BIG SCOTT'S BLOG... WRITINGS OF A CHRISTIAN GUY WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER AND ADHD

Exciting New Happenings!

2011-12-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

I decided to try something different. I decided to switch over to vlogging (video blogging). Tell me what you think!

Video Blog #1 12/06/2011

Be Blessed!

Scott

How Do We Plan To Survive?

2011-05-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

In today’s Wall Street Journal and Wichita Eagle newspaper there was an article about how the United States will be short 91,500 physicians by 2020. Simply put, this is just another example of how unchecked abortions, especially since 1973, have jumped up to bite us as a country. According to Planned Parenthood’s research arm, the Alan Gutmacher Institute, over 50 millions babies have been aborted since the Roe V. Wade decision of 1973.

Considering that 98 percent of all abortions were done for reasons other then fetal abnormality or risk to the health of the mother, that means that there are still close to 50 million less people in our work force here in the United States then if abortion was not an alternative to live birth.

As our population ages we need these younger workers to be productive and contribute to our economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics April 01, 2011 report there are approximately 153,400,000 workers current working here in the United States. That means, according to Planned Parenthood numbers that approximately one in four people that could be in our work force were killed by abortion. To me, those numbers are staggering!

There are 661, 400 physicians and surgeons in the United States in 2008. This is according to the 2010 Statistical Abstract of the U.S. Census Bureau. This represents about 12% of all healthcare professionals and 0.6% of all employed persons in the United States. Furthermore, an American Medical Association (AMA) survey found that 35 percent of U.S. physicians are over age 55. Doing the math 65 percent of doctors are under age 55. Take the 50 million Americans killed by abortion and take that by 0.6 percent and you will see that according to statistics in the next twenty years you would see an increase of approximately 300,000 doctors with approximately have of those, 150,000 online and serving as doctors here in the United States right now.

According to the above story, “It's a shortage that, depending on which report one reads, could see the nation short 91,500 physicians by 2020.” Had it not been for abortion we could have very well had a SURPLUS of doctors! You can also carry this over to any other field or profession here in the United States.

However, due to unchecked abortion, not only does our economy suffer, but also many other fields and professions that will be hurting due to the lack of young workers. If we continue to kill off the people that we need to sustain and grow our country and our economy then how do we plan to survive?

Just another quick update…

2011-04-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

Just another quick update…

Maybe I jumped the gun on posting the first update a few days ago but I thought that I ought to share the results of my visit with my Pulmonary Specialist (lung doctor) yesterday. The news I received was not real good. He said to me “You’ve got some pretty bad lung damage.” He also told me unless I loose a large amount of weight that I’ll probably be on oxygen the rest of my life. I’ll be taking more x-rays at the end of this month and we’ll see how my healing is progressing from my bout with pneumonia.

I know that this is not the life that God has intended for me. Like I said last time I know that the Lord has called me to preach the Gospel and to reach the lost. I have no choice but to trust in God for my healing. I also know I have to do my part so I’m going back to working to loose weight and get to where I can be healthier again.

Thank you for your continued prayers! Please keep praying for me and my family and for me to be able to get back out and witness!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Ministry Update

2011-03-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

I just wanted to get a quick ministry update out. March has not been a good month for me. The first part of the month the weather was not very hospitable for getting out and witnessing and the last part of the month I’ve been sick. Needless to say I’m looking forward to April and the months to come!

To update you on my health, things turned for the worse last about two weeks ago. I started getting sick and I started having g a hard time breathing again. Our team was going to Old Town bar section here in Wichita on St. Patrick’s Day night and I was in bad enough shape by then I couldn’t go with them. I held out through the weekend and on Monday my wife took me to the hospital where I was admitted into ICU with a severe case pneumonia. I was in the hospital all week and was finally released last Friday.

I still have a small amount of pneumonia in my lungs and I’m on oxygen now 24/7 until the pneumonia leaves completely and my lungs heal up. Needless to say it’s hard to hit the streets when you have to drag an oxygen tank around wherever you go and you run out of breath real easy. Right now I can walk around a grocery type store pushing a shopping cart and sucking down oxygen for only about 20 – 30 minutes before I start running out of breath.

I know that right now the enemy is laughing at me thinking he’s taken out one of God’s own ministers of the Gospel but I got news for him. I am going to trust in God to open doors for me to share the Gospel. I will fight through this and find ways to share Jesus with the lost and dying! God didn’t call me to reach the lost and then all of a sudden crawl in a hole and die. That’s not me and it’s not going to happen if I have anything to say about it!

I’ve still got my van that says “Free Money- Just Ask” on it and people are still coming up asking for that free money. Just yesterday I was sitting in a parking lot waiting for my wife and I guy came up and asked for the free money. I gave him a million dollar bill Gospel tract and then I shared the Gospel with him. I know God will open more doors like this as I diligently seek to share the Good News of Jesus Christ!

I’m still going into grocery stores and such passing out million dollar bill Gospel tracts there too. By the way I should add here that I’m about out of tracts. Please pray that the Lord would provide me with more tracts.

Please keep me and my family in prayer as we’re going through a really tough time here. Also, please keep praying that the Lord through His Holy Spirit will continue to heal me and raise me up! Springs here and summer is coming and it’s driving me nuts not being able to really get out and witness! All I’m asking for is for God to heal me so I can win souls for the King!

Thank you for taking your time to read this and thank you for your prayers as I really do need them and I greatly appreciate them!

Be Blessed!!!

Big Scott

Question & Answer About Porn

2011-02-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

Question & Answer About Porn

I received the following three questions first back in 2005 and wrote a blog about them.

“What is your view on porn? Is there anything wrong with it (porn)? Can someone be addicted (to porn)?"

I’ve taken that blog and I just rewrote it with updates. I know that there are people out there needing to hear what I’ve written. I hope and pray that what I’ve wrote finds them.
_______________________________________________

Praise God these questions came my way! As one who has been down the porn road and now set free, I feel God has given me a unique perspective and insight to address this issue. This may come as a shock to some as you read through my reply but it is a reply that tells how I was set free and can set other captives free!

Porn can be and is VERY addictive. I was hooked on porn from the time I was about 14 up until about seven years ago. I was introduced to porn at an early age by a friend of mine’s big brother. Needless to say being introduced to porn at such an early age really messed with the way I saw women.

Porn has destroyed so very much in my life I wouldn't know where to start. Being Bi-Polar with a very heavy manic side, I came very close several times to having a run in with the law. Why I never got in trouble with the law is beyond me. The only thing that I can think of that saved me from traveling down that terrible road was God. God had a better plan for my life!

I tried being a Christian, a husband, & a good father while hooked on porn. Where did it get me? I was divorced from my wife & separated from my kids. I also lost a lot of friends and had several disastrous relationships with women all because of the way my brain was skewered on porn. That's what porn does. It messes with your mind and destroys your sense of reality.

What saved me from porn? God. Pure, plain, & simple! When I hit the end of my rope so to say and had nothing else to live for about seven years ago I just simply gave up. My wife who divorced me in 1996 and remarried me in December of 1999 believing that somehow I still had some redeeming value in me and that I did indeed need to be the father that God has called me to be took me in to the local mental health crisis center for help.

After years and years of being addicted to porn I was very close to suicide. I didn’t care. I had nothing to loose. I said “What the hell? Here’s what I’ve done. Here’s what I feel. And here’s what I’m taking (abusing).” I laid it all out. The porn addiction, the OTC speed addiction, the self mutilation addiction that was a result of the porn addiction. I threw it all out there just to show how screwed up I had gotten myself. I had the “Here, YOU deal with it” attitude!

Little did I know that what I was doing was the single most freeing thing that I could do. I dumped it all. I held nothing back. I told my psychiatrist, my counselor, my Pastor, & I even told our family doctor some of it. The one person that I expected that would be the most likely to give me the boot or explode all over me was the one that cared the most. That was our Pastor.

The care that our Pastor took to make sure I got treatment, to talk with me, to love on me, to lift me up when I got down was more then I could have ever imagined! The problem is that our Pastor has seen way too many men get caught in the snare, the trap of porn and have their whole lives ruined. Mine was ruined here too. The difference was our Pastor had an opportunity to be Jesus to me, to free me from the trap, the snare that had so entangled me.

I’m Bi-Polar and back then I was having some serious Bi-Polar mood swings. Being Bi-Polar has an absurdly, seriously, dangerous side. When you’re on the high, manic side of Bi-Polar and you have a porn addiction you’ll crave porn just like a crack addict craves crack. When you’re on the down, depression side of Bi-Polar having the porn addiction is just more thing to come in and pound you down. With Bi-Polar & porn there is no middle ground. That’s what makes porn so absurdly, seriously, dangerous.

My advice to anyone with a porn addiction, especially those that are Bi-Polar, tell your psychiatrist, your counselor, your Pastor, a close friend, your spouse if you have one. Tell someone that is willing to help you beat this addiction. Beating this addiction is going to be just like beating an alcohol or drug addiction. Why do I say that? It’s medically proven porn causes dopamine to be released in the brain causing a drug high.

Dopamine is a chemical that your body produces when you’re having sex. God designed sex to be between a husband and a wife. God designed sex so that when a husband and a wife are having sex dopamine is released enhancing the experience drawing the husband and wife closer together and thus giving them a longing deep inside for each other and the want to continue sexual relations. Any sex that is outside of the marriage bonds of a man and a woman is an abomination unto God which is exactly what porn does!

Another problem with porn is that it is somewhat culturally accepted and it is pretty much legal. So were the over the counter speed pills I was hooked on. So are cigarettes. So is alcohol. So on and so forth. They will all kill you. Period! How will porn kill you? For starters if you get deep enough into porn, which is so very easy to do and you won’t know it until it’s too late, is that porn can lead to such severe depression that one may very well commit suicide or at least try. At the very least it will kill your relationship God! It will also kill you emotionally and socially.

The good news is that I found something to replace that high I was getting from porn. This is a high that is better then any high porn or drugs could ever give me. This high has no end. This high is not destructive. This high is in fact very good for you. This high has brought me a ton of healing. What is this high? This high is Jesus!

If you’re playing around with porn, STOP!!! If you can’t stop, you need help. Like I said earlier, get help! This is your life. Don’t loose it over porn!

I hope and pray that hits home with some!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

2010-12-16T05:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a collection of videos that we shot this summer while doing street ministry.

Where Did Summer Go?

2010-11-09T17:51:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

Wow! Where did the summer go? What a great summer I had as far as witnessing went. I had the pleasure of praying with fourteen people while I was doing street ministry during the summer months. It is definitely fun witnessing when the Holy Spirit is being poured out!

It’s now time to start transitioning to cold weather witnessing. Now I’ll be going out more during the day than in the evenings. This week I’ve been focusing on one of the local laundromats. One thing that everyone at laundromats have in common is that everyone has time to wait while the clothes are either washing or drying. This makes for an awesome evangelistic opportunity!

We’ve been unfortunate in that our clothes dryer has went out on us. We’ve got a maintenance repair plan on our appliances here in our home but it looks like it will be another week or two before they can get it fixed. In the mean time we’ve been having to go to a local laundromat every day to dry clothes. When we go to the laundromats as soon as I get our clothes going I start passing out million dollar bill Gospel tracts and Gospels of John. I usually tuck a million dollar bill inside a Gospel of John and then hand them as one. I’m happy to report that in the past week or so I’ve went through a bunch of Gospels of John and even more million dollar bills!

I’m looking forward to getting my video camcorder back out of the shop. I plan on going down to the county courthouse here in Wichita around lunch time and setting up and interviewing people like I did this summer at the Keeper of the Plains. I’ve found as long as the temperature is close to fifty degrees and the wind isn’t blowing people will stop and talk with you. I’m looking forward to reporting back to you with some great news!

Until then…

Be Blessed!!!

Scott Kliewer

September Blog/Update/Newsletter

2010-09-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

Good News! Since the last time I wrote I’m pleased to announce that I’ve had four more people pray with me on the streets for salvation! Praise God! In fact this past weekend I had something happen that I never had happen before. I had a father and a son both pray with me at the same time for salvation! That was really pretty neat and had me all excited!

I have to confess that I’m not a real strong prayer warrior. I don’t know why but I consider prayer my weakness in my Christian life. This past week was no different for me in my prayer life. I realized while I was heading out to witness that I wasn’t “prayed up”. So while driving across town I was praying “Lord, I’m sorry I haven’t been praying like I should but would you please bring me divine appointments?”

I’ve come to realize that God wants nothing more then for someone to come to the saving grace of his son Jesus Christ. Angels rejoice in Heaven when someone gets saved! Therefore I also know now that the Lord is quick to answer prayer when you’re praying fo the lost to come in especially when you’re praying for you to be the one bringing in the harvest so to speak.

It was kind of interesting how the father and the son came to pray with me for salvation. I went to Old Town first Saturday evening but I was getting no where there so I headed over to the Keeper of the Plains for the fire pits lighting. Sure enough there was a good crowd there. The first two people I witnessed with were both very saved Christians. As I was finishing with the second person I prayed under my breath real quick “Lord I need a divine appointment!”

The next thing I did was to turn around and as I was turning around another gentleman was turning around right in front of me. I looked at him and said cheerfully “Hi!” which he returned right back. I told him I was working on a project where I interview people and asked him if I could interview him and he agreed. I started taking him through the Way of the Master method and it didn’t take very long for the Dad to confess he was headed to hell and that really bother him.

At this point I shared with him and his son what it takes to go to Heaven, then both of them agreed to pray with me to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior! We prayed together and when we got done things were winding down at the Keeper of the Plains so we talked more and I made sure he understood what just happened and he did. As a side note there’s not a much better feeling here on earth then leading someone to Christ! Give it a try, you might just like it too!!!

August Newsletter/Update

2010-08-09T19:58:00.000-07:00

I guess I’ll start this blog out the same way I started out my blog/newsletter from last month. Wow! What an exciting month that July has been! I was able to pass out a couple hundred more tracts and many more heard the Good News of Jesus Christ with a total of nine salvations for Jesus Christ!

I’ve never had the pleasure of leading nine people to Jesus in one year let alone one month but the Holy Spirit was most definitely moving in July! Even more interesting all of the salvations took place at the Keeper of the Plains here in Wichita. I started the month of by leading three young people to the Lord all at one time and one by one they kept coming in!

It was kind of interesting what I did. I did what I saw another street evangelist in Atlanta do. I went and got me a camera, tripod, microphone, and someone to run the camera for me. We set up down at the Keeper of the Plains in the evening just before sunset which is when it gets busy there and I just invited people to come on camera so I could interview them.

You’d be amazed at how easy it is sometimes to get people to come on camera and talk to you! The first question that I ask is “When someone’s life on earth is over, when someone dies, do you believe there is any kind of afterlife or is that it?” Here in Wichita I find somewhere around a fourth of the people have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. The other three quarters run the gamut from a mix of eastern religion to evolutionists not sure what they believe and everything in between!

What I try to do is to use the Way of the Master method of witnessing. Once I find out that they’re not saved I try to take them through the Ten Commandments to show them their sins and to show them why they need Jesus. The Way of the Master method works really great in that you are not judging them rather they see in their own hearts why they need a savior!

I will add that the Lord in the middle of this month gave me a goal to try to reach. Since I’ve been saved in 1988 it’s been my goal to try to lead one person a year to the Lord. Last month in the middle of July the Lord spoke to my heart and gave me the challenge of leading one person a WEEK to the Lord! To do this I’m going to need help and support from my family & friends. Please pray that the Lord will bless me with what I need to do this. Also please pray for my boldness to reach out so I can do what the Lord has called me to do! This is going to be a huge challenge for me but with the Lord’s help and the leading of the Holy Spirit I can do it!

Thank you for your time, prayers, & support!

Be Blessed!!!

Scott Kliewer

Update

2010-06-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Wow! What an exciting month that June has been! New commitments for Christ, the lost hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ, and well over 500 of the million dollar bill gospel tracts passed out! I’m really excited as I expect July and August to be even better!

Here’s something exciting that I feel the Lord has laid on my heart. Ever since I was saved in 1988 I’ve had the goal of leading at least one person to Christ every year. It’s just something that I feel the Lord really wanted me to do. Well this week I feel that the Lord is turning up the heat quite a bit as I feel he wants me to lead at least one person a week to Christ! Wow! What a challenge and call!

I know that I can’t do this on my own. I’ll really need to be tuned into the Holy Spirit very closely to do this! In addition I need your help. Please pray for me to first be led by the Holy Spirit and secondly please pray for “divine appointments” so that the Lord brings people into my life or across my path that are open to hearing the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

The weather has to say the least been very conducive to witnessing! We had some highs close to one hundred degrees but most of the month was in the upper eighties to the low nineties which made witnessing in the evenings very comfortable weather wise!

This past month here in Wichita I’ve been going to Old Town on at least every Friday and Saturday evening and sometimes I would even hit Old Town during the week if there was a crowd as there was last night with people all over waiting for the midnight opening of the Twilight saga. I addition I’ve been trying to hit the Keeper of the Plains three to four nights a week.

One of the more fun things that I did this past month and I plan on doing the rest of the summer is taking the kids, George our seven year old in particular, to the various free water parks we are blessed with here in Wichita. There are three main water parks that we hit. What we do while we are there is for George and the other kids to run and have fun and I walk around and pass out million dollar bill Gospel tracts and witness to the parents that are there with there kids. I kind of makes for a captive audience which is rather nice!

July is shaping up to be a very busy month witnessing too! This coming weekend, July first through the fourth, Wichita is hosting a national convention here in town. The GTO Owners Association of America rolls into our fair city. We’re going to be invaded by a couple of hundred or so Pontiac GTO’s, plus their owners & car buffs in general. I look for this to be an awesome ministry opportunity!

In addition Automobilia's 16th Moonlight Car Show & Street Party invades Old Town Saturday, July tenth from 6:00 p.m. to midnight. This car show is free and open to the public and usually draws at least a couple hundred street cars plus well over ten thousand spectators! This one we will be out in full force for! We are also planning on filming and doing interviews at this car show.

Speaking of filming and doing interviews we finally got all of our equipment set up and running last Thursday. We set up to film at the Keeper of the Plains to see how things would go. I had Kevin running the camera and I did the interviewing. What we did was I would tell people that we were working on a documentary and would they mind if I interviewed them and asked them a few questions. In other words I thought that I’d be Ray Comfort from Way of the Master!

The first question I asked was what do you think happens when your life on earth is over, when people pass to the other side? We found that this was a great question to ask and it really got most people to really open up! We only had one guy walk away from our filming and we even had one young man admit he was going to Hell and he said he would go to his youth pastor and tell him he needed Jesus and he needed to be saved!

The only problem we encountered in our filming is that when we played back our filming we had no audio! We hope to have this problem solved shortly so we can get back to filming as it is such an awesome way to get people to open up! In addition I mentioned above that I was telling people that we are shooting a documentary. What we hope to do is shoot throughout the summer and then edit things down and put out a DVD for training and educational purposes.

To change the subject here a little bit people have been asking me how my health has been doing. In addition I guess I ought to give an update on my Bi-Polar Disorder and my ADHD since this is what part of this blog is about.

In case you didn’t know I’ve got Chronic Respiratory Failure which means my lungs aren’t working right. In addition I still have my diabetes. I’m still having trouble with my breathing and things haven’t really gotten any better or any worse for about a year and a half now. The good news is it appears I have my diabetes under control and I’m not taking insulin shots, just pills only (Yea God!).

Back to my mental health issues. My Bi-Polar seems to be fairly well under control. The doctor the other day made a small change in my meds to help me loose weight and I hope it helps! As far as my ADHD (adult attention hyperactivity disorder) I’m really not taking anything for it. I’ve tried ADHD meds in the past and they just messed with me way to much so right now I’m just resigned to having fun with my ADHD! My wife and kids are very understanding of my ADHD and my wife and kids know they just need to remind Dad every once in while that he is forgetting something or he needs to go do something!

Oh well, that’s it for now. I know this blog went a little long but thanks for reading it. In addition I know that many of my readers are also praying for both me and my ministry. If that’s you, a great big THANK YOU goes out to you!

Until next time…

Be Blessed!!!

Scott Kliewer

2010-06-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

I’m gearing up for a big weekend here in Wichita and I really need your prayers! Here’s my street witnessing itinerary for this weekend as it stands now. First, Friday evening I’ll be at the Plaza West Car Show at Central & West here in Wichita until from about 7:00 - 8:30. At 8:30 I head to the Keeper of the Plains for a little bit and then Lord willing I will finish off in Old Town.

Saturday evening I start at the Rumble in Delano (http://www.rumbleindelano.com/) from about 6:00 or so and I’ll be there until about 8:30 when I’ll go back to the Keeper of the Plains for a short time again and then its back over to Old Town to finish out the night.

Like I said I’ve got a busy two evenings planned and could really use your prayers!

Thanks in advance for your prayers & thoughts!

Be Blessed!!!

Scott Kliewer

Witnessing Suggestion

2010-05-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure why I still get surprised when I’m witnessing with someone and they say they hope their going to Heaven or they think their going to Heaven. It’s so easy to know weather or not you’re saved that it stupefies me that others have not shared the simple, saving grace of Christ Jesus. All one needs to know whether they are saved or not is know three simple verses.

The first verse is one that most every person has heard, John 3:16. “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. ”The second & third verses are Romans 10:9 & 10. ”If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.”

I’ve found that if I don’t have very long to witness with someone that if I stick with these three verses I can make inroads really fast with the person I’m witnessing with. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer the “Way of the Master” way where you show them the Ten Commandments and lead them to repentance that way, but like I said, if times short, I can cut right to the chase this way! I look at it this way, it’s better to share Grace then to not share at all!

I hope this helps and encourages you in your sharing too!

Be Blessed!!!

Scott Kliewer

Keeping The Faith

2010-03-19T16:56:00.001-07:00

I was praying the other day about my street ministry and the fruit that it has been yielding. I guess the enemy was on me trying to convince me that I should be yielding more fruit and more salvations then what I’ve been seeing. As I was reading in the Bible I felt the Holy Spirit showed me what the Apostle Paul had to say in 1 Corinthians 3:6-9 “I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.”

That was good news to me as we’ve been doing a ton of seed planting. With the million dollar bill gospel tracts that we’ve been passing out literally by the thousands we don’t get to do one on one ministry with every tract that we pass out. In fact we only get to do one on one ministry with about somewhere between one in thirty to one in fifty depending on where and when we’re passing out the million dollar bill gospel tracts. If we’re at a store or a mall the one on one number may be as low as one in ten and at big outdoor events such as concerts and Riverfest it could be as high as one in one hundred.

One thing that we do know is that people are taking the million dollar bill gospel tracts and not only keeping them but reading them. After someone takes one it’s not unusual for someone to walk away reading the tract and then put the tract in their wallet or pocket. We’re also starting to get reports of people taking the tracts and putting them on their refrigerator and some are even taking them to work with them and putting them up there! One other way we know that people are keeping the million dollar bill tract is that when we pass them out we keep an eye out for people throwing them on the ground on in a trash can. We very, very seldom see either one of those things happening, Praise God!

I should add another thing that we’ve started doing is going to the truck staging lot at 13th & Mosely here in Wichita during the mid day time and passing out Gospels of John with a million dollar bill stuck in them. These have been a huge hit with the drivers there! I found out quite a while back that many of the drivers there had one hour plus waits there so via the leading of the Holy Spirit I decided to give them something to do. I walk around to all of the trucks when I have Gospels in stock and hand them one and tell them “Here’s something for you to read while you’re waiting.” My problem is that my sponsor on those Gospels can only do 30 Gospels per month. I’m praying for more sponsorship to come in so I can reach more truckers on a one to one basis!

So I guess we’ll keep doing what we’re doing and pumping out the Gospel for Jesus! I’ll keep planting the seeds here in the end times. If you get a chance please keep me and my ministry in prayer so we have both the resources and the favor to keep planting seeds and serving the Lord!

Be Blessed!

Scott

Getting Excited!!!

2010-02-14T13:45:00.000-08:00

Wow! It’s been quite a while since I’ve been as excited about my ministry as I am right now! The Lord is opening doors and the opportunities I have to witness and minister here in the community are growing every day it seems.

First of all I’m excited to announce that I’ll be teaching a class on how to share your faith & do street witnessing. This will take place at Word of Life School on Monday evenings. This class is being promoted both between Ground Zero Youth Church and our church, Word of Life. It is however open to anyone wanting to attend and there is no charge! We will be going over primarily Way of the Master teachings to start with and then we will be progressing to Mark Cahill’s book & study guide “One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven.” I’m expecting a great turnout for this class since we’re combining both churches for this class. Please keep this class in your prayers if you would as one of our goals is to have a complete street witnessing team together by the time Riverfest gets here to Wichita in May.

Next, I’m excited about the reception that we’ve been getting in front of the County Courthouse here in Wichita over the lunch hours. People have been really open to taking our million dollar bill tracts and we’ve also had the opportunity to do some ministry there too. I hoping and praying that the weather will hold this week and we will get to witness at the courthouse at least two times this coming week.

Another place where my street ministry has been getting a very warm reception is the semi-truck staging lot at the corner of 13th & Mosley here in Wichita. The staging lot is a place where semi trucks hauling grain come to wait there turn to unload at one of the local grain dumps. Sometimes when we go there only three or four trucks may be there on there may be twenty to thirty trucks there, you just never know. What I do there is I walk around to all of the different trucks and give the drivers a Gospel of John with my contact info in it so they can get a hold of me if they ever need prayer of ministry and I also put a million dollar bill on the inside so they can read and know the only way to Heaven, Jesus Christ! As I walk along to all of the different trucks I just simply say “Here’s something for you to read while you’re waiting.” Most drivers are very happy to get a Gospel and to know that someone actually cares!

Finally, I’m really getting stoked about the Intrust Bank Arena now being open here in downtown Wichita! What an opportunity this is going to be to witness! The arena holds I believe as many as 15,000 people and we shouldn’t have any problems standing outside this venue and witnessing. As soon as the weather breaks just a little and it’s not blistering cold out we’ll be down there, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Yes, things are looking up for my street ministry! I’m excited about what the Lord is doing here in these final days! Please keep me and my team in your prayers as we really need your support!

Thanks & God Bless!!!

Scott Kliewer

How To Share Your Faith Videos

2010-01-31T19:45:00.000-08:00

I’ve been having quite a few people ask me how to witness or people have been wanting to more about witnessing. I said in a few blogs back that I would post here how to share your faith. So here it is in video form, witnessing made easy! All of these videos are from Way of the Master which is Kirk Cameron of “Growing Pains” fame and Christian author & evangelist Ray Comfort.

The first video is titled “Hell’s Best Kept Secret.” I would just simply call it “Witnessing 101!” This video really breaks down witnessing and tells you how Jesus would witness.

Next, here is Todd Friel from Wretched showing in two parts how to witness. This is so simple it will blow you away!
Part 1
Part 2

After you’ve viewed all of the above Check out this video series with Paul Washer with Todd Friel at the Deeper Conference. This is more motivational then anything. It’s also an awesome job of street preaching!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

When you get done with the above I'd recommend going to Way of the Master's Channel on YouTube & just start watching all of the videos as you have time. Be forewarned these videos will draw you in and help drive you to share your faith!!!

Be Blessed

Big Scott

End Of Times

2010-01-23T14:59:00.001-08:00

The other day as I was praying about the Haiti earthquake the Lord took me back to Matthew 24:3-14. Here’s what the Lord showed me.

3 Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world?”

4 Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, 5 for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. In the past 30 years how many false prophets have we heard off? Too many to count if you count them all!

6 And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. The world has been at war for most all of the 20th century and this century is starting out even worse.

7 Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. Like I said, war all over the world. As far as famines and earthquakes in the African continent people have been starving to death there for years. Now it’s starting to spread to other parts of the world. We even have starving here in the United States!

8 But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come. Not much fun to hear but we know that this brings us closer every day to the Lord’s return!

9 “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. According to “Voice of the Martyrs” there have been more people put to death in the 20th century then in all of history for being a Christian and this century is starting out even more brutal with the rampant spread of Islam.

10 And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. I see this even in people I know! I sometimes really see it when I’m on the streets witnessing! You would be amazed at the extent some people will go even right here in our own country to vilify Christianity!

11 And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Just like I said about verses 4 & 5, you can hardly go a week without hearing about false prophets trying to lead people away. It’s even happening here in our churches. When you have Unitarian churches and other churches teaching that Jesus is not the only way to Heaven rather a way to Heaven many will most definitely be deceived!

12 Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. Sin is sin and our country is leading purveyor of it! Just look at the rise of homosexuality in our country. Just look at the pornography business in this country. We lead the world in exportation of both homosexuality and pornography but yet many churches turn a blind eye to it.

13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Praise God for that!

14 And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come. You had better get ready for the end to come at any time now! For the first time in the history of the world the Good News of Jesus Christ is being preached to every tribe, tongue, & nation in this world. Up until just a few short years ago this was not possible. Right now the Bible is either being or has been translated into every known language in the world. The Good News is also being spread by both the internet and satellite television which is now also going into every nation in the world!

After reading the above verses and going over what the Lord showed me I’m both scared and apprehensive. I’m scared because I know I’ve missed sharing the Gospel with people that the Lord sent my way and I know I should have done a far better job sharing with them. On the other hand, I’m more then a little apprehensive, or even excited if you will know now that the Lord’s return is imminent and it won’t be long and I’ll be out of here!!!

Be Blessed!!!

Big Scott

2010-01-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

Check out our van! It really causes people to look & even more then a few stop and ask for "Free Money!"

This is one reason why I use million dollar bill gospel tracts. The van is a real attention getter! I have people chase me down & stop me to ask for the "free money!" In fact last night I had a guy holler at me in the grocery store paking lot & he said "Hey, your the guy with the free million dollar bills aren't you?" He said he had seen me earlier in the day and he was wanting another free million dollar bill so he could pass one on to one of his friends.

Lately I've been seeing more and more people come back up to me after they've got a million dollar bill of their own want another one or two to give to a freind, their kid, or someone else they think could use one.

I guess as long as I'm having the success with the million dollar bill that I'm having I'll keep using it.

Romans 3:23 - 27

2009-12-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

I was on YouTube this evening surfing around and listening to different Paul Washer sermons. I ran across one that just blew me away. It’s 10 minutes long if you want to watch it here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuEc-zrs5wA.

In this video Paul Washer says “When most people read the following passage they only remember Romans 3:23.” Paul Washer goes on the say “This is quite possibly the most important passage in the entire Bible.” Paul washer also quotes Dr. Marin Lloyd Jones saying that Romans 3:23 is the acropolis of the Christian faith.

Please use this as a faith builder. Read the following passage and take it to heart.

Romans 3:23 – 27 NLT
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Who I Am & What I Do

2009-12-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in Wichita since 1998. I grew up in Southwest Kansas in the little town of Ingalls. I also lived in Dodge City & Garden City for a few years. My family is mainly from West Central Oklahoma in the Cordell area. I graduated from Ingalls High School in 1981. I’ve also attended Dodge Juco & Cowley College. I learned to do evangelistic work at the church I attended in Garden City and also own my own by working with various pastors & others. I’ve also done some evangelistic studying via the internet going through Way of the Master teachings with Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron plus a few others.

I’ve been married to my wife Pam this time since 1999. We were married in 1992 and divorced in 1996 mainly due to my failure to be the husband and father that the Lord had called me to be. In 1998 we both were attending the same church and agreed to go to counseling if for no other then to have peace in the church. One thing led to another and the Lord reconciled our marriage on December 12, 1999. Now we have the Lord at the center of our marriage and we are married for life! We’ve been attending Word of Life here in Wichita for quite some time now. We’re firmly entrenched there now and really love it there especially with the support we get for both our family and my ministry.

We have six kids & three grandsons. The oldest is 23 and the youngest is six. We have three girls & three boys. Our 15 year old son is Autistic and is quite a handful. We’ve found that having a special needs child can be quite taxing at times.

As far as my ministry goes I go witnessing on the street, in Dillon’s, Wal-Mart’s and other places where I can pass out my gospel tracts. My website is www.ichthusunderground.com. Check it out when you get a second. We just posted a new video on the video page that is quite funny. It’s the bottom one. Make sure you check it out!

I believe the Lord has called me to witness to a different group of people then one would think about when you say street ministry. Usually when you say street ministry you think of the homeless. As far as my ministry goes that’s one group that I don’t focus on. I focus rather on the average Joe so to say. I go after the unchurched and the lost on every level right on up to the professional level educated person.

I believe the Lord showed me that there are literally millions and millions of people out there that are going to die and go to hell if someone doesn’t reach out to them. These people include your everyday person you meet from your Wal-Mart worker right on up to your doctors and attorneys. Someone needs to reach these people and I believe that I’m one of the ones called to go out and reach them.

I currently am using the way that is taught by Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron of Living Waters www.livingwaters.com. It’s a simple and direct method that uses the 10 Commandments to show individuals why they need Jesus. Check it out sometime when you get a second. Basically what I do is hand someone a million dollar bill which is really a gospel tract. Most everyone will take one. After they take it and if they stop for a second to look at it I tell them “On the back it asks the million dollar question. When you die where are you going, Heaven or Hell?” If they say Heaven, I ask them why would God let them in. If they say anything other then they’re saved by Jesus as their Lord & Savior I go deeper with them leading them through a few of the 10 Commandments to show them their need for a Savior and hopefully & prayerfully lead them to Jesus!

Ministry Plans

2009-12-09T16:19:00.000-08:00

Wow! It is getting cold outside! The weatherman is calling for a low of +2 degrees for the overnight low tonight here in Wichita! Brrr!!! Needless to say you won’t find me out witnessing on the streets when it gets like this! I much prefer Wal-mart, Dillon’s, the malls, and such!

I believe the Lord is giving me some leading in where he wants me to take the ministry he’s given me over the next year or so. First, I believe that the Lord is leading me to set a goal to pass out 10,000 of the million dollar bill Gospel tracts next year. That may seem like a lot but if I stay diligent and hit all of the big festivals and such here in Wichita I should be able to do it with not much problem.

Secondly, I feel that the Lord is leading me to put together a team to raise the money for 5000 Gospels of John and then distribute then to the different Junior & Senior Highs here around Wichita. This is going to cost us around $1500 but I believe that if indeed this is the will of the Lord the money to pay for them will come in.

That’s about it for now. I’ll try to write more short blogs instead of fewer longer ones in the future! Once again if you’ve got something you’d like to see me write about just drop me a line!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Every Second Seven People Die

2009-09-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

Every second seven people die. That’s 420 people every minute. That’s 25,200 every hour. That’s 604,800 every day. How many of these people are dying and going to hell? Does it matter to you? Do you care enough to do anything about it?

Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ says that only two percent of all Christians share their faith on a regular basis, only two percent! Promise Keepers says that ninety percent of all men have never shared their faith! That doesn’t sound much like the New Testament church of Acts does it?

I know what Jesus saved me from. Looking at the Ten Commandments and knowing what Jesus taught I know that I broke every one of the Commandments. I was destined for hell! Before I could be saved though I had to know that I had broken the Commandments, I had to know that I was destined for Hell, and I had to know that Hell is a very real place! I realized Hell is no party place and that the flames, the punishment, and the eternal separation was real.

Hell to this very day and always will be the worst place you can imagine. In fact it took a revelation in a dream one night for me to realize just how real and how horrible Hell really is. Hell is a very dark place, the darkest place one will ever find, absolutely no light whatsoever! Psychologists say that one will go crazy in a matter of minutes in pure darkness. How about an eternity of darkness? Next come the flames and the stench of burning sulfur and flesh, your flesh, once again for all eternity! No, Hell is not a nice place.

I believe once Christians get a conception of what Hell really is it will shake them and help motivate to share their faith. Without a true conception of Hell why would anyone have a burning desire in their heart to reach the lost and dying? True, one may share out of their love for Jesus but when you realize how real Hell is it takes the urgency the need to share to another level!

A special thanks to Mark Cahill for his research!
www.markcahill.org

Next Blog: How To Share Your Faith!

Be Blessed!!!

Scott

Interesting Month!

2009-08-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

OK, this is bad. I’ve got tot start blogging more often!

Anyway…

It’s been an interesting month. Started the month out in the hospital for about a week, yuck! After the hospital it took me about two to three weeks to really get back to one hundred percent which is where I’m just now getting. I’ll say this when you get in a habit of doing something and all of a sudden you can’t do it for a month it can sure throw a kink in your system. That’s way it was with me not being able to go out witnessing or at least for not very long at a time due to health reasons. I love witnessing about Jesus and I sure did miss not being able to tell people about him!

This week I plan on being back if not one hundred percent at least close to it, Praise God! I plan on being back to the Keeper of the Plains during the week and then hitting a car show & Old Town next weekend. To all of you that have been praying for us I say “Thank you” as my recovery has been really fast and my health is progressing nicely. Please keep me and my family in prayer as I get back up to speed with my witnessing.

I find it interesting the responses I get when I use the million dollar bill tract. I use the million dollar bill tract as an icebreaker and after I give a person a million dollar bill tract if they stop to look at it or better yet ask me what it is I tell them “On the back it asks the million dollar question. When you die where are you going, Heaven or Hell? If they say Heaven I’ll ask them why would God let you in. If they say anything other then Jesus is their savior or something close to it I continue on. When asking someone why would God let you in I am still amazed at the number of people that say it’s because they’re a good person or something like that.

Lately I’ve been surprised at the number of people who tell me they are going to hell mainly because they are having too much fun here on earth. About the only thing you can do with someone like this is try to convince them that Hell is a real place and it’s not fun, in fact it’s worse then they could ever imagine. Then all you can do is show them the Word if they will let you and try to convince they don’t need to die and go to Hell!

For me personally the hardest person to witness to is the person when you ask them if they are going to Heaven or Hell they say they don’t have a clue or they don’t know. I meet people all of the time that tell me this. I suppose one of the reasons it is so hard for me to talk with people like this is that when you start witnessing with this kind of person you get very little feedback from the person and you can do is rely on your training.

If you would like to find out more about witnessing drop me a line. I’d love to help you out! Check out these links to find out more about witnessing!

http://www.wayofthemaster.com

Then go to The Way of the Master’s You Tube Channel and watch the training videos!

http://www.youtube.com/user/thewayofthemaster

Be Blessed!

Big Scott

Ministry Update

2009-07-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

Wow! Talk about writer’s block. It’s been 3 ½ months since I’ve blogged! To be honest I haven’t had anything in this big old head of mine to write about this whole time! I figure enough has been going on now that I ought to write an update about what’s been going on at least so in my ministry!

Since the last time I blogged I’ve handed out close to two thousand of the million dollar bill gospel tracts to different people. After a year of passing out those tracts I am still amazed at how people take them, read them, and then hang on to them! I pass these tracts out to anyone and everyone that I meet. If they will stop and talk when I give them a million dollar bill they usually ask what it’s for. I tell them on the back it has the million dollar question. When they ask what the question is I simply say it’s asking you whether or not you’re going to Heaven.

At this point facial expression is everything. If they smile there’s a pretty good chance they are saved. Any other kind of expression and I know I’ve got some witnessing to do! I always follow up after I ask them if they are going to Heaven with “Why would Jesus let you in?” if they say because Jesus is their Lord and Savior I say “fantastic!”, otherwise I ask them a few basic questions so I can get them to listen to scripture.

It sounds complicated I know but once you do it a time or two, or better yet after you practice it several times then do it a time or two it come pretty easy to you. The one thing that you do want to do listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit and be prayed up before you go witnessing. The more you are in tune with God the easier it is to witness! One thing I should add here is that be careful, once you start telling others about Jesus it can become very addictive and you can get a real rush not only telling others about Jesus but leading them to get saved too!

I do have one other tract that I use now. It’s a million peso tract in Spanish on both the front and the back. When I’m walking around and I run into people that speak Spanish I politely say “You se habla Espanol?” and if they say “yes” or “se” I hand them a Spanish tract. One other cool thing that I can do now with Spanish speaking people is that if they want to know more I can call our Spanish pastor at church on his cell phone from my cell phone and put that person on the phone with someone that speaks their language!

I’ve found a way to get exercise and pass out tracts at the same time. Pam and I have committed to walking 30 minutes every evening that we can. Depending on the night you can

either find us at Bradley Fair at 21^st & Rock or at the Keeper of the Plains here in downtown Wichita. I will say that during the summer however on Friday and Saturday evenings unless there is something big going on around Wichita you can find me at Old Town here in Wichita. Old Town is a myriad of restaurants, shops, theater, & bars so it is naturally the place to be on the weekends!

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Maybe this will break my writers block and I can back in the habit of blogging all of the time!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Another One Saved Tonight!!!

2009-03-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

Praise God! Another soul joins the Kingdom tonight! My wife Pam & I went to Wal-Mart in east Wichita tonight to kill some time, get a few things and to pass out some million dollar bills. While at Wal-Mart my wife decided that she needed to go to the restroom so we headed to the back of the store to the restrooms. While I was waiting for my wife I gave a million dollar bill to a gal who was waiting for her guy.

The gal read the tract both front & back then told me that she didn’t know that she needed to both repent and accept Jesus to go to Heaven. She then told me that is what she was going to do so she could go to Heaven! About that time her guy came out and she showed him the million dollar bill and started to explain to him what she was doing and they walked off.

The lesson that the Lord showed me tonight was you never know when or where God may need you just make yourself available so he can use when he needs you!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

2009-03-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic of me handing out free money at Lawerence-DuMont Stadium.

Here's the front of the million dollar bill I use.

Click on the bills to enlarge to full size.

Here's the back of the million dollar bill I use.

Good News!

2009-03-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Good news to report again. First of all I went and weighed in again and I found out that I lost another 4 pounds. I realize that for pounds isn’t much but at least I’m still headed in the right direction! This means that so far I’ve lost right at 60 pounds! My first goal is to loose 100 pounds by the first of August. At the rate I’ve been loosing I should be able to make my goal with just a little room to spare.

Next, I should say that I am writing this blog on a Saturday evening about 10:00 p.m. after I just got in from doing street ministry so I’m in a pretty good mood as street ministry has really went well this week, praise God! First of all let me say that this week alone I’ve went through close to 300 of million dollar bill gospel tracts on my own! This week between going to the Keeper of the Plains, Old Town, and Wal-Mart I’ve really had the opportunity to reach out, plant seeds, and do some pretty neat ministry!

It still amazes me how well my million dollar bills go over! I now also have some million peso bills that I hand out to those that speak Spanish. If I meet someone and I offer them a million dollar bill and find out either they don’t speak English or that they do speak Spanish I give them a one million peso bill which says the same thing as my million dollar bill except in Spanish. Every one of the people that I give a million peso bill to are really impressed by it and tell me thank you for giving it to them!

Please pray for the ministry that the Lord has placed on me. Right now I am about to run out of material and I am trusting in the Lord to bring me more material before I run out. Also pray that as I pass out the million dollar bills they serve as God’s seed and I’m planting them in fertile soil!

Mark 16:15 And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.”

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Having Fun Witnessing!!!

2009-03-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

I’m sure glad the weather is breaking here in Wichita! For once I can get out and witness and not have to do it in Wal-mart or the mall! Today Pam & I went down to the Keeper of the Plains where the Big & Little Arkansas Rivers come together. If you ever come to Wichita, or as far as that goes if you live here, you really need to check out the Keeper of the Plains! There are two giant walkways, one over each river and in the middle at the confluence is a giant statue surrounded by fire pots and lots of really cool Indian stuff. You’ll probably also find there various assortments of ducks, geese, & people!

Anyway, as I was saying my wife & I headed down there today so I could pass out million dollar bill tracts & witness. We had a really good time, got some exercise walking around and passed out a bunch of tracts. I guess I’ll have to put the Keeper of the Plains on my list of places where I need witness more often!

Speaking of witnessing I always get a rush when I’m passing out million dollar bills. Seeing the look on peoples face when you say “Here, have a million dollar bill!” is in itself many times quite amusing. Kids especially those in the 8-14 age range really get a kick out of our million dollar bills! I learned long ago if there is a bunch of kids and you give one kid a tract you better have enough for all of them because they’ll all want one!

But the rush doesn’t stop there! The funny thing is that even to this day I still get nervous when I go one on one with people witnessing. Why do I get nervous? It’s that same old fear that every one of us faces when we go to share our faith, it’s one of the greatest fears in the world, and it’s the fear of rejection. One thing that Bill Fay would say when I studied under him about witnessing was that “Just remember it’s not you they’re rejecting, they’re rejecting the witness of the Holy Spirit.” As long as I remember that the weight is off of my shoulders and I can witness like I’ve been trained to witness!

I love to witness, in fact I would have to say that sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with someone is my second favorite thing to do in this world. But wait, if sharing the Gospel is second what would be first? That would have to be unquestionably leading someone in repenting of their sins and accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior and then being the first to welcome a new Believer into the fold!

Yes I love to witness! Yes I love doing what the Lord has called me to do! And yes, I am humbled by the Lord’s calling on my life!

Matthew 28:18 - 20 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Quick Update...

2009-03-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

First, let me apologize for not blogging for a while. I guess I’ve had brain lock to some extent for a while!

Good News! Now that warmer weather is here our street ministry is starting to get back into gear, maybe not high gear yet, but at least a higher gear than it has been in over the winter. Twice now we’ve been able to go to Old Town here in Wichita on a Saturday evening and witness. I personally have not had anyone saved at Old Town this year, at least none that I know of, but I know we’ve planted a ton of really good seeds so far and that means that someone else could have had the harvest for the Lord, or at least that what we pray!

And speaking of Old Town, it seems that the lord has now brought together a team of street witnessers. Right now on Saturday evenings we normally have between 10 & 12 witnessers from three or four different churches show up all using the same witnessing method and working together in one heart and one accord just as Jesus would have us to do! If you’d like to see how we witness the first two videos I have posted on our website show what we do. Just go to http://www.jc4all.com and click on videos.

Please keep us in prayer as coming May 8th – 16th is the Wichita River Festival. This event normally draws well over 250,000 people to Wichita’s downtown area and we are planning on being there to witness. What an opportunity this will be for us to witness! I can hardly wait!

That’s about it for now! I’ll try to do a better job of updating!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Feeling Weird & Praying Wife

2009-02-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling kind of weird for the last three months or so. My wife & I wound up on our church's prayer team that meets once a week. I was suppose to teach a class at the same time as the prayer team meets but the class didn't happen so the only other thing to go to was intercessory prayer. Ever since getting saved a little over 20 years ago I learned to pray but I was never very good at it. Now I'm on the prayer team! The Lord knows what he's doing so I'm going to hang in.

There is some good news here. While I'm getting it pounded into me how to pray more fervently as a team my wife has really exploded into an awesome prayer warrior! My wife Pam has never really experienced fervent prayer as a team. However she has really come out of her shell to be a leading member on our team. One thing that we always do every week is to pass around all of the prayer requests that we’ve had come in and everyone takes one or two depending on how many we have come in. When Pam prays over the ones she has I feel the power of her prayer come out and I know she is moving Heaven!

What a blessing it is to have a praying wife! I know that when I’m on the street witnessing that when she is here at home praying I’m covered! When I’m physically or emotionally having problems and she prays for me it doesn’t take long and I get feeling better!

What a blessing it is to have a wife that when she prays God listens and Heaven moves!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Quick Update...

2009-02-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

I guess I ought to put a quick update up here on my blog. I got some good news today when I weighed in. I weighed in at 484 pounds which means that I lost about 14 pounds since my last weigh in a little over two weeks ago! Praise God! If I can keep this up for another couple of months I just might be able to umpire some baseball this summer!

I had a reply back after my last blog when I was kind of in the blahs suggesting that I might try fasting. I wish I could do a traditional fast but be diabetic I’m not able to do a traditional fast. The only kind of fast I can do is fasting from certain foods or certain things for a period of time. For instance every year in the past during lent I fasted from all candy and chocolate. This year since I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes I’m not sure what I’ll fast from this year. Anyway, it’s not always what you fast it’s what you do during your fast and the condition of your heart, that’s what God looks at.

Another high point, I got together with a group of people that do street witnessing like I do Saturday evening in Old Town. We had 13 people show up, the most we’ve ever had! The weather was awesome for February in Kansas with the temperatures in the mid to low 60’s well past 10:00 p.m. I’m not sure how the others did as I did see several witnessing with different people from time to time. I myself passed out around 75 million dollar bills and did a little sharing and prayed with one guy named David. Overall it was a great night of sharing!

That’s about it for now, except for when the next time you see me I’ll have glasses. I went to the eye doctor last week and she prescribed bifocals for me! I guess I must be getting old! Sheesh!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Good News/Bad News

2009-01-28T19:46:00.001-08:00

I guess I’ll start this blog off with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I didn’t gain any weight. The bad news is that I didn’t loose any either. The good news is that my diabetes is finally stabilized that I can get new glasses. The bad news is that I’m still in my spiritual drought.

I went to the doctor again yesterday and the doctor was pleased with my diabetes and my efforts to loose weight. The doctor however did give me a bit of bad news that is kind of personal so I won’t share it here. Nothing serious, it was just something I was hoping for. Now it’s more of an inconvenience than anything. Overall though my doctor is very pleased with me!

I wish I knew why I’m in a spiritual drought. I try to pray every day. I go to church on Sunday and prayer meeting on Wednesday. I try to read in the Word every night. I watch Christian programming quite a bit of the time rather then watching a bunch of the junk that’s on TV. I do think that one of the things that is dragging me down right now is the fact that I want to go back to work really, really bad but my health just isn’t quite there yet. That is one thing that I wrestle with on a daily basis.

I know the Lord is in control and is taking care of me and my family and for that I am extremely grateful. One thing that I’ve been wrestling with though is my reading in Proverbs. There are 31 Proverbs and I try to read one every night. One thing that has been wearing me down there is Proverbs talks distitutely about a man that doesn’t work and doesn’t provide for his family. I realize that I’m drawing on Social Security that I paid in over the years so in other words I’m living off of my storehouse but it’s just not something that I’m comfortable doing.

I guess I should pray for peace in my life and for the Lord to give me clear guidance and direction for my life. Right now I feel I blew a huge opportunity to go back to school this semester but we were down to just one car. I hope and pray that changes soon.

The good news is that the first of the month is almost here and that means not only is it payday for Pam & I but we will have all of our W-2’s & 1099’s so we can file our income tax and get our refund back. This year we’re planning on getting my wife’s car going again, paying off a bunch of bills and just generally getting back on our feet financially! Yea, again!

Oh well, I’ve rambled on enough tonight!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Spiritual Drought

2009-01-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been in a spiritual drought? You know, where no matter what you do it seems you just can’t get close to Jesus? Right now that’s where I’m at. I’m in a spiritual drought, again. I say again because this is not the first one that I’ve been in and who knows it may not be the last.

I describe a spiritual drought as being at a point in your spiritual life where you feel dry spiritually, not having the feeling of being close to God and not having the Holy Spirit filling your life with the living water that comes from God that we all thirst and long for. While I still long to draw close to Jesus it just seems that no matter what I do I just can’t draw close like I want to.

Why do I have these spiritual droughts? I’m not always for sure. Sometimes I wonder if it is the Lord testing me to see how I do on my own to see if I stay true and honest to Him. Sometimes I feel that it’s my fault as I’ve been disobedient in some way. Sometimes it may be a mixture of things and sometimes I don’t have clue why I’m in a spiritual drought.

I know that this time my spiritual drought is caused by a number of things. First, I’m about to pull my hair out trying to make ends meet financially while we wait on the full amount of our disability benefits to kick in. I know the scripture says not to worry but that is hard thing not to do! I also know that while I’m struggling to keep us afloat financially it takes time and energy away from me that I could be using to draw closer to the Lord via spending more time in the word and praying.

I know that it is the enemy keeping me worrying and I’ve got to put an end to it. However it’s not always a simple thing to do. One thing I do know however that as I shed light on the attacks of the enemy they will subside and eventually cease because now I’ve stated my failures and my weaknesses the Lord can now come in through the prayer of not only myself but my family and friends.

I know now that this drought is only temporary and that now I have spoken out about my drought this drought will soon end.

Let me encourage you that if you are or you get into a spiritual drought that you share where your at with others so they can pray with you and you too will be able to join me in the victory that is at hand!

You know… I feel better already!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Still Hanging On!

2009-01-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

Good news! It’s two weeks in to the New Year and I still haven’t broken any of New Year’s resolutions. I’ve come close but I’m still on the wagon! I’m still striving to get closer to Jesus even though some days it feels like I’m a million miles away at least I’m still seeking. Every time I’ve weighed in so far I’ve lost weight, praise God!

I’m still struggling and I haven’t given up on my quest to get healthier. I went to the doctor Tuesday and the doctor was pleased with my progress and decided not to put me on insulin praise God. In addition we joined the YMCA again so now I can start working out again with my wife Pam!

As far as our Autistic son Andrew goes I’ve made some changes so I can help him out more. In addition we’ve found some outside support and we have a meeting once a week in our home to help out Andrew and starting next month we’re going to be going to and autistic support group once a month. I sure hope and pray I can make thing s go better as far as Andrew is concerned. He’s a handful but I still love him!

Of all of my resolutions that I made my fifth and last resolutions to share Jesus more seems to be going pretty good! I’ve passed out close to a hundred tracts this month already! I haven’t had the privilege to pray the sinner’s prayer with anyone this month yet but I do know that I’ve planted some really great seeds!

I hope this encourages you to keep on keeping on!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Still Loosing to Win... Barely!!!

2009-01-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

Don’t ask me how I’m doing it as I’m not sure but I’m still loosing weight. I weighed in again today and I weighed in right at 490 pounds. That’s 3 pounds since I weighed in last week and 40 pounds since I started two months ago. For that I need to thank God because I know it’s all him because I fell off the wagon way to many times this past two weeks to have done this well!

I had a heart to heart talk with my wife and she agreed not to make any more cakes, cookies, or sweets for a while. I explained to her that having an eating disorder is just like having an alcohol or drug addiction. If you expose someone who is trying to go clean day after day to drugs or alcohol they’re going to fall off of the wagon so to say. They’re going to fall right back into alcoholism or drug abuse.

It’s the same way when someone has an eating disorder. I’ve been fed all kinds of wonderful, great tasting food all of my life and I’ve never been taught moderation. Unlike drugs and alcohol you just can’t go cold turkey and quit eating food as you need food to survive. What you have to do is retrain your body and your mind to eat in moderation and even more importantly, eat the proper foods and drink the proper drinks.

There are foods out there that you can eat all you want and you won’t get fat. However there are many, many more foods out there that you shouldn’t touch with the proverbial ten foot pole if you’re trying to loose weight! For instance anything with refined sugars should be avoided at all costs while fresh veggies such as carrots, celery, radishes, green peppers and such can be sliced up and ate to your hearts content as long as you avoid the fattening dressings!

Right now I’m caught in quagmire of a trap. With our finite resources of us being on a set income every month we can’t afford many of the weight loss foods that I really need to be eating. So what I’m doing instead is watching my helping size and doing my best to eat in moderation.

Another thing that I need to be doing right now is that I need to get into a consistent and steady exercise program. Right now I try to walk two to three times a day. This is really hard on my knees and I’ll be glad when we get the money to get our YMCA membership back so I can do water aerobics as per the doctors orders. My doctor tells me that water exercises burns huge amounts of calories and will be low impact on my tired and arthritic knees. Praise God, I’ll be glad to get into that pool!

Anyway, I hope that by me being public with my struggles, sometime failures, and my triumphs I hope that I can encourage you and others to be successful too!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Loosing To Win!

2009-01-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, December 18 I wrote the following here in my blog. “One thing that I’m going to do to hold my self accountable is to keep putting updates on my blog here. If I make public what I’m doing then I will have a ton more willpower to be successful in my weight loss battle.” I decided wether I lost, gained, or stayed the same I was going to post it here. Besides, who better to hold me accountable then my readers!

Well, I have good news to report. Today was weigh in day and I weighed in at 497 pounds flully clothed. If you subtract for clothing, shoes, jacket & such you can safely subtract another 5 pounds which would put me at 492 pounds which means that over the past two weeks I lost 7 pounds! I just knew that with all of the great food we had during the holidays that I would have gained weight. But no, I lost 7 pounds praise God! That works out to ½ pound per day which is right where I want to be right now.

My goal now is to loose 50 pounds by the start of baseball season in early April so I can start umpiring again! I have really missed not umpiring the past two years and I can hardly wait to get back out there on the ball field! Besides, umpiring is good exercise and we can most deffinately use the extra money!!!

If your New Year’s resoloution is to loose weight let me know! I’d love to encourage you as I loose to win!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Bipolar Update

2009-01-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

It’s been a bit since I’ve wrote on how I’m doing with my bipolar & ADHD. Bipolar is one of those disorders that can be pretty hard to treat. It seems that any medication you take for bipolar disorder seems to have some pretty hefty side effects. The two biggest side effects seem to be messing with your blood sugar and totally messing up your sleeping patterns. Some can also cause you to have a dependence on them, especially Seroquel.

I’ve been on Seroquel now for right at three years for my bipolar. Seroquel is the number one prescribed medication for bipolar. The good news is that it does an awesome job controlling bipolar. The bad news is that the side effects stink! The worst side effect is that if you don’t have diabetes you’ll probably get it. Unbeknownst to me is that apparently for years I’ve been battling borderline diabetes & no one ever caught it. Now I’ve got full blown diabetes and will probably have to go on insulin sometime this month. Yuk!

The second side effect of Seroquel is that it makes an awesome sleeping pill! The bad news is that until you get used to it you have a really hard time waking up in the morning! I got so attached to Seroquel that when the doctor started weaning me off of Seroquel a month ago it really messed me up! To make the withdrawals less offensive the doctor dropped me from 300 mg. to 100 mg. daily. Next week I’ll go off of Seroquel completely.

I’ve got a friend who has been a diabetic all of her life & she was on 400 mg. of Seroquel & last week they took her off of Seroquel cold turkey. Her blood sugars dropped so low that she actually passed out a few times! My last hope to stay off of insulin is when I get off of Seroquel next week that my blood sugars will drop enough that I won’t have to go on insulin, I can maintain my blood sugars with medications (pills).

In the mean time while all of this is going on and we look for new meds that will help I can tell you my bipolar is back, sleep stinks. I either don’t sleep at all or I keep waking up all night long, every 1-2 hours and then I can hardly get up in the morning. I should also mention that my OCD (obsessive/compulsive disorder) is also starting to rear its ugly head, not real bad yet but I do notice it every once in a while!

To make matters worse, Abilify, the new to the market and new to me med that the doctor put me on to replace Seroquel has now just released the same warning about diabetes that Seroquel has. Now I get to look forward to changing meds again! Double Yuk!

The good news now is that the kids all go back to school this Monday so I’ll have time to work with my doc’s to get things straightened out, again!

Anyway, if you happen to think about me when you’re doing your prayers please ask the Lord to help my doctors get things straightened out.

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

My New Year's Resolutions

2008-12-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

I guess after my last blog I kind of left people hanging. I evaluated my New Year’s resolutions for 2008 but made no mention of my 2009 resolutions. Well here they are, pretty much the same as last year with just a little bit of change and a little addition.

1: Get closer to Jesus. Number 3 last year, number one this year! I figure if I draw closer to Jesus first of all everything else should come easier!

2: Loose weight. Number 1 last year, number 2 this year. I’ve got a bunch more weight to loose! I need to loose at least another 100 pounds this year. My long term goal is to loose a whopping 250 pounds!

3: Get my health back in order. I’m still fighting to get my diabetes in order. My chronic repspiratory failure appears to be getting better by quite a bit but I still have a ways to go there too! Thank You Jesus for the healing there!

4: Do a better job with our autistic son Andrew. As Andrew progresses into his teens he needs me to do a better job of being a father to him and guiding him. Andrew takes more attention then the rest of our kids put together times two and I just need to do a better job. Once again if I loose weight and get my health in order this will become substantially easier.

5: Share Jesus more. Number 4 last year. I really feel this one will take care of itself if I do resolutions 1 through 3. The biggest thing keeping me from sharing Jesus more is simply my health. If I can loose a bunch of weight and not become out of breath so easy I will be able to stand for a longer period of time and do a better job of sharing Jesus!

I’d love to hear your resolutions!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

New Year Already???

2008-12-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

Wow! Just like that Christmas is over already! Can you believe that 2009 is almost here? Of course we say this every year don’t we? Is it just me or does time seem to fly a little faster every year. My friend Mark Oelze brought this to my attention a few years ago when he included in a sermon one Sunday about how technology is taking up more and more of our time every year. We’ve got cell phones that are actually mini computers, IPod’s, laptops, email & so on & so forth. Mark made the point that all of this is supposed to make us more productive & give us more freedom but does it really?

It occurred to me today that with the New Year at hand it’s time to start that annual series of promises that most of us make and unfortunately most of us don’t keep, it’s time to once again to make your New Year’s Resolutions! First, before we make new resolutions we should look back at how we did with last years resolutions. How did I do on my resolutions from last year? Let’s take a look. While I grade mine here go back over yours and grade them!

1: Loose weight. Lost 30 pounds. D+ I should have lost a bunch more!

2: Get my health back in order. C+ I made a lot of progress but I’ve got a long way to go!

3: Get closer to Jesus. C+ The first 9 months I did great but I let too many things distract me that last three months of the year.

4: Share Jesus more. A- I’m pretty happy with this one. The Lord opened a bunch of doors for me to share this year & 2009 looks even better!

There’s how I did. Overall an average of C+ which is pretty good for me. How did you do?

Just remember, God wants you to succeed! God wants the best for you! Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

The Christmas Story

2008-12-24T16:23:00.000-08:00

Luke 2: 1-40 NLT

The Birth of Jesus

1 At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2 (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. 4 And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5 He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant.

6 And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7 She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.

The Shepherds and Angels
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17 After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, 19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20 The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.

Jesus Is Presented in the Temple
21 Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived.
22 Then it was time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. 23 The law of the Lord says, “If a woman’s first child is a boy, he must be dedicated to the Lord.”[a] 24 So they offered the sacrifice required in the law of the Lord—“either a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

The Prophecy of Simeon
25 At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him 26 and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, 28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,

29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. 30 I have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared for all people. 32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”

33 Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, but he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. 35 As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”

The Prophecy of Anna
36 Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. 37 Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. 38 She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.

39 When Jesus’ parents had fulfilled all the requirements of the law of the Lord, they returned home to Nazareth in Galilee. 40 There the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him.

First Love

2008-12-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

I feel the Lord telling me tonight to write on my “First Love.” The NIV Study Bible defines First Love as “The love they had at first for one another and/or for Christ.” This time of year we really need to stop, examine our hearts and see just who or what our first love really is. Is your first love that little baby in the manger or is your first love making sure you get just that perfect present for everyone on your Christmas list?

I don’t know about you but I’ve already got the perfect Christmas gift. That little baby that was born in a manger a little over 2000 years ago has given me everything I’ll ever need. That little baby saved me from my sins and gave me eternal life. That little baby supplies all my needs according to His riches in glory. Paul told us in Philippians 4:19 (Amplified Bible) “And my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” All I have to do is trust in him.

Who supplies all your needs? Who is your first love? If it’s not the one that was the little baby in the manger we need to talk!

Be Blessed!!!

Big Scott

Tis The Season For The Blues

2008-12-19T18:19:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or is Christmas just a little less about Christ every year? I know that I’m not the first one to bring this up and if you haven’t heard it from a ton of people before I’m surprised! I know the true meaning of Christmas and for some reason I’m just not feeling it this year. I’m not trying to be a scrooge or anything but it seems every year I’m a little less excited about the holidays.

Personally I know that with me being off work at the present time and being stuck on disability until I can get healthy again it’s really weighing on me being able to get into the holiday season. I know that there is a ton of people in the same boat that I’m in this year. With the economy down and the nightly news leading off every newscast with a story of how bad of a recession we’re in or this company is shutting down or these people are getting laid off it can sure be easy to be in a foul mood this holiday season.

Fortunately for me I have an outlet. I can hop on my computer, fire up my word processor and vent about how I feel. To make it better I even have people that read every one of these blogs that I right. It’s kind of like having my very own online support group! If you’re in that group that is having a hard time this year and the holidays are getting you down don’t worry as there is help out there.

In most every community there is a Mental Health Association or some kind of public mental health institute. Look them up in the phone book. Also, many churches now have counseling centers. Here in Wichita our church, Word of Life, has its own counseling center headed up by PhD psychologist. Please feel free to give them a call if you’re anywhere close to Wichita. The number is 316-838-6200.

The Christmas holidays are the number one time of the year for depression and it is also the number one time of the year for suicides. If you know of someone that is hurting be a friend and don’t let them suffer alone! If you’re the one hurting don’t be afraid to reach out for help. If you don’t know where to turn drop me an email & I’ll be happy to try and point you in the right direction!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

My Temple

2008-12-18T13:46:00.000-08:00

I did it! I finally broke below 500 pounds! I just weighed in and fully clothed with jacket on I weighed 504. If you subtract for the shoes, clothing, jacket, cell phone and etc. it would put me in right at 499 pounds! This is quite an improvement considering for the past two years or so I’ve been hanging around the 520 – 530 pound range! If I remember right when I weighed in about two months ago I weighed in right at 530 pounds. That would be a net weight loss of right at 5% over a two month period. At this rate I should be able to hit my first goal of loosing 100 pounds sometime in 2009!

Now that I’m actually loosing weight again I can start setting goals. As I mentioned above my first goal is to hit 400 pounds sometime in 2009. As much weight as I have to loose these first goals should be pretty easy to hit. I’m setting a long range goal, like a 2-3 year goal of getting back down under 300 pounds. I haven’t been under 300 pounds since the late 1980’s! Eventually I’d like to get back down to where I was when I graduated high school which would put me somewhere in the 250 pound range.

Another plus of loosing weight is that it should help with both my cholesterol & blood sugar levels. Right now my bad cholesterol levels are just fine but my good cholesterol levels are pretty low. In addition I'm taking the max dose I can right now of pills to keep my diabetes in check. If my blood sugar levels in the evenings don't start coming down I'll be on insulin for life, which is something I really don't want. My doctor told me yesterday we're going to give it one more month on the pills. She said with exercise, diet, & pills if I keep working hard I should be able to beat having to take insulin if I keep loosing weight!

One thing that I’m going to do to hold my self accountable if to keep putting updates on my blog here. If I make public what I’m doing then I will have a ton more willpower to be successful in my weight loss battle. Another thing that I’ve been doing is seeing my doctor on a regular basis, about every 4-6 weeks. I went in yesterday and saw my doctor and while I was there I had my yearly “guys” cancer screening since I had just had another birthday. I’m happy to report that everything came back negative!

As a side note here one of the biggest killers of men over the age of 45 is either prostate cancer or colon cancer. Not only do I highly recommend, but numerous other medical doctors & health agencies recommend that all guys 45 & older get their prostate checked every year and while that’s being done have what’s called a PSAT test where they check for blood in your stool. It’s not that bad and it could save your life!

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6: 19 & 20: Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. Knowing this it’s about time I do some rebuilding and remodeling on my temple! I hope my journey will encourage you as I travel along!

Be Blessed!!!

Big Scott

Apology & Trust

2008-12-14T17:50:00.000-08:00

First of all let me apologize to those of you who actually read this blog & are on my email list for an email I sent out last week about how hopeless things were for me. Come to find out God is still in control and we were not in anywhere near as much trouble as I thought that we were. All I had to do was to put my trust in God so he could get me through the tough times. I guess that maybe I just needed a little humbling!

Here’s what Matthew 6:25-34 has to say:
25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

28 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29 yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

31 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

I don’t know about you but with all of the talk in the news about how big of a recession we are in and the possibility of our economy totally crumbling I was really starting to worry. I know this is wrong. Jesus just told us that in the above verses. I’ve decided rather then worrying that I’m going to trust in God just like Jesus said to do.

Tomorrow is a new day and I plan on taking full advantage of it. We as a family were blessed with a full membership to the YMCA for only $10 a month! Tomorrow I take a new step forward. We join the YMCA and I start exercising again. I start taking control of my health again. I never would have dreamed how far out of shape I could get but tomorrow we start going the other way! Tomorrow I start water aerobics like my doctor instructed.

I need to really loose at least 250 pounds & I’ve got to start somewhere. Tomorrow I take the second step. The first step was seeking help from my doctors & health care team. I did that 2 weeks ago. Tomorrow I get off of my big, fat, lazy rear and put action to my words!

Please keep me & my family in prayer as I move forward, or should I say, back to health! I’ll try to weigh in tomorrow. We’ll all probably freak when we find out just how much I weigh! I figure if I post here what I’m doing then I’ll have a little more reason to succeed!

Until tomorrow…

Be Blessed!!!

Big Scott

My Testimony

2008-12-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

I was asked to give my testimony so here it goes. I thought that I’d share it with everyone here on my blog as I’m so proud of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done in my life. One thing I’d love to have happen is that if you have your testimony written out somewhere (if you don’t I highly encourage you to do it!) please share it with me and others. I love hearing what the Lord has done in others lives as well!

In 1962 I was adopted as a newborn baby into a loving Christian home. I basically grew up in church. My parents made sure that I knew who Jesus was and did a wonderful job of teaching me the ways of the Lord. By the time I graduated from high school in 1981 I really knew who God & Jesus were. The problem was I didn’t have a close relationship with God.

While I did accept Jesus when I was 12 and was soon baptized thereafter I would have a hard time saying that I was really saved at that point. The one thing missing at that time was repentance. I was never taught that I had to repent and turn from my sins. As a result my sins continued to grow. When I was a junior in high school I started to drink and party. By the time I graduated I was drinking & partying pretty hard.

After high school I pretty much had nothing to do with God or Jesus for the next six or so years. Somewhere in 1987 God started bringing Christians into my life to witness to me. I really began to search and started having concerns about what would happen to me if I died at that point. I really began to question whether I was really saved or not. Eventually I decided I wasn’t.

In 1988 I was racing motorcycles every weekend. After the last race of the year that year one Sunday in October I was about half lit after polishing off the better part of a twelve pack after the races and I went by my buddy’s Tom place. I asked Tom what he was doing that evening and if he wanted to hang out. To my surprise Tom told me that he had been invited to church and that I should come with him. To my even greater surprise without thinking I agreed!

Tom got me all cleaned up and got the smell of beer off of me and of to church we went. We walked in and praise & worship had already started. The girl that had invited Tom was sitting towards the front and Tom grabbed my arm and to the front we went! I was blown away! This was way different from any church that I had ever attended before!

As the music was playing and the people were singing there were people raising their hands and dancing around, praising God and just generally having a great time! I’m not sure why but I thought that this was way kewl! When the praise & worship ended people from all over came up and shook my hand, welcomed me, and just in general made me feel right at home!

After the service we were invited to go out to a young adult get together. We were also warmly invited back next Wednesday evening & the following Sunday. We had a blast at the get together after church that Sunday and Tom & I decided we really needed to go back. Wednesday was really awesome and the pastor poured some really great stuff into us. The following Sunday at the end of service both Tom & I went forward at the alter call and repented of all of our sins and accepted Jesus. Now I knew I was REALLY saved!

The following evening that Sunday I went forward for prayer and the men of the church led by the pastor prayed over me and I was delivered right there on the spot from alcohol and I was set free in Jesus! Wow, was I ever on cloud nine! I couldn’t wait to tell the whole world what Jesus had just done for me!

Fortunately for me the church that I got saved in was really big on teaching and equipping people to take Jesus to the world. In fact they had a K-12 academy and were teaching Bible courses as an outreach through Logos College. For the next two years or so I studied hard and crammed in everything about God that I could get into me.

In 1991 I left for Wichita, Kansas where I’m at now to join up with Operation Rescue and to serve as a street evangelist. During the summer of 1991 I spent almost every day in front of an abortion clinic witnessing to anyone that I could.

After the summer of 1991 I went back to work driving truck. In late 1991 I met the love of my life Pam and in 1992 we were married. In 1993 we moved back to Dodge City, Kansas which is close to where I was born and raised. Things were not going well for us in Dodge City as we were constantly struggling to make ends meet. I failed miserably in being the Godly head of house that God had called me to be. In 1996 Pam couldn’t take any more and packed up and took our two kids back to Wichita leaving me in Dodge City with divorce papers.

In 1997 I packed up and left Dodge City and headed back to Wichita myself. We both wound up in the same church we had been in before we left for Dodge City. The Pastor there ordered that if we were both going to be in his church that we go through counseling so we could get along well enough so he wouldn’t have fighting in his church. It worked!

One thing led to another. We both stayed in counseling and I really started seeking God, hard, and through the leadership of our pastors and via my repentance and changing we were remarried in December of 1999! I’m happy to say that nine years later our marriage is stronger then ever!

God Still Has My Back!

2008-12-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

God Is Still In Control

I thought that I’d share this quick little story of something that didn’t happen to us last night! We had to go pick our daughter Paula up at East High last night at 9:00 p.m. after her concert rehearsal. We got there a little early so we decided to go done the street to the Kwik Shop & fuel our van.

After I paid for our fuel I had a vision of us pulling out into the street and be rammed by another car. I thought that was kind of weird but went ahead and started to get moving. Immediately I had the same vision again and this time it was more vivid and urgent. I said OK God I’ll precede with care. I pulled out of the parking lot, onto the side street that runs beside the Kwik Shop and stopped at the stop sign.

Cautiously I looked both ways and started to pull out. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash and locked the brakes. Coming out of the dark was a big station wagon, moving fast, with its lights off! I had managed to stop just short and was missed by just a few feet! Another five feet and we would have been toast!

It is sweet to know that God still has your back! Thanks You Jesus!!!

Be Blessed!!!

Scott

By The Numbers

2008-11-16T20:01:00.001-08:00

Here's the report on a study I did. These numbers are for Wichita, Kansas. If you live somewhere else in the United States you can probably safely assume that the percentages are still pretty close! I received some updated info since I last posted this info so here it is updated. To make things easier I rounded the numbers to the closest thousand.

By The Numbers…

600 Churches in Wichita (apx.)
250 Seats per church average (apx.)
150,000 Total Seats
362,000 People in Wichita
217,000 (60%) Claim to be Christian
67,000 Too few seats if everyone shows up for church on Sunday
58% Average seats filled on Sundays
87,000 Average Wichita Sunday Attendance
130,000 (60%) Christians miss church in Wichita on Sundays
275,000 (75%) People in Wichita don’t attend church on Sundays

To make matters worse one of our local TV stations, KSN, reported on Friday, November 14, 2008 that only 5% of teenagers attend church! By comparison KSN said that number was 44% in 1944. The last US Census Bureau said that in Wichita 27.1% of the population is less than 18 years of age. Here’s the breakdown on that data.

98000 Youth
4900 or 5% Attend Church
93100 or 95% don’t attend church (WOW!)

While the above numbers may not be scientifically accurate, the numbers should be pretty close as I compiled them mostly from national averages plus what I could compile locally.

Now, my commentary! I hope that the above numbers help explain why our nation is headed in the direction it is headed! If we are only having 5% of our youth in church learning about and worshiping Jesus where in the world will we be in 20 years when these youth become the lawmakers of our country if we don’t do something now to turn this country, and more importantly our youth around.

The good news is that there is still time. It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to take all of us to make this happen. When I say all of us I most certainly include Jesus and his Holy Spirit because His Holy Spirit is going to have to lead us through this monumental battle that we are facing.

What’s it going to take for this nation to repent? First it’s going to take God’s people doing just what Jesus commanded us to do. Mark 16:15 says "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Where is the world? Step out of your front door and you’re in the world! What do you need to do? Share your faith! That’s it, it’s that simple, just share your faith! Need help sharing your faith? Drop me an email and I’ll hook you up with a really simple way to share your faith called “Share Jesus Without Fear.”

Until next time…

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

The Harves Is Ripe

2008-08-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

One thing I keep hearing over and over again from the Lord is get my people ready! There is a HUGE harvest to be had right here in Wichita! The Lord keeps reminding me that if just 25% of the people that claim to be a Christian here in Wichita ever showed up to church on the same Sunday at the same time there wouldn’t be anywhere near enough churches to hold everyone! Can you imagine that… Just 25% would overwhelm every church in town!!! By the way, you could apply this to virtually any city in the United States.

Wednesday Cessna & Spirit Aerosystems announced the joint venture to build a new jet here in Wichita & between the two of them they would hire 1700 new employees. In addition the news reported that the spin off would generate about an additional 5000 jobs here in Wichita. When I heard this, the Lord spoke to me and told me that with thousands of new people coming to Wichita if we do our part our harvest will be huge!!!

What is our part? It's taking the Gospel to the streets. Getting out & telling people about the Good News of Jesus Christ! Not just going to Old Town on the weekends but going throughout the city witnessing wherever and whenever we can! Every time you make a purchase hand the person taking your money a “million dollar bill.” Going door to door starting right in the neighborhoods by our church and first apologizing to the people for not contacting them sooner and then invite them to church and give them a nice flyer or something to hang on to.

I don’t need to tell you that the signs for the end of time are at hand! If we truly believe Hell is a real place and it is as bad a place as the Bible says it is and if we truly love our neighbors, our family, our friends we had better get out and tell the world about Jesus because we don’t have much time left!!! I keep hearing the same scripture over and over again in my head, Matthew 9:37-38: "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Thanks! I just wanted to get that off of my chest!

Be Blessed!!!

Big Scott

Mother's Day Poem

2008-05-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

There is a poem that is so old I’m almost sure it was around in 146 BC. It’s quite silly, but trust me when I say that if you memorize it and then say it to your mom on Mother’s Day, it will melt her heart.

M is for the million things she gave me,
O means only that she’s growing old,
T is for the tears she shed to save me,
H is for her heart of purest gold;
E is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
R means right, and right she’ll always be,

Put them all together, they spell MOTHER,
A word that means the world to me.

2007-04-02T00:12:00.001-07:00

On the day of Pentecost Peter stepped forward to address the crowd and said "In the last days,' God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike—and they will prophesy."

Let me ask you something. Are you seeing visions? Are you dreaming dreams? Let me ask this a little bit less forceful. Do you have a vision for your life? Is the vision you have for your life God given? Do you ever dream of doing something special, something that the Lord would have you do?

Let's take this a step further. Have in the past you had a vision for your life, a dream to do something special with or in your life? Has that vision, that dream been displaced by something else? Is there a hurdle standing in your way that is blocking you from fulfilling your dream or vision? If there is, congratulations, you're normal.

If I had to count all of the people that I've spoke with in my short 44 years here on this Earth that have told me they've had the vision to do this or that or that they dream of being able to do something but they know in their hearts that they never will the numbers would be to high for me to count. Christians are no exception, in fact I would have to say that I've heard this more from Christians than any other group of people that I've talked with. The truly said part is that a great number of these dreams and visions that people have shared with me were no doubt in some way brought forth via the Holy Spirit.

Why do so many people have these visions and dreams but yet fail to act on them or if they do they fail miserably at trying to achieve these visions and dreams? There are three main reasons. First is lack of planning and council. People try to do things on their own and don't seek wise council and plan far enough in advance to succeed.

Secondly people try to follow their own dream, their own vision, rather then the vision, the path that God has laid out for them. I can testify to this one. More then once I've received a vision from God for me to do something and I got a big head and I tried to do it in my own way, not God's way, and because I was doing it my way I failed miserably!

Finally, there is one underlying thing, or should I say being that works against all of us doing everything possible to make sure we fail. Satan. Jesus said in John 10:10 "The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy." The thief that Jesus is talking about is Satan.

Simply put, the reason visions and dreams fail is that first we fail to plan, pray, and seek council. Add to that our selfish self fulfilling desires and the door is left wide open for the enemy to come in and steal, kill, and destroy our visions and dreams. Dare I ask that you've had visions and dreams that have been destroyed or put aside? If you're truthful the answer will be a resounding "Yes!"

Do your visions have to be gone? Do your dreams have to be dead? If you know Jesus the answer is a resounding "No!" God did not give you dreams and visions and not give you a way to achieve what He has shown you. If you're like me you've got something down inside you somewhere gnawing at you and you know in your heart that what is down there was placed there by God. For some of you it may be something small that you visit once in a while. For others, and this would include me, that gnawing is eating you up knowing that your not where God wants you and your not doing what wants you to do.

So where are you? Something little, something big, or are you somewhere in the middle? I know where I'm at. I know that God has called me to finish college with a degree in Christian Ministry. I know that God has called me to preach. I also know that God has called me to encourage and equip others to do God's will.

Are you where God wants you to be? If your like me the answer is no. But how do we get back to where God wants us to be so we can once again pursue the visions and the dreams that God has given us? First, and most importantly, you need to do just what I did and acknowledge that you've failed God and seek God's forgiveness.

The next step is to seek God and ask him for new visions, new dreams. Ask God what it is He would have you to do. I'm not saying that you need to quit your job, pick up, and go straight to work for God. God very seldom calls anyone to do that. If you're the norm, which believe it or not would include me, you've got a family, or at least you've got some responsibilities. Remember God will never call you to abandon the responsibilities that you have taken upon yourself such as family or financial such as money you would owe on a car or your home. You've made a solemn commitment to people and God expects you to fulfill those commitments.

In 1 Chronicles 22 King David was building the Temple and when the instructions were given out and in verse 19 David ordered at the start of the construction Israel to "seek the Lord your God with all your heart and soul." That is what we need to do. As we are starting to build something new we to should seek the Lord with all our heart and soul! By doing this we will not be led astray by the enemy.

And finally, seek to work your way to your vision and your dream. Build slowly, seek wise council, and keep seeking God so that you will not be swayed one way or the other but rather you can you set your pace, run your race like Paul spoke of in Hebrews 12:1 & 2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith."

I could go on and on here. I could even turn this blog into a book if I wanted to and the Lord would have it. But you get the picture. Don't let your visions and dreams be buried forever. Seek God, move forward, and see if God will not give you more joy and fulfillment in your life.

I'd love to hear from you about your visions and dreams. Drop me a line and let me hear what's on your heart.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

WinterJam!

2007-03-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

It’s Saturday evening @ 11:45 & I’m sitting here with my head still pounding and my body still bouncing to the beat from the WinterJam concert that my wife and I went to tonight! For those that haven’t heard or been to a WinterJam concert it features Sanctus Real, Hawk Nelson, Newsong, Steven Curtis Chapman, Jeremy Camp, & The Following. It was 3 ½ hours on pretty much non stop rock and roll for Jesus! It was awesome!

I’ve been to both Steven Curtis Chapman & Newsong concerts in the past and I can tell you this, they never rocked out at those concerts like they did tonight! It’s nice to see that some of the guys that have been around for awhile can still rock out with the kids! Oh, and by the way… Hawk Nelson has been compared to AC/DC from 25 years ago. I don’t agree! AC/DC has never been as good as Hawk Nelson was tonight!

Lest I should save this until the end, out of the 7500 or so people that were there tonight a little over 1000 made a commitment for Jesus! Pretty awesome for a Christian concert!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

The Promise!

2007-01-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it sure can be tough waiting on God to move in your life. One of the things that have been on the heart of both my wife and myself is finally getting our finances in order. Before I got sick a couple of years ago we were doing a pretty good job with our finances but not being able to work steady for over a year really put us in a bind. It is only by the grace of God that we were able to stay afloat this long.

Now I’ve finally got a great job selling cars. With the paychecks that I have to look forward too in the next couple of weeks along with our income tax refund we are planning to get caught back up on our bills and finally give us some breathing room. Things are looking good for our financial future for once. It is that future and that hope that the Lord has given us that gives us the strength to push on.

About three weeks ago I had talks with our store manager, Kelvin, and Alan from the corporate office. We discussed whether or not I could make it in the car business and if I could survive the slow winter. Both men told me I had the talent and encouraged me to hang on. The next morning after having my talk with Kelvin I got up and turned the TV on to TBN and the first thing I heard was evangelist Marilyn Hickey say “Winners never quit and quitters never win!” That was my confirmation that I needed to stay right where I was at and do my best, give God the praise, and let the Lord do the rest. I’m glad I did because I’ve had a good month ever since then.

A good salesman, regardless of what he sells treats his job like his own business and builds a solid customer base. That’s what I’m doing now and it’s starting to pay off. Like I said, I’m having a good month this month. Right now I’m in second place at our store for the month and from what I’ve been hearing city wide I’m doing exceptionally well. For this I give God all the praise. I know that my success comes from the Lord. If it wasn’t for me finding favor with the Lord I sure wouldn’t be selling the number of cars that I’ve sold this month!

I can tell you this, if you’re thinking of giving up and throwing in the towel seek God first. Seek to find out what the Lord has in store for your future. Are you where God wants you? Does God want to bless you right where you’re at? Does God want to raise you to a higher place? Of course he does!

You’ve probably heard of Jeremiah 29:11 which says “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Keep reading and see what verses 12 – 14 have to say! “In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes.”

That’s a promise I can gratefully accept!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Feeling Old!

2007-01-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

It’s been said that age is mostly a matter of mind. If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter! I had one of those times this past week that can you feel just a few years older. I’ve been having some problems with my eyes so I thought that I’d check out the vision benefit on my new health insurance and get my eyes check out, for the first time in twenty five years I might add!

The eye doctor had me in the chair and had that thing on my face where he spins around the different dials to see which settings you can see better with. After a few minutes of spinning the dials the doctor pulls his contraption back and says “Well it looks like you’re going to need bifocals.”

Bifocals! I’ve never even wore glasses before and now I need bifocals! I immediately felt about ten years older! And the to pour a little salt in my aging wound the doctor explained to me that it’s not unusual for people “my age” to need glasses for the first time. When people get to be my age their eyes start to change and may need a little help.

I told the doctor that I could see just fine at a distance and that I didn’t have a bit of trouble when driving. My doctor told me that I had a mild case of astigmatism and that glasses would make my distant vision even better. Once again he told me it was an age thing. At the rate we were going I felt like the doctor was going to recommend a walker for someone at my fragile age!

Until I get my prescription glasses the doctor had me get a pair of reading glasses at Wal-Mart. As a consolation I can see much better to read now. I should also give kudos to my wife. She did a great job of making me feel better by telling me that my glasses make me look more sophisticated and intelligent! It’s great having a wife that knows how to make you feel better!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Resolutions!

2007-01-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

Wow! So much for 2006! I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last blog! One of the things that I resolve to o for 2007 is to be more consistent in everything that I do and that includes my blogging! Speaking of resolving, last night at church we had a big party to welcome in the New Year and during that party I wrote my “Top 10 Resolutions For The New Year”

Here we go, see what you think of my resolutions.

1: Worship God more intensely.

2: Study God’s word every day.

3: Purge anything not of God from my life.

4: Spend more quality time with family.

5: Start my diet all over again.

6: Build my business selling cars.

7: Manage time better.

8: Get finances straightened out.

9: Apply myself at college better.

10: Finish writing my first book.

I got to thinking the other day and I realized that I haven’t been worshipping God with the passion that I have done in the years past. I used to really get into Praise and Worship singing, praising, raising my arms, and in general just really getting into an intimate place with God. I really haven’t done that since I had my breakdown close to two years ago now.

I now realize that the praise and worship that enjoyed in the past is something that has really been missing in my life. I really feel that if I get my spiritual life back in order where it needs to be then everything else will follow. It’s not that I haven’t loved God, it’s just that I haven’t drawing anywhere near close enough to him.

Another biggie that I have facing me in my life is starting my diet all over again. When I went on my diet about three years ago I stayed on it for about eighteen months and I lost about 145 pounds. I went off of my diet at the same time I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder. Between the meds that I was put on and just basically giving up on life for a time I really put back on some serious weight gaining back nearly every pound that I had lost. This time I plan to loose the weight and keep it off for good!

I’ve also been given the opportunity to build a great business selling cars. When you’re working for a new car dealer you basically have to treat your job as your business. If you do that you can build a great customer base and make a very nice living. That is exactly what I plan to do.

Also, I plan on continuing in college part time. College is something that I have to do for me. One of my biggest regrets is not finishing college the first time. A big piece of me on the inside will not be settled until I have that Bachelors degree.

Finally, this book that I’m writing is something that’s been on my heart for years and years. I’m about half done with my book. My book is excerpts from my blog over the past couple of years. Hopefully in the next few months I’ll have enough good blogs wrote to get my book to my publisher.

So there it is, my resolutions for this New Year. What are your resolutions? Did you even make any resolutions? I’d love to hear what your resolutions are! Drop me a line and let me know! I might even choose some of your resolutions as topics for future blogs. Don’t worry, you’ll remain anonymous. I’ll protect the guilty! He He!

Be Blessed!

Big Scott

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation

2006-11-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affirm THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of the States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the final and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our federal and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wife, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.
(signed) G. Washington

Source: The Massachusetts Centinel, Wednesday, October 14, 1789

Ethics Check

2006-11-13T18:11:00.000-08:00

OK, it’s time to get down to some serious writing again!

I had a wake up call today from my boss. In a nutshell my boss told me that he had some concerns about my ethics. When your trying to live for Jesus and someone calls you on the carpet and wants to have a talk with you about your ethics you’d better pay attention. In my case I had strayed a little bit farther from the middle then I should have. In fact I was farther left of center then I even realized.

Today’s talk brought back to me the fact that when we drift off of center of where God wants us we normally do not drift a whole bunch at one time. Rather when we drift we do it a little at a time. A smidgen here, a little bit there, and so forth. The problem is that when we don’t crawl back up on the proverbial altar and get back in the center of where God wants us on a very regular basis it doesn’t take long and we can really be going the wrong way.

That’s what happened to me, I started getting a little bit off of center little by little and the next thing you know my boss is having an ethics talk with me. The good news is that I wasn’t having ethics problems with my customers be dishonest or anything. The bad news is that I was having ethics problems in the way I was treating my fellow employees. I know where I got off center.

There are a couple of guys I work with that have basically zero morals and I let their behavior affect me. One of the guys sells quite a few cars and he will do whatever he can to get your customer away from you. If your headed for a customer he will take off running and cut you off to get to the customer first. He will then tell you that he is exempt from the rules because he sells so many cars. My problem is that I let this guy get under my skin and that was wrong of me.

I had to take a step back today and reexamine where I’m at. I had to once again to make the decision that I’m going to let God fight my battles for me. I was wrong to try and pay back this guy for what he did to me. Like I said, my battle belongs to God. 1 Peter 3:9 says “Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it.”

The lesson learned today: Don’t repay evil with evil, rather do what’s right in the sight of God and he will bless you.

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

RUN! RUN! RUN!

2006-11-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

Wow, I can’t believe it! It’s been almost six weeks since my last blog update. Things have been going by at warp speed for the past month or so. With work I’ve been in training every morning, Monday through Friday for the past month. Then add to that I alternate working until either 7:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. every other night! When you’re working 65+ hours during the week you don’t have much time left to blog or much anything else for that matter!

This past month I’ve been fighting to get sales. All throughout the month I kept wondering if I was doing something to make God angry at me. Day after day I kept missing sale after sale. I was really starting to get desperate. One thing that became apparent to me though was that it wasn’t just me, I found out that everyone else at our dealership wasn’t doing very well either. In fact, car sales were way down city wide last month for some reason.

Looking back on the month I figured out that God probably wasn’t angry with me. In fact I finished the month tied for second place for the total number of cars sold. I finished the month on a high note selling two cars on the last day of the month. I plan on using this momentum to start this next month off on a high note.

Training should be over after this week and I’ll see if I can’t start getting back to writing some of my more witty blogs!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Landing In The Job God Had For Me

2006-09-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

Wow! Once again it’s been a bit since I been able to get a new blog up! For once I really believe that I’m where God wants me to be! For a lack of faith I thought that God wanted me out on the road driving truck but it didn’t take long for God to close that door on me! In fact I really got backed into a corner and was running out of options in regards to work options that I had.

I really didn’t want to go back selling cars again. I guess the biggest reason was once again my lack of faith. At first I really had doubts that I would be able to do well at selling cars again. I really started feeling God tugging on my heart and so I somewhat reluctantly opened my heart to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I really started feeling in my heart that God wanted me to get back into the car business again.

I went back down to Trinity Motors where I sold cars for a couple of years and talked to my old boss and good friend Jerry Thomas to see if he had any suggestions and referrals for me. Sometimes when you’re not sure about something it can sure pay off in big dividends to seek advice from a Christian brother or sister. Especially one that knows you and can encourage you!

Jerry was great! I was really uplifted and Jerry really energized me again by reminding me just how really blessed I am by Jesus in my ability to sell cars. Jerry reminded me that I was one of the best that he had ever met. Jerry and I talked for a bit and Jerry reminded me how much fun I had when we were really busting cars out! Another thing that Jerry told me was that I needed to work with a dealership that had a big inventory because I could move a lot of cars!

Jerry then referred me to go talk with Kelvin at Mike Stephen Kia/Carbanc just a block up from Trinity Motors. Jerry really felt that Kelvin and I would be a good match. It must have been leading of the Holy Spirit because Kelvin and I immediately hit it off!

I went in and met with Kelvin and gave Kelvin my resume. Kelvin interviewed me and liked what I had to say and hired me on the spot! I guess I should say here that I really liked what Kelvin had to say too. One stipulation that I had made to not only to myself but to God was that I would not work for a dealership that sought to do things that I felt were ungodly.

Going in I knew a little bit about Carbanc as one of my close Christian friends was at Carbanc for a few years and one of the sales people that is now at Carbanc is a devoted, Christian Sister. One thing I found out in my interview is that Carbanc is not there to take advantage of people that have credit problems or are hurting in some other way, rather we are there to help these people. I came out of my interview stoked! I knew that I was where God wanted me!

I’ve been at Carbanc now for a week and I’ve already had the opportunity to help out a couple of single mom’s who needed a quality, dependable, vehicle. When a single mom or some other person comes in needing a good, dependable vehicle and I can help them out and we don’t rip their head off price wise or we don’t just try to stick them in any old vehicle that may or may not have a myriad of problems I feel good.

When at the end of the day I can go home to my wife and family, lay down at night and sleep comfortable knowing I’ve done something good to help someone out and I know that I’ve done right in God’s eyes then I know I’m doing what God has called me to do! What a good feeling! Another great thing that I am able to do is follow the vision that God has given to me. I am able to pursue my ministry goals and keep moving forward with my goal of preaching the good news that is Jesus Christ.

Oh, by the way, here comes the unabashed plug…

If anyone is needing or knows someone who needs a good, used car, truck, van, or SUV, or would like a new KIA or Mitsubishi, come on down and see me at KIA Carbanc at the corner of 31st Street South and Broadway or give me a call at 316-522-3435! I can work with anyone and get them bank financing! Come see me!

Advertisement over!!!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Our Home Makeover!

2006-09-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

What a day we had around our house on Saturday!  We were the recipients of a little bit of home makeover.  We had people here from Home Depot, the Wichita Police Department, and the Wichita Fire Department.  Click here to read about the story in Sunday’s Wichita Eagle Newspaper!

Thanks to the above mentioned people we’ve got new carpet in our home, an alarm system to let us know if Andrew tries to run off, and we also got one of our doors and three of our windows fixed!  What a blessing this was!  I’ll see if I can’t get more up about this later!

Be Blessed!  I Know We Are!  Hehehe!!!

BIG SCOTT

20 Seconds!

2006-09-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

I just read something that caught my eye.  According to Wharton Business College (U Penn) the average adult attention span is just 20 seconds!  20 seconds, wow, that’s short!  What Wharton is telling us is that if don’t have someone’s attention locked in just 20 seconds that we’ve lost them.  Let’s see, we’re coming up on about 20 seconds into this blog right now.  Are you still with me?  Do I have your attention now?

Emails are no exception.  According to the website MarketingSherpa.com emails are only open an average of 15-20 seconds too.  If you’re reading this blog at this point, two things have happened.  First, I held your attention span long enough in the email I sent out notifying you about this blog, and secondly, I held your attention long enough to get past the first 20 seconds.  How am I doing so far?  I guess the real measure will be is if I hold anyone’s attention long enough in this blog for them to email me back and let me know that I held their attention long enough to do that!

How much farther does this 20 second window reach?  According to the website TechCareers.com if the average job recruiter that is reviewing your resume does find something that catches his/her attention in the first 15-20 seconds your resume will probably not get much more review.  On the Quintessential Careers website (www.quintcareers.com) Katherine Hansen says in her article The Scoop on Resume Length: How Many Pages Should Your Resume Be? “Given that employers screen resumes for between 2.5 and 20 seconds, a resume must quickly capture the reader's interest.”  Once again, here comes the wow factor.  Wow, your future is in the hand of someone who gives you your first evaluation in 20 seconds or less!

Quoting Nancy Tierney from the website UnconditionalConfidence.com where she is discussing the art of business networking “The truth is that when someone asks you that question (What do you do?), you’ve got about 20 seconds to answer, spark their curiosity, initiate a conversation and create a connection. In 20 seconds, you need to be immediately interesting and captivating while communicating the huge scope of what you have to offer. No wonder we feel pressured and on the spot!”  How many times have you heard that you’ve only got one chance to make a first impression?  Now we here that we’ve only got 20 seconds to make that first impression!

Is our world moving at such a rapid pace now that we humans are now programmed to not focus on something more then 20 seconds?  Ever wonder why when you’re sitting at home, kicking back on the ole’ sofa, enjoying a nice mellow movie and all of a sudden, whammy, you get blasted with a loud, blaring commercial?  Advertisers know that if they don’t get you’re attention in 20 seconds they’re just wasting they’re commercial time.  A prime example of this would be the current Wendy’s commercial where a guy is eating a Spicy Chicken Sandwich behind a screen and right at 20 seconds into the commercial, ka-boom!  The guy explodes.  Time some of those commercials like that sometime and you’ll find that between 15 and 20 seconds something happens to get your attention.

So what can we Christians learn from this?  We’ve got 20 seconds or less to get someone’s attention with the endless truth.  When we present the Gospel to someone, i.e. witnessing, we need to have our act together and come out on fire.  The two techniques that I use that most definitely have the 20 second hook is either Bill Faye’s Share Jesus Without Fear or Kirk Cameron/Ray Comfort’s Way of the Master which is available online a www.WayOfTheMaster.com.

So how did I do?  Did I hold your attention all of the way through this blog?  Did I hook you within 20 seconds?  Just remember we’ve only got 20 seconds, the length of time it took for you to read this paragraph.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

The Moon Shines Bright!

2006-09-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here we go again!  Here’s a story that I wrote for my American Literature class in college.  We had to write about something that happened to us that was not good but turned out to be funny.  I hope you get a kick out of it!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

It was November 1976, I was in the Eighth Grade, and it was the opening game of the Ingalls Junior High basketball season.  I was the starting center.  The game started off great for me as I controlled the tip-off and as we went down court I broke through the key with the ball, shot, missed, rebounded my own shot, shot again and scored.  This was a great way to start the season, or so I thought.

It wasn’t long after that we had the same play set up again but this time the ball got loose and as I dove for the loose ball on the floor I heard it, a great big, loud, rip!  I had just blown out my basketball uniform shorts!  To make matters worse I had only a jock strap on under my shorts!  As I stood to my feet I heard the crowd roaring with laughter!  Was I ever embarrassed!

I looked over at our coach who was trying his darnedest not to bust a gut to loud laughing and he just signaled me to the dressing room.  I left the floor to hoots and hollers.  I can only imagine how red my face was.  Looking back I’m really surprised that I was traumatized for life over what had just happened!

I was so shocked over what had just happened that I just went back to the locker room, switched to my practice shorts and came back out.  When I came out the coach put me right back in.  As I went in all I could hear was shouts such as “Hey Scott, check your shorts!” or someone saying loudly “RIP!”  It took me a bit to get back into the game, but I stood firm and I wound up having a pretty good game.

I guess you could call this one of those character building events in your life.  I don’t know what else you would call it!  Even now, thirty years later, I can still look back at that one event and laugh about it.  You know, that on event became one of the highlights of my Junior High years.  What started out as one of the most traumatic events of when I was in school wound up being one of the most hilarious!

My Spiritual Journey

2006-09-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here’s another paper I wrote for college.  I had to write about an event that was “emotionally significant” in my life.  I wrote about my Spiritual journey that led up to me getting saved.  This is something that I encourage everyone to do.  Write down how you got saved and share it with others.  Let your testimony reach out to both glorify Jesus and to let others hear what Jesus saved you from.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

My spiritual journey and my walk with God has been quite an adventure to say the least.  This journey started at a very early age.  After my parents brought me home from the hospital after I was born the first place my parents took me was to church.  When I was a child a do not remember a time when I was not in church.  In fact to this day I still remember not being able to sit still in church and my Mom taking me outside and lighting a fire on my bottom to get me to behave!  After I got into grade school I started to do better and I didn’t get near as many spankings on Sunday mornings!

As the years went on one that was always a constant in my life was going to church.  In fact when I was in the third or fourth grade my Dad was elected as a deacon of the church, a high honor at that time.  Only the most respected men of the community became deacons in the church.  Once my Dad became a deacon it meant that when the church doors were open we were there.  My Dad continued to serve as a deacon up until the time when he passed away when I was in the fifth grade.

After my Dad passed away the church was one of the few rocks in my life that I had left.  We lived a half block away from the church in the small town of Ingalls, KS.  Ingalls was so small that we only had one restaurant, one small grocery store, and one bar.  The restaurant and the bar both closed at six p.m. and I was too young for the bar so that meant the only thing to do on Sunday and Wednesday evenings was to go to church.  When your only choice is to sit at home and choose between three TV channels or church it makes the choice pretty easy.

I accepted Jesus as my savior and was baptized when I was twelve.  I stayed committed to Jesus up until I was about sixteen or so.  Somewhere around turning sixteen, getting my full drivers license, and having the freedom to run I started putting God on the back burner.  This continued for about three years.  Somewhere around when I was nineteen or so I forgot all about God.  I had a fast car, girlfriends, and plenty of money for beer.  What more could a guy ask for!  By the time I was twenty God was no where to be found in my life.  I was on the fast road to Hell.

I may have known God at one time but in the early Eighties I was the definition of a heathen.  By the time I was twenty four I was drinking heavy and I had an addiction to pornography that was out of this world.  It was at about this time that I really started to have a hole in my heart.  I had a deep void inside of me.  This was a void that I could not explain.

I started doing some searching trying to find an answer to this void.  Looking back I find it interesting some of the different people that God brought across my path in an effort to bring me back.  Two of the men that I had to see on a daily basis at work were both really awesome Christian guys.  Seeing these guys made that void worse.  I saw them and what they had and that hole inside of me got bigger and bigger.

Things came to a head in 1997 when I stopped by a buddy of mine, Tom’s place one Sunday afternoon.  I had been drinking and was starting to feel no pain so to say.  I asked Tom what he was up to and Tom told me that he was getting ready to go to a church with a cute girl for the first time.  Tom then said to me “You’re going with me.”  I don’t know why but without thinking I said “OK.”  I stopped and looked around at who had just agreed for me to go as I sure didn’t think it was me but there was no one else in the room.  I was stuck.  I said I would go so I was going!

Tom got me cleaned up and off to church we went.  We were late when we got there and the service had already started.  It didn’t matter to Tom, he grabbed me and we walked almost to the front and found a seat next to this cute girl he had told me about.  Keep in mind here that I had not been in church in quite some time and I had never before been in a church where people were really happy to be there.

These people were weird to me.  They were all singing praises, waving their arms in the air, and they were dancing!  Whoa!  I was blown away!  In fact I was awestruck!  My first thoughts were “Man, this is really, really kewl!”  I wasn’t sure what it was that they had but I knew they had something that I didn’t have!

After the service all kinds of people came up to me and shook my hand and said “Welcome!”  I never saw anything like this ever before in my life.  We finally headed on home and I knew in my heart that I wanted more of what I had experienced that evening!  During the next couple of days different people in the church made contact with me to encourage me to come again.  I thought “Wow, someone actually care about me!  This is really even more kewl now!

Wednesday evening came and I was found at the church once again with Tom of course.  After the service we all went out to get a bite and to talk.  Every evening after that for the rest of the week Tom and I would get together with some of the other young adults with the church and talk.  Sunday morning came and I knew that I had to do something, I had to have what these other people had!  I wanted it and the it was Jesus!

After a wonderful time of praise and worship and a powerful, powerful message the Pastor made an impassioned altar call.  Both Tom and I went forward.  All of a sudden that void in my life disappeared!  Right then and there I met the real Jesus and he met me and it was a joyful reunion!  I left that church that day knowing Jesus personally as my personal Savior.  That was something that never before had I had that in my life!

We went back to church that evening and about midway through the service Tom and I went forward for prayer.  It was at that point that I really and truly repented of my sins.  I laid my sins out and Jesus took them away!  I cried like a baby!  The weight of the world had been taken off of my shoulders!  It was at that point that I realized just what it was that Jesus saved me from and I was ecstatic!  I realized that I had been a condemned man and I was headed to hell for all eternity and at that moment Jesus stepped in and took my punishment and I was suddenly free!  That’s right, a man justly sentenced to death and all of a sudden freedom!

It was the most exciting day of my life!  The story doesn’t just end there though.  In fact the story just begins there.  That was the first day of being born again.  It was the start of a new life for me.

Me and My Goals... A Little Bit About Me!

2006-09-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

Here’s something that I thought that I’d throw up here on my blog.  For English in college I had to write a paper entitled “You an Your Goals.”  This is me and this is where I’m at.  I hope and pray that with me opening up that maybe others will be encouraged to open up and let some of their stuff out too.

Be Bleesed!

BIG SCOTT

First, let me tell you a little bit about me.  I’m a 43 year old guy that is married to wonderful woman named Pam and we’ve been blessed with six kids and one grandkid so far.  Pam had two kids already when we met in 1991.  In 1992 we married and along the way we’ve been blessed with four more kids.  In February of this year our oldest daughter and her husband blessed us with our first grandson.

As far as being married goes Pam and I have been married a little over seven years this time.  I say this time because we’ve been married twice now.  We were first married in 1992 and that lasted until 1996.  In 1996 we divorced and were divorced until we were remarried in December of 1999.  People ask why we got remarried and I jokingly tell people it’s because Pam couldn’t stand to live without me and I couldn’t afford the alimony!  This always, most certainly brings forth at least a shoulder slap and some sort of rebuke from my wife!

The truth as to why we were divorced is that I was not a happy and healthy guy to be around when we were divorced.  I had separated myself from God and was living a life that was overbearing and without love.  To say that I was somewhat overbearing would be an incredible understatement.  How my wife put up with me as long as she did is beyond me.

It is a true miracle that we were able to get remarried.  Looking back it is totally awesome seeing the different people that God brought into my life, the doors that were closed, and the very few choices that I had in my life during the three years that we were divorced.  The changes that God made in my life in those three short years were nothing short of miraculous.  I went from the king of my world in which I was quite simply a pompous ass to a much more humble and loving man.  A man that not only could God do something with but a man that my wife could love again.  I also was able to be a father to our children again.

After we were remarried I continued to do better and was finally able to quit job hopping all of the time.  In the past I had a problem with sometimes not holding a job for more then three months at a time.  If I held a job for a year it was considered a miracle.  The fact remained however that I still had some instability, an instability that I just couldn’t get a grip on.  I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know where to go or where to turn.  Add to that I had an unfounded fear of what would happen to me if I sought help with this instability.

In April of 2005 my world started to come crashing down around me.  I had no choice but to seek professional help with my problems, my instabilities.  After a fair amount of testing and talking I was found to have Bipolar Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD).  These three are often intertwined as is the case with myself.

With my Bipolar Disorder I would suffer from extended periods of euphoric highs which would be capped with me having a mental crash.  When I was on the euphoric highs my ADHD would really kick in.  Short term memory loss and loss of long term direction in my life is something that in the past has been something that has always haunted me.  Add to this mix OCD and you’ve really got a mess.

As far as my OCD goes in the past couple of years I finally managed to control my OCD by doing two things.  First I found that if I stayed obsessed with God then by OCD doesn’t get me into trouble.  Secondly my doctor has found a great medication for me to help me with my OCD.  The OCD was the worst issue I had to deal with as it was the one issue that was the hardest to deal with.  Dealing with my OCD meant a lifestyle change.  I also had to repent before God for letting myself allow my OCD to drag me into self destructive activities and then I had to ask God to help me focus my OCD ob him.

After working for about a year to get a balance of meds and therapy I am happy to report that I now am doing better then I’ve done in close to thirty years!  How wonderful it feels to finally be stable again!  One of the greatest feelings that I have now is that the instability is all but gone.  Once in a while I’ll have a little bit of fluctuation or instability but nothing serious any more.  For the first time in many, many years I can once again start to plan for the future!

What are my plans for the future?  Where do I want to go?  I have a vision for the future.  A vision that I believe that is from God.  I want to preach the Gospel.  It’s that simple really, I want to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.  To enable me to do that and be effective I believe that God wants me to have a college education.

I hope to finish at Cowley either in the Spring or Summer of 2007.  From Cowley I plan on attending Tabor College Wichita and pursue a degree in Christian Ministry.  From there the Lord willing I would like to receive a Masters Degree in Education from Wichita State.  If the doors continue to stay open after Wichita State I would like to pursue a Doctorate Degree from Logos Bible College of Florida.  I can do my Doctorate studies right here in Wichita at Word of Life Church and School where we attend as members.

In addition I want to continue to grow not only the father that the Lord has called me to be but also the husband that the lord has called me to be.  I know that in the past I’ve failed at both a father and a husband but by the Grace of God and through the leading of God’s Holy Spirit that is changing.  Quite simply, every day, I want to be a little bit better father, a little bit better husband, and a little bit better child of God.

Oh yea, one last thing.  I want to get back on my diet and loose 150 pounds!

Fear of Failure!

2006-08-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

What is one fear that every person on earth has built into them? It’s “The Fear of Failure.” What is the number one reason people are afraid to step out and try their hand at something new? It’s “The Fear of Failure.” What is the number one reason that people are afraid to tackle a tough and demanding endeavor? It’s “The Fear of Failure.” I could go on and on here but I think that you get the picture.

The Fear of Failure is something that we each have to face from time to time. Right now the Fear of Failure is something that I am having to face at this point in my life. I have a decision that I must make in the next couple of days regarding the next few years of my life in regards to a career move since the doctor is taking off of the truck. For me right now the Fear of Failure is looking me square in the face.

Both the company doctor two days ago and then my doctor yesterday both asked me the same exact question. “What else can you do?” Wow, what a question! “What else can I do that I can make a living at and provide for my family and get us out of this financial situation that we’re in?” is really what I heard them saying.

This is where the Fear of Failure comes in. What do I do? What am I good at? What can I physically do? Who will hire me? What if someone hires me and I can’t cut it and I fail? I know that right now failure is not an option. My family is counting on me not to fail them.

This is really a test of my faith! I know that God has a plan for my life. I know that God has a great job for me. God just reminded me of Jeremiah 29:11 that God made to His people of which we Christians are grafted into. “For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

In addition I am reminded of Matthew 6:25-34. Jesus really nails here when He talks about a loving Father/God providing for us, His children

"So I tell you, don't worry about everyday life--whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Doesn't life consist of more than food and clothing? Look at the birds. They don't need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not.
"And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you? You have so little faith!
"So don't worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.
"So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today.”

Just to add a little emphasis here the Lord also brought Jeremiah 17:7 & 8 to me here. "But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.”

So how do I face my Fear of Failure? I must do as Jesus commanded in Matthew 7:7 & 8 "Keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.” I just have to keep seeking the Lord and asking Him which way to go and what I should do. If I keep on looking for that job, that career, and I seek the Lord in this, I will find.

If I seek the Lord, if I follow the Lord, if I trust in the Lord, and if I draw from the Lord, then borrowing a line from the show “Fear Factor”, “Fear of Failure is not a factor.”

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Really Not Stuck...

2006-08-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I wrote a blog about being stuck. I received some feedback about that blog saying I was really not stuck but I was at a certain point in my journey with God. I was reminded that we are really never stuck and we are either moving forward or backwards but we are never at a standstill point with God.

I received an offer of employment yesterday driving truck out of Wichita here. Today I went in to get my pre-employment drug screen and physical. Everything was going great until the doctor reviewed the meds I was taking for my Bipolar disorder. The doctor stopped and told me that I would not be allowed to drive a semi with the meds that I was on. I was devastated.

Just when I thought that everything was turning around for the better I get walloped. Tomorrow I’ll go see my psychiatrist to see if I can get my meds changed so I can get back out on the road. Right now it doesn’t look good but my wife and I are hoping for the best. All I can tell you is that this is in God’s hands.

I’m reminded of the story of Job. Job was being tested by Satan to see if Job would curse and blame God. Job was bombarded with loss after loss but job never would curse and blame God even after his friends were begging Job to do so. Job wound up loosing everything including his health for a time but in the end Job stayed true to God and God restored to Job everything that he lost many times over.

I know that I must stay the course. I know that through all of this I must continue to praise God. I know that God will somehow in His infinite grace not only provide for us but see us through this. God is a good God. I know that God loves both my family and me and that I can trust in Him.

I know that God not only has a plan for my life but that He also has a job waiting out there for me somewhere. I just have to keep praying and wait just a little bit longer on God to provide for us. This is a test. This is only a test. We will shortly return to our normal life in a moment.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

I'm Stuck!!!

2006-08-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been right on the edge, so close that you can see your goal but can’t quite touch it?  That’s where I’m at right now.  In fact right now I seem to be stuck there.  I have goals, I have dreams, and I have visions.

I can see my goals.  In fact I’m so close to some of my goals that I can almost touch some of my goals.  I keep having dreams and I believe that the Lord is giving me a vision for my future and for ministry goals for me.  Some of these visions are so close that I can see them happening, but not quite yet.

This is a very frustrating place to be to say the least!  I want so bad to bust out, to bust free, but I just can’t quite seem to wiggle free.  I was talking with my Pastor last night and I told him that if I could just get three good weeks of paychecks in a row the chains would be off and I would be free to run.

To make matters worse my wife and I have been doing the best job we’ve ever done of tithing.  This is the one and only area where the Lord tells us to test him.  I see me standing in front of this dam that is about to full to the point of running over.  Behind this dam is lake of financial blessings.  I’m standing in the middle of the river that runs from this dam and I’m saying “OK God, open up the floodgates!  I’m ready!”  I keep standing there and I keep repeating “OK God, I’m ready!”

I’m not sure why God has me here where I’m at.  I know that a great deal of what’s happening to me now is a result of decisions that I’ve made.  I know that along the way over the last year or so that I’ve been going through dealing with my disorders and getting them under control I’ve made some bad mistakes with both work and with our finances.  I also know that it’s time to move on and move forward.

Everything that I was hit with is now under control and I’ve got my life back.  Saying that I know that I’m ready to move on to what ever job the Lord has in store for me.  Even bigger I am not only ready but I anxious to tackle whatever ministry assignment the Lord has for me.  I anxious to find out what job the Lord has in store for me but I’m way more excited to see what the Lord has in store for me ministry wise.

One thing that I decided to do right now while I’m stuck here where I’m at is to keep witnessing for Jesus.  Whether its result’s of my actions, attacks of the enemy or whatever I’m still going to go out and witness for Jesus.  Even though I feel stuck right now I certainly feel free when I’m witnessing for Jesus.

A couple of weeks ago I took my wife out and we passed out Gospel tracts down at the ballpark.  The night before last we walked around Wal-Mart planting tracts.  I picked up this kicking little tract that when folded up looks like a $20 bill but when you open it up it’s only about 2/3 the width of a real $20 bill and it say on the back “Disappointed?  You won’t be with Jesus!”  Then it goes on to tell about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have had a blast with this tract.  I walk around and no ones looking I drop it on the floor or leave it on a display or some other place where people are sure to see it.  It’s amazing how fast someone will grab it thinking it’s real and just stick it in their pocket.  Others will grab it and open it up and with a shocked look on their face they will just stand there and read it trying to figure out what they’ve got their hands on.  Pick some of these up at your local Christian book store, they’re a hoot!

Anyway, I feel that this week I will break out!  I really feel in my heart that the Lord is going to release me to run this week.  Starting Monday I’m moving forward full speed and I’m not only getting me going again but I’m also moving forward and getting our family moving forward financially again.  Stay tuned here to see what happens next.

One last thing.  This past week I received what I feel is a vision from God.  I’m not free to say yet what it is, at least not publicly, but it was a huge vision.  This was the biggest vision that I’ve ever had.  I’m praying and seeking God to see if this vision was from Him.  I plan on sharing this vision this week with a couple of my spiritual mentors to see what they think.  Please keep me in your prayers over this to discern whether or not this vision was from God.

Have A Great Week!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

Summer's Winding Down

2006-08-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, this summer sure has flown by!  I can’t believe that school started today for the kids!  Add to it that my summer starts sometime around the first of April when baseball starts and for me it officially ended this weekend when the National Baseball Congress held its final, championship game.  In other words, as an umpire, my summer this year coincided with baseball.  I was one of the boys of summer!

One highlight that my wife and I had a couple of weeks ago was that we were blessed with about 150 Gospel tracts and one night of the NBC tournament we went down to the game and passed the tracts out to people between the games as they were both coming and going.  We walked around the parking lot talking with people and putting a Gospel tract in their hand.  My wife was pretty nervous about going down and doing this but once we got going she was amazed at how easy it really was to pas out Gospel tracts.

I’ll say this, my wife is definitely the outgoing person that I am, in fact my wife is scared silly to go out and talk to strangers.  If my wife can go out with me and pass out Gospel tracts it pretty safe to say that most any person can do it.  I hope my wife overcoming her fear can be an inspiration to others.  If someone is afraid to walk up to a total stranger and hand them a Gospel tract and talk with them about Jesus that’s fine.  But the question is what can you do?

I encourage people to go buy an interesting pack of Gospel tracts and just leave them wherever you go.  Leaving a wait person a tip?  Leave that tip in a Gospel tract.  Leave them on pay phones, wherever!  Just start leaving a Gospel tract.  It’s easy!  The point is that a person needs to hear the Gospel.  I’ve heard that it takes a person being presented the Gospel somewhere around nine times before they give their heart to the Lord.  If someone gets a tract that one of those nine times being counted for.  Is your tract #1?  #3?  #7?  Or is it #9?  We don’t know what number we will be but one thing we do know is that we will be the number that the Lord chooses.

Work lately has been pretty much non-existent due to the weather.  Working for a grass farm has kept me at the mercy of the weather and here in Kansas that’s not always good!  I decided I needed to find a new job and today I received a call from one of the top trucking companies in the company informing me that they had a position open for me running regional out of Wichita here.  This job will have me home almost every day with very few overnights and I’ll also have weekends off.  Add to this it pays almost double what my current job pays!  Once again it pays to tithe so the lord can bless you!

One thing that this new job will offer me is the opportunity to witness to other truck drivers and others that cross my path while I’m out on the road.  One thing that the Lord has been putting on my heart is getting out and sharing the Gospel.  The fire and the passion that the Lord has put on my heart to do this is a very consuming fire.  I am also finding that this fire and passion is not just being poured out on me but many others too.

I know that we are in the last days and God’s Word tells us that this is exactly what the Lord will do in these final days.  Joel prophesized in Joel 2:29 and it was repeated in Acts 2:18.  In those days I will pour out my Spirit upon all my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy.  Seeing how the Lord is pouring out his Spirit that this is just another confirmation to me that we are indeed in the last days.

I’ll try to post here on a regular basis on how things are going with this new job and about the opportunities that the Lord is bringing my way to share the Good news of the Gospel.

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

I'm Scared!!!

2006-08-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note…

Let me encourage you to check out John Hagee Ministries www.jhm.org. John Hagee is one of the world’s foremost experts on what’s happening in the Middle East and particularly Israel. Any Christian that knows anything about Bible prophecy will tell you that we are living in the final days.

I know that personally God is putting a burning desire in my heart to reach the lost. This is intensified just that much more by knowing that I don’t have much time to reach the lost. Personally I am scared that the Trumpet could sound at any moment now and we Christians would be caught up with Jesus in the clouds.

Why am I scared? It’s not that I am not going to Heaven as I know that I am, it’s that I know that there will be those left behind that I failed to share Jesus with. I am scared for those that don’t believe and don’t share my love of Jesus. I care deeply for all of my family, friends, associates, & others and I know that some of each won’t be caught up with me!

Please, I beg you, if there is someone you love or care about that you’re not sure that they are saved, please share the good news of Jesus with them! THERE’S NOT MUCH TIME LEFT!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

WOW! An Alarming Statistic!!!

2006-07-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I heard an alarming statistic, one that really hit home with me. I heard that 9 out of 10 teenagers in America right now don’t attend church on a regular basis. In this it means that only 1 in 10 teens have an association with a local church and attend that church on a regular basis. The criteria I believe for a regular basis would be at least 3 times a month.

Wow! I’m blown away! 90% of our young people right now are not being fed the Word of God! Flurries of questions come to mind! Where are these young people? If the church isn’t reaching these young people and filling them with the Word what are they being filled with? Why isn’t the church reaching them? What can be done? The questions in my mind go on and on but here is what I see.

First, I see this as a sad commentary on the Church in the United States. For way to many decades the Church in this country has sat on it’s hands and really not doing much outreach and it has also failed horribly in equipping it’s members, the church body, in reaching out to our fellow neighbors and drawing them in. Let me put it this way, when was the last time your church had a teaching on equipping the members of it’s body to witness one on one? If your church is like most you don’t have an answer to this question.

Secondly, it’s pretty simple to answer as to what these kids are being filled with and it’s sure not Jesus! We are now raising the third generation of MTV kids! In addition this generation more then any other generation before are becoming Internet Junkies! These kids are being bombarded from every side now with electronic garbage. Whether it’s TV, Radio, MP3 (Podcasts), Internet, Cellphone & Text Messaging or Video Games, the mainstream, secular garbage being fed to our kids today can be summed up this way. It doesn’t glorify God and a huge part of it is nothing but garbage!

Here’s the big questions: Why isn’t the church reaching them and what can be done? The reason the church isn’t reaching them is that the church remains ambivalent. Who is the church? It’s the people, it’s you and it’s I. When the church decides as a whole to reach the lost not of this world but to the lost right here at home, our neighbor’s our friends, then things will change and they will change fast! For decades and decades the church has relied on evangelists and preachers to do the work that you and I should have been doing all along. Churched have long sponsored evangelists and others to come in to try to reach the lost for us. It’s been easier to cough up a few bucks to pay someone else to do it then to do it ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to cancel these evangelist and rallies and traditionally they work incredibly well. We just need to start reaching out on our own. There’s a couple of methods/teachings out there that I’ve found work amazingly well to reach the lost. The one I’ve been using for quite some time with huge success is Bill Faye’s “Share Jesus Without Fear.” The other is Kirk Cameron’s/Ray Comfort’s “Way of the Master” series. I’ll get the links up here on both of these here on my blog in the next few days.

It’s up to you & it’s up to me to reach the lost and turn this country around. Talk with your pastor about this and ask him if he would be open to a series on equipping his people to reach the lost. I’ve got a pile of resources available for this. If you, your pastor, or anyone else you know would like to know more please contact me. I’m putting a teaching together to take to churches to empower them to reach the lost in their community. As I prepare to set out on this mission God has called me to please keep me & my family in your prayers as I know we’ll need them!

The lost won’t come in on their own, we have to go out and get them. We are the ones to complete the great commission. Jesus told us in Mark 16:15 "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere.”

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

A Quick Follow Up...

2006-07-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

A quick follow-up to my last blog... I spoke with a good friend of mine, Tuck, who is the head of the Word of Life Bible College here in Wichita about that blog and the yearning to lay hands on the afflicted and pray for a miraculous healing on them. Tuck advised me that if you feel led to pray for someone the best thing you can do is approach that person and ask them if you can pray for them & if they agree, go for it. Tuck told me “Don’t be afraid to be silly for God.”

Tuck went on to explain that sometimes God uses us in great ways when we are doing something we believe to be silly but yet we are doing what God has called us to do. Tuck finished by telling me to follow what the Lord has placed on my heart to do. If it’s God’s will for a person to be healed and we lay hands on that person as per our calling that yes, that person will be healed. I know now that I need to learn to trust my heart more when I know that the Lord is speaking to my heart and giving me instruction.

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

A Huge Arguement Within Myself

2006-07-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

Once again it’s been a bit since I’ve put a new blog up. This summer has been kind of crazy around our house just like it’s been around many of those of you who read this! Unfortunately work has been spotty at best with the weather playing a huge factor in how much I do get to work since I work for a grass farm. In addition I came down with a rather nasty viral infection that almost put me in the hospital.

It seems that silly me didn’t wear tights like you’re suppose too underneath my shin guards and pants when I was umpiring and my shin guards rubbed me raw in a couple of places, the through those raw spots my legs got infected. I tried to fight that off for a couple of weeks on my own to no avail and then in the time of a couple of days the infection took off and spread from my arms all the way down to my feet.

This knocked me out of umpiring for a couple of weeks and introduced me quite nicely to our new family physician and a whole ton of antibiotics! The good news is now that I’ve almost got it beat. A bunch of prayer and some good work by my doctors and I’m back up & going!

Changing subjects here something has really been nagging at me quite bad. I was at Wal-Mart a week or so ago and as I was walking back out to my car I passed a man getting out of his pickup and into a wheelchair. Something inside of me almost screamed out to do as the Apostle Peter did in Acts 3. Something inside of me wanted me to stretch my hand out and quote Acts 3:6 "I'll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!"

This set off a huge argument within myself. On one side was my fleshly, mortal man saying “Are you crazy? You’re not Peter! You’re not Benny Hinn! If you do this and fail both you and God will look like a total idiot!” Then on the other side of me was my Spirit Man, the Spiritual Warrior saying “Why would God only give the gift of healing to Benny Hinn? If God tells you to lay hands on someone to be healed, do it! God will heal them! Where’s your faith? Just think of all of the glory it would bring God if you walked up to a perfect stranger, someone that is crippled, laid hands on them and they were healed in the name of Jesus! Exercise you faith Man!!!”

What did I do? I did what any earthly person would do, I kept walking. In a way I’m angry with myself that I did keep walking but on the other hand my fleshly side was quite relieved that I didn’t try to prove myself to be a certified mental case! The one thing that keeps nagging at me here though is that I know that God gives every Spiritual Gift out to different people this very day. Is God trying to pour out on me a new Spiritual Gift? This is not the first time that this has happened, this is twice now.

The first time that I was called to do this was in a restaurant when a single mom’s little daughter who was about 5 was tossing her cookies in a trash can. I know that I blew that one. I could have simply touched her and she would have been healed. I have absolutely no doubt about it. I said if I was ever given that opportunity again I wouldn’t blow it. The question is, was I just given that opportunity again and did I blow it?

I know that I’ll be getting some feedback on this one and I do look forward to it. I’m looking forward to hearing more from the Lord on this one!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

F A I T H + O B E D I E N C E = V I C T O R Y

2006-05-31T00:02:00.000-07:00

Faith.  What is Faith?  I love acronyms.  Acronyms are one of the things that makes writing fun.  Here are some acronyms for Faith.  Fact Accepted In The Heart.  For Answers I Trust Him.  Forsaking All I Trust Him.  But here’s one of my all time favorite acronyms, Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him!

The last month or so has been a pretty big adventure in Faith.  The enemy has been throwing all kind of stuff at us financially.  My wife and I have just stood in Faith and trusted in the Lord to provide our needs.  Right now I really have no idea how the Lord is going to turn our financial situation around but by what I see in God’s word has caused me to have Faith that the Lord will provide for us.

I know this that in the past when times like this have come and we failed miserably because we did not have any Faith that the Lord would provide and because of that we tried to do it in our own strength.  When you try to do it in your own strength you do it without the Lord and you do it without Faith.  Jesus addressed this in Luke 12:28-30 “And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you? You have so little faith! And don't worry about food--what to eat and drink. Don't worry whether God will provide it for you. These things dominate the thoughts of most people, but your Father already knows your needs”

Kind of on a side note here, my wife and I met with our Pastor last week and we sat down and discussed in depth the call on my life to preach the Gospel.  Two things that were readily apparent were first that we need to push on until we have the victory over our finances so I can be released to preach.  The other thing that our Pastor whole heartedly agreed with me on is that I do have the call of evangelism on my life and in fact it is in the area of encouragement.

The one thing however that our Pastor shared with us that I somehow overlooked is that as the Lord is taking us through the times of struggle and growth that when we complete this journey we will have a testimony to share that reaches into the realms of the impossible, the realm where the Lord loves to work!  Two things that our Pastor admonished to do, which we are doing already, is to have Faith and to stay the course.  As soon as our Pastor told us that I felt the Holy Spirit reminding me in my heart once again what the prophet Samuel said in 1 Samuel 15;22.  “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.”  I shared this verse the other day and I guess I’ll keep repeating this verse here in my blog as long as the Holy Spirit keeps prompting me.

Let me leave you with this simple equation:

FAITH + OBEDIENCE = VICTORY!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

A Hero In My Life

2006-05-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you write you have the great privilege of telling the story the story of a person who is not only an extraordinary person but a person that some would even call a hero.  This story is about a person in my life who became one of my heroes.  Many have heard this story before but many more have not.  This is a story that I will be glad to tell until the end of time.

I was born into a small family.  My parents only had one other child besides myself, my brother Lonnie who is about fourteen years older then I am.  When your brother is that much older then you it doesn’t matter what happens he’s the ultimate in big brothers, the ultimate in kewl!  I was blessed to have my brother around for the first five years or so of my life.  I knew he was not only popular with his friends and in school but I knew that he thought the world of me and this made me just all the more proud of him.

When I was about seven my brother enlisted in the Army and it wasn’t long after that it came time for my brother to ship off to Vietnam.  I never did question why as I was always told that it was something that he had to do, I was told that it was his duty.  All I knew was that my brother doing his duty and I was proud of him.

Fast forward now to February 11, 1974.  My brother had taken emergency leave from the Army and this day my brother once again had to do a duty that I know that inside was tearing him up but never the less he held his head up and did it.  This day he had to come to school to pick me up and inform me that our Father had just passed away.  As he told me this I started to cry for lack of anything better to do.  I was glad to have my brother there to be a rock for me.

Fast forward now again a couple of years.  Once again my brother was on leave and it was just my brother and myself that were sitting at our dining room table.  As we were talking I asked my brother why he did what he did and why he chose to be a soldier.  What my brother said made one of the greatest impacts on my life that has ever been made.  What he said pierced me to the core and it is something that I will never forget.  My brother told me “I do it to give you the freedom to race or to do any other thing that you choose.”

To this day whenever I think about this John 15:13 (KJV) come to mind.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

To my brother and all of the Veterans who have given me the freedom to write this I very humbly say “Thank You.”

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

I Was So Proud Of My Daughter

2006-05-22T20:47:00.001-07:00

I wrote this blog in the hospital a couple of months ago while my daughter was in for surgery. In a way I wish that I would have got it posted sooner but for some reason I believe that now is the time that the Lord wanted me to post it.

One of the toughest things that a parent has to do is sit and wait while their child is in surgery. I was so proud of my daughter today. She didn’t cry a drop. I did find out however that during the past couple of days she did however run off to her room and cry a couple of times. What really moved me however was when I found out that she cried in her room because she didn’t want her Daddy see her cry. Apparently she didn’t want to hurt her Daddy’s heart.

One thing that the Lord has showed me through all of this is the “Father’s Heart.” In realizing how much I love my child and how much my heart aches for my child as she goes through this pain made me realize a little bit more just how much my Father loves me. I’ve also come to understand a little bit better how my Father’s heart breaks when I am hurting. I realize that my Father’s love is even deeper then I had realized before and I really don’t have an understanding of just how deep His love is for me.

Looking into my daughter’s eyes in pre-op as the sedation meds were taking effect really pushed my heart to its breaking point. All I could do was stand there stroking her head and tell her that I love her. She tried to keep a light sense of humor as the nurses were working over her and the doctors were asking questions but it was pretty easy to tell that she was pretty nervous. The one thing that I tried to keep reminding myself of is the fact that while she may be suffering some pain now that this pain will only last a short time and that in the long run her pain will be gone.

To me that sounds like a lot how my Father deals with me. My past has been filled with a lot of pains and hurts. Many of those pains and hurts need to be dealt with so I can feel better and be made whole. My Father who is the Great Physician knows how to best deal with my hurts and my pains. When he says its time for surgery it’s time to get rid of some hurts and pain. I know that in the short run it’s going to hurt to deal with whatever it is that He wants to deal with but in the long run it will bring healing to me and make me whole.

Just as I want the best for my children and as I want my children to be happy and healthy I know that my Father wants the same for me. Just as some pain must come into my children's lives so that they will be made whole and healthy the same must come into my life. But yet I am reminded that "with His stripes we are healed" (ASV)

Obedience Is Far Better Than Sacrifice

2006-05-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

It’s finally quit raining! I guess I should be careful how I say that though. Here in Kansas we gripe and complain how it’s always too dry or it’s too wet. For some reason it seems that we can’t find a happy medium anywhere. For example we were about eight inches of moisture short for what our average should have been for this time of the year up until about three weeks ago. The all of a sudden here come the rain and we are right back to our average rain year to date rain totals. The problem is that we got our moisture all in a three week period. That also meant that I didn’t get to work very during those three weeks.

However all is not lost though…

Since it quit raining I umpired 14 games last week! Some days I was scheduled at two different fields on the same day just so the schedulers could get there rainout dates made up. I decided that this week I’m just going to take a break from baseball and as long as the weather holds the 50 or so hours I’ll work at my regular job driving truck will be enough work for me this week. I really felt that I needed to give my body some time to heal up after working so much baseball last week. Umpiring that much baseball and bending over that much behind the plate puts quite a bit of strain on my not so young knees. Saturday and Sunday nights my knees and ankles were informing me that I’m not as young as I used to be and that they were not happy campers!

Lest I should sound that I’m griping I’m really not though. The good news is that we desperately needed for me to be working as much as I can to get caught back up on our bills and the Lord opened the door for us to give me the opportunity to work as much as I did. I also truly believe that the Lord gave me the strength and the healing to get through last week to get the extra money in. The reason that I say that is since we made a change in our spiritual lives a couple of months ago and put God first with our money and setting tithing above all else we’ve seen miraculous things happen with our finances. Without fail since we made the change God has opened the financial door to give us the money we need to get our bills paid.

Granted, not everything has been coming up daisies money wise since we started tithing as I still have to get out there and work to bring the money in what I am saying is that God has made sure the work is there to bring the money in and then God has also been moving with our creditors to have favor upon us. In addition we’ve been blessed with a miracle a couple of weeks ago that enabled us to keep our electricity on. This reminds me of something that I’ve heard over and over again but it hasn’t hit home until now. “If I would have known that tithing works this well I would have started doing it a long time ago!”

Even though we are reaping the rewards of our tithing the Lord keeps reminding me of what the prophet Samuel told King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:22 "What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.” Knowing that I truly don’t believe we would be reaping the rewards that we are now if we were not both seeking to obey the Lord and give the Lord our sacrifice through our tithing.

I’ll close with this. If you really want to see the rewards that the Lord has for you come upon you first seek to obey the Lord and to do His will and then give him your sacrifice through your tithes and giving. If you do this I guarantee you that you will start to see miracle after miracle happen in your life. I tell you this for two reasons. First this is what God’s word tells us and secondly because I see it happening in our lives!

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

RAIN! RAIN! RAIN!

2006-05-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

That was weird! I don’t know what happened but somehow I had four postings of the same blog and some of them had weird endings from others blogs. I’ve got it all straightened out now.

If you’re reading this and you live somewhere other then the middle of Kansas there is a good chance that you’ve not had to deal the rain that we’ve been having to deal with here. In the last two weeks or so we’ve had well over a foot of rain! We were in a terrible drought for the last six months or so and now all of a sudden we’ve got more rain then we know what to do with. I know we needed the rain and I really hate to gripe about the moisture but it would be nice if it would just let up some so I can get back to work!

School is winding down for both my kids and for me. I’ve got just one final to take Monday night & I’ll be through with this semester. It sure feels good to finally get through a whole semester again! I’m still not sure what the future holds for me as far as college goes. I know that I would like to try to finish up my Associates degree this fall.

Speaking of school, the other night in my Speech class I gave my final speech of the year. This was a “persuasion speech” or maybe more aptly named a “sales speech”. This speech was designed to persuade people to my way of thinking on a topic. As soon as the speech assignment was given I felt the Lord leading me to give the speech on “Why you need Jesus.”

I have to admit I was pretty nervous going into the speech. I wasn’t sure if my instructor would approve a speech on a religious topic but she did. I pretty much followed the outline given in “The Way of The Master Series” where you show people that all of sinned first and follow that with the Good News of the Saving Grace. The speech was to be between seven and nine minutes in length and mine came out to just over eight minutes. Like I said I was pretty nervous at the start but the Holy Spirit came upon me and by mid-speech I was flowing very smoothly in the Holy Spirit. When it was all said and done I received an A- on the speech but more importantly the whole class had heard the Good News of Jesus Christ.

I fell now that by following the Lord’s leading in this one endeavor that I will be more equipped, more confident, and less nervous or scared the next time the Lord calls me to preach the Good News. In fact I’m looking forward to the next time the Lord calls me to share. One thing that I’m doing now is writing my own Gospel sharing tracts and I am starting to work with others to take Jesus to the street. Stay tuned as I’m sure this will get exciting!

If anyone is interested in receiving some copies of the new sharing tract that I’m working on please let me know and I’ll be sure to get you some when they come back from the printer. Please keep us in prayer on this as we’re also looking to develop a new website to go along with this.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Obeying God Works!

2006-05-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

Once again it’s been a bit since I last posted here on my blog. I’ve been pretty busy with work and school and then add in to that the fact of our internet being down here at the house has made it kind of tough to post. Let's me see if I can’t get back into the groove and post a little bit more often.

Even thought it’s been raining a bunch and work has been sporadic due to the rain it does feel good to be back to work full-time. I’m driving a truck during the day delivering grass sod and I’m umpiring baseball most every evening except Sundays. On a normal week I’ll umpire 10-12 games. That’s a lot of baseball!

Being off work as long as I was drawing unemployment every week put a real bind on our finances. My wife and I decided that the only way that we’re going to get out of this financial hole that I got us in to is to tithe our way out of it. Since we started tithing diligently every week we’ve really started to see God’s mighty hand move in our finances. Miraculously the money has been there to pay our basic bills and needs.

A couple of days ago we needed about $625 to pay our electric bill or they were going to shut our electricity off. I really felt my heart sink when the Westar Energy rep showed up on our doorstep and said pay up or get turned off. I got the rep to give me an hour to get the money. Miraculously god made the money available and I paid the bill!

This is not the only miracle that we’ve seen since we’ve started tithing. About a week ago I was taking a load of sod from the farm out at Burton which is 45 miles northwest of Wichita to Winfield which is 40 southeast of Wichita. Apparently when I climbed up in the truck at Burton my wallet found out of my pocket and must have landed on the truck’s running board. Another truck driver found my wallet laying in the highway down by Mulvane which is about 15 miles southeast of Wichita and turned my wallet over to the Highway Patrol who then brought it back to our home here in Wichita and gave it to my wife. I had a substantial amount of cash in my wallet and the only thing missing was my pictures and some other unimportant stuff. All of my money was still in there! That’s a miracle, praise God!

It’s amazing what God can do when you follow His directions. When we started tithing and following in His will He started moving in our lives! When we tithe and give now we pray over our giving and now we expect the hundred fold blessing back! In fact when we go the Altar to give we pray specifically for what we need and what we are trusting God for. Right now we are praying and trusting God for the money to get our financial house in order specifically to get all of our bills caught up and for the first time in a long, long time have a balanced or better budget.

Like I mentioned in earlier blogs I know the call of God is on my life to preach the Good News. I have been at a loss of how I would be able to do that with us being in such a deep financial hole but now I see how God is getting us out of that hole so we can push on to heed the call that God has given us. I expect by mid-summer through God’s moving in our finances to have us back in decent shape! Now that we have a plan to get out of our financial hole I can start seeking God on what he has in store for me in ministry. For once I have a doable vision to reach my first love which is preaching the Good news of Jesus Christ!

One last thing…

A great big shout out to Timmy Mac and his new bride as they were united in Holy Matrimony Saturday! May Jesus richly bless you and your new bride Timmy Mac!!!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Hell

2006-04-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

In church tonight I felt the Lord speaking to me. As an angel instructed John to write down what he saw in the book of Revelation so I felt the Lord telling me to write down and share something that God showed me in the Spirit back in 1988. I have not shared this very often and I have never before put this in print but the Lord spoke to me tonight and told me to write and share.

Shortly after receiving my salvation in October of 1988 I had two very real and very powerful visits from God. The first of which I’ll just briefly touch on here was to empower me with the Holy Spirit and to give me guidance for the years to come for the ministry that God was calling me to. It was quite something and when God prompts me I’ll share it. But what God was telling me to share tonight was the second powerful visit I had from God via the Holy Spirit.

Most people have no conception of the real Hell. Many people have a picture of Hell as a place where all of their friends will be and it will just be one big party. Over the years I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve shared Jesus with that have told me “All of my friends are going to be in Hell, I might as well be too.” The truth is that Hell is a very real place and if people knew what Hell is really like they would be crying out to Jesus to save them.

One night God gave me a dream, a vision if you will of what Hell is really like. This is what I saw. I will follow this with Bible verses to confirm what I am sharing here. I was awakened in my dream to see people falling. These people never stopped falling. These same people as they were falling were screaming out for two reasons. The first was because as they were falling, they were falling and tumbling through darkness so dark that no natural light could penetrate it and they were terrified. People were also screaming because of the intense, searing heat. This heat was so intense that it continually melted the skin off of their bodies.

As they were falling and screaming they had to suck in air so they could scream. But every time they sucked in air they sucked in the gaseous form of sulfuric acid from the smoke of the burning sulfur. Sulfuric acid is better known as battery acid. Every time they drew a breath of this sulfuric acid it would immediately totally consume them from the inside out in excruciating pain from the chemical burns.

I just stood there in bewilderment as countless people tumbled through the darkness. I saw that every one of these people that were tumbling by had the same fait. People were screaming in agony, having their skin melt off of their bodies all the while being burned not only from the outside but from the inside too. But after seeing all of that, God showed me something even worse.

I saw a light penetrating this darkness. This light was a direct beam. It was not deflected and it hit every person square in the face. This light was a pure white light and it was not natural in origin. I looked at the light and I immediately knew where this light came from. This light came from the Lamb of God. I was told something that to this day I can not fathom or understand. I was told that the pain that is caused by this light is due to people seeing they are separated from Jesus and is spiritual in nature. This pain is far worse then the physical pain that I described above.

I turned and walked away. The reason that I didn’t understand the separation from God is due to me not being separated from God. I know Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I was told to remember this that I was just shown. At this point I returned to my sleep. When I awake the next morning I knew that I had been shown something profound that night and that dream, that vision would play a powerful role in my life for the rest of my days.

What does the Bible have to say about Hell? Here’s three scriptures for you.

Revelation 20:10
Then the Devil, who betrayed them, was thrown into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 20:11-15 The Final Judgment
And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to the things written in the books, according to what they had done. The sea gave up the dead in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead in them. They were all judged according to their deeds. And death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death--the lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Psalm 9:17 The Hebrew word for grave here is Sheol which means Hell.
The wicked will go down to the grave.
This is the fate of all the nations who ignore God.

I hope and pray that those that have read this are a little bit more moved towards Jesus. I pray that those that read this that know Jesus as their Lord and Savior will learn to trust Him more so they can share their faith. I also pray that those that read this that do not have a personal relationship with Jesus will be moved to seek Him and to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Celebrating Easter?

2006-04-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

So why do I celebrate Easter?  Is it because of a bunny?  Of course not.  I celebrate Easter because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  So why is it that I would celebrate a death?  Celebrating a death without resurrection is pointless.  But celebrating a resurrection from the death is another story.

But still why is it that I celebrate the death and resurrection of someone?  What does it mean to me?  It happened so long ago how could it have any bearing on me, you, or anyone?  All we have to go on is what is written in a book called the Bible.

First of all the death and resurrection wasn’t of just anyone, it was of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  What Jesus’ death and resurrection means is that since Jesus was a pure and blameless man without the blemish of sin that my sin was placed on Jesus and his blood was shed for me for the forgiveness of my sins.  Add to that the story of Jesus is not just written in any old book, it is written in the Bible which is the word of God.

First of all, how does one know if they have ever committed a sin that would separate them from God?  Let me cut right to the chase here and see what God has to say and how He sees you.

1: Have you ever told a lie?  Even a little white lie?
Yes?  God sees you as a liar!

2: Have you ever stolen anything?  Even when you were a kid did you sneak a cookie?
Yes?  God sees you as a thief!

3: Have you ever looked at another in lust?  Ever thought to yourself “Wow!  What a body!”
Yes?  God sees you as an adulterer!

4: Have you ever taken God’s name in vain?  God’s last name is not damn it!
Yes?  God sees you as a blasphemer!  An extremely serious sin!

5: Have you ever made anything more important in your life the God?  Do you put God first in everything you do?
Yes?  God sees you as an idolater!

6: Have you ever hated someone?  Jesus said that having anger in your heart towards someone is the same as murder!
Yes?  God sees you as a murderer!

This is just six of God’s original “Ten Commandments.”  I think most get the picture by this point.

If you, like me, answered yes to any of the above questions God says
He will not let you into Heaven because of your actions unless there is payment for your sins.

But why do we need a payment paid for our sins?  What does that have to do with anything?  The only payment for sins that God accepts is blood.  Paul said in Romans 3:25 “We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.”  It is by Jesus’ blood that our sins are paid for.  Furthermore Jesus said in Luke 13:3 & Mark 16:16 “And you will also perish unless you turn from your evil ways and turn to God.”  “Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned.”  So there you have it.  Believe in Jesus that He shed his blood for us for the remission of our sins, be baptized, and you will be saved and have eternal life in Heaven.

If you’re not sure if your sins are forgiven please say this simple little prayer.  A prayer is just simply talking to God.  Just say “Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner.  I know that you shed your blood for the forgiveness of my sins.  I now repent of my sins and ask you to come into me and be my Lord and Savior.  In Jesus name, Amen.”

If you just said that little prayer I believe that you just became “Born Again” and you are now on your way to eternal life in Jesus Christ.  Please let me know if you prayed that prayer or if you’re not sure.  Either way I’d like to visit with you and get you some information.  Please send me an email @ bigscottk@yahoo.com.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Great News Network

2006-04-15T00:44:00.000-07:00

I thought that this would be great to put up here on my blog.  The following is an introduction I wrote about me to introduce myself to others in the Great News Network.  I hope you enjoy finding out a little bit more about me and where I’m at in life.

Wow!  Am I excited to get hooked up with the Great News Network!  A little bit about me… I’m 43 & married to a wonderful wife Pam with whom God blessed me with.  We’ve got six kids, youngest 3, and one grandbaby, 5 months old.  I’m back in college full time.  I also umpire baseball full time in the spring & summer.

I was born and raised in a Christian home but I never repented of my sins & accepted Jesus as my Lord & Savior until I was 25.  I immediately went into ministry training after I got saved and took to the streets for the first time in 1991.  It was during this time that the Lord introduced me to my wife.  We were married the following year.  When we got married my wife already had two children from a previous relationship and the Lord has blessed us with four more kids.

In the mid 1990’s I got out of hand pretty bad.  I strayed away from God and thus I was not the Godly head of house that God had called me to be.  I was in bad shape spiritually, emotionally, and fiscally.  My wife had all she could take and while I was out one summer day in 1996 she loaded up the kids and fled.

Fast forward two years.  I was fighting to get my life back in order.  We both were attending the same church where we met and got married in.  The senior pastor acting in divine wisdom ordered both of us into counseling so he could have peace in his church.  To make a long story short 1 ½ in years later in December of 1999 my wife and I were remarried.  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such a presence of the Holy Spirit as I felt that day.  I cried through the whole service!

Fast forward again too early 2005.  I knew there was something that wasn’t right with me.  I was starting to get out of control again and there was nothing I felt I could do about it.  This time I sought professional help.  After about 3 months of testing and research of my history my doctors determined that I had both Bipolar disorder and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).  With my ADHD I’m in good company with people such as Mark Lowery & Ty Pennington!

The rest of 2005 was spent finding a balance on meds for my Bipolar & ADHD.  Medically both Bipolar & ADHD have had more advances in their research and treatment in the past 5-10 years then in the past century.  Bipolar is now known to be physical in nature and is also proven to be hereditary.  I am so blessed for my doctors to have found a balance in my meds that not only allows me to function just fine but actually function most of the time at a slightly manic, energetic pace.  Jesse Duplantis ain’t got nothing on me!

Earlier this year God led me through end time prophecies in the Bible and opened my eyes to just how close to the end we really are.  Out of this was once again birthed a desire to reach and win the Lost for Jesus.  I talked about this in my blog a few days ago.  I said “It’s been a long time since God has put this kind of fire in my heart and I’ve just got one thing to say about it.  IT FEELS GOOD!!!”

I caught Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron on TBN about a month ago & I felt God speaking into my heart telling me to pay attention & dig into Ray’s teachings.  After doing some pretty serious research about Ray I found nothing but God breathed inspiration and I knew in my heart that this is where Jesus wants me.  The interesting thing is that there are already others standing with me here in Wichita with this.  We’re preparing ourselves for our first big outreach next month.  I can hardly wait!

I can’t say that I’m not nervous because I am.  In fact I’m so nervous that I lay in bed at night sometimes having to wait for the comfort of the Holy Spirit.  However I do know two things.  First, I doing God’s work and God will give me the words and the boldnest to speak.  Secondly, I am not to fear rejection for it is not I that could possibly be rejected but if someone choose to reject the Great News they are rejecting Jesus.

I’ll try to put up more as things progress!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

I Choose To Do My Best For God

2006-04-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

I just put this post up on one of our officials/umpiring forums & I thought that I ought to put it on my blog as well.

I find that my faith in God and the divine guidance I receive from the Holy Spirit has been has been an immeasurable asset to me. We are told that we need to fear God as our Father. My fear of God is what holds me impartial as a sports official. I know that when I step on the court or on the field that not only is it my job to be fair and impartial but that my Christian witness is on the line. In addition I know that some day I will have to answer to God for everything that I've done.

I try to have a quiet time with God every night. If during the day I called a game and wasn't fair or impartial how could I face my Father that night? I'm not saying that I don't blow calls from time to time, I do, and that’s just human. This is where grace comes in.

Romans 6:14 (NLT) "Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God's grace." I have the grace to repent before God when I do blow it. Continuing in Romans 6 with verses 15 & 16 "So since God's grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don't you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval." I choose to do my best for God and my faults, which God & I are working on, are covered by grace.

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Somebody Slap Me!

2006-04-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

Somebody slap me and get me going!  I’ve been doing a horrible job keeping up with writing my blog!  I can sure tell it’s springtime as everything is starting to go nuts around here!  This is going to be one of those typical weekends where I won’t know if I’m coming or going and it won’t be much better for my poor wife!

Starting tomorrow night my umpiring goes into overdrive!  I’ve got either two or three games both Thursday & Friday night at two different locations.  Saturday I split five games between two different locations and Sunday I slow down with only three games.  When it’s all said and done Sunday evening I plan on just going to church, collapse, and sit there and let our pastor pour into me.  I’m sure I won’t be able to do much else!

One of my goals this year is to reach out and both minister and witness as I’m umpiring.  I hope to be available for Jesus to use me whenever and where he should so choose.  This fire that Jesus has put in my heart to witness and reach the lost is something else.  It’s been a long time since God has put this kind of fire in my heart and I’ve just got one thing to say about it.  IT FEELS GOOD!!!

I’ve been looking around for a tract to use while witnessing that cuts right to the chase.  After quite a bit of looking and not finding one God put it on my heart to publish my own.  I’m teaming up with my good friend and brother in Christ Timmy Mac to produce a first quality Gospel tract that focuses on the Ten Commandments, or at least the first six, to show people how their sin separates them from God and why God won’t let them into Heaven just because they are “A Good Person.”  It will also show that they are doomed to Hell unless they repent and accept Jesus as their Savior.  On the back of the tract it will even have a place to do that.

We will be making these tracts available to purchase for a nominal fee to cover the printing and shipping.  Hey, if we break even we’ll be ecstatic!  We just want to get these tracts out and in to peoples hands so they have a hard hitting, attention getting tract to use.  As soon as they are ready we will have them on Ebay and hopefully in some of the local churches to start with.  After that we will just wait and see how God leads with the distribution.  A website to back up these tracts is also planned.  Stay tuned for more exciting news to come about this!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

A Father's Heart

2006-04-01T00:26:00.000-08:00

Over the years I’ve said that one of the best ways to understand how God has a Father’s Heart for you is to have kids yourself. I’ve learned more about being a Christian and how to approach my Father God from my kids then I could have ever hoped to learn from any other source. For years and years I’ve sat under some pretty great pastors and teachers but everything that they taught me really didn’t start to make sense until we started having kids.

Our daughter that had surgery on her hand Monday has really opened my eyes this week about a proper attitude and how to come see Daddy even when things are down. When she was getting prepped for surgery and was scared she wanted her Father. After the surgery she needed her Daddy. In fact as her Daddy I had the privilege to pick her up from her gurney and carry her to her bed. And this week while she’s been recovering she makes sure that every day she comes and sits on her Daddy’s lap and makes sure that Daddy puts his arms around her and holds her tight.

As she is my child and I am her father so are we children of God. Look at what the Apostle Paul has to say in Romans 8:14-16.
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family-calling him "Father, dear Father." For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children.”

If I come to my Father as my daughter comes to her father how much better of a relationship can I then have with my Father? My daughter moves her father’s heart. When my daughter comes to me and spends that personal time with me I can’t help but pour out my love on her. The same way it is with my Father. When I come to Him, open up to Him, crawl in His lap, and just let Him hold me, then He too can not help but to pour out His love on me. We are told in God’s word we need to be like a child. Jesus said in Mark 10:14 & 15 "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you, anyone who doesn't have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God."

To be as a child when I come to my Father means that I just have to have the faith to simply trust him and do what he tells me to do. I need to spend time with my Father on a daily basis. The more time I spend with my Father, the more I read what He has wrote me in His word, the more I seek to be like my Father the more pleased my Father will be with me. When my Father is pleased with me I can’t help but feel special and feel loved!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT

Every Day That The Sun Comes Up

2006-03-30T23:44:00.000-08:00

I was just watching Pastor John Hagee on TBN. Pastor Hagee was asked how long do we have to preach the Gospel. Pastor Hagee gave one of the best answers that I’ve ever heard. Pastor Hagee said “Every day that the sun comes up.” He went on to say that the “finish line is near and the checkered flag is waving.”

It’s no big secret that Biblical prophecy is coming to bear at a rate that this world has never seen since the days that Jesus walked the Earth. My personal belief is that we are getting close and I feel that everything right now is hinging on Israel and Israel setting its borders. I also believe that a great deal is hinging on Iran now and their development of nuclear weapons. My personal opinion is that we are getting close but we are not quite to the point of Christ’s return BUT I will say this, when I go to bed at night I’m never absolutely sure that I’ll wake up here on Earth. I know that the time is close enough that I might wake up in Heaven at any time with my Christian brothers and sisters.

Over and over again I hear in my head what Jesus said in Matthew 24:42 “So be prepared, because you don't know what day your Lord is coming.” With things happening like they are and Jesus telling us to be prepared it has given me an incredible burning in my heart to reach the lost.

I don’t want anyone to go to hell but Jesus is very clear about the fact that people need to repent and accept Jesus as their savior. Jesus said in Matthew 7:21 “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as `Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven.” And what is it that one must do to obey the Father? The Apostle Peter answered this in Acts 2:38 “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” And what happens to those that don’t turn to Jesus and repent? Jesus said in Matthew 25:41 “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, `Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons!”

As we see it’s pretty plain and clear. Everyone must obey and repent and be baptized. If they do that they will be saved! If they choose not to then it’s extremely clear, they will not go to Heaven and they will go to a REAL HELL and suffer eternal, forever and ever, in the pits, the fires of hell! Wow, if that’s not encouragement to reach the lost I don’t know how much more you could need!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT