I am still alive....

I am still here, unless you were wondering. I was out of town on work and away from a computer for a week and a half. I am back now and ready to hit the grindstone. The time away was difficult because it was the longest Amber and I have been apart since we got married almost 2 years ago. It was a very long and tiring week and a half of early mornings and 15 hour work days. In the past, being stressed out, tired and lonely would have weakened my resolve and I would have sought "fulfillment" and "relief" in some very wrong places and people. I am happy, however, to report that I was what Amber calls a "good kid." a large part of this was due to the fact that I was getting up and going to work at 4:45 every morning and working 15+ hours a day and battling a chest cold all the time. Exhaustion and sickness tend to dampen your desires for the flesh.
The major crutch on which I leaned was my Bible. Specifically the Holman Christian Standard Bible for the Nook. My Nook has been a great blessing in that I can have my Bible with me in the work truck and I can whip it out whenever I need. I finished reading the book of John and moved in to Acts. I love how John chronicles the life and ministry of Christ, focusing on his miracles and signs, tangible evidences of his deity. John ends with the 40 days that Christ spends with the Disciples before his ascension. Acts seamlessly picks up the story with the day of Pentecost and the disciples going out and beginning their ministry.
I love the picture of the early Church in Acts. In chapter 2 it talks about how all the Believers sold all their possessions and shared everything as need be. They were in essence a communist society, based on a shared belief and faith in Jesus Christ. These early believers shared everything, their possessions, their homes, their worship, I would even presume their hurts and struggles. These people were human and struggled with the same exact sins that you and I face everyday. Can you imagine what our church today would look like if we shared in eachother's sins and struggles? If we were truly honest and open about our sins with eachother? If we saw sins as simply that, sins, not something that defines a person and makes them untouchable?
That is what No Church Closets is about. There should be no secrets between believers. We should be supporting eachother in our battles and struggles. The church should be a place where the Bad Boy is welcomed and encouraged, loved and treated as a precious creation in God's eyes, not as a freak. Why are the tax-collectors and harlots hated and shunned in the church, when those are the very ones Christ came to save? I want you to come out of your church closet. I want you to love as Jesus did. I want to love as Jesus did