God is my Dad Part 2

We go on with our stubbornness though, like we always do. How many times have we had a close call with something, but the next day we do the same exact thing that landed us in trouble again. That’s how it was with God.

God realizes, soon there won’t be enough goats and sheep and doves left because His stubborn people would have sacrificed all of them to atone for their constant sin. There wouldn’t be any people left because the punishment for most of our sin is death, and we would have destroyed ourselves. So God tries again, this time making the ultimate sacrifice. He ripped out a part of Himself. A part of Himself. To be slaughtered in the place of the cows and the goats, and most importantly to stand in our place for us. Jesus, God the Son. ^{9 and 10}

Amazingly, all the rules are suddenly gone. Living by a handbook, it’s all gone. Budgeting for doves and sheep and goats for atonement is gone. What’s in its place? It’s love, constant, unending, unrelenting love. Not only that, because Jesus understands that we are weak and damaged and there’s no way our stubbornness would let us choose to stand up for him or choose to live right or choose to stop doing the things we love doing, so he sends down another part of Himself, the Holy Spirit as a constant line to Him. Think of it as a battery charger and we’re constantly connected to the source. ¹²

Happy Birthday BFF!

My best friend in the world just turned 23 and in celebration of her big day, thouught I'd post some pictures of the party I threw her for her 20th birthday!

It was absolutely the best night ever, I threw an awesome party :-) I invited our friend from High School, seriously, we three were inseparable, and I thought it'd be a good idea to have a blowout reunion like we used to dream about stuck in boarding school. There was a lot of dancing, as you can see, and just a whole lot of craziness! I'll do you a favor and not include the pole-dancing pics HA! J/K

I love you sweety!

 Me!

 The three musketeers, BFF in the middle

 Dancing Kidalipo, you'd have to be East African to understand that :-)

 Lots of laughter :-D

 More dancing

 Lets just call that an Orange juice ;-)

 More orange juice :-)

I dont usually do night outs and this was actually my last one, wow, 3 years ago. I'm not really the going out clubbing type, but this was really good. A chill night with just friends.

xx

Jo

My Dear by Hunter Thompson - Bethel Music Loft Sessions

Seriously one of the best songs ever and I know I always say that. Seriously though this is the song that will make you smile when you don't feel like it. Heard it this week when I was struggling with what to do to build up my ministry and so especially if your caught up in work, this will remind you that God's love isn't all work and no play.

At the very least you'll have tons of fun singing it!




Its off the Bethel Music's "The Loft Sessions" album. Hunter Thompson is one to look out for.

To-Do List

I normally get on the internet and forget everything that I'd set out to do, so let me just out all this down:

1. Catch up on Jesus Culture vlogs and videos
2. Check out Worship Release
3. Buy Downton Abbey season 2 and watch the last episode of season 1
4. Download Jared Anderson videos
5. Download Louie Giglio Podcasts
6. Download Gateway Austin podcasts
7. Download iTunes
8. Watch William Matthews videos
9. Watch William Levy on DWTS
10. Check out Worship Central course
11. Check out Casting Crowns videos
12. Upload all my photos to Picasa
13. Catch up on Last Man Standing, Modern Family, Greys Anatomy, Revenge, How I met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, 

God is my Dad Part 1

I don’t know how I can explain my faith or my belief in God to you. I don’t know if I know enough about Him to say anything. Sometimes to be honest, I have serious doubts about whether He’s really out there or where did He come from, who made God, what comes next? But what I hold on to is that first of all, there has to be something out there, some sort of order to life right? To determine life and death, to create everything. Second, the Bible is the most historically credible book. So, if I believe He exists and I believe in His word, then I’ve gotta believe he’s real and He’s there. I can’t explain it any better; I hope that gets through to you.

I don’t just believe in Him to get through the day or to make myself feel better or to get to experience cool things. I’ve done all that without Him. But, you and I both know that it’s never enough, that despite how many friends you have or how many places you’ve travelled or how well your life is set up, it’s never enough. That’s because God created us to have a relationship with him. The only time in History, man was ever truly happy was when he and his wife were walking along in Eden communing with God.

Then sin happened and separated us from God. Our mistakes, our failures everything that’s made us separated from Him, that’s what sin is. All through the Bible we see consequences of this sin, death and destruction. ^{1 and 2}

God being just, tried to help people get some discipline for themselves to try and get back to where they were with Him, that’s why you see in Exodus and Leviticus all these rules He set up and some pretty strict consequences for breaking these rules. ⁸ It’s not because God was mean or He’s some sort of police officer or executioner. We are NOT characters in a video game God is playing looking down on us and waiting to press “DESTROY”.

God was trying to get us to get back to that place of oneness with him. Wow, can you imagine the Israelites, seeing all these wonders, the Red Sea parting and destroying their enemies, being led by a cloud to shield them from the sun during the day and a pillar of fire to warm them at night, food from heaven, and water from a rock. I mean, God was there! ^{3, 4 and 5} Wow, our loving God was there, and He wanted this oneness to continue, so He set up these rules to keep them in tune with Him. But, they broke the rules, so God tries again. He orders the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, so they could carry the very presence of God wherever they went. ¹¹ Again, they broke the rules. To put it in a way that you’d understand, I mean, at this point, God is like stalking them, saying “please be my friend, please be my friend” but the Israelites, shunning the very presence of God, want to turn to idols and elect a king like they saw their neighbors doing. There was a reason why God kept them circling the same mountain for 40 years, ⁶ they had 40 years to be prepared, to be SO in tune with God that when they got to their neighbors who worshipped all these other false Gods, they would know for sure that their God was the one true God, but even 40 years didn’t help them.

Hiking at Ngong' Hills

Just found a bunch of pics from last year that I never posted on my Picasa album. This is the weekend my classmates and I went hiking at Ngong' Hills, which I'd posted about here.

 This is my best friend Joe, who I was in class with my first two years and who was also my downstairs neighbor for a year. I wouldn't have made it through KU without Joe!

This is me, just in case you don't know where I am :-)

Joe again, this was such a HOT day, literally! That little bottle of water didn't make it to the foot of the Hill, let alone climbing it!

A bunch of people from the group

Love this!

I wish I'd done this!

Reaaaalllly pretty views!

See all the windmills?

Some of my friends, including Njoro who was in my marketing class before I transferred, another great friend who I wouldnt have made it through my 3rd year, nor gotten the info about transferring without :-)

So Fun!

Imagine 15 people squeezed up the little stairs to the windmill.

Fun! Believe it or not, I didn't arrange this pose

Those HILLS!

God is my Dad-Intro

I guess this is the first sermon I've ever written. Its 10 pages long, it has scripture references and everything. This is the first time, I ever thought, "wow, I can actually do this" It started off as me trying to write down my testimony and it just blew up into this. So, over the next couple of weeks, I hope you like it, and it shows you a little bit more about who God is.