by Josh Monda | Dec 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
I am sure you have probably heard of Christopher Hitchens but have you heard of his brother Peter Hitchens. Peter Hitchens has a book coming out on May 1st entitled The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith you can pre-order the book by clicking the Title. I found this video on youtube giving a preview check it out.
I wanted to write a short post about my recent conversation with an Atheist. Sometimes I think Christians are intimidated to talk with someone that believes that there is no God. However I had the privilege to do just that and trust me I am not all that intellectual if you know me you know this is true ha. This guy had his phd in Micro Biology I believe it was so trust me I was way out of my league I know little about biology. However I greatly enjoyed our conversation and my opportunity to learn why he believed what he believed.
I would like to say that many times Christianity gets lumped into just being another religion. However when I stopped him and said I am not part of a religion and that I can never get to God but that my faith is about God coming to me he stopped for a moment and said well it is all semantics. When I confronted him that it is not all semantics but rather there is a large difference he agreed with me. It is good to have conversation without arguing. The fact is I will never argue someone into heaven and I wil never be argued out of my belief that God exists. There are people alot smarter than I scientifically that believe in Jesus Christ.
I must say I really wrote this to say this. In my conversation this man relayed to me that the most hatred that he has seen from people have come from those that profess to be followers of Christ. He then said that he had friends that were Christians but when they found out he was an Atheist they wanted nothing to do with him. Isn’t this a sad commentary on our faith. How often do we do this to others just because they believe differently than us. These are the very people we find Christ hanging out with and if someone who does not believe in God does not see God lived out in us then we have a major problem.
I guess what bothers me the most is that we are notorious for making excuses we say things like “they are not interested in following Christ so it does not matter” or I have heard one pastor say “if they really want to grow they will grow” I have said similar things at times we so often excuse our failures and even sins as no big deal.  This is just not acceptable.  We must show Christ to the unbeliever.  I hope in some small way I showed Christ to this man.  When he left he thanked me for talking with him and told me it was good to meet me I told him the same. Â
I am thankful that on that day I had a conversation with someone that did not believe like me.Â
God Bless.
by Josh Monda | Dec 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
First let me start this by letting everyone know things have been crazy before the birth of my third child Zephaniah and this just added to the strange and weird experiences that seem to happen to me. My wife and I have just moved to southern Illinois, Marion to be exact from northeast Missouri as I took a position of youth and children. In addition to this I am presently enrolled in Seminary and during the move to Marion my wife was 8 months pregnant. I seem to be one for adventure at times. Anyway this blog post is not all about my move, me attending seminary, or starting a new ministry though they all could be valid blogs. I originally started this blog to blog about life and though not many come here to read about my life (the actually come to find a resume example) some do like to come and read.
So I wanted to blog partially so I would have a record of this event while it is fresh on my mind and well to just share the story because it is crazy. In fact all three of my children have now entered the world in their own dramatic fashion. In every one of them we have seen God at work. Here is the scoop
My wife was having contractions lastnight at church but they were far enough apart that really we were not all that concerned with them. In fact we went home thinking no biggy, she went to bed and I was working on a sermon for seminary. Around 10:30 she got up and was in the bathroom and I heard her moaning but me being the loving husband I am was preoccupied with my sermon writing, so I let it go because this sermon was already a day late. I finally decided I needed to check on her so I got up and asked her if she had been timing her contractions, and she responded with no, but she did not know if she would get through night. This was just after 11:oo pm. to which I posted on Facebook at 11:16 p.m.
“Well Tzigane is having contractions as far as we know the baby is still breech her Dr. appointment is tuesday and her appointment for Insurance is late afternoon tomorrow not sure if she is going to make until tomorrow I hope so but I am doubtful.”
So I went back to my sermon and a while later she is still in the bathroom I think this is strange but she knows what she is doing. Finally I go in and start talking to her and I realize ok we have to go, we have waited to long. Both of her labor times for our previous two children have been short. With our first child she was in labor 2 hours 30 minutes and the second 2 hours. It was late at night so I call the pastor to get someone over to stay with our kids, he sent his wife right over, and we have it planned that as soon as she gets there we will leave. I know we are roughly 7 minutes if that from the hospital.
I take off doing 70 down the main road with my hazards on, worried I am going to get pulled over or a citation, thinking this is a great way to make a debut in Illinois. In my excitement between trying to get my wife to breath and driving fast I look up and say “look there is no wait in the ER” as there is a billboard that tells you this. In reading the sign I drive right by the hospital wasting precious time I now have to turn around. I speed to the next light thinking I have a red arrow but oh well I run right through it to turn around. Finally we are there and I am relieved so I thought.
I run into the ER and let them know she is in labor and the response is “come in and go through the door” I tell them “no the baby is coming get someone down here now”. I then rush back outside to be with my wife it seems like forever and finally I see a nurse come walking out casually I yell at her to hurry up. When she gets there and takes one look and totally freaks out and tells me to run and tell them “we need a Dr. Now”. Seriously whose to blame her it’s not everyday someone shows up in the parking lot with a breech baby. I run back inside and tell them “we need a Dr. Now”. I then run back out and the baby is now half out breech in our van. I am literally looking at half of my child rear first while the other half is not delivered yet. The nurse seems almost in shock I can see it inher face, I hear her yelling for the Dr. I see no one, all I see is baby and I am thinking “should I pull this baby out” I have no clue what to do. The nurse tells me to run inside because the Dr. did not see us. I run inside the hospital and yell at the Dr. to come out. Once again apparently no one trusted I knew what I was talking about the Dr. seemingly rather calmly comes strolling out as I am telling him to hurry.
After what seems like forever the Dr. gets to the van looks down and now he realizes the concern for the situation. For whatever reason I seem to be the only one calm at this point. The Dr. Begins to fly into action I am standing next to the him almost assisting him in this whole ordeal. The baby had been in this breech state of half in and half out for a minimum of three minutes. He tells my wife to push and out comes Zephaniah in the front seat of our mini van. It is at this point that calm went away and fear began to grip me. It was at this point that I realized the time for any human reasoning was over, the time for science was gone, if we had been relying on anything but God we could do so no more, we now had no choice but to rely on Him.
I looked at my precious baby that we had waited so long for and he was lifeless, I remember in my mind crying out to God to let him be ok. It literally seemed like and eternity My baby is blue he is not breathing the Dr. is wiping his little face, rubbing his chest doing all he can to stimulate him but nothing. I see fear in the Dr.’s face, he is yelling for the nurses to help him but nothing, no breath, nothing. Finally a breath, but that was it, one single solitary breath. He is still blue he is still not breathing the Dr. is talking to him “breath buddy” I am telling Tzigane not to look, my thoughts are “oh please God let him be ok” it seems like another eternity a he takes a second breath. Once again he stops he is still blue he is still not breathing and finally I hear what every parent wants to hear that first cry.
We cut the cord suction him out wrap him up and the Dr. and I run to the labor and delivery. I push the buttons on the elevator he cuddles my child in the blanket. I stay by Zephaniah’s little side the entire time. We bath him, give him his shots, I even assist in drawing his blood. The nurse was great as she told me everything we were doing. Praise be to God that he brought us our third miracle He gets the glory, He gets the praise.
It was 4am when the phone rang.  As I picked it up my wife was on the other end and she told me her water broke.  Our first child was a fast labor so I woke up my daughter and we headed off to the hospital.  And about 2 hours later Micah John Monda was born.  he was born at 6:17 am and my was at 33 weeks 3 days.  Micah weighed in at 4lbs. 9 1/2 ounce and was 17 1/4 inches long.  My daughter has prayed, and prayed, and prayed for this moment.  Her faith was always so strong believing God would give her a brother or sister.  It took  wife and I over 6 years to have this child and God poured out his blessing on us.
 Its interesting to see how God has brought blessing, after blessing into our lives.  I have been blown away.  Well I could right alot more but to be honest I need some rest and tomorrow I have alot of work to do.  Here is a picture.
by Josh Monda | Dec 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Well here we are with part 4 of our series on Who are you to judge?  Once again this is all coming from Matthew 7:1-6.  This stemmed from a conversation I had with a friend when he said that Matthew 7:1 was the most popular verse among teens (according to him).  So I wondered why and decided to launch this study on the verses found in Matthew.  If you want to use anything I have written be my guest.
What we are going to see today is that the judgmental critical person is actually deceived about themselves.  This is seen in verse 4 when it states ”Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?” Â
It is quite clear that the critical judgmental person has not given any thought to what they are doing.  How can we say this?  Well a person that actually puts thought into it realizes that they are just as human and just as sinful as anyone else.  This person has just as many motes in their eye as anyone else, and because of  this they have lost their right to criticize and be judgmental.
This person that is judgmental and critical is deceived on some many different levels here are a few.
This person is overlooking, denying, or ignoring that they also have sin.
1. Â When we judge others we exalt ourselves as gods. Â It is God’s right and who are we to take that right from Him. Â We are not worthy nor do we have the right to judge another (Romans 14:4; James 4:11-12)
2.  Our judgment of others only pushes a brother down and tears him to pieces.  It does not embrace him in compassion nor does it build him up.
3. Â When we judge others it becomes the beam in our eye. Â All sin is great including the judging and criticizing of a brother that has failed.
We also must take careful notice that the criticizer is not fit to judge.
The person that judges and criticizes is just as sinful as the next person but does not consider their own life.  However, it is interesting that this same person feels free to be critical of other who come short and fail, but refuses to look inward.  They spend a great deal of time condemning others, and then justify their own actions.
We also should not that the person doing the judging and criticizing is the weaker of the two. Â The person that is weak is the one who judges and criticizes the most, they do this because of their need to boost themselves over others all to feel good about themselves.
The critical judgmental person does not take time to examine themselves and this is for one primary reason. Â It hurts. Â It hurts to look deep within yourself and to see if their is anything that God needs to deel with and that is why so few people do it yet look at what God says “But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged” (1 Corinthians 11:31)
Many people are deceiving their own consciences when they judge and criticize others.  Let me give you a few things people do when being judgmental and critical they do these things because they think it makes it ok to judge and be critical (deceiving their conscience).
1. Â When they are judgmental and critical they try to be nice, and soft spoken, using soft words thinking this must make it ok to judge. Â
2. Â They will give some commendable strengths as well as passing along the other person failings. Somehow thinking this makes it ok as long as we pass something good along with the judgmental spirit.
3.  By prefacing the criticism with a statement that is it “constructive” we have all heard it.  Can you take “constructive criticism”?  Somehow we take what we have to say and twist and ad the words constructive to it and think that makes it ok.
I want this to be the last verse I leave with
There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, Yet is not washed from his filthiness. (Proverbs 30:20)
Come back tomorrow as we see that this person that is being judgmental and critical is really a hypocrite.
Well here we are with part 3 of the series “Who are you to Judge?  It was questionable whether or not I should take the few minutes and right this out.  Right now my wife is in the hospital with the possibility of our second child coming early.  Our first Sarai was born at 30 weeks and now Micah just over 30 weeks seems to want to come out.  But I have a quick break and thought I would do part 3.  Once again this is all coming from  Matthew 7:1-6
We have covered alot of ground but today I want to look at verse 3 which clearly tells us that the judgmental critical person fails to look at themselves.  This person is very inconsistent in how they criticize and judge others as they refuse to look within first.  Here is the problem all too often we continue to look at everyone else’s failures and shortcomings, and we criticize, and backbite, and love to engage in the bad news.
You see when we do this we show that we have a very serious problem and that problem is this there is a giant beam in our own eye. Â We are blind to the truth that we are no better than anyone else. Â We too fail and fall short and we do it often. Â
In Matthew 7:5 we are call hypocrites for not taking the beam out of our own eye
In Romans 3:10 we are told no one is righteous so why do we think we can judge?
In 1 Corinthians 11:28 we are told to examine ourselves not examine others first.
In Isaiah 53:6 we are told that every last one of us has gone astray. Yet we want to judge others that have gone astray?
If “Christians” would stop looking at everyone elses faults and stop making feeble attempts to judge their motives and their thoughts and why maybe they did a certain thing and we just focussed on show the world that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ by our love for one another (John 13:35) then maybe we could make progress. Â Until then it will be much more of the same.Â
Come tomorrow when we hopefully have part 4. Â We will see how the critical, judgmental person is deceived about themselves.
by Josh Monda | Dec 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
It has been a week since I have had a post so I thought I would get in gear. I have been watching some basketball games of the local High School here. The girls team is ranked numbers in the state for 3a ball and they are undefeated they have a good club I hope they do well. Well anyways I am not going write about basketball but continue my series from the book Why Guys Need God by Mike Erre. Today I want to share a couple of quotes from chapter 10 and talk about them a little bit.
When we come out of hiding in front of each other, relationship will take hard work and lots of grace. The church gets lots of criticism because of its imperfections.
So many times we hide who we really are. Sometimes it is like we have to put on some sort of facade so people do not see the real us. I am not sure what drives this perhaps it is fear of people seeing the real us or fear that we are not good enough. Rarely do we tell people our real struggles or the things that are keeping us from being all we want to be in Christ or all we can be in Christ. The truth is if we really do be ourselves then in fact it will take alot of hard work and lots of grace. Grace to forgive others even when we really do not want to and grace to ask for forgiveness even when we do not want to. But if we continue to pretend to be someone we are not then the church is just a place where we go to be fake. The church definitley is not perfect and we are indeed a bunch of reformed sinners going thorug the process of sanctification yet many times we act like we have already been fully sanctified and that we have no problems whatsoever.
I often wonder what would church be like if people were real. What if a man walked into Sunday school and said I am struggling with pornography and I need help, or what if a woman walked in and said I struggle with gossiping I need help, or how about I have bitterness in my heart I need help. The church is supposed to be a community loving each other and holding each other accountable but I am afraid we have become a community where everything is based on only what we want people to perceive us to be and not who we really are. We don’t want people to know our secret sins what will is take for us to stop being superficial and just be honest. It is so hard. Here us the second quote.
Most churches teach men how to pretend behind religious fig leaves. We learn to act in the right religious ways, look the right religious ways, sing the right religious ways, and so on. We usually are not encouraged to actually share how things really are. So even though we need to connect with other guys at a really deep level, the church actually often hinders this process.
Prayer isn’t a place to be good; it is a place to be honest.
I already spoke about this above. I do not think this is a problem for just men either. I think often we go to church to pretend. Pretend to be someone we are not and we rarely go just to be honest and admit our struggles.
Today I want to talk about what I got out of chapter 9 of Mike Erre’s book why guys need God. THis paragraph from page 120 hit me pretty hard.
I can’t be grateful unless I see myself as small, dependant, and undeserving.
Today I am going to continue from my series of posts from the book Why Guys Need God by Mike Erre. I am going to discuss something out of chapter 3 which is titled Naming The Animals. Here it is
Even the American ideal of retirement reflects a self-interested, materialistic bias. The Bible never encourages a stage of life where we are independent enough to simply do what we want to do. Many men do use retirement as an opportunity to given and serve. But more often than not, retirement becomes and excuse for indulgence. Maybe we think we’ve earned the right to do absolutely nothing because we’ve worked for years at a job we’ve hated. Or maybe we just want to try new things. Either way, if we focus exclusively on our pursuits and ourselves, something starts to die within us. This is the stage of life when the community around us needs us the most. The younger generations need those at this stage to be active, more involved, and more willing to serve as spiritual mentors and fathers.
I am not sure why our mentality is often skewed when it comes to retirement. I know for the longest time I looked at retirement as a time to just sit back and relax and spend the day doing what I wanted on my terms how selfish is that. I believe in many churches across america that spiritual mentors need to rise up. I have seen this personally in some peoples lives. They did not decide just to disappear into retirement but have decided to give themselves in service to the king. When I grow older and approach my retirement years I do not want to have the idea that I am somehow done that my life is not complete. I pray that God will give me the strength and energy to keep on influencing others for Him.
There was one man that effected my life probably more then he will ever know and that man was retired but he stayed faithful serving the Lord. He was one of the most humble individuals I had ever met and to sit back and watch his energy and vigor for the Lord impacted me profoundly. I often remember hearing him preach the word and saying to myself when I am that age I pray I have the same vigor he has. I pray that by God’s grace one day when I hit that age of retirement that I will influence someone as much as he influenced me.
by Josh Monda | Dec 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Welcome to part 6 the final part of Who are you to judge?  Remember we are talking about  Matthew 7:1-6.  Today we want to look at the fact that this critical judgmental person is not worthy of the gospel.
 In Matthew 7:6 we read “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”  Christ is very simply stating to us that we should not be foolish and jeopardize ourselves.  When we know that a person is not going to receive us or the instruction of the gospel, we are not to approach them.  To make it simple there are some criticizers ad some people that are so full of criticism that we just should not go to them.  These people will only abuse the glorious message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This language that Christ used was very strong. Â There are unbelievers that are so wicked and so nasty that they can be compared to dogs and pigs. Â I have known some of these very people. Â These people are said to be unworthy of the gospel. Â Well who are these people.
- The widely known sinner
- Those that ridicule and are filled with disrespect
- Those that are filled with rage.
- Those that are openly wicked and stand against God.
- Those that are hardened themselves and are filled with judgment and criticism.
- Those that hate and despise
- Those that persecute.
If the question is can they be saved? Â The answer is absolutely. Â for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” (Romans 10:13)
Anyone that call on the Lord will be saved. Â However, there is a hard reality that must be faced: there are people that have reached such a high level of evil they are very unlikely to turn from their wickedness and to call upon the Lord. Â These people seek to take their words andÂ
wound others, they ridicule, they trample, the tear apart, they scorn, they attack, they are filled with rage, they defy.
These same people take there minds and their hand and their power and they
trample others, they strike other people, they tear others down. the persecute others, they beat them, kill, and even torture them.
Now I am not saying that everyone commits all of these sins, but hey we all know that many people are guilty of some of them.  These sins destroy the reputation and work of a person.  Here is the real tragedy, there are so many so called believers that are caught up in this criticism and judgments of others.  Believer are all to often the very ones that are guilty of taking their word and hands to damage the reputation and work of others.
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers,disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-4)
Well that’s it. Â If you have read this series I hope maybe something has helped you. Â
Well here we are with part 4 of our series on Who are you to judge?  Once again this is all coming from Matthew 7:1-6.  This stemmed from a conversation I had with a friend when he said that Matthew 7:1 was the most popular verse among teens (according to him).  So I wondered why and decided to launch this study on the verses found in Matthew.  If you want to use anything I have written be my guest.
What we are going to see today is that the judgmental critical person is actually deceived about themselves.  This is seen in verse 4 when it states ”Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?” Â
It is quite clear that the critical judgmental person has not given any thought to what they are doing.  How can we say this?  Well a person that actually puts thought into it realizes that they are just as human and just as sinful as anyone else.  This person has just as many motes in their eye as anyone else, and because of  this they have lost their right to criticize and be judgmental.
This person that is judgmental and critical is deceived on some many different levels here are a few.
This person is overlooking, denying, or ignoring that they also have sin.
1. Â When we judge others we exalt ourselves as gods. Â It is God’s right and who are we to take that right from Him. Â We are not worthy nor do we have the right to judge another (Romans 14:4; James 4:11-12)
2.  Our judgment of others only pushes a brother down and tears him to pieces.  It does not embrace him in compassion nor does it build him up.
3. Â When we judge others it becomes the beam in our eye. Â All sin is great including the judging and criticizing of a brother that has failed.
We also must take careful notice that the criticizer is not fit to judge.
The person that judges and criticizes is just as sinful as the next person but does not consider their own life.  However, it is interesting that this same person feels free to be critical of other who come short and fail, but refuses to look inward.  They spend a great deal of time condemning others, and then justify their own actions.
We also should not that the person doing the judging and criticizing is the weaker of the two. Â The person that is weak is the one who judges and criticizes the most, they do this because of their need to boost themselves over others all to feel good about themselves.
The critical judgmental person does not take time to examine themselves and this is for one primary reason. Â It hurts. Â It hurts to look deep within yourself and to see if their is anything that God needs to deel with and that is why so few people do it yet look at what God says “But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged” (1 Corinthians 11:31)
Many people are deceiving their own consciences when they judge and criticize others.  Let me give you a few things people do when being judgmental and critical they do these things because they think it makes it ok to judge and be critical (deceiving their conscience).
1. Â When they are judgmental and critical they try to be nice, and soft spoken, using soft words thinking this must make it ok to judge. Â
2. Â They will give some commendable strengths as well as passing along the other person failings. Somehow thinking this makes it ok as long as we pass something good along with the judgmental spirit.
3.  By prefacing the criticism with a statement that is it “constructive” we have all heard it.  Can you take “constructive criticism”?  Somehow we take what we have to say and twist and ad the words constructive to it and think that makes it ok.
I want this to be the last verse I leave with
There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, Yet is not washed from his filthiness. (Proverbs 30:20)
Come back tomorrow as we see that this person that is being judgmental and critical is really a hypocrite.
Well here we are with part 3 of the series “Who are you to Judge?  It was questionable whether or not I should take the few minutes and right this out.  Right now my wife is in the hospital with the possibility of our second child coming early.  Our first Sarai was born at 30 weeks and now Micah just over 30 weeks seems to want to come out.  But I have a quick break and thought I would do part 3.  Once again this is all coming from  Matthew 7:1-6
We have covered alot of ground but today I want to look at verse 3 which clearly tells us that the judgmental critical person fails to look at themselves.  This person is very inconsistent in how they criticize and judge others as they refuse to look within first.  Here is the problem all too often we continue to look at everyone else’s failures and shortcomings, and we criticize, and backbite, and love to engage in the bad news.
You see when we do this we show that we have a very serious problem and that problem is this there is a giant beam in our own eye. Â We are blind to the truth that we are no better than anyone else. Â We too fail and fall short and we do it often. Â
In Matthew 7:5 we are call hypocrites for not taking the beam out of our own eye
In Romans 3:10 we are told no one is righteous so why do we think we can judge?
In 1 Corinthians 11:28 we are told to examine ourselves not examine others first.
In Isaiah 53:6 we are told that every last one of us has gone astray. Yet we want to judge others that have gone astray?
If “Christians” would stop looking at everyone elses faults and stop making feeble attempts to judge their motives and their thoughts and why maybe they did a certain thing and we just focussed on show the world that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ by our love for one another (John 13:35) then maybe we could make progress. Â Until then it will be much more of the same.Â
Come tomorrow when we hopefully have part 4. Â We will see how the critical, judgmental person is deceived about themselves.
