I'm Alive

I am a new song by Jeremy camp. the lyrics to the chorus are:

I'm alive I'm alive like i've never been
been revived from the sin that was deep within
It's the past now. It's the past cause Christ has given life
and I'll never thrist again!

I love that! I hope it encourages you today also. Have a great day everyone - and a happy new year!

All Of Us

I asked a group of people the other day if God ask them to do something and they knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was God speaking to them; if they would do what God asked. The response was hesitant with a "maybe" response; which surprised me! God is perfect. His plan for our lives is perfect. If he asks us to do something and we don't, we will veer off the perfect path he has prepared for us. To give him all of us takes faith and trust in his goodness. We can become so self-centered sometimes and begin to think; well would I give up my Ipod? my job, my friends? or other various things or people in my life? God is not out to use and abuse us and destroy our lives. on the contrary he is here to give us life! real life! I struggled with giving up the things in my life before I gave it all to God. I was scared to give up drinking, pornography, cussing and the type of music I listed to, but the truth is I don't miss those things at all! they used to be such a big part of my life! I thought I was loosing my life when I gave them up but in actuality I was gaining my life back. To go back to those things would be depressing. If we will trust God completely with our lives we will find out what real life is all about!

Living Revelation to Revelation

This is a little recap from youth group last night. In Acts 16:6-10 it talks about how Paul and his companions were traveling around and sharing the Good News. they were going to go to Asia but the Holy Spirit did not allow it. they also were going to go to Mysia, but again the spirit of Jesus did not allow it! Then Paul had a dream of a man in Macedonia, and he concluded that God wanted him to go there. Although the mission given to us is to go to the whole world; God has specific missions for us everyday. We must use all of the tools that God gives us upon salvation and baptism in the Holy Spirit to discover and complete those smaller missions that are all part of the bigger mission! I think the average christian life is like sitting down at a table full of food and just eating bread and water. God's kingdom is available to us! Great gifts that can change lives and unlimited power to do his work are at our finger tips. We are created in his image and the christian life is meant to discover exactly what that means and live in it! It should be our goal to live revelation to revelation. Have a great day!

Content with Wrapping Paper

Cyrus celebrated Christmas day for the first time yesterday. He had a blast, although he was pretty tired as evening came! He got several gifts, and like most kids his age he was more impressed with the box and the wrapping paper than the actual gift. He loved to chew on the wrapping paper. I think a lot of times we as adults/teenagers are content with the wrapping paper when it comes to the meaning of Christmas. It is a nice message and a pretty story, of how Jesus was born in a manager and they brought him gifts and the angles sang. However, if we stop there then we are about the same as Cyrus and finding ourselves content with wrapping paper of Gods message. If we go beyond that, we can discover the real gift. Forgiveness of sins, and new life! If you have more Christmas parties this weekend remember the whole gift that Jesus brings as you enjoy the whole gift that family and friends bring you! God bless!

The Angels on Christmas Eve

I wonder if the angels annoyed God in Heaven like I annoyed my parents on the night before Christmas? I wonder if God said "It is only 3:30 in the morning, go back to bed!" They had to have been waiting for that moment when they could praise God on the hill side. The angels are always praising God, but I think there had to be some special anticipation for this moment! And when God said OK it's time, I wonder if they ran down the stairs and jumping from about half way up all the way to floor and then flew around the corner to see just what God had done! I remember the excitement and the anticipation of Christmas morning! For unto us a child is born! Praise God!

Living Beyond our Means Spirtually

I am pretty big on living within my means financially. This is good stewardship of the money God has provided. I saw a news story the other day about a family who's house was taken back by the bank. His payments for this house were 2000 dollars a month, and the bank had raised the payment to 4000 a month and he could not afford it. I was amazed at someone paying 2000 a month for a house! I am sure he was in a different part of the country where housing costs more but still, had he bought a house for 1000 and it doubled to 2000 he would have been fine. Often times I take my approach to money and use that when I am doing ministry. However God works differently and it is one of those many things I am working on. The whole idea of doing something great for God is to do something amazing. Something extraordinary! Think about the 5 loaves and 2 fish. To look at that from a human perspective says that is beyond our means to feed all 5000 of these people with what we have. But God's kingdom doesn't work that way, when we are following him we have no limits on what we can do, so we need to change our perspective in situations like that and step out in faith. We are called not to live within our means spiritually, but instead called to live within God's means. Oh, and by the way his resources are unlimited! :) Let's do something great for God today!

Christmas Week

Christmas week started for us yesterday. We had our Christmas SPAW (Service of Praise And Worship) Sunday morning, then Sunday afternoon we went my Grandma's in Red Oak. It was the first family Christmas for Cyrus! I don't think he was put down for even 30 seconds but that is OK once in a while. Christmas and Christ is all about love, and he got plenty of it yesterday. Robyn and I are blessed with great families. I am beginning to appreciate more and more the time we get to spend with them. I am praying for Wednesday night to come quick so we can continue the celebration of Jesus birth at our Christmas eve service. Have a great day!

Perfect Plan - Perfect Timing

I am always amazed at Gods perfect timing. When I read in the Bible and take a step back and look at all of the things that happened, and how they all work together and how everything seems to happen at the perfect time I find myself in awe of how in control God is. It is always cool to read the lineage of Jesus and see all of the people that were in the old testament. Out of all of the Jews, even all of the Jews from the line of Judah, why did the authors of the Bible write about the ones they did? And to go even further why did they keep such close track of lineage. It was such an important thing to them! but it all comes together and all makes sense when Jesus comes! writing on this topic could easily become a book instead of blog so I am going to have to cut it short, but keep in mind today that God is still in control and his timing is still and always will be perfect! God is good!

Priority Contracts

At work we have contracts with our customers, depending on what type of contract they have with us depends on what kind of priority they get. As an employee I have a contract to work for my company, and in turn all employees are bound to the contracts the company makes with our customers. But work is not the only place where there are contracts. When we accept Christ we have accepted a contract, and also when we get married we have done the same. The Bible calls them covenants. I hear a lot at work about "this is a high priority customer" or "they have a high priority contract". That is all well and good from 8am to 5pm, but after that I am breaking other contracts when I am working, and despite the biggest contract at work it is so very tiny compared to the contract I have with God and with my wife, and now my son.

Luke 22:20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Contracts are all about the price that was paid for them. the verse above says it all. Christ, the son of God, poured out his blood for me. It is critical that I honor this covenant above all others. Second I honor my wife, which in a since is a sub-covenant of the first since our marriage is based on Christ. third, to be a father to my son. fourth, to the ministry God has called me to, and finally the contract with my work. I challenge you evaluate your "high priority" contracts and put things into perspective today. Have a great day!

Trusting God

With all of this study of the heart, I am noticing the hearts of those in the Bible. this morning I read about Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5. Yes, the ones that lied to God and then died. The condition of their hearts were not right, but lets look past the disobedience of lying and look at the reason for the lie. This couple sold their land and gave the money to the Apostles to further God's kingdom. the problem is that they told them they were giving them all the money but secretly they held some back for themselves. Why did they do that? Well, I don't think they trusted God with their whole hearts. They kept a little money for themselves just in case this Jesus thing didn't last. I think they also lied to be accepted and praised by the rest of the believers. That is pride, and where there is pride there is a failed condition of the heart, because we believe in ourselves more than God. the condition of the heart is a rudder that steers the whole ship. One little adjust either good or bad makes a huge difference on what direction you go. I think we should take time to examine our hearts today and see where our rudder (heart) is turning our ship (our lives)

Cut to the Heart

I was reading in Acts chapter 2 this morning and found that after Peter spoke to the crowd it says the people were "cut to the heart" -NIV. It jumped out at me and I thought about what that really means both in that context and in our lives today. Yesterday I blogged about God shaking the very core of our being. This fits right along with that. You see, the people that were gathered around Peter to hear what he was saying didn't simply come to an intellectual decision that caused them to believe in Jesus, although that was a perhaps part of it. But, it was deeper than that. to cut to the heart means to, you guessed it, go to the very core of our being. The words that Peter spoke were from the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit did what only the Holy Spirit can do; penetrate all of the layers of protection that we put up to hide who we are, and speak to us on such a level that only the creator has access to. It is a place where no games are played, no hard questions are avoided and truth and love are spoken. Wow! We have an awesome God. It is my prayer today that we can both have a "cut to the heart" experience with God, and that the Holy Spirit would speak through us into the heart of another. Have a great day!

God's Presence

Our new church schedule has been interesting, now that Robyn and I are working with children during the church service on Sunday mornings. I get to see the notes to the sermon that the adults are going to get but I don't actually get to hear it. It was so cool when we came back in for the altar time how God was moving. The sermon was on the presence of God, and when we came back in that is what was there. As I prayed for people I asked God to shake the very core of their being. I wonder sometimes if I scare people when I say stuff like that! :) oh well, it's good for them! But it is important to be in the presence of God and to have him go to very center of who we are and dwell. I want to encourage you to seek God and invite him to dwell within you today on a deeper level.

Desire vs Discipline

Sometimes we hear statements that stick with us and change our perspective on things. I love it when that happens because it means I am learning. I heard a pastor say once that discipline is the lowest form of sonship/relationship. If we have to do things out of discipline it means we really don't want to but we will anyway because it is the right thing to do. He proceeded to say that when we WANT to serve God, and pray and read our Bibles it is much more pleasing to him. Discipline is important because sometimes that is what it takes to do what we need to do, but how much greater is it to desire to do the things of God! David said in Psalm 40:8 "I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." That is my prayer for today, to desire to do God's will. I hope it your prayer today to; not out of discipline but out of desire!

Without the Resurrection

During my Bible reading this morning, I read about the crucifixion of Jesus. My reading stopped before the resurrection, but it made me think of what would have happened if there was no resurrection. I don't believe we would have Christianity. The resurrection was the one thing that no other great speaker or good person has ever done. through out history Jesus has been the only one who has overcome death. Now through his resurrection we too will be resurrected. I can't help but think how hard those that opposed Jesus must have looked for his body and never found it, because if they could find it they could have crushed Christianity forever. despite guards in front of the tomb and all of those that opposed him no proof was ever brought forward that was legitimate against the resurrection of Christ! Praise God!

The Heart of the Matter

My wife and I were discussing a couple of weeks ago the idea of allowing internet access to our teenagers at church. With a content filter in place to block the obvious stuff I felt just fine allowing teenagers and older on the internet. She didn't want any opportunity for our students to get around the system and get to things they shouldn't. I understand her point, but I have been going through a book it has been talking about having a right heart, and it made me think of this topic again.

We as christians must have "right hearts" as we go about life both in church and outside of church. When we are on the internet, we definetly need to have a right heart! whatever you want is right at your fingertips. Do you want to fall into Satans trap? Go ahead and get on the internet! Do you want to grow in Christ and spread his word? Go ahead and get on the internet!

As leaders we often want to create this perfect enviroment to honor God, and in our minds that means remove any possiblity that might cause someone to even consider sinning. However, lets look at the perfect enviromen that God created. The Garden of Eden was perfect, yet in that perfection was option to sin... hmm... I think to Honor God we must have free will to sin and choose not to go there, but instead to follow him and his ways. Whenever we are tempted with sin, sure there is potential for us to fall, however the flip side of that is that we have an opportunity to honor God with a right heart that turns from evil. That is no reason to go marching into sinful and unhealthy situations, but I love the fact that when I am tempted I have a choice to say yes to Jesus, and to remind Satan that he is not in control of my life.

God, help us to have right hearts today and to chose you and follow you no matter what temptations the enemy puts in our path. Thank you for Freedom!!!