Have a Joyous Christmas! God Loves You!

Christmas is all about Love.  The reason Jesus Christ was born was because God is love.  The Bible tells us that God sent His Son to this earth, born of the virgin Mary.  He came to teach, show God, love, heal and help. But above all He came to save!  Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
Titus 2 (NKJV) tells us:
¹¹ For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, ¹² teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, ¹³ looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, ¹⁴ who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works."

Titus chapter 3 tells us more about Jesus' coming-
⁴ But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, ⁵ not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

So rejoice! Salvation has come!  Believe it, live it, tell it!
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Pastor Mike

Christian fellowship NOT BORING!

So many people think the Christian faith is boring! Not so!  I had a great time AGAIN! with my brothers in Christ at our church men's group Bible study.  We laugh and joke and enjoy each other so much. We discusss the deep things in life like the future, our faith and our concerns.  We pray together and  wash dishes together too.  It is the high light of our week for us in the group. We wonder why more guys from our church don't take part?  We know we would welcome them warmly.  We are praying more will come.  We got into a great discussion on healing and praying for healing from Matthew 18 I believe it was. Not a boring time but a very interesting uplifting time! So many never have this with other brothers in the faith. And they are missing out!

Ever do anything you regretted?

I have done alot of things I have regretted. Some of them I won't talk about here. However one thing I regret doing I can talk about here.  In 2003 or so I bought a stock car roller from Camcoupes in Oklahoma.  It was a chevy metric car roller with a 32 Ford fiberglass body.    It had a roll cage and rear end in it. I bought this used with just a few hours on it. It had been raced.  But it was in fine condition. Maybe later I can post some photos of it when I got it. I put a 305 Chevy V8 in it, Chevy automatic transmission (the engine and transmission came out of an old station wagon!) We installed bucket seats, harnesses, speedometer, horn, guages,(I found out after getting a speeding ticket with it that the speedometer was off!) we welded up bumpers out of steel tubing, put a stock car racing gas tank in it, new racing radiator and lights and windshield.  We also installed side pipes with flow through mufflers.  We, I say we, because my good friend Ryan Benson helped by doing the welding!   I had to get it inspected by the State of Iowa to get a title for it.  Here is what is looked like when I was done with it.

This car was so so fun to drive. On a summer's eve, my wife Diane and I would go to Cedar Rapids and drive around. Lots of comments as you can imagine.  We had it painted up to witness to our faith in Jesus Christ. The number 0 stood for our standing in Jesus Christ. In Him we are declared righteous and God sees us just as if we had never sinned (even though we do sin and I am a sinner!)  God does this by the death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross!  A good friend Diane SyWassink painted on some lettering and a beautiful cross on the front radiator cover.  The car was painted red and white on purpose. The red represented the blood of Christ that washes us from our sin. The white represented the white robes we will wear one day that represent our righteousness that is a gift from God.   I sold the car because I wanted to buy an airplane project. The airplane project ended being sold too because I discovered there was no way I could afford to finish it. The street legal Camcoupe was sold to a guy in California. I wonder what it looks like today? The fellow who bought is said he cut the top off of it...I bet it looks pretty neat!
I have wished on many a day that I had the car back.  It was crude by hot rod standards, but boy it was fun to drive!  Maybe someday I will build another one!

A neat video

Diane and I like to visit the Amish areas of Iowa. We have also visited Amish communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  The simple life is appealing to us. And we like to see the farms and animals and the people are wonderful.
Here is a neat video, that I did not take, but found on the net. It shows all the horse power needed to bale the hay there. I have fond memories of baling hay as a boy on the farm. But we never used horses to do it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdQAtm8FnSQ&feature=fvw

Snow

We had our first snow of the winter last night. About 1-2 inches. Just enough to get everything white.  I miss the summer time. But the winter time time to dream of what I want to do next summer!  I think I appreciate the summer and nice weather more because I do experience winter. I tollerate the winters better now than I did 20 years ago.  I think it is a combination of several things, gaining weight (not so cold in the winter outdoors) a good winter coat that I have had the last 13 or so years, and having equipment to move snow!  I don't like shoveling!