December 24, 2019 · 5:59 AM

Experiencing Humanity

Earlier this year, one of our local radio DJ’s decided to see what it was like to be homeless. He created a backstory in case anyone asked him how he got there. He also had a police officer go undercover with him to protect him. Each morning he would slip away to call the radio station to report his findings. I looked forward to his calls each day just so I could gain more insight into how we as Christians can help these people who have been displaced from their homes and our society. The experience changed him and the listeners. Even though it was only for a week, his experience allowed him to identify with the homeless population in a way that he never had before. From not being able to get into the shelter on a cold night, to not being able to eat, to having people pretend he was invisible changed his perspective and how he would help going forward.

As we begin celebrating Christmas, I can’t help but think that this man was mirroring what God did a couple of millenniums ago. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, God walked with them daily. After they sinned, they were cast out of the garden and became wanders on the earth. Their sin also separated us and created a fallen world of people far from God. We became guilty of breaking God’s laws and fell under the power of sin. God gave us the Law through Moses, but we were unable to live up to it. We continuously fell short of the desires God had for us. Our sin created a barrier that kept us from being able to cross over to Him. However, when we couldn’t go to Him, He came to us to set us right with Him. He was able to bridge the divide from our side.

Romans 8:3 says, “Yet God sent us his Son in human form to identify with human weakness. Clothed with humanity, God’s Son gave his body to be the sin-offering so that God could once and for all condemn the guilt and power of sin” (TPT). Because He took on flesh and lived among us, He is able to identify with you. He was tempted like you are, hurt like you do and felt the separation from God. He also broke the power of sin over your life and removed the guilt from your name. Christmas is much more than the birth of Jesus. It’s God coming into the world so He could relate to us, be with us and save us. As you celebrate and share gifts, don’t forget to celebrate your freedom through Him and the new life He has given you.

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December 23, 2019 · 5:48 AM

Productive Planting

Every spring there are big displays in home improvement stores selling seeds. I like to look through them to see if there’s anything we would like to try to grow. One one side of the packet you have a picture of what the seeds inside will produce. On the other side you have a map of the US, a color coded map that tells you where these seeds grow the best and them some instructions that tell you how deep to plant them, how far apart, when the best time of year to plant them is and how long it will take them to produce. The more closely you follow those directions, the more likely that your garden will produce something from the packet.

Most of the seeds we plant in life can’t be seen and aren’t physically put in the ground. There’s no packet that you can read to tell you where they will grow best, how long until they produce or when the best time to plant them is. When I was a kid, a popular saying in the church world was, “You’ll real what you sow.” To me, it always seemed to have a negative connotation. They only brought it up when you weren’t doing the right thing. While it’s true that it works for those behaviors, it also works for the behaviors God wants to reinforce in our lives. The law of sowing and reaping was instituted in during creation when the Bible tells us that God planted a garden in the east. He didn’t speak the Garden of Eden into existence like most everything else.

As Christians, we need to pay attention to the things we are planting in our lives, the lives of others and into the world. We don’t have to worry about timing, location or season. 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “We know that we prosper and excel in every season by serving the Lord, because we are assured that our union with the Lord makes our labor productive with fruit that endures” (TPT). The seeds you’re sowing today are not in vain. They will produce whether you think it’s the right season to plant them or not. The law of sowing and reaping can only come into affect when you plan seeds. God is the one who makes them grow, not you. Don’t hold back in planting where God tells you to or when. Your planting will be productive through Him.

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December 20, 2019 · 5:45 AM

Staying On God’s Path

I’ve driven Houston’s roadways for years. I can tell you that they are always under construction. Many times it’s slow going when trying to get through the city. Not too long ago, my wife and I were driving north on the West Loop. We were talking and I didn’t notice that where they had swapped sides of a multi lane exit. Instead of continuing on the loop, I found myself on another road. I had to exit that road, make a u-turn and get back on the right road or I never would have made it. Not much further up the road, I observed another person dart from the left lane across to an exit from the right lane. It was sudden and without warning. I have to admit, it’s happened to me once or twice where I saw an exit and took it without warning putting myself and others in danger.

Satan uses temptation a lot like these exits. As you’re making progress in your spiritual walk, sometimes it can be slow going where you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. He uses temptation to get you to detour and e it from the path God has for you. There are times when you slowly exit without even realizing you’re taking it. Before you know it, you’re on the wrong path. Then there are times when you see something and quickly fall for it. Temptation has been used by the devil since the beginning to keep us from where God is leading us. To be tempted is to be human. It isn’t sin until you fall for it and take the exit. The great news is God is always willing to forgive when we repent and take a u-turn to get back on the path He has for us.

Here are some Bible verses on temptation.

1. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

James 1:12 NLT

2. Guide me away from temptation and doing evil. Save me from sinful habits and from keeping company with those who are experts in evil. Help me not to share in their sin in any way!

Psalms 141:4 TPT

3. But we are tempted when we are drawn away and trapped by our own evil desires.

James 1:14 GNT

4. Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”

Luke 22:39-40 MSG

5. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT

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December 19, 2019 · 5:30 AM

Grateful For The Gift

I can’t believe Christmas is almost here. Every day, when I drive by the mall, I can’t help but notice how many people are there. Other retail stores are packed as well. Everyone is looking for gifts, but they want a good deal. They want to give a good gift, but they don’t want it to cost them a lot. I understand being frugal and wanting to get a good deal, but as I thought about it, the gift God gave cost Him everything. It wasn’t cheap though we often treat it that way. He gave us the gift of Emmanuel.

The most famous scripture, John 3:16, says, “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son.” He loved us so much that He gave us His most prized possession. He sent His Son here to be God wrapped in flesh, to feel our pain, to breathe our air, to walk our paths, to know our feelings and to understand our ways. He wanted to show us love by giving us the gift that cost Him everything. At just the right time, He humbled Himself and was born as a human. Philippians 2 says that “He set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human.”

Not only did it cost Him the privileges of His deity, it later cost Him His life. He laid down His life so that we could have life. His sacrifice opened the door for you and I to find forgiveness for our sins. It made a way for us to get to Heaven. When I think about that gift and what it cost Him, there’s no gift that I can give that would ever compare. The only thing I can do to show my gratitude for such a gift is to offer my life to Him. I’ve got to be mindful every day of the sacrifice He made for me. It can’t just be at Christmas when I think about the gift of His Son. It’s got to be an every day thing.

I heard a quote years ago and I can’t find who said it, but it’s powerful. It says, “Blessed are those who can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.” That’s how I want to be all throughout the year and my life. I want to always remember what God did for you and me. I want to be so grateful that I never forget what it cost Him to show me love. I don’t want Him to have to constantly remind me of the price He paid. I’d rather be the one who constantly says to Him, “Look at what you did for me. I’ll never forget it.” I believe a life of gratitude will never take gifts for granted.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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December 18, 2019 · 5:57 AM

Running To Win

I went to a pretty small high school where if you were athletic, you pretty much played every sport. If you ran track, you didn’t just run one race, you ran several which meant several heats for each race. We had to be in great shape. I remember my running coach teaching me to breathe a certain way so that I wouldn’t get that pain in my side. She also taught me aerodynamics so that my body would channel the wind. Then there was the conditioning to get my body in shape to survive so many races. I put a lot of miles on my shoes so that I could win the races I ran. After high school, I decided had ran enough miles for a lifetime, but in the course of it, I had won many races.

Running takes discipline and mental strength to push through when your body wants to quit. It’s a lot like living out your faith. It takes being dedicated, being mentally focused and being disciplined. Your flesh is always fighting against you and is trying to slow you down so you have to be prepared mentally to push back. It tries to play against your sympathies to get you to stumble and fall. You have to be disciplined enough to catch it early so you can stop that line of thinking. You also have to keep your eyes on what’s at stake in your life and in the lives of others. It’s not a 5k Fun Run. This is more like a marathon or an Iron Man. Every part of you must be disciplined so that you’re making determined progress and are be becoming more like Christ every day.

1 Corinthians 9:24 says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run [their very best to win], but only one receives the prize? Run [your race] in such a way that you may seize the prize and make it yours!” (AMP) Each of us are running the race God has called us to. No one can run your race for you. It’s up to you to run your race in a manner that you’re not just providing traffic for the other runners, but that you’re running in order to win. When you’re running to win, you push yourself to stay in the front of the race. You lean on lessons you’ve learned from the past and ensure that you’re spiritually fit. You use the discipline of reading and applying God’s Word to keep you on track. You continually seek God and His presence so you can endure. You invite the Holy Spirit into your life to encourage you daily to keep going. If you’re going to live a life of faith, be 100% committed and give it your all.

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December 17, 2019 · 6:00 AM

The Importance Of Encouragement

One of the things I’m studying right now is the different stages in our walk with Jesus that we all go through. In the beginning stages, we explore Christianity and Christ to see if we want to be a person of faith. In the next stage, you make a decision to follow Jesus and want to grow your faith. However, you’re not sure that you’re ready to let that faith permeate your whole life, nor are you ready to be public with it. After that stage, you grow into a deeper faith where you begin to depend on Jesus daily. Your relationship with Jesus moves from a Sunday experience to a daily one. While you are moving close to Christ, you remain in the driver’s seat of their life. That leads us to the final stage where your life is centered around Jesus and what He wants. When you’re here, your love for Jesus is your driving force. You give tithes, serve in the church and evangelize more than in the other stages. You’re on the brink of spiritual greatness, but often there’s a gap between your love of God and your love for people.

Whatever stage you’re in, one of your greatest needs is to be encouraged and to be challenged to go deeper in your faith. You need people in your life who will, as Proverbs 27:17 puts it, sharpen you as iron sharpens iron. You need people who will encourage you to make a deeper commitment to Jesus, to love others the way you love God and to dig deeper into the Bible. It’s not enough at any stage to simply read the Bible. Each of us must meditate on what we’ve read. We need to think about what’s being said, why it was said and how does it apply to us. Our prayers can’t be just a once or twice a day thing. They need to be a running dialogue with God throughout our day where we seek Him for guidance, tell Him about things that are happening and express our love for Him.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, “So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing” (NLT). If you recognized what stage you are in, let me encourage you to grow into the next stage. There’s always more in Christianity. None of us ever have it totally made. We’re all growing. We’re all learning. We’re all being called into a deeper, more meaningful relationship with Jesus. We each need to find someone who has a greater relationship with Jesus and to ask them to help us grow. We each need to be finding someone who is in the same stage with us so we can encourage each other as we navigate this life of faith. Finally, we need to find someone less mature in the faith so we can encourage and guide them through the places we’ve already been. We all need encouragement, so let’s start with giving it to others instead of waiting for someone to give it to us.

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December 16, 2019 · 5:55 AM

The Importance Of Excellence

It was a sculptor named Frederic Bartholdi who designed and built the Statue of Liberty. It was built and then dedicated in New York City In 1886. It would be nearly 20 years later when the Wright brothers first took flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Yet, when building the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi refused to cut corners, especially on the head of Lady Liberty. To think that someone would ever be able to see the top of her head never crossed his mind, but he took the time to put the same amount of work and detail up there. When you’re driven by excellence, you focus even on the details you don’t think that others will see. You understand that when you get the small details right, the big problems rarely show up.

My personal motto is, “If it has my name on it, it needs to be done with excellence.” If I’m going to spend my time working on something, I want to make sure I don’t cut any corners or do a job that will reflect poorly on me. In my mind, I think about how the things I do don’t just reflect myself, but God. As a person who bears the name Christian, I should also be concerned about the reputation of the One whose name I bear. According to 1 Corinthians 12:7, each one of us are given gifts by God in order to help each other. If we’re going to maximize our gifts and their effects in the lives of others, it’s important that we understand how to use them and that we focus on using them well. We should never take these gifts lightly.

Galatians 6:4 says, “Let everyone be devoted to fulfill the work God has given them to do with excellence, and their joy will be in doing what’s right and being themselves, and not in being affirmed by others” (TPT). You have work that God has called you to do through the unique gifts He has equipped you with. If you don’t use them, or do your work half heartedly, you diminish the ripple affect into the lives of others. To have the greatest impact on this world, we each need to know our giftings and operate in them with the excellence they deserve. Put time into perfecting the details, even the ones you think no one will ever see. You never know what God will do or how He May bless your commitment to doing all things with excellence.

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December 13, 2019 · 5:45 AM

The Importance Of Sharing

I once heard someone say, “When you share your grief, you cut it in half. When you share your joy, you double it.” Those words have always stuck with me. When we’re joyful, we’re always looking to share it with someone. However, when we’re sad, we tend to become introverted and try to handle the burden all on our own. Instead of verbalizing it, we internalize it thinking we’re the only one who feels this way. We believe the lie that no one can empathize because no one has gone through what we’re going through. It’s important to break away from that lie and find someone we trust to share our sadness with.

As Christians, sharing should be a part of our culture. The Bible tells us to confess our sins one to another. Why do we need to do that if God is the one who forgives? Because God designed it so that we would find healing by sharing our struggles. There are so many positive things that happen when we share whether it’s our feelings, our struggles or even our belongings. God created the Church so we would have a safe place to share these things. From the beginning, God said that it wasn’t good for man to be alone. He wants us in community where we can share and help each other out.

Here are some Bible verses on sharing.

1. Stand on your feet alert, then you’ll always be ready to share the blessings of peace.

Ephesians 6:15 TPT

2. Share your belongings with your needy fellow Christians, and open your homes to strangers.

Romans 12:13 GNT

3. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2 NLT

4. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith [for preaching the message of salvation], still I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

Philippians 2:17-18 AMP

5. Now our hope for you is unshakable, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings you will also share in God’s comforting strength.

2 Corinthians 1:7 TPT

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December 12, 2019 · 5:30 AM

Finding Healing

Several years ago, I went through some very dark times in my life that I wasn’t sure I’d make it through. They left some very deep scars that I thought would never heal. Instead of going through a true healing process, I decided that it was best to treat that portion of my life as if it were a dream. I covered the wounds and vowed to never speak of them again. I thought that if I pretended it never happened, then I wouldn’t feel the pain of it. That seemed to work for a while until Dave Roever spoke at our church one Sunday.

Dave is a Vietnam veteran who had a phosphorus grenade blow up in his hand near his head as he was throwing it. He survived the explosion, but as a result of the explosion, he has a very disfigured face and hand. He told his story of his recovery and how God has used that terrible event to help him reach so many vets for Christ. Then he wrapped up his sermon by saying, “Don’t hide your scars. For in them, others will find their healing.”

I knew at that point it was time to unwrap my wounds to let them heal. I had to dig down inside, bring up all that hurt again to deal with it properly so God could use my story to help others find their healing. That’s how this site began actually. It was a way for me to process the hurt, but also a way for others to find their healing too. II Corinthians 1:4 says, “He (God) comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us” (MSG).

I don’t know the pain you’ve been through or are going through, but I do know that God has never left your side. He wants to help you heal your wounds so that He can bring others along side you who are going through something similar. He wants to use your scars to bring healing to others if you’re willing to let Him. Their situation may not be identical to yours, but the pain is the same and so is the healing process. Don’t hide your scars. Let God use them to help someone else who desperately needs your story.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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December 11, 2019 · 5:51 AM

The Two Influencers

John Maxwell, one of the world’s top leadership experts, says that leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. Every one of us influence others in some way. We use our charms, our gifts of persuasion and our example of living to influence others. From the time we are children we look for ways to get other people to do what we want, which mostly benefits us. Great leaders don’t use their influence to get what they want though. They use their influence to help others grow. Take a moment to think about the people in your life who influence you. Are they getting you to do what they want or are they helping you to become a better person?

Additionally, we have two unseen influencers in our lives: the Holy Spirit and our sinful nature. One is trying to influence us to live a godly life, while the other is trying to get us to live for ourselves. If you take a moment to look at the fruit of your life, you’ll see who you are allowing to influence you more. Galatians 5:19-22 lists the fruits of both influencers, and it’s a good idea to look into the mirror of your life to see what fruit you’re producing. These two influencers produce very different fruits and all of us are producing one kind or the other. It’s a matter of whose voice you’re listening to and whose desires you want to satisfy. Galatians 5:16 says, “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves” (NLT).

The Holy Spirit is constantly speaking to us leading us into Christ-like living. He uses reminders of God’s Word to challenge us and to push us. Your sinful nature plays on your sympathies to get you to do what it wants. It tries to convince you that you deserve a little pleasure for what you’ve been going through. If you’re going to be influenced and led by the Spirit, you’re going to have to quit giving into the sympathetic voice that gets you to cave to sin. If you want to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, you’re going to have to let the Holy Spirit guide your life. His way is not the easy way because it’s the opposite of what your sinful nature wants, but it produces the fruit that allows you to influence others for God’s Kingdom.

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