For The Cost OF A Cup Of Bucks… Ed Breyer
	Do you remember your last love letter? What did you do with it? I bet you probably read every word so carefully you got a headache from focusing on the print. If you were a guy getting it from a girl, no doubt you drooled over the fancy, curvy, swirly, love-like lettering from your one and only true love. If you were a girl getting a letter from you hunk there’s no doubt you were just floored at the thought that the love of your life cared enough about you to take time out of his busy jock-filled, flirty-eyed, xBox-skill-enhancing, de-odorizing day, just to write you. Of course your headache probably came more from trying to read his writing than doting over his every word. Nevertheless you examined every word and thought deeply about its meaning.
	Likely your letter started off with something like, “Dear Jerry” or “Dear Betty”. And it was all you could do not to pass out because the love of your life thought you were dear…Just think of that! You are dear to the person of whom…yeah I know…there will never be anyone like ever again…Doesn’t it just make tingle all over…(or make you sick) Of course it doesn’t stop there. You love wants to know how your day was. After sighing heavily you pause again to think that your prince, or princess, actually cares how your day was. It doesn’t matter that your dog of ten years died yesterday chasing your cat of 9 years into the street. Who, both died tragically after being hit by your best friend who was driving down the road to see you. Oh no, this doesn’t phase you because you have a “love letter”. One that will get you through every hardship you will face the rest of your life. Or until you get the next one…OR until you get the dreaded “Dear John” letter. Then your life is turned upside down. He or she must have lied to you in all those letters. How could this person do this to you? I mean, you dated for two weeks and you were sure this was THE ONE. How could this person you were willing to give your heart to just up and give you the Dear John letter? Of course you know the rest of the story. Your heart is broken. You don’t know what you’ll ever do. Taking your life becomes and option. And then your best friend tells you that so and so is interested in you…and the cycle starts again…somehow you’ve forgotten about your previous love and have moved on. If you’re fortunate enough maybe you can just “be friends” but we all knows how that works. So the great thing is, is that if you have a relationship with God you know that he is always there through the good AND the bad. In fact he wrote you a love letter that out lasts any love letter you will ever get. In it he says that he sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24) and that nothing will separate you from the love that he has for you (Romans 8:35-39). He won’t ever dump you for the next best thing. He said in it that he would never leave us nor forsake us (1 Kings 8:57). We have this letter from someone that was willing to give up everything he had for us(Philippians 1:6-7). So here He is ready to be there to comfort you. (Psalm 119:50 & 76). To listen to you. (2 Chronicles 7:14, Isaiah 65:24, Zachariah 10:6) Ready to speak to you. (Proverbs 8:6 & Psalms 85:8) But here’s the problem. If he never leaves us, why would he let your love life crumble? You know what? Some things just can’t be explained. Such as why there are only six hotdog buns in a package. But we know one thing is true. That he didn’t move. He didn’t go anywhere. So what could be the other option? I think you can do the math on that one. (Yeah I know, what’s with the hotdog thing? Just let it go.) Then again we could come up with some explanation of how God just didn’t want us in the relationship to begin with. Which could be true, but we get in danger of coming up with our own answers. Rather than seeking out His love letter as to the real reasons. There are so many professing Christians out there today that have a secular world view because they never take the time to read God’s love letter to us. They figure that they do their Christian duty by going to church once or maybe even twice a week and that’s good enough. But His love letter is so clear to us that it’s no about works. We can’t ever do enough to get to gain eternal life. Don’t get me wrong. Church is vital to the spiritual development of Christian but it doesn’t stop there. Most of us own a Bible. In fact most people, believers or not, have one. It’s like it’s their ticket to get into church. For a lot of people, it’s the only time it moves off of their bookshelf or coffee table. Barna Group, a Christian research center, has done a poll (in 2006) that shows only 32% of youth today read their bibles during a typical week. This is a little scary to a lot of us my age because when we’re old and decrypted these will be the ones making decisions for our country and for the lively hoods of those living here. The percentage of those that read their Bible goes up depending on their age group. This doesn’t mean that the older they get the more they’ll read. Actually, it’s just the opposite according to their polls. In fact most youth today will totally abandon their faith by the time they graduate college. It is also stated by Barna that only 4% of people will have a Biblical world view in the a short few years to come. How sad is that? God’s love letter to his people is being rejected and put aside as the world continues to pore out its idealistic reality to us. And how many of us fall for it unknowingly? Or knowingly for that matter. How will we ever be able to keep the morals and the values together of this great nation if we pretend to have a relationship with the one who we say we trust in if we don’t even know what he wants from us? The answer is; we won’t. So it’s up to each one of us to grow in the things of God individually and corporately. As the bible says we need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our God. There is so much that has been revealed to us in His written word that is so applicable to our lives. But how would we know unless we get to know Him though His love letter? This is where we get our food for life! This is our nourishment. How many of us are going hungry and dying spiritually from a lack of soul food? I want to encourage all of you that as we go into this New Year and the season of resolutions begin, that we take in to consideration having a resolve to get to know our God better. I propose that we take out the “s” in resolution and replace it with a “v” making it a revolution. The difference is more than just a letter. The dictionary says that a resolution is a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to DO something. It is the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action. But a revolution, as defined in the dictionary, is an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed; a sudden, complete or marked change in something. How do you nurture or govern your Christianity? What are you going to do this year that is different from last year? Are you going to change anything or just stay on your same level of maturity? If you want to go somewhere you need to know where it is your going. Transformation is a life long process but it needs to continue. If it doesn’t, transformation becomes deformation. We need a spiritual revolution to occur in our lives but it takes us moving forward for it to happen. Remember God is steadfast. He doesn’t change. We do however and we need direction and insight from Him so we don’t get lost on this journey. I want to extend a opportunity and challenge to you today. It’s not hard to read through God’s love letter in a year. In fact most people can do it in less than 15 minutes a day. I have purchased a box of 24/7 Chorological Youth Bibles in the New Living Translation. I am willing to give you one “for only the price of a cup of Bucks”. (More like a quadruple Vente White Chocolate Mocha with Raspberry and extra pumps) That’s right if you commit to trying to read through the Bible this year I will split the cost of one of these sweet Bibles with you. It’s only $6. AND if you complete it by the end of January 2010 I will buy you that cup of bucks. So really it’s like you’re getting the Bible for free. So please let me know if you want to take this challenge, Our youth group has decided to take on this challenge. Will you join us? Bibles are running out pretty quick so let me know ASAP.

What We're about

Welcome to CY, thanks for taking the time to check us out. We had the privilege of celebrating our 6th anniversary this year at CY, and are so excited about what God continues to do with our youth! We are a cell-based church and along with our monthly Tuesday night celebration, currently have 4 Youth Lighthouses available. All of our Lighthouses are student led, and in homes throughout the valley. We have what we might consider some of the best leadership around, and are blessed to have 3 excellent leaders as well as my wife and I. Our mounthly Tuesday night service generally includes fellowship times, sometimes games and even Double Dare EdBall, and always includes a worship time. We want to give it all to Jesus and put Him before anything else! Although, fair warning, this is probably not for the faint of heart, we get into worship! And we always spend time in His Word. We believe that the Word of God is powerful and affective, and our teaching is based totally on that Word. We want to strengthen students to seek after God with everything they have. Not to be people who go with the flow of this world but be the ones who will make a stand for the things that they believe in! We are praying for a generation that will be passionately in love with their Creator, and not just go to church. We are constantly amazed to see the kind of passion God puts into teenagers and young adults, and want to see those passions and incredible talents used all for Him. We believe that God knows what He’s doing! Thanks again for checking us out, feel free to check out all the links and resources we have available. Please feel free to give me a call if I can be of service in anyway!

Spreading the Light, Ed Breyer

Ed's Blogs

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Self to Self expressions on the Word & Prayer

So what is it? What’s going on? What the problem? Why are so many like this right now? Oh okay, I guess I should explain myself. But rather than have me explain myself I’ll let him do it. Okay self go ahead. “Well it’s like this; It seems like so Christians right now are falling at the way side. Not because they don’t have options but because they don’t like the options they have. We know that the bible says the devil comes to “kill, steal and destroy” and that “he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking who can DEVOUR”. But those that know it…don’t seem to care. Of course the devil is going to make things look desirable. What good would our enemy be at attacking us if everything he threw at us was easy to dodge? That’s not the case is it? He dangles his little fruit out before us and tells us it’ll be so much fun to indulge. Just once. Couldn’t hurt, could it? And then we indulge…and we like it…because our flesh is so weak.
We’re like kids drooling over the biggest shiniest _______ (you fill in the blank). We get so memorized by that item that we can’t stop the drool until it’s made us a fool. (yah, I know it rhymes…maybe it’ll help)

People have become bored because they lack the discipline that it takes to keep their Christianity healthy and alive. Without a doubt you’ve hear the analogy or something like it that says an Olympic runner can’t plan to run for his country without a daily exercise and routine to keep him on track with his carrier. If that same runner was to decide that it wasn’t important to continue in his routine for a day or so and pursue some other activity to give him a break then he would find himself struggling all the more to reach his previous potential. In essence he’s lost ground that will take even more effort to make up.

I propose that it’s not that we don’t want to say “no” to these things that take us off track. It’s that we can’t help but say yes. Only because, yeah….it’s the spirit that we’ve allowed to become weak in us, not the flesh. We’ve stopped feeding the spirit man. When the Bible says that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” Jesus means that yeah…the spirit man is willing but we won’t make our flesh yield to it, giving our flesh all the more power to make the bad decisions. This spirit man that we all have a responsibility to nurture has become the second in line when in reality he should be second to none. Letting this happen over and over again mal-nourishes the spirit man and lets the flesh nature gain more and more ground. We are hopeless in this state. At first it becomes the struggle that Paul talks about in Romans 7… ”not doing what I should do and doing what I shouldn’t” but when we just shrug it off as just another internal conflict aren’t we just, in essence, giving up and letting the flesh rule. Paul finishes of Romans 7 by saying this…

The answer IS Jesus. But the problem is the sinful nature. We have a sinful nature even after we come to Christ. The great thing is, is that we now have the power to overcome it. But if we let it strive we become a slave to it. And the last thing we want to do is show our depravity and come back to Jesus…The answer! A good friend who has recently gone through some of this and came out of it said something like this,

“You know Ed, I’ve grown up in a Christian home and I know the scriptures. But it wasn’t until my darkest time that I decided to lock my self in my room and seek some real answers from the Word of God. It was then that I had my first real revelation from God.” He didn’t tell me what it was but I know he had a God moment. He continued. “You know that scripture that says, the Word is living and active?” I nodded my head and said “yes!” “People have told me all my life that I need to believe that. That I should seek the Rehma moments in life. (Rehma is the Greek word for today’s vanacular-“Heavy Revie” from God/or more stochastically it means “revealed” Word of God) “it didn’t really mean anything to me” he said, “I mean I was told to believe it. But when I experienced it, it made all the difference. I mean the Word of God actually came alive to me and started ministering to me!” If you could have been there you would have seen what he was talking about. You could tell he had a God moment. For however long it lasted it’s what changed him at least for that moment. Literally, from the inside out. You could just see it. I believe these are the kind of things that make God smile. When we feed the spirit man like that everyday, we become the warriors that we we’re meant to be. It takes the feet right out from under the enemy. In other words it “de-feets” him. He has no ground to stand on when we stand on the Word of God and no feet to attack with. Okay, self that’s enough with the puns. They say he who would pun would pick a pocket. It’s my turn to say something.

“Okay, self, go ahead.” I believe what your saying is true but it needs a little something. “Oh yeah? Like what? A split personality? Don’t we have enough of that going on?” I bet you know what I’m going to say. “Yes, I believe I do” Well then, why don’t you go ahead and say it? “Okay, then, if you yield.”

I yield. “Okay, then. Let me start by telling you a story. There once was a young sea slug that lived in the depths of the sea. Good place for him huh? A sea slug living in the sea, very appropriate.”

Yes it is Ed. Get on with it.

“Well this sea slug one day meets a crab. While they were talking a giant octopus came looking for lunch. So instinctively they went and hid beneath a bed of rocks. While they were hiding the slug suggested that they pray. The crab said that he had never prayed but believed in the power of prayer. The slug said that he had believed as well but had never prayed either. Come to find out the crab never prayed because he couldn’t ever bow his head and the slug never prayed because didn’t have hands to fold in prayer. They needed to do something right away or they’d become the prey instead of praying. The crab was confused as to how this was supposed to help. Just then a jack in the box popped open (don’t ask) and slapped them both and said, “You water bugs! Don’t you see if that if you two don’t band together you’ll never have a prayer!?” End of story…BUDAH BUM!

How’s that supposed to help Ed? “It’s simple. If we don’t couple the idea of prayer with the Word of God what we end up with is an abuse of power. We get all the life changing benefits and power that comes from the Word. But if we don’t communicate with the one who wrote it, we end up with pure religion. That was the problem with the crusades. Rules without relationship lead to religion, and religion can have a disastrous effect on our testimony. Prayer brings us to the Creator’s heart. It couples our sprit with Him. The spirit man within us is fed not only with the nutrition that comes from putting the Word in us. But that nutrition becomes power food when prayer is added it’s like spiritual Fen-phen without the bad side effects and all the good results. This kind of coupling propels us into wanting more and more of what God wants for us.

Why is it we tend to pray selfish prayers more than communicational prayers? I think the answer is in the initial question we started this talk with. When we end up going off on our own we find ourselves getting into trouble and when it gets bad enough our prayers start to go something like this, “Lord if you would only help me this time. Or, God I really want this girl/guy to like me. Or even, if you could just make me a millionaire. Just once.” Maybe you have noticed or experienced this. Did you notice how selfish these prayers become when we stray from things of God? Why do some seem to seek God’s hand more than his face? Of course the bible says he will provide for us. In Matthew 6 Jesus said to look at the birds of the air the flowers, how their provided for and how much more important to God we are than those.

It’s like the kid who gets lost in the store without his mom. His mom gives him an opportunity to stay in one place while she shuffles through a clothing rack. Awestruck by everything around him he begins to wonder. Suddenly everything is out of whack. It’s not what he’s used to. He’s suddenly alone with nothing but his surrounding to encourage him. Mom is somewhere in a sea of stuff if only he could get above all this needless inventory he could see the way back to his mother. After running around in circles without finding the one who’s been beside him from birth he starts to panic. But he’s too small. He hasn’t grown enough to see above the junk so he calls out, “Mom! Mom!” Then what happens? You got it. Mom’s right there. She pops out from behind the clothing rack. She’s been there the whole time. Watching. Waiting for him to see the need for her guidance. Cut off communications; it’s the first act of attack by the enemy. If you can cut off communications with HQ then what you have is a bunch of babies with guns running around in panic. Did you know there is message in the Old Testament (Judges 6&7) that went something like that? A whole camp ended up killing each other because of confusion and miscommunication. Now it’s not like God is walking behind us just waiting for us to mess up. He is there, always there only a step away or a step back. However you want to look at it. But what He’s waiting for is not the panic moment when we need him the most. Not the desperate cry to fulfill a financial obligation. Not the selfish cry to fill a lonely heart with a material need. But he is longing, waiting for us to call out to him from a desperate heart. A heart that knows that without Him, we are nothing. He wants us to have the same heart that breaks for those that walk away from Him. Not to write them off as another backslidden soul. Pastor Jeff touched on this on in a message a couple of weeks ago when he said something like this. “It’s as if God is up there listening to our selfish prayers. Nodding and saying ‘yes that’s good. Come closer.’ The Word says this about Gods care for us

When we communicate with God and gleam guidance from His Word our desires become His desires. Or rather His desires become our desires. We become about the King’s business and we find our needs met and our wants minimized. Our needs become the wants that God wants for our wants which is needed to become that warriors that God wants to be his ambassadors. (Boy that was wordy, but you get the idea) I believe that it is high time that the body of Christ comes to some kind of understanding that things don’t just get better because time flies by. Yeah, we’re in tough economic times and it affects people in different ways. How you deal with it will determine your strength and character as a Christian.

So the way I see it is you can be a spectator or you can be speculator. The difference between the two is simple; the speculator sees the base ball coming and gets out of the way. The spectator watches it coming and gets smacked in the head. We’ve seen it coming and we know that it will continue. The best way to stand in the continuation of onslaughts from the enemy is not to stand there and let him beat you up. Get yourself out of the way by keeping yourself planted in relationship with your Savior. Stay in communication and read your field manual (the Bible). If you’re struggling in your walk with the Lord try turning up the heat. But don’t expect it just to happen. It takes effort. It takes guts. But most of all it takes passion. Where is your passion? What motivates you? How’s your conditioning? Where’s your first love? The lines of communication maybe down but their not out. No matter how far you feel you are away from the Lord he is only one step back. One call can re-establish communications. Pick up the phone today.”

My thoughts exactly. Thanks Ed. You're welcome.