NotAverageJoe

Still haven’t been writing much lately.  But, for some reason, I am up at 1:45 am and feeling compelled to write on my site.  It has been averaging somewhere between 15 and 20 people per day as of right now.  Pretty good considering I haven’t kept it up like I would have liked to in the recent past.  So, what have I been up to?  The answer is… Monday nights I have been going to Financial Peace University lead by Dave Ramsey.  Yea, he is the talk show radio host that you are thinking of and he is very popular nationally from what I hear.  He preaches and practices that you should only buy things that you have the cash for and that you ought to leverage nothing except for certain cases real estate.  Certain cases being that you don’t have the cash to fully fun your house buying opportunity.  I think it would take me a very long while to be able to get to the point where I am able to buy a house off of only cash, but hey, who knows what’ll happen right?  If you are interested in TOTALLY changing the way you or you and your spouse handle money, this course is a life changing event that I would not recommend missing out on.  I have ready many books on this subject (Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Millionaire Next Door, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, etc) and I feel that this is the best way to handle your finances, according to the teachings of the Bible.  Dave was a millionaire at age 24, and at age 26 he lost everything he had to foreclosures and the banks.  He apparently took the time to stop, think, and change the way he did business and now he has made his millions over and over again and he is passing this information on to those that are interested in taking it all in.  I am not selling anything for him, nor do I make a commission off anything that he sells.  However, I am going to be trying to teach one of his classes in the near future, because I believe in what he teaches really works.  I am seeing the power in my own life.  I hope you go to the site…. click on it in the right-hand column of my page and begin to see the power of it in your life.  I can only lead you to the water, you have to decide if you are going to take a drink from it.  On Wednesday nights I have been attending an in-depth  Bible study on the book of Romans.  Paul (formerly Saul) the author, is an amazing dude to learn from.  If you have a Bible, turn to Acts 9 (Acts, Chapter 9) to learn more about the famous “conversion” of Saul to the Way from his Jewish routes.  Romans is truly and amazing book.  He begins by leveling the playing field so to speak and points out that each and every person ever born (except Jesus Christ) is sinful and guilty of eternal damnation to hell.  He talks about the Jew/Pharisee, Gentile, moralist, religionist, and other groups of people that have the inherent need for a Messiah because “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Chapter 3:23).   My buddy Bryce is going to be teaching chapter 4 and I have chapter 5, so if anyone has any good teaching material for Romans 5, LET ME KNOW!!  I sure can use it.  Thursday nights have been packed up with my “Small Group” or “Hometeam” of which I am the current leader.  Hometeams are a bunch of people getting together to share life together.  We do things like Bible Study (though not strictly a Bible Study), socialize, and discuss personal and sociological problems occuring in our world today.  We have 9 people and are growing at a nice pace from the 4 people we started with.  If you are not involved in a group that meets every week or every other week to just do this kind of stuff with, I would highly encourage it.  Good stuff for the soul.  Weekends have been filled up with going to Bay Area Fellowship and running Open Arms Ministry.  Open Arms Ministry is a group of people (now a group of mostly people that attend Bay Area Fellowship) that go down to Corpus Christi, TX and feed the less fortunate of that area.  It has been great and the ministry is going strong.  We have been in operation now for almost a full year.  Hopefully, even after I leave TX, this will continue to be a blessing to all involved on the giving and receiving end of things.   Another weekend activity that has come into my life is horseback riding.   I used to be scared of horses for the most part, but after helping out around the stable, I am becoming more comfortable and learning to build a relationship of trust with the horses I am riding or am going to be riding in the future weeks ahead.  I am sure there is a ton of stuff I am leaving out here, but for now… time to run.  Hope you all are doing well.  If you get a chance, shoot me a comment and let me know what you think about the site.  And, if you know anything about web page design, please let me know.  I could use your help.  I am looking to expand on this site sometime in the near future.  I will definitely need help.  I am thinking about taking a course to do this some day.  Maybe one of those quick, expensive, make your own site in 5 days courses or something like that.

-J

“The only way to live, is to no longer fear death.” ~Pastor Bil Cornelius

For more of the sermon and to see it in video form, click on my link on the right www.bayareafellowship.com and go to message/music to hear the Easter message this came from. Very powerful stuff.

-J

“Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not
interested it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it
eating.” — Anonymous

-J

This is one of my FAVORITE quotes of all time!!

“Tell me, and I’ll forget.  Show me, and I may not remember.  Involve me, and I’ll understand.” ~Native American proverb

VERY VERY PROFOUND.   Have a good weekend.  If you can’t make it to church, www.bayareafellowship.com is the place to get an online dose!

“The direction you take today, will lead you to your direction tomorrow.” ~Jason Gertus (BAF student pastor)

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”  ~Henry Ford

“Almost any man knows how to make money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Have a good rest of the week!

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.
Ecclesiastes 4:10, NLT

Time to write on here.  I’ve been so busy with the air show in Kingsville, TX that I have not had time to write on my site in ages.   Standby for some writing hopefully soon.

J

“Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.”  ~M. Scott Peck

“The only way to live, is to no longer fear death.”  ~Pastor Bil Cornelius

For more of the sermon and to see it in video form, click on my link on the right www.bayareafellowship.com and go to message/music to hear the Easter message this came from.  Very powerful stuff.

-J

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” - Dagobert D. Runes

-J

Wow!  It’s tough to keep up with this blog site.  With the way we live our lives these days, things like blog sites seem to get put on the backburner.  I guess some people get others to manage their sites for them, but then it doesn’t seem to stay personal like a blog site ought to.  Anyways, I am in Nevada right now visiting relatives and it is AWESOME out here.  It’s the first time I really got to enjoy the mountains on a vacation.  Yesterday I was up at 10,000′ above sea level at Heavenly ski resort.  That’s even higher than the average cabin altitude in a commercial airplane (8,000′).  Wow, a person sure wears out fast up there.  I can only imagine (and only want to imagine) what the running and biking competitions are like up at those extreme altitudes.  It is no wonder that our olympic athletes train up here in the extremes so that when they get back down to “conventional altitudes” their performances are much better.  Hope everything is well with the readers of this post.  Get back atcha soon.

-J 

“You can buy fun, but you cannot buy happiness.” ~Dave Ramsey

Going to NV.  See you guys on here when I get back. -J

“Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.” ~Paul Foley

Thanks YOU!

Had an AMAZING conversation with my mentor yesterday!  WOW!  I am not going to get too specific here, but it is unbelievable how much my mentor knows about the Bible without having a Seminary degree.  Speaking of which, some people believe it is totally necessary to have a Seminary degree to become a pastor or teacher in a church.  What is your viewpoint on that?  Hit me up with a comment or response when you have some time.  I feel it is a good idea for the senior pastor to have Seminary training  but that it is not necessary for all the “staff” to have divinity schooling.  Interpretations and perceptions of what God is trying to tell us in the Bible can be wrong no matter whom you are.  James says in chapter 3 verse 1 of his book that teachers will be held accountable for their teachings.  This, I am certain, would make any pastor giving a message EXTREMELY MOTIVATED to be sure he can obtain what he deems the most accurate information and present this to the congregation/audience.  Do you have a mentor?  Do you have a spiritual mentor, financial mentor, physical mentor, ___ mentor?  Do you take financial advice from someone that is older, more poor, more rich, or younger than are you?  Let me share with you that I started taking financial advice from people that are older and rich.  Yes, I mean rich in ever sense of the word.  Not just people that are rich in monetary terms, but also people that are rich in terms of “personal success.”  What does success look like for you?  Success may look like being thrown in jail to someone.  I guess by their definition if they are thrown in jail they are successful in their own eyes.  I would encourage you to become successful in your personal everyday relationships as opposed to concentrating so much on becoming “successful” in the eyes of the world.  You won’t be able to take it away with you anyways.  At least, not that I know of to this day ;-).   So, I guess what I am trying to say is… go out and work on your relationships today and for the rest of your life for that matter.  I am not saying cancel your 401(k) or 403(b) or Roth IRA, in order to win friends and deepen relationships.  However, I am saying that relationships will last more than this lifetime (with God/Jesus) as opposed to money which will definitely only last until the day your time runs out here on this earth.

-J

P.S.  Again, I would challenge you… Who is your ____ mentor? Quick, go find one before you make another wrong decision that someone else in your shoes already has.  It is more efficient to learn from the mistakes of others in my eyes, than to learn from your own potentially costly mistakes.

Don’t forget:

ANOTHER WAY TO HELP AN INDIVIDUAL OUT IS TO BECOME THEIR MENTOR!

Bendiciones de Dios

“The biggest danger to GREATNESS is GOODNESS.” ~Jason Gertus (BAF Element Pastor)

Hope you all have a good week.

Family- hope to see you soon out west, but doesn’t look good for right now.

Instead of having a quote today, I chose to put this on my site. It is some truth from Pastor Jeske and the Word of God about possessions and making other things in this world our gods.  Here ya go…

Secrets Of A Happy Life - Don’t Store Up For Yourself Treasures On Earth
Are you interested in being happy? Dumb question—of course you want to be happy. One of the reasons why there are so many miserable people around us is that they are chasing things that don’t satisfy. One of the most seductive, of course, is money. Most people believe that having more money will make them more happy.

Here is God’s secret for a happy life—are you interested? He says in Matthew 6, “Don’t store up for yourself treasures on earth…store up for yourself treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal.” The greatest treasure a human being can possess is the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus Christ.

“Just because it’s your normal, doesn’t always mean that it is NORMAL.” ~Pastor Bil Cornelius

-J

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” — Voltaire

Have a good Sabbath Day.

Joe

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live
forever.” ~~ Gandhi (1869 - 194

Hope ya’ll have a good weekend.

J