Brian Regan is hilarious! Check out his take on Pop-Tarts…

This is a video tribute that we shared this past Sunday @ The Ridge.  I share it today to thank and honor all of our veterans and their families…because freedom is not free. My prayers go out on your behalf…especially today to those who were impacted by the attack at Ft. Hood. May God bless you and give you peace. Thank you for your service to God and our nation!

My favorite show will return in January. Nothing like a cold winter evening, a fire, kids in bed and watching a recording of “24″ with my wife. Here’s the trailer for the new season:

GREAT day @ The Ridge today! I was so pumped! I think God is really using this series. I am praying for the marriages in our church and community. Here’s the highlights:

• Honored our veterans with a special video tribute. Thanks to Gunnery Sgt. Lyndon Smith USMC (ret.) for leading a special prayer of blessing on our veterans and their families.
• The band and Creative Arts team did their usual great job. Love these guy’s hearts. An awesome bunch of people!  Jerry had to fill in for Kendal who was home sick. Praying for her to get well soon.
• Saw lots of new faces today and several people we haven’t seen in a while. That was awesome.
• At least four people indicated that they were putting their faith in Jesus for the first time! That never gets old! Praise God!
• Attendance was strong today. That’s exciting to see God continuing to bring the people that HE wants here.  I pray that we will continue to be faithful to reach out to those people in this community who are far from God and need a new perspective on the church, God, themselves and others.
• We were in part 2 of our Love Handles series. Today was about Realistic Expectations.
• Some of the points we talked about from Genesis 2:18-25 and 1 Peter 3:1-8 were:

One of the biggest lies and most deceitful traps we can fall into as Christians is the idea of our spouse being a “soul mate”

Eve was not the completion of Adam, she was the completion of God’s creation

Your spouse was designed to compliment you, not complete you.

If we are looking for anything other than God to complete us or fulfill us, we are in danger of practicing idolatry.

If we would stop focusing on the imperfections of our spouse and start working on our own, I believe that most marriages would change overnight.

Put your hope in God, not in outward beauty and not in man.

Here’s the Handle for today:

If we are expecting our spouse to complete us, we’ll always be disappointed.

The homework challenge this week is to see which spouse can out serve the other. I pray that we will have a ne perspective ont eh expectations we have and should have in our marriages. Can’t wait for next week: Part 3 Intientional Intimacy.

What were you expecting when you got married? What are you expecting if you are planning to get married? Is your spouse meeting all of your expectations or have you, honestly, been disappointed…maybe even disillusioned?

Are our expectations realistic? The Bible has some things to say to us about expectations in marriage. I guarantee, most all of us don’t have a “handle ” on it.

If you need to get a new GRIP on your marriage; if you need some love handles…or you know someone who does…make sure you AND they are here tomorrow @ The Ridge as we continue this fun, challenging, and provocative series. Part 2: Realistic Expectations

We will also be honoring all of our Veterans with a special tribute.

Don’t miss church…@ The Ridge Sunday! Go to our website and click the e-vite link to send to a friend and invite them to be here tomorrow. It’s not too late!

In conjunction with our current Love Handles series @ The Ridge, I thought I’d share this touching story:

The little old couple walked slowly into McDonald’s that cold winter evening. They looked out of place amid the young families and young couples eating there that night. Some of the customers looked admiringly at them.

You could tell what the admirers were thinking: “Look, there is a couple who has been through a lot together, probably for 60 years or more!”

The little old man walked right up to the cash register, placed his order with no hesitation and then paid for their meal. The couple took a table near the back wall and started taking food off of the tray. There was one hamburger, one order of french fries and one drink.

The little old man unwrapped the plain hamburger and carefully cut it in half. He placed one half in front of his wife. Then he carefully counted out the french fries, divided them in two piles and neatly placed one pile in front of his wife. He took a sip of the drink, his wife took a sip and then set the cup down between them.

As the man began to eat his few bites of hamburger, the crowd began to get restless. Again you could tell what they were thinking: “That poor old couple. All they can afford is one meal for the two of them.” As the man began to eat his french fries one young man stood and came over to the old couple’s table. He politely offered to buy another meal for the old couple to eat. The old man replied that they were just fine. They were used to sharing everything.

Then the crowd noticed that the little old lady hadn’t eaten a bite. She just sat there watching her husband eat and occasionally taking turns sipping the drink. Again the young man came over and begged them to let him buy them something to eat. The man again explained that no, they were used to sharing everything together.

As the little old man finished eating and was wiping his face neatly with a napkin, the young man could stand it no longer. Again he came over to their table and offered to buy some food. After being politely refused again, he finally asked a question of the little old lady: “Ma’am, why aren’t you eating? You said that you share everything. What is it that you are waiting for?”

She answered, “The teeth.”

*This funny courtesy of MikeysFunnies.com

Was reading this Psalm this morning and the Lord encouraged me. Thought it was worth sharing. Where are you looking for your help? While this Psalm is written to and for Israel, it applies to us as well. No matter what you are facing, know that God loves you, is with you, and will take these circumstances and use them for your good and His glory.

Psalm 121

¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?

² My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;

⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

⁶ the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life;

⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

“I’m not thrilled with the deliberate onslaught of the public by the major networks in terms of the sitcoms. They still don’t get it about race. They still don’t get it about gender. Jokes are still about jerks and body parts and sex. The excuse is always the public wants stuff that raises the dopamine level.”
—Bill Cosby

Cosby is the 2009 recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. This quote was on why he doesn’t watch television sitcoms. He also added, “Our youth [should be able to] find themselves being excited about things other than going straight for the genitalia.“   [usatoday.com, 10/22/09]

Good word!

If you’ve seen any tv lately you have seen the promo for the new series “V” which starts tonight. It is actually a remake of a series from the 80s. However, as I watched the trailer for it. It struck me as eerily current. Has anyone else thought about the current political correlation of the statements made in this promo? Very similar to recent political rhetoric. Is this intentional? I remember where the original series went with the plot, but I wonder what the take on this one will be? Who will be the heroes and who will be the villains. Could be kinda ironic…if it wasn’t so close to reality. Just some random, interesting thoughts. Watch it and tell me what you think…

Great start to our series: “Love Handles: getting a GRIP on God’s design for marriage” yesterday! Attendance was good and we saw several new faces. Hoping and praying to see more in the coming weeks.

We talked about “Going for the Gusto?” as we began this series. Gusto is defined as personal taste or liking. That is the problem with most of us when it comes to missing God’s design for marriage. We enter into it “going for the gusto”, looking to fulfill our personal taste or liking. But God’s design for marriage is a Divine order that is to reflect the very image of God and as a human object lesson of the plan of salvation and our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Why do we think that Satan spends so much time on trying to destroy, pervert, and distort marriage, sexuality, fatherhood? Because he knows that if he can do that, he is distorting God’s image.

I opened up by painting a “modern abstract” masterpiece of a couple. It was beautiful! In an abstract dysfunctional kind of way.   Have you ever seen modern art? It doesn’t look anything like…well, anything…usually. I mean you can look at some paintings and you know exactly what it is. You look at it and you say, “A house” or “A tree.” ….I walk away thinking, “that was a really good picture of a tree”  You look at most “modern” art and what do you see? “I’m not sure”…Picasso…supposedly a master…can’t even get his two eyes on the same side of the head!  Most modern or abstract art has to be explained. It is open to interpretation. “Well what do you see?”  I’m sorry, but I should be able to look at it and know what it is…unless you are my 2 year old…and even then, I can sometimes tell exactly what it is!

Here’s what we have done in our society: We have totally allowed a masterpiece, a clear image, to be distorted into a “modern, abstract” image that is not totally recognizable. It is open to interpretation. It doesn’t even look anything like what it was designed to be or reflect.

Genesis 1:26-27 says Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Marriage is a God-sized mission not merely an institution. It is to reflect the image and likeness of a holy God. Marriage is designed by Him to make His glory known! It isn’t about my personal taste. When we understand the fact that God’s signature is on this masterpiece of marriage, we would not enter into it lightly and we’d take more seriously what it means…especially those of us who claim the name of Christ.

The world looks at us and doesn’t see anything different. Therefore, they don’t see the image of God reflected.

When we don’t understand God’s design for marriage, we allow a modern abstract interpretation that is based on gusto…personal taste or liking…to rule. This has become such a problem in the church, that even among Christ followers, there is no recognizable design difference.

Paul gives the second thing we are to reflect in Ephesians 5:25-32.  Marriage is to reflect God’s plan of salvation and our relationship with Jesus. We are His bride and He is our bridegroom. there’s a lot more to it, so you’ll have to check out the podcast this week.

Here’s the handle from yesterday:

Marriage wasn’t designed to fulfill my gusto, but to reflect His glory.

Our Quest Groups are sharing and discussing and studying God’s Word together on the same topic. We’d love to get you connected into one if you aren’t already. Its a good time to jump into a group. E-mail us for more info on a group.

Looking forward to a great series this month. Who are YOU inviting? Find someone who needs to hear this series and ask them to join you this week @ The Ridge. Click HERE to send an e-vite to someone.