A Linebacker, Brittany Spears, and Valentines!

For many years I wasn’t a fan of Valentines day. I remember when I was in middle school, all the girls would be passing out valentines with little giggles on their faces and I would sit in the corner writing valentines to myself. My valentines consisted of how good looking I was, how strong I was, how I was really the starting linebacker for the Denver Broncos but no one really knew, and how Brittany Spears was my girlfriend and that she loved everything about me…ha, only if I knew how she turned out….maybe I would have rethought our relationship. Now I know it may not sound like to big of a deal to you, but when your twelve and still writing valentines to yourself, something is seriously wrong!!

This Valentines is a little different though, I am still the starting linebacker for the Denver Broncos but I gave up on Brittany a few years back, irreconcilable differences. Instead I have a wonderful woman in my life who just melts my face off every time I see her. Emma Maxine Schlundt, rocks my world, and I am so happy to be sharing this Valentines Day with her. She is so giving and caring, loves Jesus way more than she could ever love me, and did I mention, she is stinkin hot!

In the past few years I have also realized Valentines is a great indicator of whether I share Jesus’ love with everyone I come into contact with. Its just not enough to say, one day out of the year, I’ll love people the way Jesus loves me. Instead, I treat Valentines day as a gage to see how I have done the past year, whether I have done my best to show the amazing, transforming, and quenching power of his love!! Plus, there are tons of people in the world right now who absolutely hate Valentines day! They don’t see why there should be a day where love is celebrated. Many of them have been deeply hurt by fake love, an imitator love that is not permanent or unconditional and can you blame them! All people see of love are wives who are beaten by their husband, children who are neglected, relationships ripped apart by unfaithfulness, and churches who don’t give a rip about the poor dying in the world.

The Bible says, God is love! Everything about him is love. And His love is not conditional. God sent his son to die for the sins of the entire world! Giving us grace and a hope when none of us deserved it. That’s what true love is! And on Valentines Day, if we share that message, the true message of LOVE then maybe people won’t be so against the idea of celebrating love.

john Morarie

Nick Cross & a Broken Servant

Yesterday, while I was riding home on the bus I found a friend of mine from high school committed suicide.  His name was Nick Cross.  My first thoughts were shock and disbelief.  You see, Nick was a pretty amazing guy.  I first got to know him in 10th grade.  He had a zeal for life and all its adventures.  During that time we had a class together and over the course of the year our friendship flourished.  With the help of a friend, Joel Nethery, he finally decided to try out Church.  He came a few times and was never afraid to ask questions.  That was probably Nick’s greatest quality, his ability to ask the tough questions.  So many people in life choose not to ask these questions, they are inconvenient and require thought, exploration, a close examination of what you personally believe.

One night after youth group Nick and I stepped into a side room and talked an hour about Jesus.  It was absolutely incredible!  The shimmer in his eyes I will never forget, it seemed his soul had found its true creator, his body could only anticipate the arrival of the holy spirit.  I asked if he would like to accept Jesus in his heart and he said yes.  I asked if I could lead him through a prayer and that his prayer has no magical formula, nothing awesome or inspirational about it, but allows him to acknowledge what Jesus did for him on the cross so the rest of his life, he could LIVE for the true God!  He prayed the prayer with me.

As we were leaving the room I remember saying these words to him, “See, someday, we’ll be standing side by side, praising the Jesus that has saved us from our sins, you and me man, together for eternity!!!”  The months after became difficult for Nick.  Our class we shared together ended and he got mixed up with the wrong crowd.  Peer pressure forced his hand and he came into all kinds of drugs.  Over the next few years in high school we were always friends but he knew I disapproved of some of the drugs he was using.

As always, once high school ends you lose contact with 90% of the people you knew and cared for.  For two years I never gave Nick a second thought.  He never came across my mind.  Yet last week, I was checking my facebook and I came across his profile.  All of a sudden, a terrible feeling hit the bottom of my stomach.  I felt like God laid Nick on my heart, in a huge way.  Yet I didn’t understand what Jesus was telling me, I couldn’t have ever imagined the outcome, I couldn’t have imagined Nick dead.

Have you ever felt like your world was spinning.  Like everything in your life was being whipped around you at 100 mph and there was nothing you could do about it.  So many thoughts entering your mind, so many expectations.  Last night, as I was praying it all slowed down, all it at once and God allowed me to take a breath.  I realized that no matter how guilty I feel, no matter how torn up my heart is right now, no matter how much I wished I followed the Lord’s call and make an extra effort to get ahold of Nick, there was nothing I could do.  I feel like a broken servant.

If there is anything I have learned through all this, Jesus is the ultimate Hope!!!  He is the only thing that can change a person’s life, he is the only thing that can keep them alive when their happiness has been blockaded by pain.  Jesus is truly the Savior of the world!!!  Someday, I’ll be with Nick again, side by side as I told him, together worshiping the Lord, thanking Jesus we can be together in heaven!

john Morarie

Curse Like a Sailor

Today was my first day of class for the spring semester. On my way to school I was so excited. The anticipation was getting to me. I am normally not a very fidgety person but on this day I was biting my nails a little bit. See, I have completed all of my generals that are required at Metro so now the real fun begins. The classes I’ll be taking are completely geared for my major. How exciting is that. Everything that I get to learn now will be to help other people. There is no greater calling than to love other people and I am just plain excited.

Today’s first class was a Juvenile Criminal Justice class and there was a little uncertainty going in. The reports on the teacher were all bad. It seemed that he was a hard nosed, dictator kind that hated class participation. In general I don’t function very well when people teach like that. Yet when I walked in I was introduced to a guy named Jerry. This guy didn’t look like the average teacher and I would soon find he wasn’t going to act like one either. In the first 15 seconds I found he was going to be unlike any teacher I ever had.

He gathered himself and asked the class, “Are you guys ready to start the semester”? No one would answer. In case you have never attended a first day class or have been out of school a very long time…no one talks on the first day of class, even the boldest and most up noxious individuals will hold to their silence. Jerry then said, “well what the f**k, cats got your tongue”? Now I have heard many teachers say other words in class but none quite are as…lets see….expressive as Jerry’s words were today. Over the next hour there wasn’t a single sentence that didn’t include some kind of explicit content. I was keeping track of the f bombs and lost count.

Yet as I looked at Jerry there was something that drew me to him. There was a genuineness about him. He didn’t care what people thought, he was going to be the Jerry he was with everyone. A few college students weren’t going to keep him from being true to himself. In that moment I also realized how much Jesus appreciated that genuineness….even though Jesus could do without the excessive cursing and body gestures.

I believe Christians can be some of the least genuine people on the planet. They go to Church on Sunday and play church and then go with unbelievers and act no different from them, just to fit in. They lie to Jesus on both sides. To be honest I am just sick of it!!! They short Jesus because they are ashamed of their lives. Imagine what this world would be like if Christians were genuine, caring, and loving to the extent of how Christ loved all the people around him when he walked this earth. What would people think of Jesus!

I can only take care of myself and ask forgiveness when I am un-genuine with people! Well thats it, I look forward to Jerry’s class on Thursday!

juan carlos

A Mexican Saying…

There is a saying from Mexico that goes…

“Quieres alguien por su virtudes, pero amas alguien por sus defectos”

Roughly translated this saying means, “you care for someone for their virtues but you love someone for their defects”. Often times, this saying is applied to love relationships in Mexico. Songs in Mexico are notoriously known as, break up ballads. The horns, guitars, and voices all echo how the man wishes his woman were right by his side…or as far away as possible since he is eating Chipotle with another woman. My cousin was sharing this saying with me the other day and I really liked it. It really is a fantastic saying.

To be honest I think it’s a great depiction of love. Love is very difficult to describe. The bible tells us, God is love, everything he does is love. Whether He is showing the world his salvation through Jesus Christ or by his justice, patience, and commitment to the human race…God is always love. Everyday I am learning more and more about this love. The most tangible way I can describe his love to me…if I can even describe it …is in Jesus’ forgiveness of my sins. Planet Earth, a series on the planet filmed by the BBC is an incredible show. They go and film the most remote places on the planet and attempt to capture footage no man has ever seen before. In total I have watched about six episodes and after each episode I am always awe struck…why does the God of the universe choose to love me so much. Why does he care?

I know this may be a redundant question for many. If your a Christian you probably hear it all the time…at conferences or in Churches, this question is commonly brought up. Yet as I think of the words and the life of Jesus, I am starting to realize that everyday God renews our deepest questions and He has a desire for us to seek the answers anew, everyday. Everyday!!! Everyday!!!! (Can I emphasize that enough

By doing this we discover a deeper meaning to what seems, the most elementary of concepts. And Love is the perfect example of this, overcoming difficulties in our relationships only brings us to analyze love in a more profound way.

So where am I going with all this…all I know is that God’s forgiveness in my life changes my entire perspective on….um….practically everything! Jesus said, “Forgive as I have forgiven you”. These words of truth show me more love than I have ever known, and makes me love more than I have ever known. So coming back to the Mexican saying… I think God loves us not for what we have to offer him (our virtues) but he loves us because WE NEED HIM (we have defects)! Everyday our soul is quenched by his love. We are made whole by his love, and ultimately we will be in heaven with Jesus because of His love.

Forgiveness is indescribable because its a piece of God’s love for us. Praise Jesus that everyday, I can look up to him and ask him to take away all my imperfections and fill them with his love. Praise God every Man, Woman, and Child has been given this same opportunity!

What a Great God we have!

john Morarie

My First Blog.

For some reason I have never been a big fan of blogs.  It must be the stigma about them, I mean, do they serve a real purpose.  I remember when I was in third grade and my sister had a unicorn diary.  She didn’t care whether people read her diary or not…actually if I remember correctly the first few pages were vivid warnings: DO NOT PASS BEYOND THIS POINT.  I think there was even a picture of an atomic bomb blowing up a stick figure that resembled me in some capacity.

I loved reading her diary.  All of those juicy second grade secrets were too good to pass by.  Now that I reflect, I don’t understand why I loved reading her exasperatingly boring entries.  Maybe because it was forbidden in some capacity.  Maybe I just liked looking at the unicorn cover or the stick figure being blown up by an atomic bomb on page 2.  All I can say is I combed the house for that journal and spent hours mauling over its exceptional secrets!!

Yet in the last few weeks I have begun to warm up to blogs…a little bit.  I very much enjoy to hear what is going on in the lives of my friends and family.  It is very encouraging to see how God is working in each one of their lives.  I have also come to realize the need of self-reflection in my own life.  Far to often, I fill my schedule with so many things I don’t take any time to think about them.  I don’t think on whether I enjoyed them or not, whether they were beneficial, or how these moments affect my walk with my best friend, and savior, Jesus.   Reflection is such a powerful thing, I think Jesus did it all the time.  All those moments he got away from the fray of the crowds and his needy disciples it seemed he spent time reflecting on every situation the day brought about.  Reflection brings about perspective, prayer, and power to overcome what is in front of your life.  God has laid it upon my heart and therefore, in contrast to all my objections I will begin keeping a blog…silently so that no one knows I have it.

I look forward to adding more to this blog and finding all the intricacies of this program.

Good Night!