Thursday, July 24, 2008

Mowing the lawn should be easy!



Thought some of you would enjoy my lawn mowing experience. Last week Tommy set me up to mow the lawn while he did the other stuff in the yard (riding mower). We have had a ton of rain and a day or so Tommy commented on the need to mow again. I thought this would be a great way to serve my busy husband so I decided to get mowing today while the girls were asleep and then finish it off when he got home. The girls wanted to ride the mower later in the day and daddy still wasn't home. Elizabeth went first and she was super calm so I thought hey I bet I could finish the riding mower parts before Tommy gets home to make his day. So I but Elizabeth on my lap and drove with my right hand and Ella on the back straddling me. It was great and I just kept encouraging them that we were serving Daddy.


Tommy made it home after 7pm and I offered to do the push mower stuff so he could spend time with the girls. He went out to set us up and a few minutes later the girls and I headed outside. Tommy is smiling big and laughing. He says, "Did you notice you weren't cutting much grass?" I said, "I wondered about that it didn't seem to be as much trimmed off as I would have expected but I checked all and it was cutting some." Apparently I had the blade down but there are varying levels and I had it on the highest level 6 instead of 1. So guess what we did a power mow and the girls and I got to cut the entire lawn together while Tommy push mowed areas we couldn't mow and used the weed eater. It was great fun!!! I guess this is how you learn these things. What a funny story we now have as a great family memory in the yard.

Pictures of the mowing.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

july outreach part 2 north hills

I talked waith a young man named john he says he is going to heaven because he is a good person so I took the time to unpack what scripture says about God and true salvation. John is not unusual person a large percentage of people who would call themselves Christian think they are going to enter heaven on their own goodness.

This is what Jesus says about our goodness," Isaiah 64:6 For all of us has become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment: And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, " sin" like the wind, take us away." John has been deceived into believing by our culture and our pagan Christianity in America that he is not going to face judgement for his sin this is not Biblical truth.

Quote from paper on regenerate church membership," Let’s look at how Jesus handled evangelism from the beginning of His earthly ministry. Jesus makes a very clear statement on evangelism, Matthew 5: 17 “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The word repent is a word that has vanished from a majority of Southern Baptist pulpits as well as a lot of others. This word does not mean to pray a sinner’s prayer and join a church in order to go to heaven. This word means grievances over the sin that is polluting your life. Your sin has offended the Holy God that has made you and God has showed you this sin and wants you to turn away because you now hate it. You see for the first time that if you where to die right now that God would be just in punishing a sinner like you in Hell because He is not only merciful but He is also just in every way. And for the first time you see you are helpless to the sin that engulfs your life and you want to cry out to Jesus and place your trust in him alone for salvation. This is the repentance that Jesus is speaking of.
This is the Gospel that must be preached again with a passion and zeal. This blessed truth must sound again from the pulpits like the church bell chiming from its tower on Sunday mornings. We must blow our voices like trumpets once again from the pulpits of our forefathers with a boldness of a lion and the gentleness of a lamb.
What about John the Baptist? His words are almost identical to the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:17. John says in Matthew 3:2 “Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” this is the very same phrase that Jesus started with in his preaching ministry. But in verse eight of that chapter John adds something that has been forgotten that has lead to our need for regenerate church membership again. John states in Matthew 3: 8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” In other words our life must be consistent with our confession to follow Christ. We will live a different way than we used to live. Not only has repentance been lost but the fruit that comes from that repentance has been lost. But the first response that comes up when a person brings this subject up is “you are being judgmental”. If we can’t be judgmental about the fruit we see or don’t see in someone’s life than the lost church member will continue on the path that they are on. People use this statement in trying to escape their conscience and their accountability to God, for this is as useless as trying to run from the sun it’s always there and eventually you will have to face it."

Tommy

July outreach in Raleigh north hills part 1

John and Erin said they where Christians I challenged theme to examine themeselves according to scripture. As we talked with John he gave the correct answers on how to be saved so may we pray for him that it is a true confession of faith in Christ Jesus.I will include a paper that was written on regenrate church membership. Which touches on the subject of true salvation which I think every Christian should be concerned about.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Elizabeth's Crazy Morning Hair



This was too cute not to share. Ella, Tommy and I were all up before Elizabeth Saturday morning and we decide to wake her up because we were going to go out to eat. She greeted us with the craziest hair ever and we all got a wonderful laugh. Elizabeth is usually good for a laugh as she is full of smiles and joy most of the time. Enjoy! Melanie

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

We moved

We are moved. Oh wait you didn't know we were moving! The Lord blessed us with an amazing opportunity to rent a great house 12 minutes away from the Seminary about 2 1/2 weeks ago and we did it. The move went great thanks to all the wonderful family and friends who were able to help us. We are so thankful to everyone for their help.

Here is a link to some pictures of the new place. Just copy and past the address.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=xsgxsoz.5caom3pv&x=0&h=1&y=swvcdd&localeid=en_US

We now have enough room to entertain and have company come over night. The best part is the owners are super wonderful and love the Lord.

The Lord is so good! Blessings~Tommy and Melanie