This morning at sometime a pipe in our hot water heater broke, and water was all over our bathroom and our bedroom before either Patty or I heard it. My alarm was set for 5:40 am, but I woke up and got out of bed at 5:30. It is a rather rude awakening when you get out of bed and put your feet in an inch of water! I had 2 guys showing up at our house at 6:30 am to go surf fishing with me so I had just one hour to get the water turned off and see what was wrong and fix it. It only took me about 5 minutes to determine that fixing the problem was going to take more than an hour and would require several trips to “Home Depot” for parts. I thought, I should skip fishing and stay home and fix this hot water heater. Fortunately I was able to ignore that responsible thought, and go fishing. We fished all day in the surf near Newport, and caught 42 red tailed perch, it was a great day of fishing. We got home at 6:00 pm and I filleted and cleaned fish until 8:00 pm, and then I worked on the hot water heater until 10:00 pm and now I am writing this blog, and then I need to ride my stationary bike for an hour and I will read my Bible, and pray some while I ride. Busy day, but busy is good

Dear Jesus,

I confess to You that I am a sinner, and I have broken many of Your laws.

I admit that I don’t deserve Heaven and never will.

I accept Your free gift of eternal life that You are offering to me.

I believe that You, Jesus are God, equal with the Father.

I believe that you emptied Yourself of all that You were as God, and that You left Heaven, and became just exactly like me in every way.

I believe that You never sinned, not even a little one, not even in thought or attitude.

I believe that You were nailed to a cross, and while You hung there God the Father took all of my sins, past, present and future and put them on You, and looked at You as if you actually committed the sins that I committed, and punished You, for my sins.

I believe that You physically died on that cross, that You were buried, and that three days later You rose from the dead, and that You are alive today.

I commit my life to You. You have purchased me with Your blood, I belong to You.

I declare You to be Lord of my life.

I will obey You and do whatever You ask and I will follow You and serve You all the days of my life.

I know that I will fail many times as Your disciple. Thank you for Your continual forgiveness of me. I will not take advantage of Your forgiveness, mercy, and grace, to live the way I want, but I will accept Your forgiveness and live my life free from the fear of failing.

I admit that I don’t have the ability to live for You and to follow You in my own strength, but I do believe that the Holy Spirit now lives in me, and gives me the strength to grow and please You with my life.

I read this from someone else’s Facebook entry of a “cut and paste” of a blog I wrote several years ago. I liked it so well I thought I would post it again. Fits for Easter.

I don’t like people telling me what to do. I try not to get irritated when they do, because it happens more and more as I get older, in fact even my kids boss me around now. We all have this reaction and resistance to being told what to do, and most of us have developed a patience or a self-control level so that we don’t make a big scene when we are treated like someone’s servant.

The one person that I want to boss me is Jesus. I want Him to lead me and to be my Lord in every area of my life. When I say, “I want” that is an intellectual wanting, in my heart I still tend to resist His Lordship in my life, there is this pride in me that thinks I can run my own life.  That independent spirit in me is really quite foolish when I think about the fact that Jesus is God, all wise, my creator, who knows everything about me, and loves me so much that He gave His life for me and paid for my sin. I want to be submissive to His Lordship and leading in my life so to make it more of a reality in my heart and soul I declare Him my Lord every morning, and ask for His help in being humble in my walk with Him.

It would seem like by this time I would have conquered this resistance to being led by the Son of God.  I am hoping that I get it down soon.

We had our “Good Friday” service tonight at JBC. The Jefferson Evangelical Church and the Abundant Life Center joined us for a community service together, and it was such a blessed time. The highlight of the evening was the Communion service and the worship that was part of Communion and that followed it. The main point of the evening was to try and understand the full price that Jesus paid so that our sins could be forgiven and we could live in heaven with God. We don’t really think much about the full price that was paid for our sins. Fully understanding the price that was paid for our redemption is sobering, are we that important to God that He was willing to pay that kind of price for our sins?

1. He left heaven, emptied Himself of all that He was as God and became fully man. How far was that journey?

2. He was tortured on the cross, and experienced horrendous pain as part of the price He paid For us to be forgiven.

3. He became our sin, that is, God the Father looked at,Jesus as if he actually committed the sins we committed and punished Jesus for doing them. He poured out His wrath as a holy God against the atrocities of all mankind’s sin on His perfect and sinless Son.

4. The oneness, the unity of the Son and the Father was broken for the first time in eternity as God the Father turned His back on His Son because He had become our sin.

5. Jesus felt the guilt and shame of the sins of every person who has ever lived or will live, His soul was tormented as our sins became His sin.

To think lightly, or naively about what Jesus did because of what we have done so that we could be forgiven is the ultimate in the lack of appreciation. We get used to the story of redemption and it no longer “wows” us with the amazing love of our Heavenly Father.

Well, I finished everything on the boat and I finished the trailer today and decided to take it on her maiden voyage at Freeway Lakes.I pulled it with my Kia Reo, and the Kia pulled it fine, though it looks funny because the boat and trailer are bigger than car😀. Once I got it in the lake she worked good. It is very stable, and I can stand clear on one side with very little tipping. I rowed for awhile and every pull on the oars resulted in a lot of net forward movement. I also ran it with the electric trolling motor, and on the lowest setting it went about 2 miles an hour. I would like it if I could get it to go 1 mph, because that is the perfect trolling speed. I might have to drag a bucket behind the boat to slow it down a bit. But it handled nicely, it was very stable, and it looks very nice, especially with me in it.

What makes a day good? With many it means no problems, no surprises, things went smooth, nothing unexpected. With others it means lots of work done, everything checked off their todo list. And with many it means meaningful time with friends or family. A really good day is when all of the above happened, which is not only a really good day, but a very rare day. Today was a super day for me because I got to spend 8 hours in the prayer room at JBC praying with a couple hundred different people through out the day. Every hour there is a 15 minute break in the praying and people come and go. Some pray for a number of hours but most come and pray an hour and then head off for work or whatever else is on their schedule. Today we averaged a little over 30 people in the prayer room every hour. One person prays a short prayer and everyone in the room is listening and agreeing with their prayer in their mind and heart, and then a different person prays, and so it goes for 45 minutes. During these times the presence of God couldn’t be any more real even I could see Him. Spending 8 hours experiencing such a strong manifestation of God’s presence does a lot to a persons spirit and soul. My faith grows noticeably stronger, my inner sense of peace is incomprehensible, my joy level is greater than it is on a fishing trip, and the very strong sense of God’s pleasure in me as His son is the best. Besides the intimacy with God, the fellowship with all the different people is so good. Listening to people talk to God about their wayward kids, their sick neighbors, their spiritually lost friends creates a special kind of bonding. 8 hours of being in God’s presence and intense relational bonding with people is what made this a very good day for me.

I built a little trailer for my new 10 foot pram that I just finished. I used 2 inch galvanized water pipe for rollers. I bought some drive in UHMW bearings for the ends of the water pipes, which amounts to a 5/8 inch hole in the chunk of hard plastic that has been machined to fit in the pipe. I welded an angle iron bracket on the side of the trailer with a 5/8 hole and ran a bolt through it into the UHMW. I made three rollers, put a winch on the front of the trailer, and side brackets to keep the boat centered. The boat and trailer weigh less than 500 lbs, and I can pull it with my Kia Rio. Thursday is supposed to be warm so I think I will give it a test. Our “Five Days of Prayer” is still going, and I am praying 8 hours each day in it so I will go fishing someplace close, probably “Freeway Lakes”.

It is hard to put into words the joy and satisfaction I felt today as I got the trailer lights wired and they actually worked, mounted the electric trolling motor on the back of the boat, screwed in the brass oar locks, got the fish finder all wired in and working, and charged the battery. When it was totally finished today I sat down in an old wood chair, and just looked at it for about 30 minutes. It is a mighty fine boat, if I do say so myself!