Wednesday, April 11, 2012 by Joe Marino.

Just a little bit over 20 years ago, Jo Ann Wescott and I went to visit two dear people, Dick and Elinor Grace.  They wanted to talk to us.  They had heard that we were getting married, and even though it was not their policy, they wanted to offer to us their beautiful facility, the Doreen Grace Center, for our wedding ceremony.  This was a beautiful little conference center out in the woods of New Seabury.  They asked us to think about it, and we did, and as we got into our little Chevy Nova, we heard this song on the radio.

We didn’t know much about signs from God then, but thought for sure that this was one!  We did get married there, and it was wonderful, but we have always thought that we should get married in an actual church.  For our 20th Anniversary, I offered that idea to my wife.  Ever since that night, she has been like a blushing bride all over again!  She has been planning this little “informal” wedding for a few months now, and is quite excited about it!  The thought of her being excited to marry me again fills me with great joy.  We have been through richer and poorer, good times and bad times, sickness (even near death) and health, children, financial woes, disappointments, and all other manner of things that destroy marriages.  Ours has only grown stronger.  We have something every couple can have and that can make their marriage successful, as it does not rely on us, but on Jesus Christ.  As we both have chosen to follow Him, we have walked together.  We give each other, as much as we can, 100%, not 50/50.  She is my best friend, and I am hers.  No other woman can even catch my eye, because my eyes adore my wife.  That is not because of me, but it is a gift from God. The fact that she is wonderful, beautiful, talented, gracious, and a lot of fun to be around are all bonus gifts!

This Saturday, in front of some of our family and some of our friends, we are going to renew our vows.  This time, we do it not with the expectations of what marriage will be like, but with gratefulness, knowing how wonderful it is to be married to one another. For this, we thank God!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Monday, April 9, 2012 by Joe Marino.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  With regard to my last post from a
couple of years ago, not much has changed on that front. Those who could have helped are instead enabling the ongoing sinful behavior, but that is just how these things go.  Having just read a book written by  a friend, I am considering working out some thoughts here in the “blog-o-sphere” to see if there may be a book in me!  There have been many times where I have started to write about the experience of losing 150 friends all at once, but it comes off much different from how I truly feel about the situation, so I have to figure out how to work all that out. Somehow, I want to encourage others who are going to go through the same thing.

My Dad should be published already. His writings are wonderful and profound.

Jo Jo and I are still ECSTATICALLY married. We are renewing our vows for our 20th anniversary this weekend. Things that we have watched destroy other couples have not hurt us because we are bound to one another as we cling to our Lord Jesus Christ.  He deserves all the credit, with Jo Jo’s gracious ways in a close second.

God bless,

Joe

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 by Joe Marino.

Did you know that there are several places in the Bible where Jesus actually says that He is God?  Islam claims Jesus is a great prophet. Many people believe Him to simply be a great philosopher/teacher.  Jesus, as C. S. Lewis stated, did not give us those options. By claiming to be God, He gives us a limited amount of choices.  He is either mad (thinking that He is God), a fraud (saying He is God when He is not), or Who He claims to be: The Messiah, Son of God, and in fact, God in the flesh! 

Some people do not understand that Jesus is God.  This is called the Arian Heresy.  Arianism, the doctrine proposed by the priest Arius, repudiated by the early Christian church as heresy, that the Son is finite and created by the Father. To worship Jesus, we have to know who He is. 

Jesus Himself Claimed to be God, Yahweh, Jehovah.   YHWH is the word that is the name given to God Himself in the Old Testament. No other person or thing is to be worshiped. In Exodus 20:5 we read that “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,.  Also, in Isaiah 44:6 we read  “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God. Then there is Isaiah 42:8  “I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.”  Knowing this,  Jesus boldly claimed to be Yahweh.  In John 17:5  He says “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.  If we look at Isaiah 42:8 and John 17:5, we see that if Jesus is not God then He is praying in vain..

Revelation 1:17 says of Jesus “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last”

Jesus stated in John 10:11  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. Psalm 23:1  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Jesus claimed to be the One who would judge. In Matthew 25:31  “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32  “All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. In the Old Testament, it is written in  Joel 3:12  “Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.

Jesus spoke of Himself as the Bridegroom in Matthew 25:1, while we see in the Old Testament that Jehovah is called the same thing. In Hosea 2:16  “And it shall be, in that day,” Says the LORD, “That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’

John 8:58  Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” 59  Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.. His claim here was so bold that they took up stones to stone Him for Blasphemy. This claim is repeated in Mark 14:62 and John 18:5-6 The term “I AM” is the same term used for God in the Old Testament, and the Pharisees were mortified.

We know that the Bible in the Old Testament states that God is light. In John 8:12  we read “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”  Also, in Psalm 27:1, the Bible  says that the Lord (Yahweh) is my light.

Jesus’ followers declare that He is God.  There are many more claims by Jesus, and the writers of the New Testament that point to the Old Testament that show that He is God incarnate. One which is powerfully obvious is John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2  He was in the beginning with God.3  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.4  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Going back to Genesis 1:1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. There is no question that the Bible says that Jesus is God.  He is not only God though. He is unique in that He is fully God and fully man.  Tri-unity of God means that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God: One God, three distinct personalities. More on that later.

These are not all the places where He claimed to be Deity, and many other things point to proof the He is God, but this is some food for thought for now.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Friday, June 5, 2009 by Joe Marino.

We are getting ready to launch here!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »