I haven’t posted anything new for a few weeks and I’ll hopfully return posting more in December but I had to write about the weekend God bless me with. For awhile now I haven’t been myself at work and if I wanted to be honest I been depressed about work. This past week was really hard on me because I just kept up the walls not letting my boss or other co-workers see the real me. I’m tired of protraying the “TRIPIL Mike”. But God used this weekend to make me see that He loves me the way that I am even if nobody else does. And I learned that I’m on his time schedule for my life not the other way around. By the end of the weekend I was more thankful for my life,for Robin, my friends, and even my job than I been for what seemed to be a very long time. Here’s how the weekend played out:

Saturday:

   I Got to my friend Andrew Johnson’s house at 7AM,and we drove to the 39th Men’s Thanksgiving Breakfast at South Hills Bible Chapel. 500 Men showed up to hear Dan Sepulveda’s testimony about what God has done in his life. He’s the punter for the Steelers and has a awesome story. But the coolest thing he said was what his dad said to him growing up all the time. His dad told him “You’re a winner, you’re mine, and I love you. Dan went to say that is what God is saying to all his children. His story helped me out in so many ways but in a odd way i realized why I have problems with older men at my job. Unlike Dan, I didn’t have my dad in my life, and honestly When men try to speak into my life I hate it. I blame them for my dad’s failures and that’s not fair to them. My Identity and acceptance comes only by my relationship with God. Realizing this won’t change the problem I have with older men over night but I’m on the right path to make the changes I need to make. During the worship service I realized that out of the 500 men worshiping Jesus it seemed that I was the only one there with a disability. But at the foot of the cross with these men I stood equally a sinner,and equally forgiven. It was a awesome feeling to feel God’s grace that way. 

Saturday Night:

Andrew, Allison, Robin, and I went to the Bible Chapel’s night service and Pastor Ron talked about the role music plays in our spiritual lives. It was a great time hearing the Word and looking at the history of music in the church.It’s been good going to South Hills Bible Chapel and getting fed again. I’m not in any kind of ministry leadership right now and I’m taking this time to work on my faith and some hurts I’m dealing with.

Sunday:

In the morning I preached at the city mission and there was a good crowd there. I preached on John 5:24 and the assurance that God gives us of our salvation’s security. There was a man on staff there who said his uncle was struggling with if he could lose his salvation and ask me if he could have a copy of my sermon to share with him. It’s awesome how God works things together. I almost changed my sermon topic earlier this week but I’m thankful I didn’t.

And than after that we went over Andrew and Allison’s house for the first ever Johnson-Matthews Turkey Spectacular. Since Robin and I will be down south for Thanksgiving we decided to have it early with Andrew and Allison. It rocked! Allison and Robin did a great job cooking a great meal. Andrew and I played Madden all day to crown the turkey day champion. We have realized that every time we play our games come down to a onside kick. With a few upsets and turnovers it turned out in my favor this time.But the outcome didn’t matter, it was just good hanging out with Andrew.

This was one of the greatest weekend of my life and I’m very thankful for all that God did for me. This weekend will stay with me for a long time. Having Robin in my life have made me a better man and the friendship we have with Andrew and Allison is a great blessing from the Lord. My conversastions with Andrew alone have been so helpful to figure out the things going on in my heart. I’m praying that I will reveal more of me in my work life and people might get to know the person God made me to be. Thank you Jesus.You Rock!

When I return from my writing hiatus, Life, Faith, and Disability will feature more of my teaching and preaching of Scriptures. I’m taking time off to just grow in my own relationship with the Lord. Please keep me in your prayers. God is opening more doors for me to teach and preach and I must be faithful to that call. I’m looking for LFD to return in December with a study of the book of James. Stay tuned.

In Christ,

Mike Matthews

Go check out Jacqueline’s blog. She is a young girl who is battling cancer. Read her thoughts and see the testimony that is her life. Keep her in your prayers.

Meet Jacqueline Gordon: a 16-year-old petite blonde who is battling leukemia for the second time in her young life. Observer-Reporter staff writer Amanda Gillooly is accompanying the Canonsburg youth on her journey to recovery. Check back often, as Jackie, her mom, Carol, and Amanda post about the physical, emotional and psychological challenges the family faces.

http://jackiegordon.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html

18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.-1 Peter 1:18-19

 I’m taking a break from posting for awhile,but before I do, I want to leave my readers with some words of encouragement. Violence, drug abuse, and sexual sin has marked my family, and I have felt the effects personally. If not for Jesus saving me and making me a Christian I would be a violent man addicted to drugs or maybe even dead,but because of His grace to me I love Him and he has allowed me to preach the Gospel to others, gave me a godlywife, a great job, but more than that freedom from the things that has define my family. Everyday I’m learning more and more that this world doesn’t offer anything that can compare to the joy that is in Christ. This weekend was one that was filled with breakthroughs for me. I was confronted with the love of God that is in Christ that I was forgetting. In reading Mark Driscolls’s new book “Death by Love” I was reminded that not only was I forgiven of my sins but also cleanse from them. All of them! The sins I have committed,and the sins committed against me. Lately, I been living in anger and shamed at the sexual abuse I had to endure when I was younger and my own sexual sin, but Jesus reminded me this weekend that I’m free from the guilt and shame. He makes me clean.He makes me righteous. He makes me justifed. God’s wrath was satisfied on the cross. Jesus’s blood fogives and cleans me.

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.-2 Corinthians 5:21

 I have right standing before God because Jesus died the death I deserve.  By grace I get to live as a new man with him forever. Not a perfect man but a new man. I’ll continue to battle sin till I’m in heaven but because of Christ I don’t have to be enslaved to it. I’m free to live with him. It’s only because of Jesus that I get to be a Christian. I was trying to live this life apart from him and was trying to be a “good christian”, but I was reminded that I’m a Christian because God alone is good. My past can’t change that.  By His grace I will continue to be a preacher, a faithful husband, a good daddy when that day comes, a faithful worker at my job, and will put my sin to death by the power of his Spirit. I often wonder if the Apostle Paul thought like he didn’t deserve God’s forgiveness? He was a persecutor of Christians, approved the murder of Stephen yet hear his words out of 1 Corinthians 15:10:

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Or look what he says in 1 Timothy:

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.  Amen. -1 Timothy 1:12-17

How many times do we feel like Paul saying we’re the worst of sinners?But unlike Paul we often fail to lean on Jesus’s grace. We will beat ourselves up for things that God already took care of. Paul admits he was a sinner and don’t deserve God’s favor, but because of God ,he’s a believer, and that God’s grace toward him will not be in vain. This brings me much joy. I am Michael Matthews, a servant of the Lord Jesus to the Glory of God the Father. My future is not defined by my family faults, my abuser, my sins, but rather Jesus Christ. And God’s grace to me will not be in vain.I’m taking time off from writing to focus on scripture to re-discover the greatness of Jesus. I preached yesterday at the city mission and a man came up to me and said he listens to ever word I say and he thinks about it all week. God has redeemed me from my former way of life to not just keep on sinning abusing grace till heaven comes, but to live as a free man living with and for him. That man words was a lighting bolt of grace to cap of my weekend of breaktrhoughs. I been entrusted with the Gospel, and I can’t neglect it. Jesus loves ne to much. I pray God will bless my readers, and stay tuned, I’ll post again but for now I’m taking a break. God bless

 I don’t write about my job as an advocate for people with disabilities alot on here, but I think that’s going to change. I want to take this time to talk about a issue effecting the disability community. It’s nursing homes! People with disabilities are being warehoused all over this country in nursing homes, and it needs to stop. Thankfully there are groups like ADAPT who fights against the intstitutional bias in America. ADAPT advocates for real supports for people to stay in their community instead of being locked away in nursing homes. In future post I’m hoping to write about the facts about the problems with nursing homes, but for this post I just want to introduce my readers to the problem.

          People with disabilities want to live in their own homes, not nursing homes. They want the right to make independent choices om their own, and with the right supports like attendant care we can. To bring to light more of the problems read this article from ADAPTfrom a person who was stuck in a nursing home:

I’d Rather Go to Jail Than to Die in a Nursing Home

by Stephanie Thomas

This election-eve over 500 ADAPT members, activists with disabilities and our supporters, will gather in Atlanta to continue the Olympian task of redirecting our national long term care funding bias from institutions to community-based services. ADAPT is gathering in Atlanta November 2nd through 7th to protest the national convention of the American Health Care Association, AHCA, the nursing home industry lobby group which stands in the way of ADAPT’s goal.

Started in 1983 ADAPT began as American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (or Transportation, depending on who you talk to). Originally 36 members joined together to demand that a wheelchair lift be standard on ever new city bus. For seven years, as ADAPT grew, we blocked buses (sometimes chaining ourselves to them or crawling on board inaccessible buses) in cities across the United States to call attention to the need for access to public transportation, and disabled people’s civil right to access to public services and facilities in our communities.

When the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990, it not only required that — starting a month after passage (ie in August 1990) — all new buses have lifts, but it adopted into federal law the idea that access is a civil right.

But what good is the right to a ramp or an equal opportunity to work if you are stuck away in a nursing home? Over two million Americans are locked away in these facilities from which the industry brings in a cool $65 billion plus a year, $40 billion from Medicaid alone. Many of ADAPT’s members have been locked away in nursing homes and other institutions and are well aware such facilities are little more than human warehouses in which people with disabilities serve as the commodity for the long term care industries. (80-203)

ADAPT wants to see at least 25% of these Medicaid nursing home funds redirected to fund a national attendant services program. Attendant services are help with things like bathing, dressing, eating and similar activities of daily living which a person needs help with due to his or her disability. ADAPT has drafted legislation, the Community Attendant Services Act, CASA (which means home in Spanish) to achieve this goal, and state versions are being promoted in Vermont, Wisconsin, Georgia, Texas and New Mexico.

Now over 5,000 strong nationally, ADAPT has chapters in over 32 cities and 27 states, and is growing daily.

One of the signature aspects of ADAPT is the passion our members bring to the struggle. Parallels with the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s are an easy parallel to draw to get across the concept that the goal of our work is civil rights for people with disabilities. The parallel seemed most apt when we were fighting for lifts on buses, and the line “we can’t even get on the back of the bus” went a long way to make clear to those unfamiliar with disability and accessibility what we wanted.

In a real sense however, disability rights is in a much earlier stage than the civil rights movement. In many ways it is much closer to the abolitionist movement, to abolish slavery. Disability pride is shared among a minority of our community, and the attitude “better dead than disabled” is quite prevalent among the general population as well as among many people with disabilities. ADAPT’s current focus on attendant services instead of nursing homes has been much more of an uphill battle than logic would have predicted.

While “classic” civil disobedience challenges unjust laws by breaking these very laws and thereby challenges the attitudes that support them, ADAPT’s approach has been an adaptation. Through our actions (as we call our protests) ADAPT has sought to challenge the view that people with disabilities are helpless, sick, vulnerable and unable to direct our own lives. ADAPT’s protests seek to challenge this view and challenge our opposition (AHCA the nursing home industry lobby group, politicians and government, etc.) with obstacles similar to some of those the opposition’s policies and laws place in our lives.

Last fall ADAPT chose Lansing Michigan, home of Governor John Engler, then potential vice-presidential candidate and master-mind of the welfare reform and Medicaid block grants being promoted by Congress. When Governor Engler continued to refused to meet with ADAPT after letters, phone calls and a take over of his Michigan Republican Party Headquarters, we had no choice but try finding him at home. An example of the underestimation of disabled people: over 300 wheelchair users were able to stroll through Engler’s country club neighborhood, through his heavily guarded — but unlocked — front gate right up to his front door. When he still refused to meet, ADAPT shut down the state capitol building for an afternoon, turning it into a nursing home from which the legislators and lobbyists were not free to go without ADAPT’s permission. (Most nursing homes try hard to keep “residents” from coming and going without their permission.) Oddly enough, people felt the need to climb in and out of first floor windows in their desire not to loose control of their lives!

This was not ADAPT’s first “home visit”. House Speaker Newt Gingrich had for several years met with ADAPT promising to introduce ADAPT’s draft legislation the Community Attendant Services Act, CASA. Yet Newt had failed repeatedly to follow through. So in May of 1995 ADAPT again went to the Speaker’s office and when he was too busy to meet ADAPT took over his apartment building! Gingrich’s behavior was so outrageous, his landlords, United Methodist Church officials, at first upset their building was being so inconvenienced, ended up joining ADAPT’s call for Gingrich to act. Out of town, off giving a speech at the state department where he “could not be reached by telephone” according to his staff, Gingrich ended up slinking off to a hotel for the night. In September however, he met with ADAPT making another series of promises (which he has yet to live up to. It will be interesting to be so near his home district on election-eve to remind him of his promises.)

The last time ADAPT took on the nursing home lobby group AHCA was at their convention in Las Vegas in 1994. On profits and expense accounts gleaned from locking folks away in their facilities, AHCA was partying hardy at the Hilton Hotel made famous by the recent Tailhook Hotel. ADAPT took to the streets of sin city and there at the intersection of Paradise and Riveria Blvds., in front of the Hilton and the Las Vegas Convention Center, erected a cross with a wheelchair hanging from it to remind all involved of the lives that have been sacrificed to benefit that industry. As the Las Vegas police moved in to arrest they pulled on their latex gloves (a practice adapted I believe since the AIDS epidemic and ACT UP). ADAPT pulled on ours (350 people who have catheters, bowel programs, etc. are never in short supply of latex gloves.)

ADAPT actions have two goals: to create change addressing the issues we identify, and to empower people with disabilities to take control of our destiny and create a real place in society. As one Houston attendee put it “I really have found no bigger rush than being with ADAPT folks at a national action. There’s an energy and a power you take home with you. I was in a nursing home for 12 years. I’d rather die than go back! It’s like we were chanting ‘I’d rather go to jail than to die in a nursing home’. Hell I’d rather go to jail than to have anyone have to live in one.”

  I’ll be posting more info about our battle in the future. My Thoughts and the thoughts of war tested advocates in the disability community will be shared. To my brothers and sisters stuck in nursing homes, It’s my prayer that God will grant you freedom soon. Don’t give up. Press on.

 Last Night, at Starbucks we started reading C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters as part of my new Bible Study for college students. We are studying the spiritual warfare that Christians are in everyday. Even though the book is fictional it’s is very good at showing how the devil works. The book is about a elder demon writing to a younger demon about how to temp and defeat Christians. As Christians we need to know what we are up against, but not to the point we lose focus of God. Jesus is King. He’s in Control. The Devil is not his evil co-equal. We need to remember that. We are up against a real thing but do not lose heart. God is on our side. Here’s what the bible says about the enemy and his forces:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places-Ephesians 6:10-12

 Even though the devil is real we can have victory over him, and in fact our ultimate victory has come through Jesus:

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities  and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.-Colossians 2:13-15

The enemy is disarmed, he can’t accuse us before God anymore because our sins have been taken away by Jesus on the Cross. We who trust Jesus are free to love God and live for Him,Nevertheless, the enemy remains in the world until the Day of Judgement,and Christians must contiue their struggle against the devil. The devil can’t take your salvation but he can keep you ineffective for Jesus. That’s why we need to stay connected to God for his help, and remember that the same power that freed us from the guilt and punishment from our sin is the same power that can free us from the power of our SIN. Keep your eyes on Jesus. In Christ is Freedom. Freedom from the enemy, freedom from the world, and freedom from the flesh(the part of you who wants to sin). But it all starts with cross and knowing your forgiven. Don’t ever forget the cross. When the devil attacks with things like “you’re not saved” or “your not a christian”, remember the words of Colossians 2:13-15 

   And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities  and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.-Colossians 2:13-15

 You’re forgiven, You’re Free from the accuser. Jesus is your Victor.

What is one trait of God’s man? One trait is He is a one woman man. His wife is enough for him. She is his standard of beauty. Not his friend’s wife, not porn, or any other woman that may walk by. His Wife!Period! Here’s what Paul writes to Timothy on leadership:

3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer  must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.- 1 Timothy 3:1-7

“Husband of  one wife” literally means a one woman man. This is so important to God and we men need to hear what he is saying to us. My wife Robin, is one of the greatest blessings that God ever gave me, and I have not always treated her that way. She is a strong woman of God, She loves me for who I am, and She’s very beautiful. But her greatest feature is her faith in the Lord Jesus. She’s a woman who loves Jesus, and no porn star can ever compete with that kind of beauty.

30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.- Proverbs 31:30

         If your a Christian man who the Lord has blessed with a wife, love her like she’s the only woman on earth. Sexual Sin has penetrated our ranks and we need to stand up and fight. Porn is effecting the church in a major way. I fell into an  addiction to porn at 16 after I was rape and it’s been a hard battle to get free from the grip of this great enemy but by the help of God I’m fighting and finding healing everyday. If your married or a young guy reading this, kill porn before it kills you. Porn will destroy your relationships, your faith, and life. I’m trusting God I’ll never look at it again. Jesus is to True for me to go back. Here’s what porn does:

Draws you in to deeper levels of sexual sin

makes you see women as objects

brings a cycle of guilt and shame

messes up intimate times with your wife

destroys your wife’s confidence

Hinders your relationship with God and others.

    But There’s Freedom! Freedom in Jesus. See Him as your Treasure.  When your a one woman man you honor God. I been blessed because of having Robin in my life, and I’m not willing to neglect her. She’s a answered to prayer. People told me growing up I’d never have a wife because of my cp. God’s reply to that was he gave me the best one. I be a fool to trade that for porn. To all my brothers and sisters who are battling sexual sin my heart and prayers go out to you. Trust God, he’ll see you to victory.

 Yesterday was another crazy day for Patriots staff members. We are stretched thin but have to get the work done that will continue our fight for independence as people with disabilities. I got to be honest, I love the advocacy part of my job at TRIPIL but sometimes when I have to provide Independent Living Skills to people who don’t care gets tiresome at times. But help is on the way in the form of a part-time IL Specialist. I interviewed a person who was a mentor to me 10 years ago. It was so surreal interviewing a guy who taught me things about IL, But he’d be a welcome addition to our team once again. He knows IL, He knows TRIPIL, and he would bring a must needed break for the other skills trainers. TRIPIL has the best group of advocates inside the disability community  but even the best need rest and support. You can’t keep bringing your best staff to the breaking point and exspect them to bounce back everytime. We’re Human! I’m looking forward to spending some must needed time with my wife this weekend. I need to forget everything TRIPIL, and return to the caos Monday hopefully refreshed and fired up again.

  I don’t want my blog to ever become political but I must write about so called “Christians” I have talked to about the election.  What they say about Barack Obama just frightens me. And they believe those hate filled emails about him too. This blog post is not an endorsement of Mr.Obama for President but it’s about the heart of people who claim to be followers of Jesus. Here are things I’m hearing from “Christians”.

I’m not voting for Obama because:

“Obama=Osama”

“He’s not American!”

“He’s a Muslim”

“The blacks will take over”

“It’s called the white house for a reason!”

“If he becomes president,someone will shoot him in a month.”

     That’s just a taste of what I have heard from professing “Christians” I have ran in to. Here’s what God’s word says about race:

11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.- Colossians 3:11

      This verse speaks of Christians of all races and how we should be one family under Christ, but we should also have the same heart for people who our not Christians. And rather Obama is truly a Christian or not  doesn’t matter because the Christian who is judging him for the color of his skin, and spitting out hateful remarks like those above are in sin. They might not even be Christians. Racism has no place in the body of Christ. And just for the Record, Our Lord and Savior was Jewish, not some blue eye blond hair white guy from the south. But what do I know?

 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him [2] there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.- 1 John 2:10-11

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, [3] that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. -1 John 3:11-15

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.- 1 John 4:7-11