Wanda and I always wanted to go to Israel. In February, 2007 our dream came true thanks to some very special friends. Israel was wonderful. The trip of a lifetime.
NOW, we are planning a trip to Alaska to see EAGLES, grizzly bears and salmon. The trip will be August 7-20, 2010. We plan to make this a GRACE Group excusion, too. We will have time to talk about our God Journey and do some Bible study. We want a big group of friends to go with us.
Linda Murfin is organizing the trip. She can give you all the details and particulars. Call or email me if you're interested. We would love for you to go with us on our second trip of a lifetime.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Kenny's Books
Several people have asked recently about the books I've written and how to obtain copies. I don't have big supply of them on hand, but you can obtain copies of Waterholes in the Wilderness and Jesus, My Final Answer from Amazon.com.
I am also passing along my reading list that God has used to help me on my journey with Him. They have been a blessing and I know they would bless you as well. You will find the list in the left column. I'll be adding books as God gives them to me. Enjoy.
Let me know of books that have blessed you as well. We need to share the good stuff.
I am also passing along my reading list that God has used to help me on my journey with Him. They have been a blessing and I know they would bless you as well. You will find the list in the left column. I'll be adding books as God gives them to me. Enjoy.
Let me know of books that have blessed you as well. We need to share the good stuff.
The Graceline
One day a lawyer came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, which command in God's Law is the most important?”
Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: Love others as well as you love yourself. These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them” (Mattthew 22:36-40 MSG).
Ever since I came to trust the Lord as my life and my salvation from sin and myself, I have tried hard to love Him with all my heart. For a long time, I tried to demonstrate my love by doing stuff FOR Him. I lived to sacrifice myself to Him by serving what I believed to be His purposes and by serving people. I was miserable. My son even told me as much one day. He said, “Dad, I have never known a man who has served God more faithfully than you, but you have been miserable doing it.”
What he said was like a dagger in my heart because he was right. I was miserable because I really didn’t understand a vital principle. Before we can love God, we must first be loved BY God. “This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us… We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:10 & 19).
Truth out of balance is heresy. Grace without truth is license. Truth without grace is legalism. See what I mean? I have come to realize that I was lied to about God. I don’t mean that pastors, teachers and churches intentionally lied, but some gave me an unbalanced perspective of God. For example, “it is better to give than to receive.” I interpreted that to mean giving was good. Receiving was bad. There was no balance. In reality, you cannot give until you receive, or else you have nothing to give. Understand?
I was trying to love God without ever receiving His love for myself because I believed receiving was wrong. I was out of balance in the giving department for so long that I felt unbalanced when I began learning how to receive. At times now I don’t feel like I’m loving Him enough because I’ve slowed way down on doing things FOR Him and have just been allowing Him to love ON me. That brings me to another overlooked part of our Scripture passage that no one seems to talk about.
Jesus tells us to love others as well as we love ourselves. I contend that most people do just that. They do love others like they love themselves because most people do not love themselves. The world, the flesh and the devil constantly remind us of how inferior we are. Think about it. Doesn’t advertising thrive on making us feel less than okay? It tells us we need such and such to be better, thinner, stronger, prettier, healthier… most everything we think we are not. We are constantly made to feel that we don’t measure up and are therefore unworthy of unconditional love.
Jesus tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that we are precious in His sight, that He loves us with an everlasting love, that we are the apple of His eye, that He is just crazy wild about us. Zephaniah gives us a glimpse of how God feels about us, His Beloved. “Cheer up, Zion! Don't be afraid! For the LORD your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will rejoice over you with great gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will exult over you by singing a happy song” (Zephaniah 3:16-17 NLT).
At the risk of sounding simplistic, I agree that what the world needs now is love, sweet love. If God loves us the way He says, why do so many people live as if they were unloved? Could it be that we have believed the serpent’s lie in the Garden of Eden? Satan told Adam and Eve that God was not good and could not be trusted. He told them that God didn’t want them to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because they would then know as much as God and He would be jealous. They believed the lie that God could not be trusted, and we all have pretty much believed it, too.
After Adam and Eve ate the poison fruit, they hid in the bushes. Why? Because they were afraid. They didn’t trust God and fear consumed them. But the Bible tells us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18 NIV). The apostle John said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it” (John 3:16-17 NLT).
Question for you: Can you trust someone you don’t love? Sure you can. You trust a doctor you don’t love to perform surgery on you, do you not?
Another question: Can you truly love someone you don’t trust? I don’t think so. Adam and Eve didn’t trust God when He told them that eating the Tree would kill them. What was the result? Fear. They ran and hid from God. Did God love them any less because they didn’t trust Him? No. But because they didn’t trust God, they would not allow Him to love them.
Last question: Does God have a problem loving us, or do we have a problem trusting God? You think about that!
Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: Love others as well as you love yourself. These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them” (Mattthew 22:36-40 MSG).
Ever since I came to trust the Lord as my life and my salvation from sin and myself, I have tried hard to love Him with all my heart. For a long time, I tried to demonstrate my love by doing stuff FOR Him. I lived to sacrifice myself to Him by serving what I believed to be His purposes and by serving people. I was miserable. My son even told me as much one day. He said, “Dad, I have never known a man who has served God more faithfully than you, but you have been miserable doing it.”
What he said was like a dagger in my heart because he was right. I was miserable because I really didn’t understand a vital principle. Before we can love God, we must first be loved BY God. “This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us… We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:10 & 19).
Truth out of balance is heresy. Grace without truth is license. Truth without grace is legalism. See what I mean? I have come to realize that I was lied to about God. I don’t mean that pastors, teachers and churches intentionally lied, but some gave me an unbalanced perspective of God. For example, “it is better to give than to receive.” I interpreted that to mean giving was good. Receiving was bad. There was no balance. In reality, you cannot give until you receive, or else you have nothing to give. Understand?
I was trying to love God without ever receiving His love for myself because I believed receiving was wrong. I was out of balance in the giving department for so long that I felt unbalanced when I began learning how to receive. At times now I don’t feel like I’m loving Him enough because I’ve slowed way down on doing things FOR Him and have just been allowing Him to love ON me. That brings me to another overlooked part of our Scripture passage that no one seems to talk about.
Jesus tells us to love others as well as we love ourselves. I contend that most people do just that. They do love others like they love themselves because most people do not love themselves. The world, the flesh and the devil constantly remind us of how inferior we are. Think about it. Doesn’t advertising thrive on making us feel less than okay? It tells us we need such and such to be better, thinner, stronger, prettier, healthier… most everything we think we are not. We are constantly made to feel that we don’t measure up and are therefore unworthy of unconditional love.
Jesus tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that we are precious in His sight, that He loves us with an everlasting love, that we are the apple of His eye, that He is just crazy wild about us. Zephaniah gives us a glimpse of how God feels about us, His Beloved. “Cheer up, Zion! Don't be afraid! For the LORD your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will rejoice over you with great gladness. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will exult over you by singing a happy song” (Zephaniah 3:16-17 NLT).
At the risk of sounding simplistic, I agree that what the world needs now is love, sweet love. If God loves us the way He says, why do so many people live as if they were unloved? Could it be that we have believed the serpent’s lie in the Garden of Eden? Satan told Adam and Eve that God was not good and could not be trusted. He told them that God didn’t want them to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because they would then know as much as God and He would be jealous. They believed the lie that God could not be trusted, and we all have pretty much believed it, too.
After Adam and Eve ate the poison fruit, they hid in the bushes. Why? Because they were afraid. They didn’t trust God and fear consumed them. But the Bible tells us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18 NIV). The apostle John said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it” (John 3:16-17 NLT).
Question for you: Can you trust someone you don’t love? Sure you can. You trust a doctor you don’t love to perform surgery on you, do you not?
Another question: Can you truly love someone you don’t trust? I don’t think so. Adam and Eve didn’t trust God when He told them that eating the Tree would kill them. What was the result? Fear. They ran and hid from God. Did God love them any less because they didn’t trust Him? No. But because they didn’t trust God, they would not allow Him to love them.
Last question: Does God have a problem loving us, or do we have a problem trusting God? You think about that!
Monday, September 14, 2009
FYI...
We will continue our study of the main characters and events in the Book of Genesis this Sunday, September 20. We will be studying chapters 11 and 12 about the Tower of Babel and God's calling of Abram, better known as Abraham.
PLEASE bring your own Bible with you to church so you can mark it up. A Bible that's falling apart will keep your life from falling apart.
GRACE Groups
Thanks to all who have helped with the launch of GRACE Groups. Many have worked behind the scenes to get everyone CONNECTED. I want to especially thank Kim Boyd and Christina Watts for all their help is publishing the catalog.
If you are not in a GRACE Group, you are missing out on a real blessings. If you want more information, don't hesitate to call or email me.
The Parenting Class
We had a great start Sunday evening, 9/13. We had 26 parents and 18 kids. WOW! It's not too late start this week if you happened to miss the first session.
Parents, please drop your kids off at the LIFE CENTER this week at 5 pm. We will have snacks for the kids this week. They will have more room to play over there.
Parents, please take time to thank the ladies who care for your kids while you come to class. It is a labor of love for them, but everyone needs to hear that they are appreciated. Special thanks to our child-care givers: Jackie Quinn, Susanne Williams, Christie Galeota and Christine Kramer.
REMEMBER: We meet each Sunday in the sanctuary from 5 to 7 pm thru October 18. Come for any and all sessions. Invite your friends.
Kenny's Stuff Friends
If you sign up as a friend of Kenny's Stuff, you will be notified each time there is a new post. I hope to get back to posting a lot more often with exciting upcoming events and stuff that Papa is teaching me along my journey with Him. I'd love for you come join me.
You all are a real blessing to me. Love you all.
Wanda's Birthday!!!!!!
Tuesday, September 15, is my Sweetheart's Birthday. Happy Birthday, Baby!! I love you lots.
PLEASE bring your own Bible with you to church so you can mark it up. A Bible that's falling apart will keep your life from falling apart.
GRACE Groups
Thanks to all who have helped with the launch of GRACE Groups. Many have worked behind the scenes to get everyone CONNECTED. I want to especially thank Kim Boyd and Christina Watts for all their help is publishing the catalog.
If you are not in a GRACE Group, you are missing out on a real blessings. If you want more information, don't hesitate to call or email me.
The Parenting Class
We had a great start Sunday evening, 9/13. We had 26 parents and 18 kids. WOW! It's not too late start this week if you happened to miss the first session.
Parents, please drop your kids off at the LIFE CENTER this week at 5 pm. We will have snacks for the kids this week. They will have more room to play over there.
Parents, please take time to thank the ladies who care for your kids while you come to class. It is a labor of love for them, but everyone needs to hear that they are appreciated. Special thanks to our child-care givers: Jackie Quinn, Susanne Williams, Christie Galeota and Christine Kramer.
REMEMBER: We meet each Sunday in the sanctuary from 5 to 7 pm thru October 18. Come for any and all sessions. Invite your friends.
Kenny's Stuff Friends
If you sign up as a friend of Kenny's Stuff, you will be notified each time there is a new post. I hope to get back to posting a lot more often with exciting upcoming events and stuff that Papa is teaching me along my journey with Him. I'd love for you come join me.
You all are a real blessing to me. Love you all.
Wanda's Birthday!!!!!!
Tuesday, September 15, is my Sweetheart's Birthday. Happy Birthday, Baby!! I love you lots.
The Graceline
Once upon a time, a farmer found an eagle’s egg and put it in a hen’s nest for it to hatch. The eaglet grew up believing he was a chicken. He would scratch the ground for worms, cluck and cackle, flutter a few feet and fall back to the earth.
Years passed and the eagle grew old. Looking up in the sky one day, he spotted a majestic eagle floating effortlessly among the clouds. “Who is that?” the eagle asked his barnyard mates.
“Why that’s an eagle, the king of birds,” a hen responded. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth. We are chickens.”
And the eagle believed it. He lived and died as a chicken, because that is what he thought he was.
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he…” (Proverbs 23:7). We are what we think we are. That’s why the Bible speaks so much about the importance of what we think.
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
“Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious — the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippian 4:8 MSG).
Satan tried to deceive Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He is not stupid. He knows that “stinking thinking,” believing a lie, will wreck and ruin our lives. The eagle believed he was a chicken never realizing who he really was. He completely missed his destiny.
Think about this. God originally created us to be happy, to live carelessly in the care of God completely depending upon Him to provide everything we would need to enjoy life to the max. After Adam and Eve’s poor decision to trust themselves rather than God, we were all inherently influenced to swallow the lie that God is not good. The lie that says we need to look out for number one because God doesn’t care about us.
God created us to depend upon Him for all our needs. If we don’t trust Him, we have to find alternative sources in which to have our needs met. We have been programmed by our families, society, culture, religion and education that we cannot find happiness and fulfillment in God alone. We’ve been told that we need certain other things to make us happy, such things as money, fame, houses, cars, physical appearance, and relationships apart from God. That is a lie.
God gives us freedom to be who He created us to be. For me to be me requires no effort. To be what someone else wants me to be is exhausting. God created us to mount up with wings as eagles, not grovel in the dirt scratching out a meager existence. We please God when we stretch our two wings called TRUST and OBEY. When we do, He becomes the wind beneath our wings, and we soar over all the little annoyances that would rob us of the joy of living life wide open.
Eagles fly. Chickens flutter. Are you gonna fly, or are you gonna mutter? You’re the only one choosing for you. Don’t miss out on your destiny, Beloved. Choose wisely.
Years passed and the eagle grew old. Looking up in the sky one day, he spotted a majestic eagle floating effortlessly among the clouds. “Who is that?” the eagle asked his barnyard mates.
“Why that’s an eagle, the king of birds,” a hen responded. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth. We are chickens.”
And the eagle believed it. He lived and died as a chicken, because that is what he thought he was.
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he…” (Proverbs 23:7). We are what we think we are. That’s why the Bible speaks so much about the importance of what we think.
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
“Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious — the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippian 4:8 MSG).
Satan tried to deceive Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He is not stupid. He knows that “stinking thinking,” believing a lie, will wreck and ruin our lives. The eagle believed he was a chicken never realizing who he really was. He completely missed his destiny.
Think about this. God originally created us to be happy, to live carelessly in the care of God completely depending upon Him to provide everything we would need to enjoy life to the max. After Adam and Eve’s poor decision to trust themselves rather than God, we were all inherently influenced to swallow the lie that God is not good. The lie that says we need to look out for number one because God doesn’t care about us.
God created us to depend upon Him for all our needs. If we don’t trust Him, we have to find alternative sources in which to have our needs met. We have been programmed by our families, society, culture, religion and education that we cannot find happiness and fulfillment in God alone. We’ve been told that we need certain other things to make us happy, such things as money, fame, houses, cars, physical appearance, and relationships apart from God. That is a lie.
God gives us freedom to be who He created us to be. For me to be me requires no effort. To be what someone else wants me to be is exhausting. God created us to mount up with wings as eagles, not grovel in the dirt scratching out a meager existence. We please God when we stretch our two wings called TRUST and OBEY. When we do, He becomes the wind beneath our wings, and we soar over all the little annoyances that would rob us of the joy of living life wide open.
Eagles fly. Chickens flutter. Are you gonna fly, or are you gonna mutter? You’re the only one choosing for you. Don’t miss out on your destiny, Beloved. Choose wisely.
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