Posts Tagged ‘ Cake ’

Double-Baker’s-Dozen Re-Birthday

On this day 26 years ago, at 6:46 PM CST, I bent my knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior. (If you do a search on this site for “birthday”, you will see the various explanations.)

I like to call it my Re-Birthday, as we call faith in Christ being born again. This comes from John 3 and 1 Peter 1. I encourage everyone to remember their own re-birthday (and if you aren’t sure/can’t remember, just claim your baptism day or your birthday.)

I also like to bake some sort of cake and then serve it to others as a way to teach self-sacrifice and becoming a servant to all as our shared salvation is celebrated.

Sometimes it’s messy, or we’re still a little crisp on the sides, but we have a sweet salvation.

This year, I am still helping teach Christian Worldview and Intro to Philosophy courses with 270 students (+46 for a CWV class I am covering for 2 weeks for a friend who had surgery) who were all born after this momentous day in my life. (I am also taking classes with fellow seminarians who also were mostly [not 2 of about 100] born after this date!) It is also in April that I am set to finally graduate with my M.Div.

There is a good probability I will be serving at a new congregation this year, but (as of today) it is still purely in God’s hands.

It is a little weird to think that I have been a Christian so long, especially having come to Christ as a teenager and now working with teens and 20-somethings as a youth pastor and college instructor.

God is so good.

Also, it is my mother-in-law’s birthday, so join me in wishing her a happy and blessed day! If not for her, I would not have my wife!

Also also, it is my friend Fletcher’s birthday. We met in seminary. He’s a TheoBro of the highest order.

God bless you, and remember that Jesus Christ is the reason we live and move and breathe and have meaning and being!

Be excellent and party on!

A Faith Old Enough to Drink?

Today is my wonderful mother-in-law’s birthday.

Also, it is what I call my Re-birthday.

21 years ago today, in a small Nazarene church in Bloomington, IL, at 6:46 pm CST, I realized that I believed the Gospel message. Jesus got a firm hold of me, and that is when everything began to change for me.

And I celebrate with a cake.

Why?

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
Luke 15:7, 10, 24

Just like the song says, this wretch was lost and dead, but now I am found and alive. This calls for celebration!

Being as I am now re-21, and I mentioned drinking in the title:

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
Luke 5:37‭-‬39 ESV

I am not who I was 21 years ago. I am not who I was 10 years ago. I have grown and learned much in Christ. I have been made new to carry the New Covenant of our Lord into our world as I commune with Him by His Holy Spirit.

Therefore, let us celebrate our common salvation and share this faith with our fallen world!