Conversations with Ray Martinez

This is my second part about God’s mystery or his secret plan. Paul said that "I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan."  His mystery is very simply put for all of us to know and comprehend. A “mystery” in the New Testament is something that at one time was hidden but is now revealed to God’s people. When the disciples asked about certain parables, Jesus spoke...

Lloyd Garcia was a hometown hero that represented the City of Fort Collins in the US Olympic weightlifting arena.  He never was recognized for his efforts in Germany, because in those days, Latinos were not recognized, but minimized with white trade signs peppered around Fort Collins in the 40's-1962.  That's in the past, and now 50 plus years later, I had the opportunity to present Lloyd with the...

Some people refer to Psalms 91 as the soldier's prayer. We learn from this chapter about 12 things that God will do for us, and 7 tasks that God wants us to do.  It's important that we recognize Him as our place of refuge, our guide, and that He has sent angels to watch over us.  There is a lot to learn today.

In this brief podcast, I’m sharing several thoughts for us to ponder about our outlook in our Christianity walk. I think we are always under construction or reconstruction when building our walk with Christ.

Mr. Warner was my metal shop and mechanical drawing teacher at Lincoln Jr. High back in the 60's.  He was a stern man that taught me some life skills and I know he liked me as a student.  Sometimes it took a slap on the leg with a short stick to get a person to pay attention and learn fast!  He was a great mentor and a REAL man that taught us Respect, Encouragement, Attitude, and Li...

We can easily be discouraged when someone asks us if we are holy?  This holiness centers around at what we work at doing.  Here are the take-a-ways in today's podcast! . Be holy (accept Christ)…living a holy life (work at it.) . Live in peace, and work at it! . Look after each other . Keep people from falling short of the grace of God . Watch out that you don’t become susceptible to the...

When we worship God, we have to employ our heart (spirit), soul (voice of reasoning), and our mind (conscience).  God created them all for a purpose.  We will talk about this in our podcast and why our attitude is so important.  Our attitude involves the heart, soul, and mind...it's our life sown and woven together to make us whole.

What a rememberable day for The Latino Community, and Tom Flores.  It's about time he was inducted to the Hall of Fame for the NFL.  Tom is a friend of mine and we met when he came to Fort Collins to speak at CSU.  More importantly, he spoke to the kids at Juan Fullana elementary school first.  I was his security person for the two days that he was here.  What a personable...

Today we are learning about God's mystery.  We will talk about 7 of them: The mystery of God, his will, of Christ, of the kingdom of God, of the gospel, of faith, and of godliness. Some of us worry about our past and if God can use you.  God uses our past to build our future.  Now that's a mystery in itself.  God has chosen us, and you won't know if you were chosen unless you b...

God is giving his people a choice to follow his direction in life or end up being defeated.  Here, Isaiah speaks the words of God and says, "come now, let us reason together."  If we will listen to the voice of reason (common sense), we will make the obvious choice.  God gives us good reason to follow him, to be obedient and listen to his directions in life.  No matter where yo...

What does God want from our wholeness of being holy?  David is our illustration in how he made worshiping God as his most important priority to keep himself safe from his enemies.  If God is for us, who can be against us? God wants us to be without the stress of this world.  He wants us to live without fear and be confidant in His abilities..

God told his people to fear not and not be discouraged.  The world around us today is discouraging, but God asked us to look up to Him, and he will encourage us.  Likewise we should lift each other up with encouragement.  Today, I share 8 ways of encouragement, not just for yourself but for others as well.

We are living in some crazy times now days, and many of us feel uncomfortable with the turning of events whether that is at a national level or local level.  God says he will comfort us. This "comfort" means in the biblical translation to "breath strong".  In other words, take a deep breath.  God promises us easy breathing to relax ourselves through his blessings.  This is a su...

Today we are talking about the real peace that comes from God; the peace of mind and the peace of heart.  We can't confuse this with the world's peace that is temporal and non-binding.  God's peace is unconditional love while the world's peace constantly accuses if we don't align with it's conditional rules. God's peace passes all understanding.  We'll talk about the difference in t...

When asked what was my greatest surprise in life, I would say it was my greatest amazement in life.  Watching my Dad pass away was difficult, but  three days before he passed, something amazing happened.  Nothing short of a miraculous event that put me at ease, and I know my mom was more than excited.  A true event that I cannot ever forget.

What was my sport in high school?  I have to say it was Judo, taught by Dick Okimoto from Colorado State University.  He taught me the art of judo while teaching me life skills that has lasted me a lifetime.  I'll share some examples.  If you know Mr. Okimoto, I want to contact him to thank him for the life lessons that have saved me many times during life struggles.

Isaiah is talking to his people, delivering a message from God.  In this message, God is basically telling his people to "open their eyes" and see what He is doing.  There is ongoing creation today, not just in the beginning of Genesis chapter 1. I'll share much about this creation today, which may help us to open our eyes for 2021.  Happy New Years!

This was Joseph's first Christmas!  We explore why the Angel told Joseph to name Mary's son, Jesus.  There is much meaning behind the name and many other names that Jesus had such as Emanuel, Christ, Jehovah, and Jesus Christ that we will explore.  We discover that Joseph was a "good man", and had 4 foundational reasons to believe that the Angel of the Lord visited him in a dream. &...

Watching other families and their siblings is intriguing to me. Some get along like best friends and others never talk to each other again after leaving home?  While growing up, I only had one sibling, my adopted sister, Mary Jane.  She came from the same orphanage that I did.  So we had things in common, but we got along great.  Like anyone else, we had our differences, but I...

This is one of the great encounters that Abraham has with God and a couple of angles.  They have dinner with Abraham and talk about Sarah having a child at this time next year.  Sarah, laughed, realizing how old she and Abraham were.  We will learn that nothing is impossible with God.  When Sarah was confronted about laughing, she denied it, but the LORD told her, "yes you did....

Thaylor Iron Rope is a Lakota Native American who loves to raps various lyrics that he creates because of his love for God.  This is something that he said off the top of his head without any preparation.  I think you will enjoy it.

My experience was with a tornado that hit Windsor, Colorado.  On May 22, 2008 right before noon, the Town of Windsor was struck by an EF3 tornado. With very little warning, the community took shelter and suffered a lot of damage.  I was on the highway driving from Denver, and wanted to retreat back after listening to the radio.  Suddenly, Denver was under a tornado warning too. &nbs...

God speaks to Abraham about what his responsibilities are.  Are we being responsible to God like Abraham did?  Mark of the promise back then was circumcision...today we cut away the fleshly life of the world, and focus on piercing our heart with obedience and responsibility to God's will, not our fleshly desires.  

I'm sharing this story about my adoptive mom.  Mom passed away on Easter night in 1994, which left me with a lot of fond memories that live in my heart today.  I shared three main points about my mom, although there are many more.  Mom worked very hard all her life and she was a caretaker of my grandmother whom I loved dearly.  Mother always had a humorous family story to tell-...

God speaks to Abram, and he falls down on the ground on his face.  While God speaks to Abram, he reveals His covenant, which contains six major commitments.  However, God tells Abram that he has to remain faithful and blameless.  We will talk about what it means to be blameless and faithful while unpacking the six promises.