Matt W Cook

I’m just a stupid kid…

I got my fourth Caedmon’s Call album in the mail yesterday. It’s the Self-Titled one from 1997. I gotta say, it rocks my face off! A lot of familiar songs that I love and a whole bunch of new ones that I now love. I recommend it to everyone. I have one more Caedmon’s CD on the way, 40 Acres which also promises to rock my face off.

Today was the beginning of the celebration of Lent for all you Catholics and Anglicans out there. It’s called Ash Wednesday, 40 days before Easter. This is the day where traditional Christians think through their own mortality and sin and the forgiveness of God. I think that these old traditions can still hold something special for those of us who have separated ourselves from the mainstream denominations. A time of fasting, prayer and serious introspection will do good in every Christian’s life. I think Ruth and I will do a little something this year for Lent, but I’m not too sure what yet. I’ll need to read up on it a bit more.

Time to spin up some Bus driving action. See ya.

Cook out.

Enter the contest!

Please click on the pretty picture below:

Open the window…

It’s a very beautiful day today here in St. Catharines. The sun is shining and the temp is holding at 4C. We’ve got the window open and we’re making curry and doing a little springish cleaning. I think we’re also taking the curry out to the park to eat in the sun, woo ha! This has been a great day so far, and it seems to be getting better. We’re meeting good friend Susan in the Falls later on today too, haven’t seen her for too long!

I found an old sermon outline I preached a while ago and I want to post it here. It’s a missions sermon. I gave 12 (sorry Jim Mitchell) biblical reasons why everyone should be involved in missions. A little disclaimer though, when I say involved in missions, I don’t mean that everyone should actually get up and go to another country. I mean that every Christian should contribute their prayers / finances / actions to the cause of completing the great commission, savvy?

Twelve Biblical Reasons to be Involved in Missions

1) We are commanded to with ALL authority

• Matthew 28:18-20
  

• “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore…”

2) The eternal is at stake

• Romans 10:13-14
  

• “For ‘whoever will call upon upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’…How shall they hear without a preacher?”

3) We cannot fail

• Isaiah 55:11
  

• “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be which goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the manner for which I sent it.”

4) Jesus is with us

• Matthew 28:20
  

• “…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

5) We are given the strength to do it

• Acts 1:8
  

• “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

6) God desires to display his glory

• Habakkuk 2:14
  

• “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

7) I’s worth it

• 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
  

• “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us and eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

8) Life is short

• Luke 12:19-20
  

• “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'”

9) It’s all about Christ

• Philippians 1:21
  

• “For to me, to live is Christ, and to gain is gain.”

10) Christ’s example

• 1 Peter 2:21
  

• “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you and for you to follow in his steps.

11) It is our purpose

• 1 Peter 2:9
  

• “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

12) That the Lamb may receive the reward of His sufferings

• Revelation 5:9
  

• “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people ad nation.”

Don’t worry, there was a handout when I did this, so they didn’t get lost. Remember, when I say ‘missions’ I don’t necessarily mean hopping on a plane. I mean praying for people on the foreign field, I mean telling neighbors and co-workers and strangers about Jesus, I mean all this stuff. It’s an encouragement for me to read this sort of thing again, especially when I wonder why it is I’m going…now I know.

Well, Ruth just finished making some strawberry kiwi milkshakes. I’m gonna drink one now!

Cook out.

PS – I could whip Andy Mack in a fight any day. I’ve even been asked to join a gang, because I’m pretty good with a bo staff.

Thank you AndyMack

Andy Mack did the following quiz, and since imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I did it too…and I think we got pretty much the exact same score. Like him, I’m like a hobitish wizard, but it seems that I have more wizard-like tendancys. My Gollum score also seems to be higher than his…what a weird looking wizard I’d make…

You scored as Gandalf. You are Gandalf! This wise, old mage is loyal and brave. He is known for his counsel and advice to his friends and allies during tough times. “All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you.” Gandalf 75% Samwise 75% Arwen 63% Eowyn 56% Frodo 50% Pippin 44% Gollum 38% Aragorn 31% Faramir 6% Which LOTR character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Do I really believe in this stuff? Maybe…

Okay, we all knew that Ruth was gaining in the gut, but it turns out that she’s not the only one that’s showing these days (and no, I don’t mean me). The child in Ruth’s belly now visibly moves every once in a while! I can look at Ruth’s belly and see the child kick from the outside!

Now, I don’t necessarily believe in this sort of thing, but I’ll tell you a story that happened about 5 minutes ago. I was sitting there talking to Ruth’s gut (leave me alone, it’s an expectant father thing) and I was wondering what the child would turn out to be when he/she arrived. I decided to ask. I said “Alright, now I want to know what you are in there. So I’ll ask you whether you are a boy or a girl, and when I ask the right question I want you to kick so we’ll know.” After I felt the child understood, I began to ask my questions. “Are you a boy?” -wait-…no response. “Are you a girl?” As soon as the words left my mouth there was a kick in the center of Ruth’s belly. Therefore, I am now sure that the child is a girl, regardless of what the pictures say. And if she turns out to be a he…well then father and son will need to have a little talk about lying, won’t we?

In other (and more serious) news, Ruth and I now have flight bookings on the way! They people at the agency got back to us almost right away and now all that remains is the payment. Praise God!

Photos for you!

Wow! Ruth has suddenly popped! I swear, two weeks ago she was half this size! Isn’t it cool? I think it’s cool, so should you.

I’m sitting here awaiting the arrival of two good friends, Josh and Lori Anderson. They should be here within the hour. It promises to be a very good weekend.

This is a pretty short blog, but that’s okay, nothing wrong with that. I’ll see ya soon!

Matt

ps – check out my Shawn-the-bro’s new forum right here.

Correction!

On December 14 I said that Isaac Watts wrote Be Thou My Vision. That is a blatant untruth and I don’t know where I got it from. Our dear friend Isaac did write such songs as We’re Marching to Zion, When I Survey the wondrous Cross, Alas! And Did my Saviour Bleed?, and I Sing the Mighty Power of God. To see a complete list of his hymns and poems, please visit The Cyber Hymnal.

-=-End of Correction-=-

This question was put to us in the last batch of comments:

I wish you younger saints with more living brain cells could answer the question you posed in your musings, why do we spend such a small amount of time on the things that will matter in eternity? It isn’t lack of knowledge – must be lack of desire? We are so double minded at times…

Although I’m quite sure my brain cells aren’t any more alive than the next guy, I think that we already know the answer. In fact, I’m sure that there are a few problems that we have that lead to this insanity of desire.

• We, as Christians, tend to focus on the wrong things. We focus on the form of religion rather than the spirit of true religion. Often we are more concerned with the colour of the carpet in the Sunday school room or the order of events in the evening service than we are about spiritual improvement and refreshment. When we have this mind-set, truly spiritual things become less important to us.
  

• Worse, deep down inside we just don’t care or believe. In fact, apathy about spiritual things and unbelief in them are the same thing. If I truly believed in the promises of God I would know that my life would have no better purpose and my joy could be no greater than if I devoted myself to the service and pursuit of God.
  

So what’s the real problem? I don’t value God enough. This is not news. This is no surprise. Every single Christian struggles with this (if you don’t please let me know). What’s the solution? Again, nothing new. Just the enduring, coronary pursuit of God through prayer, meditation, fellowship, etc. The more we know God, the more we love Him, and the more we love Him, the more we want to know Him. So, all we can do is continually re-dedicate ourselves to the Living God and fall on His mercy to allow us to hold on to that dedication.

Uh…pray more. Lots more.

Oh, and Caedmon’s Call is coming to Thunder Bay on the 16th of March! Joy!

Study, study, study…

Yeah, yeah, I know, I haven’t posted in a while, I’m a loser, etc, etc.

A few updates from Cookdom. Ruth has been to Mr. Doctor a few more times and has gotten an updated due date for the little child. We are now expecting his arrival on May 20th (Instead of the 23rd). That’s exciting! We are now only four (4) months away from the due date. The days are going by faster and we’re getting more and more excited. Apparently these last months are going to go by very quickly (not quick enough, though).

Our dear neighbour, Stacy (who is a new mother herself) has given us some of her baby gear that her son has grown out of, praise God! We now have a car seat and a stroller and a small library. Yay for Stacy!

Our Pakistani friends have come and gone, thus went one of the most encouraging weekends I’ve had for a while. Special thanks to Ben, Beth, Hilsy and Todder for a killer (and productive) weekend. Next weekend our good friends the Andersons will be visiting and we can’t wait for that. Ruth was just saying that she would love it if some of our friends would just stay for a week and not go home. Friends are good people.

I’m trying to devote myself more to the guitar these days. Instead of an hour every two weeks, I’m trying the whole ‘hour a day’ thing. There are so many things that I’d like to do over the next few years and it doesn’t seem like I have the time (or discipline) to do them. I want to become proficient at guitar, I’m trying to learn Urdu, I want to saturate myself in God’s word, etc. My only problem is that there are rarely actions devoted to these ends. On we go, though.

Anyway, have fun everyone. I’ll see you soon!

Khoda-hafiz!

What is the size of a large banana?

Well, let’s see…according to my dinosaur book, a T-Rex’s tooth was about the size of a large banana. Some books are about as long as a large banana. My keyboard is about 2 bananas long. BUT, the most important thing that I own that is about the size of a large banana is my baby! That’s right, according to one of our many pregnancy books, our new little friend is roughly banana-sized (18cm [7.2in]). Cool, eh? He weighs about 300g and is busily moving around and tickling his mother. (You may notice that I changed from calling the baby a she to a he. This is only because some mothers at my church looked at one of the ultra-sounds and claim that it’s a boy.)

Over the last few months Ruth and I have had many dreams about our coming child. Sometimes it’s been a girl, sometimes it’s been a boy. I remember one dream where I was a member of the X-men and we had to save my teenaged daughter from Dr. Octipus. We’re getting more and more excited as the days go by, boo ya!

This coming weekend promises to be a special one. The entire Pakistan crew is planning on coming over to hang with us. We haven’t had a chance to see them all at the same time, well, ever! I expect there’ll be a lot of Indian food and music going on!

Point to ponder:

Joshua was told to take down Jericho. Him and his 30,000 men. These men were not professional soldiers, they had no seige weapons, and Jericho was really big. Seems impossible, eh? Well it was! It would be total foolishness to attack a huge city like that and think of victory! Many godly leaders in Israel probably condemned Joshua of ‘not using the brain God gave him’ or something like that. But, sure enough, Joshua listened to God and Lo and Behold…the walls fell down and everyone (except Rahab and kin) DIED. Joshua wins. Something impossible to do was done, quite easily.

Joshua was told to take down Ai. Him and his 30,000 men. Ai was itty bitty. So small, that Joshua only used a fraction of his army to go get them. This looked like an easy, simple victory, not even worth the whole nation’s attention. Sure enough, Israel was beat here and some people died. Why did they lose? Someone sinned. Someone in the camp of Israel had rebelled against God’s commands and brought the whole camp down. Because of his sin, 36 israelites DIED. Joshua LOST. Something easily done, proved to be quite impossible.

The moral of this story? I see a few:

• Impossible things are relatively easy, with God
  

• Easy things are quite impossible without God
  

• The church is a body, when one member sins, the whole body is affected
  

• If God tells you to do a crazy thing…DO IT!

  The story is found in Joshua 5:13-7:26. Read it, does anyone see any other lessons/gems for us?

Okay, I’m done. Please pray for my son whenever you find yourself eating a banana (pray for the mother too).

Cook out.

Christmas came and went…joy!

Here’s a list of the booty:

• Settlers of Catan
  

• 3 books – I, Robot and Caves of Steel both by Isaac Asimov, and Life and Letters of Henry Martyn by John Sargent
  

• A beautiful Fedora
  

• Chocolate out the wa-zoo
  

• A Spider-man electric toothbrush
  

• A very nice Willow Creek figurine of a mother and father with a baby
  

• And probably some other goodies that I missed.
  

I seem to be a very rich man. I really wish I understood that a bit better. Off to Peterborough, see you there!

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