Sold Out Christians in 2009...enough mediocrity!

It is crazy that 2009 is only 3 days away. Can you believe another year is history? Think back to who you were at the beginning of the year. Now, think about who you are now. Are you spiritually more mature? Are you closer to God or farther away? Do you spend more time with him or less? I have kinda had an unfair advantage as far as growing spiritually this year because I got married so I had no choice but to grow up spiritually. But, I still wish I would have grown to my full potential this year. It is all about EFFORT! Will you put forth the effort in 2009 to grow in Christ? In "big church," yesterday, I talked about active obedience to God, embracing Jesus (falling in love with him), and living out the Word of God. To sum it up, James is telling us to put into practice what we know and learn from the Bible. My prayer for you is that in 2009 you will read God's love letter to you (the Bible) daily, let it change you, and do what it says!

With love in Christ,
Philip

I Can't Believe It

Can you believe it snowed for 6 hours in Highlands, TX? Yeah, neither can I, but I loved every minute of it. I am sitting in a Starbuck's in Denton, TX (near Dallas) about to head to a wedding, and I couldn't wait any longer to share our ginormous, awesome, cool, best snowman ever with you. This was an hour and a half well worth it. I never knew you could really roll a snowball...so cool! Well here it is--almost as tall as me and definitely a lot larger. In the pic is Philip (me), Lacey, Kristi, and Alan B. I wish you could have been there with us. We should all have another snowball fight sometime soon. What do you think? (Respond and let me know what you think of our snowman and the snowball fight.)

Go The Extra Mile...with humility!

Gees, I really love hanging out with you guys! It made me happy to have Encounter this week, and I loved every minute of seeing some of you try to drink Root Beer out of baby bottles (I bet you were wondering how babies do it so well...kinda weird huh?) I was also digging that we had two new guys here to attempt the impossible shot...I am ready to give another $20 away! You know, there hasn't been a single Encounter since we started the impossible shot that we haven't had a guest. So keep inviting your friends to the party!
We also looked at Matthew 5:38-42 in a fresh way. If you weren't here you should read it, it is salty (good). In this little paragraph, Jesus really challenges us to go the extra mile and live like a true Jesus-follower. It's not about paying people back for treating us wrong/bad; it's about loving them when everything says we shouldn't. Jesus challenges us to go the extra mile with humility--can you put others before yourself? YES, but WILL YOU?