Chris' Christian Blog

November 26, 2019

"November 26, 2019" 
“Prompt: What is your favorite Thanksgiving memory?”

I have this week off at Marshall University for Fall Break 2019. I am still working at the Salvation Army and leave for work before daylight every morning so my entries will consistently be late. I am off work today for a dental appointment and will be off Thursday for Thanksgiving. My entries will be put in then and on Saturdays for the week.

A lot of people may not like this but my favorite Thanksgiving memory is deer hunting. It is always buck season for guns in West Virginia the week of Thanksgiving and my family always depended on the meat we could harvest during deer season. I always lived far enough out in the country that I usually did not wait to see antlers. I killed as many illegal does as I did bucks, but again my family depended on these things. I was the oldest of nine siblings and we had three adults in the house. Meat was a necessity for us. We raised a lot of our own food, but deer season was a must for us. My favorite memories are of hunting and coming in for a hot meal. If I was late for a meal my family knew I had bagged a deer.



November 25, 2019 Late Entry

Prompt: Use the following words in your blog entry: Stew, admonish, quirky, moonlight, summon, tall, brooch, command.”
I am a soldier in the Salvation Army as most of my readers know. My faith in Jesus Christ is the center of my life. As a soldier I am involved in the Army’s social services program. I am about to go on the payroll in some type of peer support role. Right now, I am a volunteer and do support services such as food boxes, handling donations, etc. As a soldier my primary purpose and the main mission of the Salvation Army is the salvation of souls. We admonish people about the need to be saved and summon them to a new life in Jesus Christ. Sometimes it may seem a little quirky to walk into the Corps to get a food box and find yourself in a conversation about your spiritual needs, but the salvation of souls is my primary focus. I guess you could say I do case management and moonlight as a preacher. I like to think it is vice-versa however. I know living as a Christian is a tall order. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible for a human being to live as a Christian. The only way we can do so is with the aid of the Holy Spirit who indwells us when we repent and believe with our hearts that Jesus Christ died for our sins and raised from the dead. If we can do that we are saved and the Holy Spirit enters our hearts, empowering us to live righteous, holy lives. The Salvation Army is a holiness movement. We believe people can live lives free of sin with the help of Holy Spirit. He is our power source. He transforms hearts and minds into the image of Jesus Christ. Does the mean that we believe Salvationists (soldiers) are sinless? No! Soldiers fall short of God’s glory every day. It does mean that we do not have to be the slaves of sin. We can be slaves of righteousness as the Apostle Paul says (Romans 6:15-23} and we can grow toward spiritual maturity. I know that I will not be totally transformed into the image of Christ while I am still living in this body but thank I God that people can see Christ in me now. The Christian life is not a theory. It is a practice. It is real and anybody can have it. Nobody needs to wait until they get their lives together to become Christians. Only through the Holy Spirit can we get our lives together. He is the only One who can fix broken lives. If you have never had a relationship with Jesus Christ won’t you let Him begin transforming, you right now? If you will then pray with me: Jesus I give you my life, my brokenness, my all. I repent of my sins and ask you Jesus to remove my sin as far as the east is from the west from your memory. Father sprinkle me with the blood of your son for without bloodshed there can be no forgiveness (remission) of sins. Hebrews 9: 22 tells us this. I believe that Jesus Christ was the perfect Lamb of God, and that He shed His blood as a substitution for my own. Through this I believe I am saved. Thank you, Father. Holy Spirit I invite you to dwell in my heart and show me how to live like Jesus. Allow Jesus to be seen in me. Thank you, God for sending Jesus to die on the cross in my place. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
If you just said that prayer with me and sincerely meant it then contact me. You can use my e-mail here, which is checked periodically or you can use my g-mail, which is checked almost hourly. It is [e-mail] or [e-mail]. I would love to hear from you! I would also want to pray for you and share some scripture with you.