Here are just 3 ways God amazed me this week.

1. I’m always amazed when students accept Christ. When the Gospel is given and a hand is raised or a student comes forward or tells a leader they accepted Christ…it never gets old. I’m always amazed that even today in a world where people say you don’t need Him, yet still so many realize they do. 3 students accepted Christ in the Middle School ministry this week

2. My wife and I were in the promise land, aka Florida, a little over a week ago we were eating at IHOP (one of my pregnant wife’s favorites). We try to make it a habit to pray for our waiter or waitress before we pray for our meal and we ask if they have anything we can pray for. At IHOP our waitress told us that was the first time she had ever been ask that and the fact that we asked her seemed to freak her out a little bit. She said God had a funny sense of humor and that she was going through a lot right now and would really appreciate the prayers. She took our order and left to place it. She then came back and sat down at our table and just began to open up to us. She told us of how she has 4 kids, how her and her husband have recently separated because of infidelity and how there just seemed like there was no hope; like God was not listening to her. I told her I was a pastor at a church in Ohio (which freaked her out a little more). She was amazed that when she was starting to become numb to the whole situation and had stopped attending church that God would have two people come in, sit at her table, pray for her, and one of those people be a pastor!

We tried our best to encourage her, not to give up hope in Christ and that God wanted to and could restore her marriage. We told of two churches nearby where she and her family could get counseling. Got her info to follow up and we just wrote her the other day.

It’s just so cool that while on vacation even at an IHOP God can set up these divine appointments. He is so good like that…totally amazing.

3. My wife is pregnant and we are expecting our first child in February. I’ve been watching a lot of TLC’s ‘Baby Story’ and it FREAKS me out every time the kid is born and pops out of the mother. Yet it is so amazing. I keep thinking of these verses in Psalm 139:13-18:

13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

I love our child already and already I pray for him or her quite a bit and think of them, yet God already knows them! He knows them inside and out, is seeing every step of the development process, and loves this child more and thinks about them more than I ever will…I’m totally amazed.

1. Times by Tenth Avenue North
2. Forever Reign by Hillsong
3. I Will Follow by Chris Tomlin
4. You Are More by Tenth Avenue North
5. Somebody to Love (remix) Justin Bieber & Usher
6. Divine Romance by Phil Wickham
7. Our God is Love by Hillsong
8. Like Incense by Hillsong
9. Time by Hans Zimmer
10. Life by Beckah Shae

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Perfectly baited, easily hooked, maliciously drawn in we succumb to our sinful bend often times gleefully, but then inevitably with the greatest level of remorse.

What’s yours?

Pride, sexual sin, greed, stealing, lying, constantly indulging in whatever feels good, not loving your spouse, selfishness?

For me one of the most pleasurable yet decadent temptations I often face, my sinful bend, comes in the form of food.

I’m a food-aholic

A huge battle is often fought in this arena when it comes to this form of indulgence.  Restraints are thrown off as I am drawn in by the delicious scents, sights, and yes even sometimes sounds of food (just think of Hurley from LOST).

Of course eating in and of itself is not bad, but when we overeat, or when being a glutton becomes our goal it has taken you from light to darkness.

(If you are grossed out stop reading here, cause it gets worse).  I often overeat until I’m ‘drunk,’  in a food coma, or it feels like I’m pregnant with my firstborn.  I’ve watched the Biggest Loser while eating a HUGE bowl of cookies and cream ice cream (my favorite and I know I’m not alone!). I have also used my overeating and out-of-shapedness as an excuse to not do the things that God has called me to do or to just be a lazy bum (I feel tired all the time for a reason).  And lets just face it, indulging in the flesh leads to a further letdown of the guard and distance in my relationship with Christ. Just like alcoholics drink too much…I eat too much.

And sometimes I forget that the Bible addresses this…

Proverbs 23:21
for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,and slumber will clothe them with rags

Titus 1:12
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

Deuteronomy 21:20
and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard

Scripture puts gluttony on the same level as drunkenness, laziness,  lying, stubbornness, rebelliousness, and evil beastedness.

Seriously?  I’m an evil beast?

It really is time for a change.  I may wrestle with this (Romans 7), but I will not be a slave to it (Romans 8!)!

This week (and probably for the 100th time) I start change.  Going to the gym, signing up for a 5k, eating out a whole lot less, drinking water, asking God for a lot of help, Biggest Loser cookbook, and an awesome accountability partner.

I don’t want to be an evil beast ravaged by gluttony’s grip; but rather a sinner who has been gripped by the greatness of God and the power of His Spirit, in love with Him, doing what He has called me to do.

I’m a food-aholic…but it’s time for a change

Romans 8:1-4

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

10.  She has the most gorgeous brown eyes

9.  Such a sweet heart.  She helps make me a little bit more caring

8.  She knows the easiet way to get to my heart is through my stomach

7.  She serves alongside me in ministry

6.  She chose me

5.  She is very wise (for a girl)

4.  She tries new things with me

3.  She can make me laugh so hard

2.  She is the most beautiful girl

1.  She fears God greatly

(Andrew)

Or…I like to reflect on some of the conversations we had when we were first married about how we were never going to get a pet no matter how cute it might be. Well, I don’t know what my husband was smoking that one weekend in July when he took me to Petsmart and we met Dora for the first time, but it didn’t take long before I had changed my mind completely. We were so adamantly against it in the beginning, but now we have two furry friends creating havoc in the Segre household. Who would’ve thought? Not me! Not Andrew either, but things sure did change.

I think of other, much smaller things like how resistant I was to moving to Sunbury at first. It’s so country! 6 miles away from Target just seemed so far. But, as always, things changed and now I love it here. (Yeah Sunburrr!!) When pointy-toed shoes first came out I thought they were just awful and vowed never to wear them (remember that Vanesa?). But now I love them. (They really do elongate the leg!)

So if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to never say I will  never do something or think a certain way. Cause I usually have to retract and start again. Such is life!

(Anna)

2.  Girls mature way faster than boys.  I love the middle school boys in our youth group, but when it comes to having more serious talks…girls win hands down…sorry fellas.

3.  One should really count the cost when it comes to owning 2 cats.  My wife and I got our second this past weekend…they hate each other and we are dangerously coming close to that line where we will be “cat people.” We don’t want to cross that line…ever

(Andrew)

We review everything from finances, goals, how we are doing expressing each other’s love language, to the more romantic elements of our relationship.

I love this time.  We try to be brutally honest with each other.  It’s not the most fun thing in the world when you hear the things you are not doing so well; but MAN do I love this woman; I want to love her better than I did the year before.   

Last year was good, but seriously the best is yet to come.

(andrew)

So this is the beginning.  My wife and I want to share our lives, our thoughts, our story.  This is day one.

(Andrew)