NEW BLOG!!!!

Everyone, I have decided to stop the Special K blog. It has become too overwhelming to think of something to write on a weekly basis. With this being said, I am not going to stop blogging. I have just created my own blog. Where I can write the day by day events of the booming metropolis of Boiling Springs. The first post however is actually stolen from Graces camera but has been nominated for many exemplary awards by those who have seen this video. And those who have been in this video. To go check out this extraordinarily deluxe film you need to go to my blog. To get to my blog you need to go to www.kevinkassakatis.blogspot.com (original I know. You will find a lot of goodies. Maybe. Well, actually, probably not. This blog is going to serve as a funny and serious way of communicating my very sensitive emotions down at Gardner-Webb. I hope you all will enjoy this new blog as much as you have this one. Thank you for all the support. But this thanks should still be going. I still need you to read my other blog so dont stop reading me like a book.

Is your glass empty?

While I was in Romania working with the kids we had this saying inspirational and motivational saying.... "Leave nothing left in your cup, pour everything you have into loving and caring for these kids." I loved it there and when the week was over and I knew that I had poured everything into them, it was the most satisfying feeling in the world. While this saying was very inspirational and motivational there, it would seem pretty straight forward. However, I think there is more to it than just that little bit of inspiration. I think it is a metaphor for our Christian lives.

Let me start with the cup. What are the physical properties of a cup? A cup is designed to hold liquids back. most of the time they are pretty sturdy but can be broken. This defines sin almost perfectly. Sin does nothing but hold us back in all the things we do. Sin causes us to feel guilt, shame, doubt. These three things hold us back not only spiritually, but also physically and mentally.

Now for the good part. The water. We had to fill our cups to the brim with love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. These things are the fruit of the spirit. All these fill our sinful container as Christians. We are full of these things, most people do not realize that they have opportunities everyday to pour it all out (I am one of them).

If I were to pour out all the liquid from a cup, what would be the purpose of that cup? It does not have one. After I poured out everything I had and left my cup, the liquid inside of me is able to flow uncontrollably. Water does not have boundaries and neither does our Savior.

When Jesus was at the well talking with the woman he told her that she had an opportunity to never thirst again. The water would flow uncontrollably in her life. Is your glass empty?

Foriveness: Only the Mountain Tops have Mastered

Before I start there is a principle that I want everyone to understand. In order for forgiveness to take place, a wrongdoing, or sin, had to have taken place. So with that said, here we go. A couple weeks ago I did something that made Skylar a little upset, and with me being new to the whole relationship thing, I was expecting her to be mad at me for a LONG time. I quickly realized that forgiveness in relationships is crucial. She soon accepted the fact that I am human and make mistakes, and forgave me - a concept I really have not understood, and will never fully understand its greatness. Without the forgiveness that is necessary in relationships I would feel horrible. I would feel absolutely dirty. Now, I know that I am not the only one who has had the difficulty of forgiving a friend or family member. A lot of us have family who have hurt us deeply or friends who are constantly making us angry. We all have these kinds of people in our lives and our tendency is to want to get back at them and make them mad at us by saying hurtful things to parents or brothers or sisters or ditching that friend at a movie. No matter what the situation we always feel the need to get back at them. So now that we can see what our tendencies are, what does God have to say about forgiveness? In Isiah 1:18 it says

"Come now, let us argue this out," says the LORD. "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool.

This is telling us that God forgives us for EVERYTHING we do and He wants us to use that to our advantage. He takes our souls and cleanses them. Now because God forgives us, He also wants us to forgive the people who hurt us deeply. In Matthew 18 Peter and Jesus have a conversation about forgiveness in which Peter asks Jesus how many times we are supposed to forgive those that have sinned against us. Jesus' response is "seventy times seven." That is a lot of times, so how often we find ourselves going to those that have hurt us and forgiving them? We often find forgiveness difficult, and thats because is it; however, forgiveness can be as simple as talking to them and telling them "I forgive you." The power forgiveness has over a relationship is incredible. We would change the world if we all grasped the concept of forgiveness just a little better and recognized the forgiveness Jesus gives us on a daily basis. The divorce rate would drop drastically, crime rates would go down, people would begin to truly love people. Can you imagine that? Forgive and truly Live.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

I had a baseball game last night that did not go well for us at all. We lost 8 to 2. The las two weeks have not been good as far as winning goes. We have lost five of our last six games, including the regular season championship. When we got on the bus last night after our game everyone was dead silent. One of our coaches got on the bus and used an event that happened prior to the game. One of our players had said something about the coach not letting them hit before the game and asked if our coaches were trying to lose the game. This particular coach turned this into a huge outrage of anger and frustration with the overall subject of our team being afraid to step up and battle. I find it interesting that we often do the same thing in our community outside of church. When a conversation about our faith rises, we often shy away and change the subject. When we have opportunities to share our faith we become scared. Just like in the last two weeks of baseball. We have had many opportunities to win games, but no one will rise up and do something. Psalms 115:11 says.

All you who fear the LORD, trust the LORD! He is your helper; he is your shield.

This verse tells us exactly what we need to hear. God is our helper. He does all of the work. We just have to step to the plate and go for it. God will not let us bail on you, he is not in that business. God protects us, he watches out for us. There is no reason whatsoever to fear any situation here because we have God on our side.

Control: The butt of our existence

Who has ever been so busy they did not know what to do with themselves? I know I am in that situation right now, maybe not as bad as some others, but its pretty bad. Life becomes very difficult when you have to start managing every bit of your time between five-hundred different things. For me, I am juggling school, baseball, work, getting stuff ready for Romania, college stuff, all while trying to have a social life. I have found that it gets very, very easy to let all of these things cloud our vision and take control of our plans for eternity. For those of you that came to church last night, this is very similar to the message Mr. Chan had for us. I took sometime after church last night just to sit outside and look up at the sky and think about all the wonderful, amazing things God does for us. I saw the clouds moving slowly and calmly. I saw the trees blowing in the wind. I heard birds chirping. I felt the wind on my face. I never would have felt all of that if I did not take the time to slow down and just look in awe at what God has created for us. Nothing that I saw heard or felt last night was there on just a whim, God placed everything there at that exact time. The birds did not just fly there, the wind did not just randomly come to Thomasville, NC at that exact moment in time. God put all of that there. He does the same thing for us. Psalm 119:105 says:

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.

See, we get so wrapped up in all the things we have to accomplish for this event, that class, this game, that whatever, that we completely forget where we are headed. We get lost in darkness. By listening to God we have a light. Something to help us get through our busy, often confusing times. So take some time to chill out, get away from the busyness of life. Let God take control instead of trying to handle everything all at once.

God is like drugs

So this past week I got my wisdom teeth taken out. It was one of the most painful experiences I have ever had, the doctors put a hole in my sinus and had to stitch it up along with the holes that were created from removing my teeth. Despite all the pain, there was one good thing - vicodin. The oral surgeon prescribed to me to this miracle drug to relieve me from my pain. In a sense God is like drugs. See we are stuck in a world filled with sin, and because of that sin, pain. The beauty of it all is that God has forgiven our sins when we ask Him to be our personal Savior. One other thing that my drugs did for me was they made me forget all about Friday and most of Saturday. It says in Psalms 103:12:

He has removed our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west.

When God forgives us and removes our sins from us, He forgets about the wrong we have done just like I forgot about all the pain from Friday and Saturday. God is like drugs.

Perform: Mistakes

So I was at a play/program thing tonight that had a variety of different performances. Everything from acting to singing to playing guitar. Sounds about like a talent show right, well I saw something in those fifteen different acts that I do not really see very often. I saw perseverance. They messed up a time or too in their skit or performance, but even though they messed up, they kept going and did something about their mess up. I think a lot of times we mess up in a big way in, and in our minds we say, "I never want to do that again!" But then two days later, we find ourselves doing that very thing. Why is that? I think Psalm 13 sums it up quite well. Psalms 13 was written by David right after he committed adultery and murder. It says:

For the choir director: A psalm of David.
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the light to my eyes, or I will die. Don't let my enemies gloat, saying, "We have defeated him!" Don't let them rejoice at my downfall. But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because he has been so good to me.

In verses five and six there is a tense change, it goes from present to future. "But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me." That tense change shows Davids steps to move through his adversity and persevere.

Good Samaritan

At one of my Upwards Basketball games this week we were in the last period and there was a pretty big collision in the middle of the lane and a bunch of the girls went down. One of the girls from my team that was still standing reached down to a player from the other team and helped them up. After that happened I no longer cared about what was going on in the basketball game, I was too proud of her actions on the court, her willingness to serve and love on people when they were down. I learn more from those kids than they do from me. She reminded me of the the parable of the Good Samaritan. In that parable a man is beaten stripped and used. Two people walk by in disgust of the man, but the third stops and helps him out, even though he probably had other things he needed to do. This shows one of the two greatest commandments perfectly. It says in Mark 12:31:

The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

During our game my player had other things to do like come back and get set up on defense, but she took the time to help a person in need. She realized what we struggle to realize as we get older. She would have have wanted that girl to help her up if she fell down so my player helped this girl up, loving her neighbor as herself. We all go through hard times and struggles of our own and we want people to love on us and encourage us as we work through our struggle. The only way people will help you is if you do the same for them. This week look for someone who is struggling, maybe they aren't doing so good in a class or they have some personal problem, be the Good Samaritan and stop to help them.

Grace!

So I have really been struggling with things to write about on here and as a result this one will be a little different. I have been reading this book called "Awareness" by Anthony De Mellow and in it he talks about how people do not need other people in order to make it through life. Mr. De Mellow believes that everything that happens to us is a result of our actions. For example, if we had an addiction and we got out of it, he would say that no one had an impact on us except for ourselves. However, how many of us have made it through a struggle by ourselves, with no support from others? I know I have not. Jesus believed the complete opposite, in fact thats one of the main things Jesus taught in his public ministry. If you look at all of the miracles Jesus performed, they all were to help out someone who was in need. This week while I was struggling to think of something to talk about I had a great conversation about this with Grace and she gave me the idea to talk about how I have seen Christ in other people throughout the week. This week Grace helped me out when I really, really needed something to ponder for the week. Even though it was quite a miracle it certainly showed me how to help people out.

Individuality

So this week while I was at school, I had to get a serial number for something, I dont remember exactly what it was, but it was nice, I do remember that. Serial numbers give a lifeless object individuality, an example would be a computer or a television; if it is stolen, how do the police find it? They look for the serial number. So I started wondering, "Whats the difference between me and the 7 billion other people on the earth?" I know for me I first thought of things like our hair color, eye color, height, weight, all the physical aspects of life, but then I thought, "yes, all of that distinguishes us from one another one earth, but at the core, we are all still sinners who screw up all the stinking time." Romans 3:21 says,

But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight--not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.

The one difference between Christians and the world around us is Christ. We are privileged. He gives us our individuality by blessing us with different gifts, maybe its teaching, or giving, or singing, or writing. He has shown us how to be right in his sight, by using our own individuality for His Glory.

Preparation

This week I had a precal test on Tuesday, and me being me, I did not study for the test and as a result I failed the test. This morning I forgot to set my alarm and had to rush out the door with out a shower, and as a result, I looked like a train had smacked me in the face. I taught Sunday School for the middle school boys last week and it turned out alright at the best. One thing that could have made all of these events better is preparation - if I would have prepared they would have turned out better. I might have passed that precal test. I wouldnt have looked so terrible today, and my lesson would have been the best it could have been. So how do we as Christians prepare for our daily temptations? Ephesians 6:11 says:

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For those who are not completely familiar with the armor of God, it includes the belt of truth, breast plate of righteousness, shoes of peace and good news, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit. If we put on this armor and use it to our advantage, no plot or attempt made by the devil can stop us. It goes on to say in verse 16 to pray and stay alert at all times. Our preparation for the temptations we face on a daily basis is right there. When we wake up in the mornings we put on the armor of God and we let God fight our battles for us.

Joy

Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die
Do not let my enemies gloat, saying,
'We have defeated him!
Do not let them rejoice at my downfall.'"
-Psalm 13:3-4

Whenever we as humans screw up, it always revolves around one thing, earthly possessions sights or sounds. These are all temporary they give us pleasure for five to ten minutes, or maybe an hour or two, but they emotional high eventually dies down. This Psalm was written by David after he took Bathsheba as his wife and killed off Uriah. He was in a desperate situation in which he had screwed up in a major way, that temporary emotional high had died down and David was left completely empty inside. The thing in this verse that catches my attention is the part that says "Restore the sparkle to my eyes." This shows Davids to me how David constantly found happiness in the Lord. So even though we do stupid things we need to follow Davids lead and have the Lord "restore the sparkle to our eyes."

Leadership

Quiet Strength, a book by Tony Dungy, the head coach of the Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts, is a book that Coach Dungy wrote about his faith has effected his leadership of the Colts. He uses the verse Matthew 20:26-27 which says:

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.

I absolutely love this verse. Tony Dungy constantly explains how he got the players to respond to his message, he served them. Coach Dungy would stay at nicer hotels with the team, he would make sure his players could get the family time they needed by ending practice earlier than most coaches, Dungy would respect his players and take his time to listen to the problems they had, this is why Coach Dungy can get his team to respond so well to him, he serves them. In the same way, I believe this is the way we have to approach witnessing. When we serve people, they see our actions and those actions open the door to much more conversation. People notice our actions and a consistent lifestyle and I think thats what the verse is getting at. Witnessing, in my opinion, is a combination of adequate leadership skills, which is defined by serving others, and a consistent lifestyle.

Ministry

Tonight, Matt began a three week series on words. He was using a passage from Jeremiah and I got reading a little bit after we ended and came across this verse.

"Today I appoint you to stand up against nations and kingdoms. You are to uproot some and tear them down, to destroy and overthrow them. You are to build others up and plant them." Jer. 1:10

I got to thinking about it and this is the way I see this verse. We are called to minister to people of all kinds, different religions, races, beliefs, etc. When we minister to a person, one thing you must do is point out the contradictions in their belief system. I think this relates to the verse in the sense that, "some you must uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow." But the awesome thing about this verse is the next part. "You are to build others up and plant them." This is the coolest part because after God has helped tear down a belief system, we have to replant them in something that will help them grow. So, I do not know that this verse is talking about literally tearing down nations and kingdoms, I believe that those kingdoms and nations are people and belief systems.