The Good-O-Meter

This video explains perfectly the difference between being a follower of Jesus and being a follower of any other religion. While everyone else is performing to gain approval of their god a follower of Jesus relies totally on His righteousness.

Which Chair Do You Sit On?

This post first appeared at REAL Men RoCK

Righteous Encouraging Accountable Loving Men Rely on Christ Kindness

I want to begin by recommending a book for you to read, "30 Days to Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs" by Bruce Wilkinson.

In this book he brings up in the book three types of chairs to describe our relationship with God.

The First Chair stands for Commitment. The person sitting in this chair has chosen to wholly love and serve God.

The Second Chair stands for Compromise. The person sitting in this chair has chosen to try to get for themselves the best that both God and the world have to offer.

The Third Chair stands for Conflict. The person sitting in this chair has chosen not to respond to God in any meaningful way, remaining at odds with eternal spiritual realities.

Let's look at the Third Chair first. God is trying to get our attention each and every minute of the day. I believe He uses the shows we watch, the music we listen to and the people we hang with to talk to us. Of course the number one way He talks to us is through the pages of the Bible. Having said that if a person is not reading the Bible then God has to use other methods to get their attention.

The person sitting in the Third Chair might seem to be doing okay but they are constantly facing conflict. God is trying to get their attention through the movies they watch, the music they listen to and the people they hang with. Usually the movies are not edifying or encouraging, the music they listen to are usually not a positive message and the people they hang with often are heavy drinkers, drug addicts or involved in illegal activities. As a result their life is full of conflict.

Now the person in the Second Chair attends Church now and then come Monday they fall back into their old ways. They look good one day and then the rest of the week they have to try to cover up how often they have their hand in the world's cookie jar. I call this person a CINO, Christian In Name Only.

I am going to focus the rest of this post on the person sitting in the First Chair which actually is made up of three different types of chairs.

There is the Easy Chair, the Straight Back Chair and the Stool.

The Easy Chair: The person sitting in this chair is a Christian but they are comfortable where they are. They do not see any reason to continue to grow and they believe they have overcome the world.

The Straight Back Chair: The person sitting in this chair is moving from being a Christian to becoming a Follower of Jesus. They often see that they need to make some changes and seek help in changing the things they struggle with.

The Stool: The person sitting on this chair has decided to commit their entire life to living a godly life. They are not always perfect but they every now and then they achieve perfection as described by Jesus in Sermon on the Mound found in Matthew. The Stool actually can be one of three different types.

The first stool represents the majority of Followers of Jesus. They are committed to Him and sit in an uncomfortable chair and are constantly examining their lives and making changes to overcome.

The Follower of Jesus that sits on this stool is similar to the one that sits on the first stool but this Follower is busy helping others.

The Follower of Jesus that sits on this chair is like the first two Followers but this person is ready to spring off of the stool at a moments notice to do the calling of Jesus. They completely trust in the Lord and do not rely on any other support except for God.

This post applies to every person who reads it. They are either non-responsive to God, responsive to God but straddling the fence, or they are committed to God and respond to each and every message from Him.

The question for us is "Which Chair do we sit in most often?" If we are honest we have to admit our goal is to sit on the one legged stool but more often than not we are sitting in one of the other chairs. The good news is God will patiently work with you to help you sit in a chair that is more committed to Him.

This was first posted at REAL Men RoCK Blog

My wife, Kat, and I are working with our friends, Rick and Karen, in the pursuit of a dream. That dream is a mini-farm with hoop houses which are small greenhouses for year-round organic gardening.

I am reading a book I "Mini-Farming Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre" by Brett L. Markham.

Photo above found at Ecology Action

It describes Intensive Agricultural Techniques. This techniques uses raised beds and grow vegetables more closely together than traditional row methods. It is said that this technique requires less land--thus requiring less water and labor while reducing the need for weeding. Intensive gardening produce the same amount of food in 20% of the space or even less that that, leading to greatly reduced costs.

Photo above was found at Ecology Action

The advantage of using a hoop house or a greenhouse is that it will allow for year-round gardening. Even when it is freezing outside the temperatures in a greenhouse can reach 70-80 degrees. Of course not all vegetables can be grown in winter and I will later be posting more information on which can and cannot be grown. For now this post is about the dream.

What is behind this dream?

Kat and I are in our early sixties and we have decided to take what little we have in the stock market and invest in a small farm of 15-25 acres. We believe that investing in this farm will be a better use and bring us a better return on our money. The main reason we are doing it is to become self-sufficient through having the resources for growing our own food. We have purposely chosen a small farm because it is something older people can manage.

On this farm we will build three different sized greenhouses to be used for different purposes. We will build a small barn to be used for farm animals and for a learning center for teaching other people interested in either greenhouse or hoop house gardening.

Mini-Greenhouse Farming also requires less expensive tools and can almost be done using the tools pictured in the photo to the left.

I will post photos as we move forward in pursuing this dream. The first photo will be of the land we purchase. The photos following that will be of the greenhouses, the cabins and the barn that we build.

One of the most important reasons we are pursuing this dream is because we feel it can be a ministry where we can use the gifts and talents God has given us to help others.

I hope this post will stir in you a desire to pursue your own dream.