Where are you storing your treasures?

In Men's bible study Tuesday morning, I brought the following verses to share with the group found in Matthew chapter 7 verses 24-27.

24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

The thought of "where are we building our treasure" came to mind. Are we investing time and effort into the house built on the rock or sand. I was talking with a friend of mine and he said that you can look at the check register in your checkbook to get an idea of what is important to you by where you are investing your resources. Do we spend more money on renting movies then we give to the church? Not that it is all about money, but where you spend your money is a good indication of where you are building your treasure.

Invest in the house that is on the rock. Everything in this world will pass and at the end of it all, the treasure stored in the house on the rock will be the only thing left.

-Joey

Happy New Year from School of Fish!

Do something great for God's Kingdom in 2010.

-Joey

Letter-case Trivia Info

In a recent conversation I was asked the question, "Do you know where the words Uppercase and Lowercase came from?" My reply was I do not usually use those terms; I use the term capital letters and the non-shifted letters. After my joke received its two second laugh, I then received my letter-case education.

In a nutshell, the terms came from the printing press days. The capital letters were in box stored on a shelf above the "non-shifted" letters. That is how we have uppercase and lowercase letters. Who knew? Well now you do.

Majascule and minuscule where the original terms for upper and lower case. Now you can see why the terms changed.

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I didn't know this. I figured I would share.

Have a great day!

-Joey

Barbarians for Christ

I am in a men's bible study and we are going through the book by Erwin McManus called The Barbarian Way. As I read this book, I often think that the views are extreme and wonder if I could live that kind of life. I ask myself, "What will people think if I did that or say that," but that is the point. Jesus never said to follow me and it will be comfortable or easy. Jesus wants us to fully seek Him and His Kingdom. Jesus simply said to Follow ME. When we look at the disciples in scripture, the disciples left everything and followed Him. We can't get hung up on how other people will view our actions and be fully committed to Christ and the plan that He has for our lives. Barbarians are the radicals pushing the limits on organized religion and truly seek the kingdom of God.

I want to be a Barbarian for Christ.

-Joey

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and enjoying all of the fun getting ready for Christmas. My family decorated the tree last night and it was a tremendous joy watching the kids laugh and enjoy the moment. This is always a busy and crazy time of year, but remember to focus on what is important and the purpose of this season- JESUS!

Happy Holidays and Merry CHRISTmas.

-Joey

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to take a moment to wish all our friends, supporters, and brothers and sisters in Christ a Very Merry Christmas.  

I know the incredible stress that everyone feels during this time of year.  I want to encourage each of you to slow down.  Take a breath.  Remember not just the reason for the season, but the fact that Christ represents ETERNAL salvation. 

Please remember to use this time of year for the tremendous time of outreach that it can be. More people will be open to the story of Christ during this week than they will be at any other time of the year. You owe it to your lost friends and family to reach out to them and tell them the Good News of Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection.

Some very exciting things to come for School of Fish in the new year - we will keep you posted.

We will turn a page, begin a new chapter or whatever other literary cliches you can think of...  but news is coming friends.  Stay tuned.

May God bless each and everyone of you.  Thank you for your support and dedication to His work.

--steve

A casual meeting with the Lord

As I was driving to work this morning, I began to reflect on the crazy day that I had yesterday and then started to mentally plan the new tasks I had to accomplish today. After accepting the fact that today could potentially be more hectic than yesterday, I had a thought come to mind that I dwelled on most of the day. The thought was.... If I knew that I was going to meet the Lord tonight, (not for eternity, but more of a casual conversation over dinner or coffee at Starbucks) what would I do differently today. Would I worry so much about meeting these deadlines? Would I let these tasks consume all of my energy? 

As I thought about these types of questions and dwelled on the answers, I realized that the Lord would probably not be concerned with the number of emails that I responded to, how much call volume I put up for the day, or even that a meeting with the boss went well. He would want to know how much time did I invest in others to glorify Him? What did I do to invest in His kingdom? 

If you knew that you were going to talk to the Lord tonight, would your conversation on breaks change? Would you be more prayerful throughout the day? Would you stop and talk to people about Jesus? This is the mindset that each of us (I am preaching to myself) should have continually. Busy is relative; we are all very busy, but take the time and remember the purpose of life.

Please continue to pray for School of Fish Ministries. God has opened some doors and we want to make sure that we are walking through the right ones.  We are on an amazing journey and we are looking forward to see what God has in-store for us.

Joey Neiman