Passionately Following Jesus
8 days…and Hailey Elizabeth (Stallone) Carnes will be here. The surgery date was moved up from Thursday, July 24th to Tuesday, July 22nd, which I know Nicki is excited about. Thank you for any and all prayers that everything will go smoothly. My prayer for 9 months has been that Hailey will be born completely healthy and completely whole, and that she would be smart and beautiful…selfish I know! 🙂
Join the Conversation, What’s the next big thing you are looking forward to in your Life?
Thanks to all who prayed for me this past Sunday as I preached in an Adult service for the first time in 2 years. Yes, I was nervous. Yes, I was worried that I would go over my given time…All a perfect recipe for a disaster. So, who knows the outcome, except Christ and those who heard the message. I had some positive remarks, a few people who conveyed they needed the message at that exact time in their life, and then Chuck emailed me and reported HERE that we had two people mark their communication card that they received Christ in the service. So regardless of how I feel about the message, my main prayer is that the Lord used it in people’s lives.
I am posing the MP3 of the message HERE – the sound is not very good on the recording (Update: I’ve had a few people say it does not sound the same as it did live…its too loud – plus some Firefox users have had some downloading issues). We are doing a Summer series called Get Reel where we are doing messages around Movie Blockbusters, I did my message from Rambo, here are a few things you may need to know:
#1 I opened with this clip, so you may want to view it before listening…it may put some of what I was saying into perspective:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-3BgQOusD8]
#2 When I refer to a monopoly faith I was using these as a visual aid (my hot wife made them), sometimes I said some things and was pointing or referencing these so it may confuse you on those parts:
Finally the audio goes silent in one section, its because we showed this clip to close out the message:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtJO6iZUddQ]
My Pastor Chuck Gordon with the church @ greenbrier is now a blogger (finally)! I think he did like 3 posts in a row 🙂 – The views and opinions of Chuckgordon.cc are that solely of the author and is not endorsed or authorized by Nickcarnes.com – of course I am kidding 
Go check him out HERE.
I watched this over at Pete’s blog yesterday and had to go back this morning to listen to it again. My favorite part is “Send Me I’ll Go” because that sums up where my heart is right now.
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.620792&w=425&h=350&fv=]
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I was reading the entry for My Utmost for His Highest this morning and was a little torn. Here is the section that brings me to this blog post:
. . . I am with you to deliver you,’ says the Lord —Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “. . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . .” (Jeremiah 39:18 ). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives.
Now, I am fairly new at reading Oswald Chambers’ stuff. There are times that I read it and I can hear some of his influence or at least an identical influence in some of the people who have helped form my thinking. One of those people, once again today, is Louie Giglio. Yesterday, as I piggy backed on Pete Wilson’s blog, I posted an audio message from Louie called “Prayer-a-Remix” where Louie points out how unbiblical many of our cliche’ American prayers are. [Download the Full Message Here – Requires Quick Time]
In the message Louie talks about how one of the typical things that we pray is “Lord Protect Me!” – However, in the post Cross/Resurrection teaching of the Gospel, we are never promised protection or safety. Louie points out that in the Old Testament all the heroes (David, Daniel, Noah, Etc.) were victorious and lived, but in the post Cross/Resurrection portion of the New Testament all the heroes suffered and died (Jesus, Peter, Paul, Etc.) – The bottom line is that sure we can pray for protection, and trust me I pray for protection for my family daily, but in reality, if you are living totally abandoned to Christ and truly mean that He can use your life to further His mission no matter what, then I believe there is no promise of protection, because sometimes His mission is greater than our lives!
**You have got to listen to the audio message about Louie’s example of Graham Stains – It puts this into perfect perspective – I admit I have used the illustration numerous times now!**
Join the Conversation, What Do You Think?