Updates

I know I haven’t written a normal, coherent post in a while, so here it is.

It’s been a crazy past two weeks. I’ve been sick with the flu, and now have an ear infection that’s blocking out probably 80% of my hearing on my right side. During that time I haven’t been just sitting still tho, I wrote a book! Well, I’ve been writing the book for quite a while, I just managed to finish and proof it and upload it to the printers while I’ve been sick.

http://stores.lulu.com/martyoakley

There’s the website address to it. It’s title is WALKING WITH JESUS and it’s a collection of essays that I’ve written on the christian faith and walking with God in our lives.

Also have several other projects in the work, one of which will be serialized on cyberlightcomics.com  

More later

Books, Spirituality, and other stuff

As I sit here I have the flu.  It’s official.  It’s not “just a cold” it’s “The full blown flu”.  My temperature is bungee jumping and taking my normally calm mood with it.  My head feels like it’s stuffed with gauze, and my nose looks like I’m an extra stand-in for Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.

All in all it’s been a pretty crappy week.

So then why am I posting in my acerbic ways?  Mainly because I think I’m gonna start writing a book about my life, and how God has worked in it.  Not sure what I’ll do with the thing, but I’m gonna start a book.  Geez, why didn’t I think of this before?

Keep your eyes out, cause I’ll be posting chapters, articles, or whatnot everywhere that I can online to start garnering interest.  And yep, it’s gonna be about Christianity and Spirituality.

I think you may find it interesting.

Post # Blah

Here I sit at my keyboard, 5:25am on a Tuesday.  Why am I up so early?  Well went to bed early last night, and have a killer cold that’s kicking my butt from here to next week.  I get sick about once a year, and I guess this is it.

Got a Myoview and stress test on Friday.  Gotta make sure the old ticker’s flowing the blood right.  Been experiencing some minor problems lately, well, more than minor, but just have to take it easy.  May be offline for a while too.

We’ll be moving soon as we can.  That’ll put my online presence on hold until we can get the DSL hooked up in the new place.  Once I’m back online, I’ll be posting a lot more often.

Gotta go see if I can find some cold medicine in this house.

Open Hearts, Closed minds

Throughout the past few months that I’ve been a minister, I’ve run into something that ended up as the title to this post.  Open hearts and closed minds.  A lot of hypocritical nonsense that has found its way deep within the confines of the Church at large, and Christianity in general.

Let’s examine this in depth shall we?

We have a person who smokes, yet someone who is obese calls them down on it, or someone who spreads gossip.  Who is guilty of the greater sin?  None of them.  All sin is the same except for the ONE mortal sin, Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.  (And even the Blasphemy Challenge isn’t quite what Blaspheming of the Holy Spirit is.)  So when you see a brother or a sister in Christ smoking on a cigarette, try to remember what sin you are guilty of so that you don’t judge them overmuch.

You see, this is what happens to all of us at some juncture in our Spiritual walk.  We get judgmental about things that others do.  This is a dangerous line to walk, and yeah, it’ll give all Christians a bad name if only one is found doing it.  Christ himself spoke of taking the plank out of your own eye before taking the speck out of your brothers.  We are a group of hypocrites who attack our own wounded.

And we attack those who know not the truth as well, which also has to stop.  We’re supposed to be lights in the world, not a spotlight shining out a persons imperfections.  We are supposed to be a bit more open to the grace that saved us!  Not only did it save us, but it can and will save others.  But we need to show it.

All the trials, tribulations, tests, and refining that is done through the Spirit of God is done so that we may show grace to others, as it was first shown to us.  We’re supposed to be a fellowship of believers, also thusly the name for our Church:  New Grace Christian Fellowship.  As Pastor, I don’t judge, I leave that to God unless it’s a blatant repeated thing.  I try to live by Romans 6:1 in my own life, let us not continue in sin so that grace may abound.  (“Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?  God Forbid!”)  Yet I also know that perfection is NOT to be had on this planet while we are in our fleshly bodies.

Yet that should not stop us from striving for the High Calling of God:  Righteousness.  Not Self-Righteous behavior, but Godly Righteousness through which Grace abounds.

Welcome to the Blog.

Hey all, I’m Shepherd Marty.  Pastor Marty if you don’t go by the type of calling that Joss Whedon created in the shortlived TV series Firefly and followed up on in the movie sequel Serenity.

I’ll be posting here a lot now, glad to have found a new place to host a personal blog.  I got two professional ones already, one at http://revelationscm.blogspot.com and another found at Windows Live Spaces. I hang out online at a bunch a places, frequenting different websites, boards, and chats.

You need to get ahold of me,

Yahoo:  bloodstainedproductions
AIM:    bloodstained2001
ICQ:    496725178