Hey all! Welcome to the new LatterRain website. Things have been quite busy for all of us. Matt and his wife Suzanne had their first child March of last year, Josh got engaged to Amanda, Aaron busy with his church, family and his position with the navy, Craig and his wife Kim leading youth at AHF Church and growing vegetables in their spare time, lastly myself...recently got married May 22 to Krista.
We hope you take time to read our blog as we plan to update with encouragment, challenges, music to check out, and further news about us and what God is doing in us and through us as a band.
Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" book has created all sorts of attention and anyone who has read it knows why. My wife and I began reading this book a couple weeks ago and it has been a challenging and exciting journey. Chan gets down to the nitty-gritty biblical truths of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to have a right standing relationship with the Lord. It challenges you to search your soul and answer some deep, difficult questions about your true love for the Lord. Here are a few excerpts from the book that we found to be very powerful.
"The critical question for our generation--- for every generation, is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?
How many of you will read those words and say, "You know, I just might be okay with that"? If you are deeply in love with God, you know you would never be satisfied in a heaven without Christ.
"I wrote this book because much of our talk doesn't match our lives. We say things like, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," and "Trust in the Lord with all your heart," Then we live and plan like we don't believe God even exists. We try to set our lives up so everything will be fine even if God doesn't come through. But true faith means holding nothing back. It means putting every hope in God's fidelity to his promises."
"A friend of mine once said that Christians are like manure: spread them out and they help everything grow better, but keep them in one big pile and they stink horribly. Which are you? The kind that reeks, around which people walk a wide swath? Or the kind that trusts God enough to let him spread you out--whether that menas going outside your normal group of Christian friends, inceasing your material giving, or using your time to serve others."
"Most of us use "I'm waiting for God to reveal his calling on my life" as a means of avoiding action. Did you hear God calling you to sit in front of the television yesterday? Or to go on your last vacation? Or exercise this morning? Probably not, but you still did it. The point isn't that vacations or exercise are wrong, but that we are quick to rationalize our entertainment and priorities yet are slow to commit to serving God."
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