Thursday, January 17, 2013

Once Upon A Volcano

Walk In The Woods

Livin' The La Jolla Dream

Enough With The Green Already



Well, here I am on the road again. Tonight I am barricaded in a hotel in Kokomo, IN. I have done all my emails for work. Ready to relax!

Not so fast! My wife just called and informed me that a water pipe in our shower has split in the cold weather back in our Chicagoland home. This day went really well compared to most. It just didn't end well. A faithful friend will go in to see the damage tomorrow morning. This one is gonna get ugly.

The shower in this hotel looks good though. I even have the opportunity to save the world with this shower by going green. Too bad we can't leave the towels hanging in our rooms when we depart and just check a box on the bottom of the card that forces the next guest to use our hanging towels. Wouldn't it be great to impose green on each other. I think Al Gore would want us to use towels on the floor. It may only be a few years away.

Think of all the world that we could reach with clean water just from the dollars used to advertise the green campaign. I know, I know ... It's not cool to say but ... enough with the green already.

I need rest.
NikonSniper Steve

Keeping The Lawn Trimmed

Winter Snow Shed

Venice In Texas

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Chicago Under The Weather

Thanks For Coming, See You Next Time

The Great Pacific Beach

Creating Comedic Mind Pictures

Nooksack River

God Wants Something From You

Do you ever wonder, … WHY?

If there is a God, … WHY is the world so stinkin’ screwed up?

Oh, ... and folks, in case you haven’t noticed … the world, UH, IS SERIOUSLY screwed up!

I am not saying there are no good things at all in the world, at least from a human vantage point. I am just saying … think about world hunger, corruption, murder, evil, mass slaughter of the innocent people and unborn children, floods, earthquakes, terrorism, war, racism, no political leadership, abuse of children … you could go on and on and on, but I won’t. I think you get the point! 

OK, here is a picture I can't forget that sums up the world situation accurately. Do you remember that video camera in the Gulf of Mexico that was constantly showing us the flow of death by oil into the water from the severed BP pipeline? And how about all these mass shootings? Psycho! The world seems to be going mad! It's messed up! That describes the world in a nutshell! Messed UP!

Let me first say that I DO believe there is an all-powerful, loving, just, creator God. BUT it isn't all that difficult to see why most reject belief in that kind of God. To many, that view does not seem to add up.

Like, … If there is a God that is all-powerful and loving … why isn’t He stopping all this craziness? Why isn’t God bringing justice to these problems? Why are sickos torturing children? Why do so many truly horrible things happen to people? Why isn’t God doing something about this mess?

Some will argue, … Maybe there is NO God at all. Or, Maybe God isn’t all that loving. Or even, Maybe God isn’t powerful enough to stop these problems.

How did all this mess start if there really is an all-powerful, loving, just, creator God?

The Bible teaches us that God wants something from you. Imagine that! God wants something from me, you and every person that ever lived.

In fact, I think God wants many things from us. But, today, I want you to consider that there is a God who desperately wants something from you. And I want you to consider that He was willing to take all these temporary awful results of man’s sin to get what He wanted from you.
I believe that God created man with the ability to really love Him.

I mean, … God made man in a way that gave him the ability to choose to love God, or not. In order for God to do this, He had to create man with the full ability to choose NOT TO LOVE Him.

God wants you to love Him genuinely … not in some robotic kind of love. So, God made you and gave you the ability to really, really, really, love Him by choice … And He made you with the ability to flat out deny that He exists, deny that He is good, or deny that you need Him at all. He made you with the ability to stick your head in the sand and try to ignore Him for your whole life … And He made you with the ability to really love, praise, worship, and talk to Him as you struggle through the ups and downs of life.

God wants your love SO much … that He’s letting you choose!

The Bible teaches that all of our current troubles and evil on earth are the result of millions and millions of sins and wrong decisions that have been made by man. This includes the millions of sins and wrong decisions before you and I were born … and the millions of our very own sins and wrong decisions in our short lifetime.

God wants us to choose to love, praise, worship and have a real relationship with Him.
The Bible teaches that we are sinners and that God must punish sin because He is a God of justice.

BUT, the Bible also teaches that God is full of mercy and grace. So, God provided one way of escape from His wrath.

God sent His only Son, Jesus, to die for the payment of our sins. If we accept His payment, it covers ALL of our sin. If we reject God’s provision of payment … His wrath and eventual justice remains upon us.

God provides a way through His Son Jesus for us to be completely reconciled to Him. God provides a way for us to be forgiven through His Son Jesus. God offers us a way to escape the wrath of our sin through His Son Jesus.

In John 14:6, Jesus declared, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

In Acts 4:12, it reads, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

Rejecting Jesus remains a choice that we can make. God made you so that you could choose to reject His only offering of payment for your sins. BUT, God wants you to choose His Son Jesus without delay. God wants you to choose to love Him. God wants your love badly enough to really make it your choice. He wants your love badly enough that while you were still a sinner He offered up His Son, Jesus to a humiliating death on the cross to pay for your sins … if you will just accept it.

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God is a God of choice! He wants you to choose His Son as payment for your sins.

One day the mess of what we have done on earth will be made right. There will be no more of these horrible things that happen to all of us. Evil on earth will end someday. Jesus will set the record straight! Wrong doing will not prosper forever. God is being patient with us now.

He wants your love so bad … He is allowing you to choose.

God provided a way through His son Jesus Christ to receive the free gift of eternal life. Choose Him, my friend.

All the best, NikonSniper Steve

... Two Large Black Coffees, That's All!



Almost every day of my life, I say the phrase "Two Large Black Coffee's, ... That's All!" to an unknown person at a McDonalds drive through window. 40% of the time, I hear something like, "Do you want an apple pie with that?"
Recently, these unknown people have been identifying themselves by saying ... "Hello my name is Alicia, ... ".
Seriously Alicia? Two Large Black Coffee's, ... That's All!