Ready for Battle

While on vacation, we noticed Mexican soldiers a couple of times patrolling the areas we were in. I was intrigued by these men because they were fully equipped for battle; guns and all. I was especially interested in the rifles they were holding but I didn’t want to stare at them so I asked a group of three soldiers if I could take their picture (so I could stare at it that later!). They said I could not so I politely thanked them and went on my way.

Earthly weapons… like guns, or wealth, or political might… wield considerable power and influence in this world but are useless in spiritual battles. Spiritual weapons consist of faith, truth, righteousness, the Gospel and the word of God. The Holy Spirit provides the weapons we need.

The Devil’s strongholds include pride and self-centeredness that keeps us from knowing God, and this world is the battleground. Are you prepared for battle?

On a side note, I ended up taking a picture of the soldiers from a very long distance (too far away to see much). Doh! I considered posting it here but thought better of it. Wouldn’t want the Devil to get a stronghold on our blog!

Vacation

Mrs. Vhost & I just returned from a 7-day cruise along the western coast of Mexico. We sailed on board the Carnival Pride, a 2,100-passenger cruise ship, making stops at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas. What a wonderful break from our dreadfully cold weather at home; we had temps in the 80s nearly every day! We love cruises; this is our 8th cruise in 16.5 years of marriage!

The highlights of the trips were the weather, the beautiful scenery, warm chocolate melting cake (more on that later) and a visit to Saddleback Church to see Rick Warren preach (via videotape). After such a relaxing week I am recharged and ready to get back to serving Christ through our local church. Our pastor has big plans for 2009 and I’m looking forward to being a small part of that. Never before have I felt such passion for helping people to grow in their faith and I want to make that happen this year at the Fort.

Here are some pictures from vacation:

Our trip to Saddleback Church on Jan. 18.

Our home for seven days.

Power Mat

A co-worker shared this new technology with me and I thought it’d be worthwhile to share here in this space.

A new product coming this fall called PowerMat will wirelessly charge your mobile devices: cell phone, MP3 players, laptop computers, portable games, and more. You simply put your device on the mat and it charges up. No wires needed!

Check out www.powermatusa.com for more information.

Books I like

I’m currently sitting at my desk at home but am connected remotely to my computer at work. At the moment I waiting for a computer job to finish so I thought I’d make a quick post.

I’ve been thinking about my favorite reads from 2008 and here’s the list I came up with (in no particular order).

It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It by Craig Groeschel
Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel
I Became A Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt by Vince Antonucci
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed By A Relentless God by Francis Chan

Don’t have time to give detailed reviews, but I highly recommend these books for any followers of Christ. The first two are more leadership oriented and the bottom two are more about discipleship.

I also noticed that all of these books have a rating on Amazon of 5 stars, except for “Confessions” which has 4.5.

Gamers For Jesus

The weekend after Christmas I was playing Call Of Duty 4 on the PC when I discovered a game server for Christians. The server is hosted by a group called “Gamers4Jesus”. I immediately connected and found the server to be extremely fast (low pings), a very safe environment (no swearing or trash talking allowed), various verses of Scripture flashed across the screen throughout the game, and the server featured several custom (and very cool) maps!

After a few rounds of getting my butt kicked, I checked out the group’s web site, www.gamers4Jesus.org and learned that the group offers servers for other games, a message forum, an online weekly Bible Study and more!! How cool is that? It turns out Gamers For Jesus isn’t a so-called “clan” but rather a group that invites anyone who agrees with their Statement of Faith to put their tag [g4J] on their online gaming ID.

So be looking for vhost in an online game near you!