looking very, VERY, VERY strong on paper. I've been watching news stories and reading articles on this years team, and it may be the best ever. Our defense seems to have been shored up, now if only the offense can stay healthy we may be looking at another Super Bowl run.

One of the things I love about football is all of the analogies you can draw from it. I'm sure we'll run through a bunch of them during the season. I just had a weird thought though. I'm big into fantasy football (you can view or join my league here) and my weird thought has to do with it. For some reason I was imagining Peter and Paul up in Heaven when the Earth League Fantasy Draft comes around. I'm not sure what stats they'd use to determine a person's value, but maybe there would be points earned for witnessing, time spent in prayer, overcoming temptations, things like that. I'm sure that the first draft pick would be some little old lady in Argentina who's been praying non-stop for 74 years. And then it would probably be the guy who gave up his great business to help orphans in Malaysia or something. I think the guys we consider to be spiritual giants probably would be second or third round draft picks, because they've got to be doing something right, otherwise God wouldn't have put them in the position they're in. I don't think that seeing a million people making one time decisions for Christ would be weighted as heavily as seeing one person saved and walking with them until they are strengthened in the Lord. What would you look for in someone on your spiritual fantasy team?

-Jeff-

For more information on the Seahawks training camp, check out some of these links:
The Seahawks homepage
Seahawks blogs
The Seahawks Insider
NFL.com

How pure is your water?

What's in your bottled water? Is it pure, clean refreshing water bottled from an artesian spring? Or is it merely tap water that has been put into a fancy package and marked up? Pepsi is looking to clear up the confusion in their Aquafina line of bottled water by putting the words "Public Water Source" on all their bottles. Yep, that's right, it's tap water. For years now I've sworn to people that Aquafina was the very best type of bottled water, because of it's taste. But now I know it's merely average, just like the water I get at my house or maybe worse. I have a friend who works at the Pepsi bottling plant in Olympia. I've been to Olympia hundreds of times, and the water there always has a funny taste to it. Who knows what's in the water supply!

It reminds me of the Pharisees, because everyone thought they were so great, and yet Jesus called them out for being "full of greed and self-indulgence (Matt 23:25)". And that was Jesus being nice to them. In verse 26 He says this: "Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean."

The word of God is compared several times to clean, pure water (Ephesians 5:26, Hebrews 10:22, 1 Peter 3:21) but like the Pharisees if your cup is dirty then it doesn't matter how clean the water is, the drink is coming out muddy.

Sure Aquafina is tap water, but I'll still end up buying it because it's convenient and it quenches my thirst. Plus the bottles are clean, which is something that God is still working in me.

-Jeff-

For more on the Aquafina story, click here. Also here is an interesting video about the effects of bottled water on the environment.