He who was and is and is forever

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  Rev 1:4-6

 

Several years ago, I went to visit my Dad after he married his new wife, Pam.  I got a chance to talk to her one afternoon while my father was at work and she was telling me how much she enjoyed living with him and showed me the gift she got him as a wedding present, a new recliner.  After a few minutes of conversation she looked me in the eye and said, “Do you know why I love your father and I know he loves me?  Because everyday he gets off work at 5:00 and by 5:15 he is here at home sitting in his recliner.”  Now to most women the idea of a man coming home and sitting in front of the TV after work would mean just the opposite of affection but to her, knowing where her man is was the most important thing in the world to her.  She never had to go drag him out of a bar or call his friends looking for him, in other words she could trust him because of an established track record.

 

John prays for peace

Here in the opening of his letter to the 7 churches in the area that we will meet in Rev ch 2-3 John prays for grace and peace upon the Christians worshipping at each of the churches that this letter is addressed to.  Do you see the reason he can pray for this peace?  It is because he is asking for peace to come from the God “who is and who was and who is to come”.  John can ask for this peace because there has never been a single second in time that God has not been ruling over creation and there will never be a time that God’s control over His universe will be lessened.  Some of these churches were going through some rough periods of persecution but even in the middle of incredibly hard times they could know peace because Christ was still in charge of everything.

 

It’s still true today

God is still in control today.  There is nothing that could ever happen in your life that is outside the plan of God.  Nothing ever takes Him by surprise and nothing ever happens but by His sovereign hand.  Therefore we can have peace in the middle of even the most trying and stressful times because God is in charge and He makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him.  We who have been called according to His purpose, who have turned from our own way and declared Him to be our rightful King can trust that He will do what is best for His followers.  He has a long track record of faithfulness and there will never be a time when He won’t still be faithful.  The same God that formed our bodies in the womb and redeemed our souls at Calvary will bring us safely home to be by His side forever.  He is truly faithful, “yesterday, today, and forever”.

 

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Market Like A Dog–Get Where Your Customer is Going Before They Do.

In the two previous posts we looked what my dog Molly has taught me about marketing.  She is a rescue and has constant need of reassurance and bellyrubs from her owners.  Honestly, if it were up to her she would spend her entire life in my arms or on my lap and be fine with that. However having a dog all over me is incredibly annoying so she has to come up with sneaky ways to get the lovin’ she needs.   Today’s lesson has to do with the fact that she predicts where I’m going to go next and beats me there.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten up to go to the bathroom and she is right outside the door before I get there and if I don’t pay attention she sneaks in with me.  Once she’s gotten that far she knows she’s in!  She knows I’ve got nothing better to do than scratch her ears for the next 3-5 minutes!  She also knows that if she can already be on the couch before I sit down then the chances of being able to curl up next to me are better than if she were to get on the couch after I sit down.  I’m telling you she’s sneaky!

Where is your customer going?

Molly has hit upon a tried and true marketing principle; instead of following your customer, if you can get to where they are going before they do then you will have a better chance of influencing them to do what you want.  For instance, on my other site a company contacted us about a new product they were going to be launching soon and offered us the chance to use the product, promote it and offer coupons to our followers at the launch.  Once the product actually launched and people started Googling it to find out more information, whose site was at the top of the search results?  That’s right, lil o me.  That turned into a big spike in traffic, many new followers, and who knows the long-term residual effects of that traffic surge.

What’s the next big thing in your niche?

Where is your market going?  What will your customers and readers be interested in six months from now?  Anyone can be reactive but if you can get out ahead every once in a while it will make a huge difference in your readership.  Here’s a few ways to try to get the inside scoop on what’s coming

1)  Industry newsletters or magazines.  Especially if you can find one that has the equivalent of a “Gossip column” where info that is not common knowledge is leaked out.

2)  Industry contacts.  You will develop these more the bigger you get but there is no reason not to reach out to a few insiders and let them know you exist.  I sent out some email a few years ago to companies in another niche I’m involved in and that led to a few informal relationships that I rely on for “inside information”.

3)  Subscribe to everyone’s Twitter.  I follow some blogs for a certain segment of the publishing industry and there is one column in particular that always does a good job of revealing upcoming projects for certain artists and many times it’s just by reading their (or sometimes their wife’s!) Twitter account.  Listen to what’s being said and run with it.

4)  New ads.  Are you seeing new banner ads or pop ups for new products in your niche?  Are you getting emails advertising the next big thing?  Do a story on it!  If it takes off then you’ve got an older, established post dealing with it already out there!

There are many other ways to do this but they basically boil down to one thing, know your niche.  Be connected enough to it to be able to tell where it’s going and get out in front of it!

 

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Change your FaceBook Settings-What's on your wall?

Did you know that you can control the posts that appear on your FaceBook fanpage?  The default settings is to allow not only the posts you post but also any comments by your followers directly on your status bar.  (Not the comments under a post but the comments directly on your page from your status bar.)  For most people this is what you want but what if there is a reason to disallow direct comments?  For instance, perhaps your site is getting spammed with comments that are obvious ads for other sites or products.  Or perhaps you have a contest where your followers need to comment on your fanpage but you don’t want anyone else to see the comments.  Fortunately it is very easy to toggle between the two views.

1)  Go to your Fan page and click on the “Settings” link.

2)  Under “Default view for Wall” select the setting you want. 

That’s it!  Now either your followers will be able to see every status update on your page by anyone or only the updates you post yourself.  Enjoy!

 

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Introduction to the Trinity

When trying to define the Trinity, analogies fail us.  We can’t say that God is “like” anything else because He isn’t like anything else.  In fact most analogies people use only serve to illustrate a heretical view of God.  Some have suggested that God is like an egg, there is the yolk, the white, and the shell all comprising one egg.  The problem is this promotes the idea that God is 1/3 Father, 1/3 Son, and 1/3 Holy Spirit and all three combined are all of God when the orthodox view is that all of God is the Father, all of God is the Son, and all of God is the Holy Spirit.  God cannot be divided and this analogy compromises the simpleness of “indivisibleness” of God.  Another analogy sometimes used is that of water, water can be solid (ice), liquid, or gas (steam) but it is all water.  The problem is that water cannot be in all three states at the same time but God is all three persons of the Trinity simultaneously.  This analogy does a better job of illustrating the heresy known as modalism than it does the orthodox view of God.

Isa 40:25  To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

There simply isn’t a good way to illustrate the Trinity because God is utterly unique.

God is not bound by time or space.  He is an infinite being that defies description.

Here is our working definition of the Trinity shamelessly stolen from Dr. James White.

Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Within the one Being that is God - We are monotheists.  We do not worship three separate Gods but one God only.

 

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - God is three persons.  Not three beings that are one being or three persons that are one person.  Three persons that are one Being.  This distinction is absolutely critical to an orthodox understanding of the Trinity.

God is one what and three whos – One being and three persons

there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, These three relationships are eternal.  There has never been a time that the Father was not the Father or the Son was not the Son.  The Father did not create the Son.  There relationships are eternal
Each is not ⅓ of God

These are the Three Foundations of a clear understanding of the Trinity: Monotheism, 3 Divine Persons, The persons are Coeternal and Coequal

Every Heresy will deny one of these truths

The word “Trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible but the Doctrine of the Trinity is the only one that affirms everything the Bible says about who God is.

If you deny Monotheism-You get Polytheism
If you deny Equality – You get Subordinationalism (By which I mean that the Father is more powerful, or older, or more valuable than the Son or the Spirit, not that the Son nd Spirit don’t willingly submit to the Father.  More on that in a few weeks.)
If you deny Three Persons – You get Modalism (The heretical belief that God exists sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, Sometimes as Holy Spirit.  God exists as all three simultaneously.)

A correct understanding of the Trinity will answer most objections to it.  Here are three common ones.

If Jesus is God, then when He was baptized and the voice of God was heard, was Jesus throwing His voice like a ventriloquist? 

No, while Jesus was (and is) God the voice heard was that of the Father who is also God but a separate person of the Trinity.

When Jesus prays, is He praying to Himself?

No, He is praying to the Father.

When Jesus was dead for three days, does this mean that God was dead?

No, The Godhead was still alive and holding the universe together.  Only the physical body of Jesus was dead.

 

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Book Review: Radical by David Platt

Wow!  That’s probably the best one word review of this book I could give.  Every night I would read a chapter in this book and every night I was challenged, convicted and inspired to a deeper and more radical walk with my Lord.  The big idea of this book is that typical American Christianity has gone astray and led most of us down a path of the kind of consumerist, materialist, stuff-obsessed spirituality that is dramatically different than the faith described in the Bible.

 

Platt asks some very tough and difficult to answer questions that every Christian should struggle with.  We need to realize that every dollar that moves through our hands is there by the grace of God and to be used for His glory.  We re the most prosperous people on Earth but most of our wealth goes to making our lives easier or for our enjoyment, and while it isn’t necessarily wrong to enjoy the blessings God allows in our lives we need to make sure that we are maximizing our money has upon the Kingdom of God.  What would happen if every Christian committed to just $1oo a year to foreign missions?  What would happen if American Christians were intentional about making sure they were using their money in ways that honor God?  As the author points out, there is a world of difference between “How much can I spare” and “How much will it take”.

 

I cannot recommend this book enough.  In fact, now that I’m done I’m going to give my copy to some other people in my church because this message is too important to keep to myself.  Please get yourself a copy, read through it, and respond to the challenges the author gives you.

 

This Book was given to me for free by Blogging for Books for the purpose of review.  I received no monetary compensation.

 

Looking for a Reformed Church in Arlington TX? Visit us at ArlingtonBelievers.com

Market Like A Dog: Bark for Attention

In my previous post I introduced you to Molly, my needy Boxer-Pit mix dog.  She is a little insecure and absolutely desperate for attention, love and bellyrubs and has many tricks she has learned to get what she needs.  It amazes me how much attention she wants and how she always gets it from me, my wife, or my son.  She absolutely never goes without because she has learned exactly what to do let us know what she wants and we are happy to oblige.  A happy dog makes for a happy home, I guess.

 

If just standing in my way or getting in my face doesn’t work, she has a sure fire method to let us know she needs something; a loud, sharp bark.  The most comical times that this is used is when she must go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW!  She will get between me and the TV set or stick her nose on my laptop keyboard, bark and just stare at me, we all know that this means that we have maybe seconds before we will have a little puddle to clean up.  She also barks when it’s time for exercise, she will bring me her bone and bark, that’s my cue to throw the bone so she can run and go get it.  Her bark is a fantastic way to let me know that she needs me to do something.

 

Similarly, you need to develop ways to “bark” at your readers.  Something that is used infrequently to highlight the very best posts or at least the ones that you think your readers really need to pay attention to.  Let me tell you some of the ways Dian developed her “bark” for her site, GroceryShopForFREE.com.

Formatting – Every time the word “Free” is used on her site it is all caps, bolded, and pink.  Her frequent readers recognize this as a cue that she is going to talk about something that’s free in that post and nothing grabs people’s attention like free!  You might take a look at your site and if there is one subject in particular that seems to grab your readers’ attention more than other subjects, try to develop a particular “formatting brand” for that information.  Maybe that post starts with a certain word or phrase, or something is underlined, or a different color, or whatever.  You re just trying to develop a short-hand way to “bark” and draw people’s attention to something.

 

Texting  -  Twitter has a very simple method for your customers to receive your tweets directly on their phones in the form of a text message.  Instruct your customers to text “follow (your Twitter name)” to 40404 and they will get whatever you tweet on that account to their phones.  That’s a great way to cut through all the noise and get your info to your customer in a way that can’t be ignored.  One word of caution, consider creating a separate Twitter account so they don’t get everything, just the cream of the crop.

 

FaceBook  -  This one is pretty obvious but I want to include it anyway.  (Mainly so there are three things in this list!)  Most people have a FaceBook tab open in their browser all day long so getting your info into their stream is a great way to “bark”.

Just like Molly barks to let me know she wants something from me, you should take the time to develop ways to bark at your readers to let them know you want their attention.  It should be something that cuts through all the distractions and grabs their eyeballs and refuses to be ignored.  What are some ways you have developed to bark at your customers?  Let me know at my BlogFrog page.

 

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Market like a dog: She's always in my way

I have a beautiful American Pit Boxer named Molly that we rescued from the Arlington Animal Shelter a few years ago and she is easily the best dog we’ve ever owned. (except for maybe Patches but that’s a different dog and a different story)  Being a rescue meant dealing with a few personality quirks along the way, for instance she really didn’t like confined spaces in the beginning.  The first weekend we had her we locked her in the bathroom with her food and water and figured she would be fine for  few hours while we went to dinner.  I still to this day cannot believe how incredibly wrong we were!  We returned home to a bathroom that was absolutely demolished, in fact the first thing we saw as we came round the corner was her nose sticking out of the door and into the hallway.  She had actually torn the bathroom door up so much that she had created a hole big enough to get her head through.  If we had come home twenty minutes later she would have been out of the bathroom and probably would have started on the front door.  Thank goodness that waiter finally brought us our change!

Over time we learned each others personalities and she doesn’t do crazy things like that as long as I keep her in a steady supply of food, water, exercise and belly rubs but as I’ve owned her I realized that my dog was a very good marketer.  She had a list of things she needed from me and she knew exactly how to play me and my family to get what she needed.  She is like a part of the family now and fits right into our daily schedule but never goes without anything she wants and as I watched how she did it I realized that what she did was applicable for every blog site owner or anyone with a product to sell so over the next couple of blog posts let me share with you a few of Molly’s insights

 

She is always in my way

The first thing that is apparent is that she is always in my way and right next to me so I can pet her.  In fact she does this so well I think she is part ninja!  When I come out of a room she gets in front of me and walks backwards in time with me so if I suddenly get the urge to pet her she is in position to jump up and get her ears rubbed.  The amazing thing is this almost always works!  She has trained me well!

 

Are you in your followers’ way?

Don’t underestimate the value of having a constant presence in front of the eyes of your reader.  You should have fresh posts in their RSS reader, a newsletter in their inbox, tweets in their Twitter stream, posts on their FaceBook page, and any other way you can think of.  Each impression raises familiarity with your brand incrementally and makes you more trustworthy and authoritative.  I have a certain speaker I follow, I listen to his podcasts, follow him on Twitter, read his blog, etc. and in the middle of every show he has a commercial for a book that he has written.  Over the last year, the desire has grown to buy this book just by the sheer number of ad impressions he was hitting me with and this Christmas when I got my new Kindle and $100.00 in Amazon gift cards (Best. Gift. Ever!) that was one of the first books I bought.  In fact I plan on buying more of his books as soon as I finish this one and he was able to make that sale because he was always in my way.  In fact at this point I’ll probably buy anything else he writes from now on.

 

Are you in your customers’ way?  Do they expect to see you everyday?  Are you a normal part of their day?  What can you do to get more impressions in front of your followers?  Join the conversation at my BlogFrog page and tell us what you think!

 

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