The Way Matt Sees It

Christmas is definitely my favorite time of the year. I’m not just saying that—I mean it really is! I’ve got 5.3 hours of Christmas music in my playlist this year…it’s awesome! I just love the season and everything that’s with it. And New York City this time of year is the BEST! You may think you know where this blog is going, but you don’t! I’m going to ask what Christmas is about…is it about the presents? You respond: no, it’s about Jesus. Right? He’s the “reason for the season” as they say. Christmas is also about love. That’s the “Christmas Spirit.” God loved us so much that He gave us His son, to save us from our sins! Jesus is the greatest present we could ever get. We need to be loving and be generous just like God is. All of this is right. But here’s the thing: even the movies get this one right. You can watch Christmas movies where they realized Christmas is about more than presents; it’s really about love, and maybe even Jesus. But what happens next? They

To be honest, I’ve allowed my relationship with God to get a bit stale this week. The NYC Missions Trip helped me a lot, but I haven’t made a lot of time for Him recently. Yesterday I did and it was great, and so today I went to the Worship Chapel Service. As always, the Worship Chapel was incredible. God always comes and meets you in a powerful way when you devote even just an hour to worshiping Him. One song we sang was called, “Give Me Faith” by Elevation Worship. I loved the entire song, but the bridge stood out to me so much: “I may be weak, but Your Spirit’s strong in me. My flesh may fail, but God you never will.” Story of my life! My flesh fails all the time! I was so humbled today while singing this. I’m so sinful, and yes God has saved me from an eternity away from His presence, but sometimes sin rears its ugly head in my life because I allow it to. But even when my flesh fails, my God never will! I can always count on Him no matter what! That is the greatness

The last park I went to on the NYC Missions Trip was called Bown Playground. I was really hoping I’d get to see Daniel, because I told him where we’d be that day. Anyway, it was good because I was able to talk to a lot of people that day. One man I got to speak with was named Melvin. He looked like he might have been homeless, but perhaps not. He was sitting on a bench with Nathan (someone from our group), talking about how he just can’t accept the fact that God made everything in the world. We had a good conversation, and I tried to not debate so much because that doesn’t do anything for anybody. I told him Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” No matter what man says, the Bible says that all men can know that God is real just through observing nature. There is so much that can be said for stuff like th

I just came back from the Missions Trip to NYC, where we worked with StreetLife Ministries and ministered to the homeless. We went to four different parks. I decided that I’d write a few different blogs for the different types of situations I encountered while I was there, even though I could probably write a blog for every person I met! Just about everyone who knows me knows that I live my life for Christ. My entire life is devoted to Him. Everything I do is to serve Him; my life would be incomplete if I didn’t! This missions trip however, reminded me why I serve God and who He is in my life. Of course serving Him is the right thing to do, but that’s not the only reason we do it. The second park, Moore Playground, was tough because there were many religions and lots of people couldn’t speak English. When we were packing up though, I ended up talking to three people: Daniel, Louis, and Carlos. I had met Louis earlier; he was a homeless Hispanic man who was kind of funny and

Most people probably didn’t feel this way after finding out what happened to the Casey Anthony trial. Is our Judicial System really a just system? Regardless of your opinion, what do you think God has to say about justice? Not limited to this trial; I mean REAL justice. When we say God is a just God, what exactly are we saying? Rebecca and I have a Bible study every week, and we’ve been in the book of Romans. This week we were in Romans 3:21-31. The Holy Spirit must have been right there with us because He really showed us something incredible! This passage is talking about how the Law points us to God’s righteousness. Even Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross points us to God’s righteousness; this is to reveal our sin (Romans 3:20), and help us realize that we need God’s power to be saved. Now here’s the deal. Romans 3:25 says that God passed over sins previously committed (before the death of Christ); the NIV says that He let them go unpunished. Verse 26 says “so that He woul

I was mowing the lawn last week and had one of those “lightbulb” moments. Don’t you love when that happens? I was thinking about the passage where Jesus says to take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck of dust out of your brother’s eye. I feel like I have a new understanding of what that verse means. In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus talks about judging others. In verse 5, He says, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” I’ve always (maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously) looked at this and thought, in order to judge others, I just need to fix myself up real quick. “Yes Jesus, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, forgive me, thanks God you’re a cool God, sure, talk to you later amen…” and went on judging others the way I saw fit. Because I “asked for forgiveness”, I had every right to go and judge others now. Now that I fixed my problem, I can go point my finger in everyone else’s

A few people told me a few different things about Judgment Day. Some people told me they wished they could be “raptured up”. Someone told me they wished they could be sure if Jesus would actually accept them into heaven. Someone else told me that if they saw Jesus coming down on the white horse, they’d repent right then and there. Well, May 21st ended up not being Judgment Day. No, I am not going to pick apart Harold Camping. Don’t worry about his mumbo-jumbo. Here’s my question: what if he was right? Yes, we know that no one can predict the end of the world. This is addressed numerous times in the Bible, even by Jesus Himself (Jesus: Matthew 24:36/Mark 13:32, also Acts 1:7, 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 2 Peter 3:10). Harold Camping can even fit under the category of a false prophet. Ok ok, we know this. Let’s get past this stuff for a second though. What if he was RIGHT? While people were unfortunately blinded by this man’s false predictions, several of them spent their time and money tr

I know some people love to take vacations and can’t wait to get out of their house. Well, I can tell you that I’m not one of those people. I mean don’t get me wrong, I LOVE vacations; my family has gone down the shore, to Boston, Vermont, etc. But it never beats a beautiful, relaxing day at my house with nothing important to do…kind of like today! Except it’s raining. But I love my home! I was having a hard time keeping up with my devotions about a week ago, but I found this passage that really helped me out. In 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, Paul is talking about how we are separated from God because of our mortal bodies. Our goal though, is to be pleasing to Him, regardless of where we are (v. 9). What spoke to me the most is verse 8. Paul says that he is confident that we would prefer to be absent from our body and at home with the Lord. Our home is with the Lord. This is how we should feel as Christians. Paul wishes that he could be in Heaven already with Christ, but knows th

It was a pretty fantastic event when Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, saw the finger of God write a message on the wall in the middle of his party! I mean that is crazy! Especially being that it was in a language no one could understand…what do you do in a situation like that? He had heard of Daniel, a servant of God, who was able to “give interpretations and solve difficult problems” (Daniel 5:16). Calling him forth, he told Daniel that he would clothe him in purple, put a gold chain around his neck, and make him the third highest ruler in the kingdom for giving him the interpretation of the words on the wall. What an honor! Even before Daniel gave the interpretation, he refused the kingly gift. He interpreted the meaning of the writing anyway, informing King Belshazzar that God was displeased with Babylon. The days of the kingdom were numbered because their sins were great and many, and He would divide it among other nations. Belshazzar’s response? He glorified Daniel any

Going to a Christian College is quite different than going to a secular one. A big saying people have here is “my theology.” Everyone has their own “theology,” and their own unique “belief”, and their own interesting take on scripture verses. Lots of people here like to talk about what they believe—and that’s not a bad thing. Hey, I guess I do too, I mean I’ve got a blog! Seriously though, I must say I’ve heard the term “my theology” quite a lot. “Well Matt, it’s obvious that you’re going to blog about your theology. What makes yours so special?” My goal isn’t to tell you “my theology”; my goal is to get all of us to take a look at our own belief systems. Why do we each have our own theology? Why do some of us take [sometimes ungodly] pride in believing something that others don’t? I think we need to take our faith back to the basics. A very good amount of the time, some of us get so wrapped up in our “theology”, beliefs, opinions, etc that we forget what it is that makes

They Psalms is a good book to read when you aren’t sure what to read; I agree, but I’ll tell you what, the book of Proverbs is what really gets me going. I love this book. I think a big thing people talk about today is the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and it seems to me that most people think they’ve got a lot of wisdom. I always think of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, when Dexter Jettster says, “I should think you Jedi would have more respect for the difference between knowledge and wisdom.” Everybody knows that there is a clear difference, and everyone thinks they have so much wisdom. But I’m not convinced. We are in the information age, and knowledge is everywhere. Human society is moving forward in a direction people couldn’t have even dreamed of 50 years ago; yet there is definitely a lack of wisdom. The benefits of wisdom are listed all throughout Proverbs, but some key ones are that: -We will be saved from wicked men, crooked paths and perverse ways (2:12

I was talking with God in the car not too long ago about how great the food is here on earth, and how I can’t possibly imagine how great it will be in heaven. I told Him that He must be throwing a party having such great food all the time (of course I was half-kidding here), and I felt Him say to me, “I wish I had someone to share it with.” We always talk about God’s love, and just how much He loves the world. Sometimes, we talk about how much it must pain God to send somebody to Hell who has rejected Him. I read a scripture the other day that really spoke to my heart, and illustrated just how much God loves this world. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (NIV). Later in verse 15 it says, “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.” This w

“Faith without works is dead.” I’m sure we’ve all heard this from something somewhere at some point. What does it mean? I think to most of us it may seem pretty obvious. The answer is that if you have faith and you don’t do anything, your faith doesn’t mean anything. So, is that what it really means? Well uh, yes actually that’s exactly what it means. The problem is that I think most of us believe that just because we know what it means, that’s a good enough response to this passage (found in James 2:14-26). Here, James is saying that if your faith doesn’t show through actions, then what is the point of your faith? Verses 15-17 really illustrate this. If someone is without food or clothing, and we say, “Stay warm buddy! Hope you have a great dinner! You could really use it, you look like you haven’t eaten in a while,” and don’t do anything….what are you doing?? What is the purpose of your faith? And this isn’t limited to biblical principles only. Some of us may respon

(By Rebecca Weiss!) We are all familiar with the Amish, the group of people who live in Lancaster, PA , throughout Ohio and Indiana, and live without modern technology. I've grown up knowing about them and visiting Lancaster quite often with my family on spring break. This group of people tend to keep to themselves and don't associate with the modern world. Sometimes, however, the outside world intrudes in on their simple lives. On October 2, 2006, a man stormed into a one man schoolhouse and shot 10 young girls, killing five. He then killed himself. The fact that this event happened, let alone that it happened to the Amish community, is very unfortunate. If the man had not committed suicide, many people would believe he would deserve the death penalty. Even if you're not a supporter of the death penalty, killing five innocent young girls would be a good reason to deserve such a punishment. However, what is most extraordinary about this event, wasn't the fact that

We hear the term “bearing fruit” said by Jesus all over the four Gospels. “Bear fruit”, and “You will know them by their fruit”, etc. What does this mean? What is this fruit Jesus is always talking about bearing? Whatever it is, it’s probably important, because He cursed a fig tree for not bearing any fruit…and that was just a tree! In the letter to Galatians, Paul lists the Fruit of the Spirit. This is seriously one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I think I know this better than John 3:16! Anyway, Galatians 5:22 lists the Fruit of the Spirit, which are: Love Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Gentleness Self-Control And ends with “…against such there is no law.” Why does Paul say against this there is no law? In Matthew 7:21-23, there are some powerful words coming from Jesus. “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say t

So what does it mean to be a Christian? Anyone ever make the connection that “Christ” is part of the word? It was actually a derogatory term at first (Acts 26:28 and 1 Peter 4:16), saying those who followed Jesus were “little Christs”, which is in a sense what we are. We are followers of Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:1 to follow him as he follows Christ. In Ephesians 5:1, he says to be imitators of God. Jesus says in John 13:35 that people will know we follow Him by our love for one another, just as He loves us. Jesus says to bear fruit all over the New Testament, the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. The first fruit of the Spirit is…. love! We must be driven by godly love if we are to be Christians! Jesus also says to be “salt and light” to the earth in Matthew 5:13-16. He didn’t call us simply to “not sin”, but to be salt and light, and to affect those around us. “But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will

I’m sure we’ve all looked at a snowflake close up before.  Have you ever thought that humans are a lot like snowflakes?  Or at least that we’re supposed to be?  Look at it this way. What’s the big push nowadays?  “Be yourself” and “Don’t let others tell you who you are” and all that jazz.  I agree, I think everyone should be his or her own person.  But if you look at it, all the people who are pushing for this are all quite similar.  For wanting to be themselves, they all look the same.  And it’s funny, because that’s what they say about everyone else! What does this have to do with snowflakes?  We are all different.  There are no two snowflakes that are ever the same right?  There are literally an infinite amount of snowflakes, but no two have ever been the same.  Sure, they are all made of snow, and all come from the same place, but each is completely unique in their own way.  Humans are the same.  We come from the same Maker, and of course we’re all human.  But after tha