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Always Remember

“Always remember” became a rally cry after the initial 9/11 attacks. Today, my Facebook feed is full of people remembering where they were that morning. They recall what they were doing and how they felt. Each of us who were alive that day have a story of when and how we found out. For one day out of the year, we share that story and post it for all to see. I can’t help but think what would happen if the world’s Christian population did the same thing with when and how they came to know Jesus. What would our Facebook feed look like then?

Imagine the testimonies that would be read on such a day. Think of those who you’ve never told about your faith, but wish you had the guts to. Something like that could change lives forever. I go to church with lots of people, but I don’t know most of their testimonies of how they were called out of the life they were living. It would be so encouraging to read the ways that God reached into someone’s life and brought them from despair to hope. It would be incredible to see how many were raised in church and stayed true to the faith they were handed down.

I know it’s kind of a pipe dream to think that we would all do this one day, but I also think dreams are how things get started. When is the last time any of us shared our testimony publicly? When is the last time we let anyone know what God did for us? Why do we keep silent about it? When it first happened, we couldn’t shut up about this amazing feeling if redemption and forgiveness. Now we scared to open our mouths even among fellow believers to share what God is doing. How did that happen?

For me, I was raised in church. I first gave my heart to The Lord at 7 during a children’s crusade given by a former biker who used the loss of limbs from an accident to become Captain Hook. He shared of God’s hidden treasure and how we needed to seek Him like that hidden treasure. I knew then that I wanted to spend a lifetime seeking that treasure. When life got complicated, I quit searching for that treasure. I got lost in the cares of this world. Things in my life went from bad to worse. My wife left me and I lost my business.

After that, I went to a bar every night 7 days a week to help me forget the pain and to help me sleep. One night, a guy I knew from high school sat down beside me at that bar and asked why I was in a bar. I told him everything that happened. When I looked for sympathy, he gave me none. He stood up and said, “I’m not going to sit here and drink with you. You’ve given up and that’s not the Chris I knew. I don’t want to see you like this.” He got up and walked out. All of a sudden everything became clear. I was in a rut and hiding from the God who was seeking me.

I left and never went back. I began seeking that treasure once again. I owned up to the mistakes I made, dealt with my past and started to move forward. I rebuilt on the foundation that had been laid as a child. I will always remember that night when God used that man to call me out of darkness and back into His light. I’m thankful that I wasn’t left wallowing in self pity. I could have wasted more years of my life not seeking Him, but God wouldn’t let me.

That’s mine in a nutshell. What’s yours? If we can’t fill up Facebook with our testimonies, maybe we can share them here. I love hearing how God called each person individually. Always remember what He did for you and never be scared to share it.

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A More Powerful Spiritual Life

If spending quality time with God is the way to having a quality spiritual life, then fasting is the way to having a more powerful spiritual life. Giving up our time shows God we are making Him a priority. Giving up food shows Him that we are willing to sacrifice our physical comfort for spiritual gain. Fasting is a spiritual discipline that I’m afraid too few Christians engage in. Either we don’t see the purpose or we don’t see the value, so we don’t do it. When we skip fasting as a spiritual discipline, we miss out on strength needed to overcome certain things in our lives.

In Mark 9, there is a story of a man who asked Jesus to heal his son who was possessed by an evil spirit. In verse 18 he said, “I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” They had spent quality time with Jesus, but hadn’t been fasting and praying so they lacked the power to heal him. Jesus told them in verse 29, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer and fasting.” He inferred that there is more power in fasting.

When you are in need of more power to overcome a temptation, to find the right direction or to get through a situation, I encourage you to fast and to pray. Your fast should be between you and God. Don’t make an outward show of it or tell people you are doing it so they will feel sorry for you. Jesus said that if you did that, you have your reward. I’d rather have the power of God than the approval of man. It’s our choice when we fast.

In Matthew 6:16, Jesus said, “When (not if) you fast, don’t make it obvious.” He knew that our human nature likes to receive sympathy from others. We like to play to the crowd and to get others to feel sorry for us. Fasting is not about that at all. It’s about showing God you have brought your body under discipline and are denying it what it needs in order to gain what your spirit needs. It shows Him we are willing to feed our spirit instead of our stomach.

The Bible talks of many different types of fasts and lengths of fasts. How long, what you fast and why you fast are between you and God. I always feel like the more challenging the fast, the greater reward. If my fast costs me nothing, that about what I’ll get in return. The greater the need in my life, the greater the fast I do. Some are mentally challenging, but all are physically challenging. I usually seek God on what He wants me to fast and for how long. Once decided, I pray for the need every time I have a desire for what I’m fasting. I’ve learned that giving up what I want for what He wants changes me for the better every time.

What are different fasts that have challenged you physically, mentally and spiritually? How often do you think that Christians should fast? Should it be just when we need something from God or should it be something we do on a regular basis? I’m curious to hear how God has called you to fast and what He’s done through your fasting.

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Dealing with Distractions

I always seem to get distracted during my prayer time on Monday’s. My mind tries to think through the week ahead starting with the meetings today. I catch myself going down rabbit trails in my mind when I should be praying. It’s hard to concentrate on what I’m reading in the Bible when I’ve got other things popping up in my mind. When I try to be quiet before The Lord, songs, music, thoughts on how to resolve situations and schedules start to cloud my mind. Not to mention, it would be nice to sleep a little longer since it is Monday and the weekend is officially over.

Do you ever go through this? Do you find it hard to keep your mind focused on God when you’re supposed to be spending time with Him? I think most of us do. Our minds are problem solvers and are constantly thinking through how to fix things in our lives. It happens in our prayer times because that’s the only time we’re still enough to let our minds work. We force ourselves to stop and concentrate on God, but our mind has other plans.

If we look in the Gospels, we see that Jesus made it a habit to get away from everything, go off to secluded places and spent time with God. Many of us would love a secluded place just to get away from the kids, noise, obligations, phone calls, text messages and emails! But to spend time with God, we need to find that place to spend with Him, not just to escape our daily life. As a kid, I remember that any morning I got up early, if I went to the living room, I’d find my mom there with her Bible and a cup of coffee. That was her time.

Each of us have different schedules, different obligations and different situations. There’s no one size fits all approach to spending time with God without distractions. I wish there was. Instead, it takes a conscious effort on our part to find that time and place where we can spend uninterrupted time alone with God. It’s up to us to turn off the phone, get away from noisy distractions, find a secluded place and to get alone with God. I struggled for years with this. I didn’t prioritize my time with Him so I allowed the distractions to take over that time.

Now, I’ve made a decision that I won’t let anything interrupt that time. The only time I found on my schedule to do that was my commute to work. When a thought other than one that is God-centered pops in, I check it, push it out and quiet my mind again. I turn the radio off, keep my eyes on the road and treat it as I would if I were having a meeting. Doing these simple things have helped my spiritual life to grow more in the past two years than the previous decades combined. It all started with the decision to make it a priority above everything else.

I’m curious to see how others have found time in their busy schedules to spend time alone with God. What do you do? What best practices do you have that help you stay on track with your quality time with God? How do you keep other thoughts from distracting you? How do you make time when there seems to be none? Please share so that all of us can benefit and find ways to improve our own quiet time with God. If we learn to spend quality time with God, our lives will have more quality.

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A Call to Love

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to truly love people. As Christians, we are called to love others. Jesus said that the world would know we are His disciples by our love for others, but is that what we are known for? I’ve been reminded a few times this week through conversations and quotes I’ve read that we need to learn to love more than we are. We spend more time judging than we do loving and that’s a problem.

One of the quotes I read this week came from Mother Teresa. It said, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” We have to fight against our human nature with this one. It’s easy to sit and judge, but difficult to go and love. Loving others requires us to act and it’s not an easy thing to do at times. Judging simply involves talking and requires little effort. It’s up to each one of us to consciously keep our mouths closed and to show others love instead.

Another quote I was reminded again came from Peter Strople. He said, “When in doubt, love.” If you aren’t sure what to do in a certain situation, ask yourself how you can show God’s love to that person. If you were the on,y one who had the opportunity to show God’s love to them, what would God ask you to do? Don’t pass the buck. You may be the only person who can show them God’s love and He is waiting on you to act on His behalf. Mark Batterson said, “Inaction is action. Indecision is a decision.” By not doing anything, you are telling them everything.

I also read an article about Uncle Si Robertson from Duck Dynasty this week. He was asked what his favorite verse was. He said, “John 3:17. Everybody knows verse 16, but nobody looks at verse 17.” In the Message it says, “God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending His son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help.” Jesus didn’t spend His time judging sinners. He spent His time building relationships with them. Why aren’t we following His model?

I’m writing this today to myself as much as to anyone else that bears the name Christian. We are known more for judging than for loving. We are known for pointing fingers instead of helping hands. We’ve been so caught up in being in the world, not of the world that we’ve built walls between the ourselves and the ones we’re called to help. It’s no wonder that church growth is comprised mainly of switchers instead of new converts. We spend time and money trying to build a better service than the church down the road instead of spending time and money on things that help to build the relationships needed to truly grow the Church.

It all comes down to love. It’s not our minister’s job to do it, it’s ours. They can’t touch as many people as we, the body, can collectively. We can’t grow the Church because we’ve separated ourselves from those who need God’s love in an effort to stay clean. Jesus hung out with leppers, prostitutes and the worst of sinners because that’s who needs His love the most. It’s time we followed His example, built relationships with unbelievers and showed them His love in action. Don’t sit in judgement behind walls. Get your hands dirty and love others.

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Changing Routes

When I lived in the Middle East, the U.S. Embassy would often tell us to change our routines and the way we went to work. We were told to find a different path, go in at different times and to be unpredictable in our routes. It was easy to take my route to the church each day. I would ride my bike over the flyover, go up a few blocks, turn left for one block and then go right. I waved each morning to the men at the bakery. I said, “Good morning” in Arabic to the furniture makers. I nodded at the guards at the intersections. I was comfortable in that route.

I think we love routine because we feel there’s safety in it. We can do it without thinking and it’s easy. We see the same things each day and they become ordinary to us. Changing routes and routines throws everything off. There are new sites, new people, and new patterns that cause us to have to be alert and to pay attention. We as Christians should be doing this in our lives often. Not only will it give us a heightened awareness of what’s around us, it can increase our circle of influence.

I pray each day for God to open my eyes to see what He wants me to see, but I keep the same routine and wonder why I’m not seeing anything. Changing routines and routes in our lives changes our perspective. It forces us out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. It allows God to reveal things to us that we couldn’t see from our old perspective. It helps us to see other people who need our help that weren’t in our path before. It keeps our lives fresh.

I’ve heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. How can we expect God to move in our lives, open our eyes and change our perspective if we just keep doing the same old things over and over? We have to get out of what is familiar to us. We have to quit asking Him to put people in our path and start asking Him to put us in their path! If we want to grow, we have to be willing to change.

I’m not a person who likes change, but the company I work for believes in it and I’ve learned to adapt. Being comfortable doesn’t help you to be the best. It helps you fall into a false sense of security. It makes you think that what you’re doing is enough. The rich, young ruler who went to Christ was comfortable. He had kept all the commandments since he was a kid. He did what was right. Jesus asked Him to make a radical change to his routine and route. He couldn’t do it and walked away sad. He wanted different results while doing the same thing.

What routines and routes do you need to change? What is God asking you to do differently than you’ve always done? Are you asking Him to put people in your path or to put you in their path? Changing isn’t easy and doesn’t produce immediate results always. It isn’t comfortable so we typically run from it. Don’t be afraid to ask God what paths, routines and routes in your life you need to change. Once you ask, have the faith to make those changes so you don’t end up like the rich, young ruler.

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Right Words at the Right Time

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I believe in the power of words and in paying it forward. I was excited to see a news story out of North Carolina that combined the two. A family went to dinner at a pizza restaurant and their child with special needs started to get rowdy. People started looking and I’m sure it was embarrassing for the parents. A waitress walked over with tears in her eyes and said, “Another customer has paid for your dinner and wanted me to give you this note.” It read, “God only gives special children to special people.”

At a moment when these parents were upset themselves over the situation they couldn’t control, someone else saw through the temporary and gave them hope through words. Proverbs 25:11 in the Message says, “The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry.” The customer who sent over the note had no idea that this family needed those words at that moment like they did. The mom said, “Little did he know what struggles we had been facing lately and this was surely needed at that moment.”

The mom also said that this one gesture outweighed all the other rude and negative comments they face every day. Proverbs 18:21 says that the power of life and death are in the tongue. Each one of us wields a powerful weapon. How we choose to use it matters. The easy thing in this situation is to roll your eyes and ask why they brought the child into a public restaurant in the first place. I’m sure most of the patrons in that restaurant fit into that category. Thank God for one person who had the boldness to not only say the right words at the right time, but purchased their meal too.

That’s where paying it forward comes into play. I believe paying it forward is scriptural. Most of us had to memorize the Golden Rule as a child: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There probably isn’t anyone reading this who wouldn’t love to be at dinner and to have the server come over and say, “Someone has paid for your meal.” We would love that, but have we done it for someone else? The Golden Rule doesn’t say, “Do unto others as they have done unto you.”

You may not be in a position to buy someone’s meal, but you are in a position to speak life into someone. If you see someone having a difficult day, give them an encouraging word. If you see someone struggling where you’ve been, offer a helping hand and words of advice. A saying I heard a while back still rings true. It says, “When you share in someone’s sadness, sorrow is divided. When you share in their joy, it is multiplied.” We all have days where we would love to have our emotional load divided with someone. Why not pay that forward today and help someone else out?

If you’d like to read the article I’m referencing, click here.

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The Other Side of Obedience

Years ago, I made a lot of mistakes. I’m not saying I still don’t make them, but the ones I’m talking about were life altering mistakes. I’m still paying for them a decade later. I knew I was still paying for them physically, mentally and emotionally, but I hadn’t really understood how I was paying for them spiritually. Once I sought God’s forgiveness for those mistakes, that aspect was taken care of, but there was more to it than my need for forgiveness. There have been barriers that I’ve built up because of it that have caused me to limit God’s ability to bless me.

I feel like I’m a pretty blessed person as it is, but over the last few weeks, I’m realizing that God desires to bless me more than He has been. Recently, my wife and I have been working together to tear down a wall that was built years ago from those mistakes. As we pull it down brick by brick, it’s been like cracks in a dam. Blessings have been gushing out at us. We look at each other in amazement after each incident and wonder, “Could we have experienced this years ago had we tried to tear it down then?” I think the answer is yes.

God has several principles or laws in place that if we were to simply obey, we’d reap the reward on the other side. One of those laws is “give and it shall be given to you.” We’ve mainly heard this applied to the Church, but I believe it applies to anyone. If you give to others, God opens doors to bless you. I’ve heard it said, “If God can get it through you, He’ll get it to you.” I’m finding this to be true in my own life. The more we’re willing to give to others, the more God is willing to give to us. That said, giving in order to get is the wrong motivation.

When we give in order to bless, God sees our hearts and is willing to open up the windows of Heaven to pour out blessings on us. I think those blessings are intended to keep the cycle of blessing others going. If we hoard the blessings that God pours on us, then the cycle stops. We become like the man in the parable who hid his talent. What we have will be taken from us instead of us giving it freely. God trusts us with the ability to bless others, but we fail to trust Him to do His part. We’re afraid to let go because we have too little.

What I’ve found is that even my “little” can be a blessing to someone else. When I released that “little”, God released more to me. When I released that amount, He poured out more. Now we are enjoying the cycle of blessing. Just last night, my wife said, “I’m excited to see how this next blessing will take place.” God gave us a blessing yesterday and now we’re actively looking to see how we can give it away. It’s not because we’re expecting God to turn around and bless us again, but because being a blessing is so much fun. Acting on God’s behalf is the greatest blessing there is.

Our friend Mike always asks, “What has God placed in your hands?” It may not be much in your eyes, but it is a lot to someone else and even more in God’s eyes. Whatever God has given you and told you to release, let me encourage you today to be faithful to God with it. If He asks you to release it, then release it. You will be tearing down a wall that has been holding back blessings just waiting to be released because of your obedience. Look around today and be a blessing to others. You never know what’s on the other side of your obedience.

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The Best Writer’s Conference

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Since it’s Labor Day, I’m going to take a break from my normal devotional message to share with you about a conference that got me writing devotionals like I do. I don’t get a kickback or anything from this conference for telling you about it. I was simply blown away by attending and want to share with you the difference it made in me.

I can’t believe it has been several months since I attended the inaugural Re:Write Conference. I had never been to a writer’s conference so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The truth is, I paid the money for the conference just so I could have a chance to meet Mark Batterson. I had heard of a couple of the other speakers, but wasn’t familiar with many of them. I had only one goal in mind by attending: meet Mark. That being said, I was totally unprepared for what would happen at the conference and in turn, I was blown away.

What was supposed to be a trip to meet one person and pick up a few skills to better my writing turned out to be a spiritual journey beyond my imagination as well. The speakers who attended the conference didn’t get up and give us formulas for success. They poured out their hearts into our lives instead. They shared their heartbeat of why they write, their insights into having a relationship with God and how to be satisfied with how God uses you wherever you are. Where I expected clinics, I got wisdom. Where I expected reclusive authors, I got to sit by them and have personal conversations.

What conference can you go to that has people like Paul Young author of The Shack (20,000,000 copies sold), George Barna the authority on church statistics, Ken Blanchard who wrote the book on business leadership, Peter Strople who is the most connected man in the world and so many more authors who won’t go hide in a green room, but will sit at a table with you while you learn? These authors were the opposite of reclusive. They sat at our tables during the conference and at breakfast. When I was at the airport leaving, I ran into Jim Henson. He initiated a conversation. Later I walked past Paul Young. He called out to me, came over, gave me a hug and said goodbye.

This conference instilled in me the importance of relationships in the writing community. None of us have all the answers or the market cornered. It is through relationships that we build our platforms. We are not competitors against each other fighting for readers. We are co-workers in the Kingdom trying to spread His message, not ours. I got to meet other bloggers, published authors, speakers and other incredible people from all walks of life and levels in writing at this conference who still keep in touch and offer practical advice.

The relationships, the information and the spiritual growth that I came away with from that conference are invaluable. This year, the conference is going to be in Austin, Texas on October 18-20. The list of authors headlining this event is second to none. We’re talking Mark Batterson, Ted Dekker, Lisa TerKuerst, George Barna, Crystal Paine, Carlos Whittaker, David Kinnaman, Mary DeMuth, Peter Strople, Chad Allen, Emily Freeman and Jim Henderson. If you are looking to grow spiritually and improve your writing ability, this is the conference for you. I encourage you to check out their website here for information. You can also follow them on Twitter here for info, highlights and even discounts. It’s a small investment compared to the eternal changes you will experience. I hope to see you there!

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Get Up, Don’t Give Up

For the first time in a long time, I watched the movie “Rudy”. If you’ve never seen it, it’s the story of a young kid who wants to play football for Notre Dame. His family laughs when he tells them he’s going to. His high school won’t let him go visit the campus because his grades weren’t good enough. Notre Dame refused to let him in also. None of that stopped him. He finally got accepted and made the practice squad for the football team. Every time he got hit, he got back up for the next play.

The story is really about what someone who has a lot of heart can endure and accomplish. Rudy wasn’t athletic, but he was strong willed. He wasn’t smart, but he was a hard worker. He wasn’t easily dismayed because he had determination. His coaches all wished they could take his heart and put it in someone with athletic ability. He kept pushing for his dream no matter what others said.

Where most people would have given up, he kept getting up. That’s a lesson for each of us today. It’s easy to give up when life keeps hitting us. It’s natural to want to stay down when others think you should just give up. But God put something in each one of us that makes us want to get back up. I know that after a while, that thing that God put in us can get awful quiet compared the thoughts of quitting and giving up. It can seem non-existent when you’re on your back and you have stars going around your head because you’ve just been hit so hard.

Let’s be honest. It’s easy to stay down. The fear of getting hit again tries to talk you into staying down. The embarrassment of the situation and what others think starts to convince you to just give up. It makes me think of a demotivational poster I once saw that said, “At some point, hanging in there just makes you look like an even bigger loser.” Those are the thoughts that the enemy brings to keep you down and to convince you not to get back up. He does that because he knows that each time you get back up, you’re stronger for it.

At some point, he has to quit throwing stuff at you. He knows this is only temporary, but if he can convince you it’s permanent, you’ll stay down and quit. When that happens, he wins. For me, I can’t stand to lose, especially to the enemy. I learned what it took to motivate myself to get back up each day, take a hit and to keep moving forward. It all starts with the mind. You must learn to block the thoughts that tell you to give up. You must learn to motivate yourself with God’s Word. Understand that while you have it bad, someone else has it worse. If they could still stand, I knew I could.

You may have to take several more hits before this is over. Stand strong though. Know that this period of trials and struggles is only temporary. I know that when it keeps coming month after month it doesn’t feel that way. Get back up today, stand your ground and declare that you won’t lose any more ground. Seek God’s strength to help you when yours fails. Know that you are becoming stronger than you ever would have if these things wouldn’t have happened and God will always be able to use that in your future.

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Christianity Is A Verb

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Our Wednesday night small group wrapped up our series on “Unstuck” last night. The video portion that included commentary from several people was challenging. Each person that spoke on that video had a question or comment that got them to be the hands and feet of Jesus to others around them. They also inspired me to do more than I’ve ever done for others, so I want to share with you in hopes of it challenging you as well.

One of the first things Mark Batterson mentioned in this segment is that Christianity was never meant to be a noun. It has always been intended to be a verb. When we allow our Christianity to become a noun, it leaves a bad taste in other people’s mouth. It becomes who we are and not what we do. Jesus said, “Go into all the world. Preach the Gospel to every nation. Make disciples of all men.” Those are all verbs that command us to do something.

There was also a lady on the video who shared her story of how God has used her. She was asked the question, “Who are three people you know who don’t know Jesus and need you to be His hands and feet to?” She couldn’t answer that question. Instead of thinking it didn’t apply to her, she prayed that God would increase her circle of influence. God began opening doors for her to minister to others through washing laundry, helping with résumés and providing necessities for. All because she didn’t think her Christianity should be a noun.

The next part that really spoke to me had to do with stats. Did you know 25,000 people in the world will die today from starvation? Did you know that 5,760 children will become orphans today? Numbers are numbing. They don’t cause action usually. Names are what matters. If you want to see the names and faces of some orphans behind those numbers, click here. I dare you to click that link and move beyond a stat to the face and name of an orphan who needs your help. The real question here is, “Are you ok with this?” Can you live in the house you live in, drive the car you drive, eat at the restaurants you eat at and still be ok with the numbers above? If so, your Christianity is probably a noun.

Mark Batterson said, “When all of the rules and regulations, all of the traditions and institutions, all of the liturgies and methodologies are peeled back, what’s left is the Great Commandment: Love The Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That is Christianity in its purest form. It’s not enough to love God with 2 or 3 out of the 4 listed. We must find ways to love with all 4. He didn’t give us a choice. He said to do this was the greatest commandment.

Finally, Mark challenged me with this phrase, “On the final day, God isn’t going to say, ‘Well thought, good and faithful servant’ or ‘Well said’. He is going to say, ‘Well done.'” It’s not enough to think of others or to say, “Have a good day; stay warm and eat well” to the cold and hungry according to James 2:16. God is looking for us to stop using Christianity as a noun and to start doing something with it. If your circle of influence of others who need Jesus is too small, I challenge you today to pray what that lady prayed. Ask God today to increase your circle of influence and to give you courage to do something for others because you aren’t ok with where you are.

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