JOHN:

“Then Moses said to God”

JEFF:

“Behold I am going to the sons of Israel and I will say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. Now they may say to me ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?”

JOHN:

“God said to Moses”

ANDREW:

“I AM WHO I AM”

JOHANNES:

A shia a don ia, ki ga o ga (2x)

JOHANNES / KEVIN:

BASS LINE… BASS AND CYMBALS…

ANDREW:

Let my people go (2x)…

CHRIS:

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened (2x)…

CHRIS / ANDREW / JOHN:

Let my people go…Pharaoh’s heart was hardened (4x)… JOHN: *Singing some tune…

ANDREW:

Plagues… Plagues… Plagues… BLOOD…

JEFF / CHRIS:

1. Squirt… Owe… (4x)… 2. FROGS… Ribbit, 3. GNATS… Meh, 4. FLIES… Buzz, 5. LIVESTOCK… Moo, 6. BOILS… Owe, 7. HAIL… Shmack, 8. LOCUST… Cricket, 9. DARKNESS… Oooo

Johan / K / John:

DIE DOWN THE MUSIC…

STOP COMPLETELY… EVERYONE DRINKS WATER…

KEVIN:

DEATH OF THE FIRST BORNS!

ANDREW:

Ahhh!

JOHN / JOHANNES/ KEVIN:

JJ: Opera Singing… “Lord of the Rings” type tune… KEVIN: BASS BEATS…

CHRIS / JEFF:

Hooray, we’re free… YEAH… (4x)…

A / Chris and Jeff:

Pharaoh chased after them… Nooo! (4x)…

ANDREW / JEFF:

Stand by and see the Salvation of the LORD… Woosh… Woosh… (2x)…

C / JEFF / ANDREW:

Look they’re coming… Who?… Pharaoh!… (4x)…

JOHN:

Singing suspenseful Music!

CHRIS / JEFF:

Moses stretched out his hand… Woosh… Woosh… (2x) STOP

ANDREW:

*Spoken* The Egyptians are Dead!

JOHN / JOHANNES:

There can be miracles, When you believe

Though hope is frail / It’s hard to kill (JUST JOHN)

Who knows what miracles / You can achieve?

When you believe / Somehow you will

You will when you believe

JOHN / JOHANNES:

There can be miracles / When you believe

Though hope is frail / It’s hard to kill

Who knows what miracles / You can achieve?

When you believe / Somehow you will

Now you will (John)

You will when you

You will when you… Believe (John) (Johannes comes in at “you”)

(BEAT STOPS)

ALL except JEFF:

*WHISPER* Believe…

JEFF:

Dooam…

… It’s much funnier live

These are the reasons why I believe in Jesus Christ. God’s truth is evident. He is beyond empirical evidence; He is beyond theory. He reveals Himself so clearly that there is no excuse not to believe: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). But man chooses to suppress His truth, which in itself is evidence that God has revealed His truth, because for truth to be suppressed, then truth should have first been revealed. This suppression leads man to become “futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts [were] darkened” (Romans 1:21). They can then only guess who God is, which even their guessing was useless in itself.

Most Christians would like to believe that this is only true of the non-believers. But it is very clearly seen that even us, the children of God, have chosen this path for ourselves. We are, to ourselves, the “guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, [and the] teacher of the immature” (Romans 2:19, 20), but we ourselves are condemned by the message that we teach because we are “transgressors of the Law,” which causes our “circumcision to be un-circumcision” (Romans 2:26). We are no different from the non-believers. We need Christ just as much now as we ever have needed Him before. Because of our ignorance, and because of our hypocrisy, the life that Christ has put in us, we have turned to death. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, we do have things in our lives like the Mosaic Law of the Israelites, that we put our trust and faith in, despite Jesus. Spiritual Retreats, Powerful Speakers, Reading the Bible; Yes, those are all sin, if our Christianity is dependent on it! What is required for our continuing salvation is the circumcision in our lives done by the Spirit’s intervention in our hearts rather than our obedience to the Law.

Merry Christmas… three days late. But meh. Hmm. Merry, Christmas. What do those mean anyway… Merry being Happy… And Christmas being… the birth of Jesus Christ. So. Happy Birth of Jesus Christ? I suppose Happy birthday.. But meh, the comercialization of Christmas isn’t what I plan to rant about today.

Nono, on to a completely different topic. Chocolates. And.. well, getting lots of them.. And saving the best for last.. And how I can’t do it. In fact I don’t think anyone can do it.

See, every year, my mom makes my brother and I stockings full of chocolate. They’re pretty big too.. And they comprise of a variety of Chocolates, ranging from the average, to the sweet awesome ones.. Obviously there are more average chocolates (like Kisses, Kit Kats, etc) than the really good ones (like Lindor, Fre Rocher, etc). There are these icy squares that I don’t really like all that much but you know I eat it cause it’s chocolate. Then there are M and M minis, Kit Kats, and that kind of chocolate… And there are my favourites, like the Lindt Lindor chocolate truffles that are like… 10 bucks for 5, and the Fre Rochers and the Kinder Buenos. Whaaaa those are great. But they never last. Obviously they’re more expensive so there’s less of them. I even try to ration them out by putting them at the bottom of the stockings and putting the rest of the chocolates on top. But no, I always find them, and well now, 3 days after I opened the stockings, I’m stuck with Coffee Crisps and M and M minis, when all the Lindor’s gone.

*Sigh. I guess that’s how things go. I just can’t save the best for last. But ahh well, at least it’s still chocolates.

Hmm, so I got all that I asked for this Christmas, and then some. Not that that’s a big deal cause I didn’t really ask for anything much. I got a coupla new shirts, which is really cool. I got a Cross-Eyed shirt, based on Hebrews 12:1, “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith”, a “Christian for Life” shirt based on Galations 2:20, which really makes no sense (cause Galations 2:20 has to do with dying… meh, look it up) Then I got new Sony Headphones… Real good ones too, so that I can listen good to my new CDs. I got 3 new Nat King Cole CDs, Jeremy Camp’s new CD, Restored, Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway, uhh, a Glen Miller’s greatest Hits CD, meh.. wow that’s alota new cds.

So yeah, I’m still waiting on one present actually, from my uncle, who I didn’t see for Christmas (gonna see them in New Years). I’m actually hoping it’s a GAP gift certificate like last year, cause I wanna buy a new Polo Shirt.

Anyway, other than that. Things went real well. My godson loved my present to him (which I didn’t really buy actually…) which was cool. It was just a bunch of hot rod cars, but he loves that stuff. My plannings for the Philippines is moving forward.. It’s looking great, 2 and a half weeks in March.. Then a year in September. It’ll be great. I’m already looking into reaquiring my Philippine Citezenship. Sawweeet.

Anway. Again. Merry Christmas to all. and a Happy New Year!

When my heart was embittered

And I was pierced within,

Then I was senseless and ignorant;

I was like a beast before You.

Nevertheless I am continually with You;

You have taken hold of my right hand.

With Your counsel You will guide me,

And afterward receive me to glory,

Whjom have I in heaven but You?

And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behjold, thjose who are far from You will perish;

You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;

I have made the Lord God my refuge,

That I amy tell of all Your works.

- – - – -

Be Near

– Shane Bernard

You are all

big and small

beautiful

and wonderful

to trust in grace through faith

but i’m asking to taste…

for dark is light to You

depths are height to You

far is near

but Lord, i need to hear from You

be near, oh God

be near, oh God of us

Your nearness is to us our good

be near, oh God

be near, oh God of us

Your nearness is to us our good, our good

Your fullness is mine

revelation divine

but, o, to taste

to know much more than a page

to feel Your embrace…

for dark is light to You

the depths are height to You

far is near, but Lord

i need to hear from You

be near, oh God

be near, oh God of us

Your nearness is to us our good

be near, oh God

be near, oh God of us

Your nearness is to us our good, our good

What is a friend? You may be surprised. Friendship in God’s eyes is not what it is to man. To some, friends could be as lowly as mere acquaintances. To others, they are closer than family. To God, they are servants. In John 15:14, Jesus says to His disciples, “You are my friends if you obey My commandments.” What does this mean? Read on and find out.

According to God, being a true friend only has one meaning. Friendship involves sacrifice and love. It is a choice being made: a preference for another. In John 15:14, Jesus makes a very simple statement about what being a friend to Him means. He says, “You are my friends if you obey My commandments”; Our friendship with Jesus depends on our obedience to Him. And as we will see, our obedience to Him is dependent on our sacrifice for Him. There already is no question as to whether Jesus is a friend to us or not. He died on the cross for us. The question is, are we a friend to Him? This then dictates our friendship with others. If friendship to Jesus means preferring Him, then friendship to others mean preferring them.

In John 15:12. we see the basis of friendship to others in Jesus’ command to His disciples: “This is My commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” We see that the basis for our interaction with each other is loving one another. We then also see that there is a reference point for our love of each other, and that is just as Jesus loved us. This is amplified in the next verse, showing the kind of love Jesus expects from us as it was the kind of love He had. Verse 13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” The love that we should have for each other is sacrificial. This is what determines if we are a friend to someone, that we are sacrificing ourselves for them.

This is solidified in the next verse, verse 14: “You are my friends if you obey My commandments,” as is juxtaposed with John 14:15, which says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” These verses show the key requirement of being a friend to God: love that leads to sacrifice, that leads to obedience. Friendship is governed by love.

We see more of what this love is about in 1 John 4:7-8. It says, “Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God for God is love.” This passage shows us what – or who, should be the source of our sacrificial love: God. It says that He is the One who provides love, but not only this, it also says that He is the very love that we should have. How we attain this love is talked about in the next verse: “By this, the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). It states that the way that God’s love is made visible in us is by living in faith through Christ. This is where we reach the cost of having sacrificial love.

Through Christ is also where we see the cost of being a friend to someone. Jesus said in John 12:24 that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” The death He is alluding to in this may not necessarily mean physical death. In 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about this when he writes, “I affirm brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31). We see here that what really should happen in our sacrificial love is that we would die daily to ourselves – to who we are and want to be; or what we do, and want to do. This is how Jesus tells us to love each other in John 15:12, just as He had loved us. It did not mean His love for us when He went to the cross (because He had not gone to the cross yet when He said that), but so much more! How Christ loved us is by dying to who He rightfully is. What this meant for Him, as it says in Philippians is that “although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6,7). Jesus’ death and suffering on the cross was a result of this, for “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). The sacrificial love that we are supposed to have is also the cost of having it. It means that we would die to ourselves so that in humility, we would serve our friends. Friendship is a sacrifice in life, evidenced by servitude.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13)

To the Ladies of Capernwray Harbour.

You are our gift from God;

You are our perfect match,

You are examples of His Life,

You are a rock in times of strife.

You honour us with your obedience;

You console us with your kindness.

You edify with truth and integrity,

You submit with humility.

You light our days when it is darkest;

You smile our way when we’re down.

Your hearts enthrone our Lord above;

Ladies, thank you for your love.