TOMFEST

He died for me, the least I can do is take a few beatings

This is a story I heard about the other day, now one of my favorites.
There is this band known as The Great Commission, (http://www.myspace.com/thegreatcommission) if you have not heard of them please check them out!
Im not sure how recent this was but they played at show in southern California.
At the venue the show promoters/owners approached the vocalist Justin, telling
him not to speak anything about Jesus Christ on the stage or they would beat
him up after the show. After The Great Commission's first song, Justin tells the
crowd about the threat they made on him and he continues by saying that he would
take a couple hits to preach His amazing word because Jesus Christ died for him!
HOW EPIC IS THAT! After the show he continued to show God's love and didn't
fight back and they took him outside to beat him up.

Are you willing to give it all to tell the world how amazing our God is?
A story of encouragement

Huge Ebay Auction, Chad Johnson

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Here is an old video but its great

Check it out :)

Our friend Gaven of GOD FEARING YOUTH had an amazing post we would love to share.

"Doing what we do with God Fearing Youth, I deal with a lot of people who hate Christians. A lot of these people are just jerks who don't know anything about God, don't know anything about Scripture (who say "clearly" a lot) and are usually just trying to start some sort of fight. Some of these people really hate Christians, and for most of them, Christians are the reason.

If you're a Christian, (noticed I said 'a' Christian, because Christian is a very poor adjective) it means you believe in Jesus. But what does it mean to believe in Jesus?

To me, there are two different Christs out there, Church-Jesus and Bible-Jesus. Bible Jesus teaches tolerance, acceptance, overwhelming love. He teaches that the hungry need to be fed, the naked clothed, and the lonely befriended. He preaches undeniable generosity and gets straight up pissed at the religious leaders of his day for all the blind meaningless rituals they go through while their hearts remain sinful. This is the Jesus spoken of in the scriptures.

Church Jesus on the other hand, is like an insurance policy. He's the solution to the sin problem of this world and little else, and the whole point of being Christian is to just get as many people as you can to accept this Jesus (whatever that means) so when this quasi-meaningless life is over when can all go to the same place. All you have to do to "let Jesus into your heart" is to say a prayer and nod your head at all the right times.

I myself was saved in this sort of manner. But is this in the scripture? No. Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about accepting Jesus into your heart by saying a prayer. Some denominations of Christianity even go so far as to say that once you have this "salvation" its yours forever. You said this non-biblical prayer once and you probably meant it so now you can do and say whatever you want and you'll go to heaven when you die, no matter what. What part of that is Christianity?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My point here is to divide old tired church rhetoric from the Bible. I guess what I'm saying is,

This sinner's prayer style of salvation that is taught in many of today's churches is not Biblical.

The point is to follow the example that Jesus set. Is there really any argument about this? Jesus came and showed us how to live. Live like him, and you're good. You're living your life the way that God did, the way that God intended.

Its time to get controversial. I'm not setting out to make people mad, but I know I'm going to. But I don't care, here goes:

Is it possible for a person to say he's a Christian and not be one? Almost every Christian I know would say that it is. Its not the words that you say, its the motives of your heart and the way you live your life. But what about the other way around?

Is it possible for a person to say he's not a Christian but really be one? Almost every Christian I know would say no, it isn't. But why not? They haven't accepted Jesus? But the "accepting Jesus" belief isn't Biblical, remember? I thought the words you say didn't matter. Isn't it about the motives of your heart and the way you live your life?

Now we have to draw a line between saved and unsaved. I'm not saying that everyone is saved no matter what, but what makes a person saved? Is it belief that Jesus existed? Obviously not because Scripture says even demons believe he existed. Its faith in Jesus. But what does that mean??

It means (I think) that when you look at the life of Jesus, you believe it is the best way to live, and you strive for it and learn as much as you can regarding it because you have faith that it will make your life and the lives of everyone you meet, better.

This mixes up a lot of what people think about Christ. Look at Gandhi. Gandhi said the only example of a perfect life was Jesus Christ. So was Gandhi a Christian? It sure does seem like it. He recognized Jesus' message, his love, his correction, and that in the end he died for his friends. What else is there? He didn't say some words?

Everyone isn't automatically saved because Jesus died, but he did die for everyone's sins. It says in Hebrews that Christ came "once for all".

I've heard so many people get angry at me for this, they say I believe in Universalism, spout heresy and say that I'm offering salvation to all.

This is completely backwards.

If anything, I talk about a Jesus that is harder to follow then most Church-Jesus' are.

Them: "Come to the front and say some words, and mean them, and you will go to heaven."
Me: "Get to know the life of Jesus, follow it as closely as you can, love like he loved, live in his shoes every day, and you will go to heaven."

Which is easier? Which are people more likely to do?

Now, in telling this to people, they have quoted numerous Bible verses to "prove me wrong" so to speak. The two most common are John 14:6 and Romans 10:9.

John 14:6-"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."

This proves to some people that accepting Jesus and being churched is the only way to Heaven. Now I never said that you could get to heaven outside of Jesus, I just say that the standard ritualistic Christianity isn't the only way to do it.

A lot of Christians use this verse as their "accept Jesus" verse. But this verse was not originally written in English, it was written in Greek. So some of the English words don't have the exact same meaning as the Greek words. In particular, we are going to look at the word "through".

In the original Greek, the word that we translate "through" is the Greek word "οδος" (pronounced hodos). Now in Greek, οδος means a progress, an act or a journey. So really, the verse says:

"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through my acts, following my process, and going on my journey."
This really lines up with everything I've said.

Romans 10:9-"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

This verse is pretty blunt. Confess and believe and you're saved. But think about that for a second, is that all? Does this verse literally mean all you have to do is confess and believe and heaven is yours? Even Christians who would say that I'm way off the mark would agree that there is more to it than that. Jesus himself even says "not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven". So does this verse mean exactly what it says?

Basically, it comes down to living.Christians, live your life as Christ did. Faith is what you base your life on, its not a ticket to heaven. Live and walk with Jesus every day and know that it will not be easy, it will stretch you, it will grow you, and it will test you



and you'll love it." -Gaven

Testimony

Here is an amazing story of a young man. Today he told us his testimony

"It all started in the summer after my freshman year in high school, two years ago. My Mom sent me to this Christian camp here in Florida. Before I got there I was leading a bad lifestyle; I was messing around with drugs, gangs, and a bunch of other stuff. On the last night of the camp experience, all of the kids were gathered in the church that was built in the camp. The pastor gave this sermon that cut down to the heart and had me on my knees bawling like a new born baby and repenting for my sins. But when I went home after the camp trip, I just went back to my old ways because no one bothered to disciple me. I had no one to teach me right from wrong so at day time I would go out and mess around with gangs and drug deal but at night I would repent, which is not a Christian but a hypocrite. I was doing that for about a month and a half until one day me and mom were watching the Tyra Banks show. There were these people from a Baptist church protesting that God hates fags and that all fags were going to burn in Hell and that God pretty much hates everyone. Like I said, there was no one to disciple me or teach me right from wrong, so I ended up taking their message to the heart and began believing that God was an unjust and unrighteous God for hating His own creation. So I just stopped believing in Him and became atheist. Probably a day after, satan took his opportunity. I was in my bed at night listening to a song by a band called Slipknot The name of the song is called "pulse of the maggots" which is a song about revolting against God and joining alongside satan. There comes a part in the song where the singer asks "Do you understand?" over and over again. While I was listening to the words, satan entered my mind and asked me "Do you understand?" and eventually I answered yes. From then on I became a satanist. I won't go into detail about my whole experience as a satanist but there was a lot of influence being given from satan and the demons that lead to scars of self-mutilation that I still have today, heart problems due to immense hoardings of hatred, and there was one time where I was in the presence of demons and I have never been as scared as I was during that experience. I was literally scared stiff and I say these things for your sake so that you can understand that I was exclusively being lead by satan. I was completely hate-filled. I only had intentions of hating God with all of my heart and lived this way for the longest 4 months of my life. But one night I was listening to a song by a band called Evanescence. The song's called "tourniquet" and it's a song about someone who tried to kill their own pain through their own efforts which only lead to complete despair, when suddenly this person realized that what they needed was what they were running away from the whole entire time; Christ, our Lord. God just opened me up completely and made me realize that what I was following was a lie and that the only truth and the only true rest and comfort could be found in Him alone. That night I cried over all that I had done to my savior, despite the fact that the demons had so much control over me, their power simply could not compare with God’s, Amen. I prayed to God for understanding of the things that I simply did not understand and which lead me astray from Him in the first place. Not only has He been blessing me with wisdom, knowledge, and understanding ever since but He has also adopted me as His son by His Spirit. Looking back at it, I remember how sacrilegious I was and how much I hurt God. I spit in my Savior’s face and defiled His name and instead of Him kicking me out of His domain of love, like any earthly father would do, I ran away from Him and He came running after me so that He could give me a love that cannot be found anywhere else. That right there is enough for me to want to give up my life and follow Christ wherever He leads me. That’s my testimony."

For the first entry we wanted to share an amazing video. God is good.



He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane
I am a tree
Bending beneath
The weight of his wind and mercy
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these
Afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize how beautiful you are
And how great your afflictions for me

Oh how he loves us so
Oh how he loves us
How he loves us so

Yea He loves us
Oh how

We are his portion
And he is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in his eyes
If grace is an ocean we're all sinking
So heaven meats earth like a sloppy wet kiss
And my heart burns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way
He loves us

Oh how he loves us so
Oh how he loves us
How he loves us so

Yea He loves us
Oh how

I thought about you
The day Stephen died
And you met me between my breaking
I know that I still love you God
Despite the agony
See people they want to tell me your cruel
But if Stephen could sing
He'd say its not true
Cause you're good