K-rist

While I was searching the Internet earlier for a quote that Pastor Brent mentioned in his sermon this morning (btw, great job Brent), I came across a passage from an article titled "Raising Our Evangelistic Temperature: Necessary Practices". This is not the passage I was looking for but I felt it was worth sharing:

Obey the commands of Scripture. Mark 1:17-18 says, "And Jesus said to them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' Immediately they left their nets and followed Him." In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus commanded his followers, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and know, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Sharing the good news with lost people is not optional! Do you know what is wrong with the church? Our concept of spiritual maturity is all messed up! We measure spiritual maturity by church attendance, how much Bible knowledge a person has, what position a person occupies in the church and how far he keeps himself from drinking, smoking, and swearing! I think Jesus would have us measure spiritual maturity more on the basis of how we are obeying the Great Commandment--to love God and others--and the Great Commission--helping lost people to become fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

My lecture this morning was titled "Spirituality and Beliefs". Going into this class I wasn't sure what to expect because I do attend a "secular" college. My initial expectation was for the lecture to be very vague, as to not step on any one's toes by somehow exalting one belief system over another. However, I was very impressed at how the professor handled this subject. Instead of explaining every religion out there and trying to reason through all of the various beliefs in the world, she focused more on what spirituality is rather than religion. She made sure to explain the distinct separation and difference in spirituality and religion. Spirituality is the essence of who we are and what we believe. Whereas religion is a organized system of beliefs. (My interpretation, religion will get you absolutely nowhere! it means nothing of eternal value). I love how my professor noted 3 core issues of spirituality: faith, hope, and love. She took a strong stance, noting that all 3 are true with any belief system. Although she didn't reference it to any scriptures (even though she certainly made it known she was a Christian), I knew that it lined right up with the Word of God (1 Corinthians 13). To sum it up, she said that religion is born out of spirituality. Of course, the lecture was tied in to patient care and how the patients spiritual stance affects the care given and health of the patient, seeing as it was a nursing class. But all in all, I really enjoyed the class. And I think the professor did too. One thing that suprised me was toward the end of the class, the professor asked how many of us would feel comfortable praying with a patient if the patient asked us to. Shockingly, of a class of 48, only about 6 people raised their hand! The field of nursing is so service and care orientated that I expected more of a response. I just assumed that everyone else was entering this career field for the same reason I am; because they love God with all their heart. Therefore they love people and have compassion for them, just as the Lord commanded. But I guess I was wrong. Anyways, I just felt like sharing this brief summary...

Well, apparently there is some way that rain water is getting in my car. I didn't know this until I picked up my bookbag off of the floor board today and all its contents were completely saturated with water. That is an $80 Pharmaclogy book, two notebooks, and about 200 notecards. Not to mention about 50 pages of loose leaf notes of powerpoint presentations. The pic above shows my solution of trying to salvage anything possible. Studying for my final exam should be interesting!

I never thought I'd say this, but today I actually had the best blended mocha drink that I've ever had--and it wasn't Starbucks! Who knew that the coffee shop inside of Border's could make something so delicious. And to make things even better, they topped it with CHOCOLATE whipped cream :) Although, about 10 minutes later, I regretted getting it because somehow the chocolate whipped cream magically jumped out of the cup and onto my ALL WHITE nursing uniform!!!!! I sure hope bleach works!