April 12, 2013 · 8:42 AM

Go Ahead & Be Angry

I had a conversation last night with a friend who is going through a difficult situation. They tried to give me all the religious answers they thought I wanted to hear. I finally stopped them. I said, “I don’t want to hear what you think I want to hear. I know what you’re going through. It’s ok to be angry right now.” Silence. “You’re right. I am angry right now,” the voice on the other end finally said.

I directed them to the scripture in Ephesians 4:26 that says, “Go ahead and be angry. You to well to be angry – but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge.” It’s not a sin to be angry and upset. It’s ok especially when you have a right to be upset. God just doesn’t want us to use that anger against the person who wronged us. I shared with them how angry I was and the things I had wanted to do.

Thank God I never acted on the thoughts that entered my mind while I was hurt and angry. If I had acted on them, I would have missed out on the blessings I now enjoy. When you’re going through a difficult time where you’ve lost everything, you think you have nothing to lose because you don’t have anything. That’s a dangerous place to be.

It’s important to pay attention to the thoughts that enter your mind when you’re upset. It’s easy to entertain them. It’s easy to slip off into a fantasy world where you are deceived into believing you can get away with anything. The enemy sends thoughts into your head in a Trojan Horse. They start off harmless and end up with you really contemplating going through with them.

Scripture is clear when it comes to thoughts like that. II Corinthians 10:4-5 says, “We use God’s mighty weapons , not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning… We capture rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” When we entertain those thoughts that would take us from being angry to sinning, we allow them to take root in our minds and to build strongholds. We are to take those thoughts instead and teach them to obey Christ.

I know that’s easier said than done. It’s easy to entertain the thoughts that let you do what your flesh wants to do. It takes God’s weapons to break them down and teach them to obey Christ. It takes discipline. Usually you are missing those things when you’re hurt and angry. I want to encourage you today if you are hurt, angry or discouraged to know it’s ok to feel that way.

Emotions are given to us by God. He knows we need to vent at times. He knows we want to curl up in bed, pull the covers over our heads and pretend that today doesn’t exist. That’s why he said, “Go ahead and be angry.” He just doesn’t want you to do something stupid with that anger that would stint the future He has for you. Don’t limit what He can do through you because you are hurt and feel you have nothing to lose. This too will pass. You will survive. I’m proof of it. It just takes time. God still has a future for you even when you can’t see it.

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April 11, 2013 · 8:47 AM

Pray Like Rain

Last night I got to hear Doug Stringer from “Somebody Cares International” preach. One of the things he said really stood out to me. He said, “Prayer is the rain in our lives.” It’s what waters the seeds we’ve planted. It’s what makes things grow. I loved this analogy because so many of us plant seeds in our lives or into the lives of others and wonder why they don’t grow.

To me, he answered the question. We don’t water them enough with prayer. Planting a seed is not enough. If it is not watered by you or someone else, how can it grow? I Corinthians 3:7 says, “It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.” It’s our prayers that water it and move God to grow it.

In my personal life, I’m not a big fan of rain. When I wake up in the morning and hear rain, I know immediately that 30 minutes just got added to my commute. Rain creates traffic. It also creates the beautiful flowers we see each Spring. We have a saying, “April showers bring May flowers.” We endure the rainy season to enjoy the beauty of Spring. So it is in the spiritual realm.

The rain from our prayers create traffic. I don’t mind spiritual traffic though. Traffic is a sign that things are moving. Things are happening. That kind of thing gets me excited. Spiritual rain also causes the seeds in our lives to grow and produce fragrant flowers in our lives or in the lives of others. The difference is we create the rainy season. If we aren’t experiencing many flowers or growth, chances are we haven’t been creating rain through prayer.

Things don’t just happen because we were faithful to plant seeds. We must pray through that season to make things grow. We read in Daniel 10 where Daniel needed an answer from God. When things didn’t happen, he didn’t quit praying. Instead, he prayed more. He prayed for 3 weeks for this one answer. Finally an angel showed up in verse 12 and said, “Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in Heaven. I have come to answer your prayer.”

Just like if you were planting a garden, you can’t plant the seeds and water it once. You have to keep watering them daily, even when you see the sprouts come up. You keep watering until you receive the harvest. If you stop any time before then, you run the risk of no harvest or a small harvest. Seeing growth should encourage us to pray even more, but for some reason it has the opposite effect. We see growth and think we can stop praying, but we can’t.

Today, I want to encourage you to keep praying even if you haven’t seen growth yet. Who knows what battles in the spiritual realm that God is fighting just to get that seed to sprout. Just because it hasn’t broken the surface yet doesn’t mean it isn’t growing or God isn’t moving. Keep watering it with prayer. And when you start to see the results of your prayer, keep watering until you get your harvest. Then, start the cycle again. May you never leave a rainy season in your life and always see your seeds grow!

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April 10, 2013 · 8:33 AM

Hope to Help You Endure

This morning God woke me up with a single word: hope. There are a lot of people reading this today who need it. I know what it feels like to not have it. I also know that a little bit goes a long way. It keeps you going when you are at the end of your rope. It’s the difference between letting go and hanging on just a little bit longer. To me it has always been one of those things that gives me just enough energy when I think I’m done.

In Psalm 142, David was hiding out in a cave as he was being hunted down. He was feeling like many of us do. Here’s what he says in verses 3-7. See if you can relate:

As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I’m feeling, know the danger I’m in, the traps hidden in my path.
Look right, look left – there’s not a soul who cares what happens!
I’m up against it, with no exit- bereft, left alone.
I cry out, God, call out: “You’re my last chance, my only hope for life!”
Oh listen, please listen; I’ve never been this low.
Rescue me from those who are hunting me down;
I’m no match for them.
Get me out of this dungeon so I can thank you in public.
Your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!

The lies that were in his head told him that no one cared about him, that no one was there for him and that he was all alone. Maybe you’re hearing the same thing in your mind today. You think you have to face this alone. You feel like there is no one who understands what you’re going through. That isn’t true. Don’t dwell on those thoughts. Those lead to a place where there is no hope.

We serve a God of hope though. In Jeremiah 29:11 God says, “For I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” He has a future for you even when you can’t see it. He also wants to give you hope today even when you can’t see it. He has a plan for you and this thing you’re going through is part of it. He is strengthening you through it and preparing you to endure whatever else may come in the future.

Max Lucado wrote in his book “On the Anvil”, “God may have you go through a storm at 30 so you can endure a hurricane at 60.” I remember going through that storm and thinking, “If this is the storm, I don’t want to be in the hurricane.” What seems impossible to survive now will make it possible for you to endure in the future. You can survive this. You can make it through. There is hope.

I love how David ended his prayer above. “Your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!” Don’t push away the people that God is placing in your life and are trying to form a circle of protection around you. Let them. Let them pray for you and with you. Be open and honest about how you are feeling so they’ll know how to pray. And when you’re on the other side of this, what was a storm will be showers of blessing.

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April 9, 2013 · 8:03 AM

Purposeful Prayers

When you read the Gospels, it’s clear that Jesus was a man of prayer. He often went away from the group to pray. I’m sure He prayed a lot with His disciples and in front of them. It was one such occasion a disciple asked Him to teach them to pray like Him. I’m sure they could tell there was a difference in His prayers compared to theirs. There was power and authority in His prayers.

They wanted that and so should we. After the question was asked, I’m sure all the disciples and everyone sat up and started to really pay attention. Now I’m not going to go into the Lord’s Prayer and break it down here, but I’m going to talk about the importance of not only praying, but praying with a purpose. I think we as Christians miss out on this and our prayers lack power because of it.

When I send an email to my boss or any other person with a title higher than mine, I sit down and think through what I want to say and how I want to say it. I think about what questions they might have that will need to be answered and how they might take the wording. I also try to keep the email as succinct as possible so they can get the info they need and then move on.

Why don’t we take such great care when we are crafting a prayer to the God of Creation? Why do we think it’s ok to just throw something together and hope He hears it and responds to it? I’m not saying that those prayers shouldn’t exist or we shouldn’t pray them, but when it comes to prayers of authority and meaning, we need to think through what we’re saying. The example He gave us was succinct, meaningful and to the point. He didn’t fill it up with the word “God” or “Lord” every other word. He thought through the prayers and prayed with purpose.

I grew up where the faster and louder the prayer was the more others and hopefully God would get excited about it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those prayers either. What I’m talking about is your every day communion with God. Where you spend time with Him and talk with Him. Slow down. Listen to what you are about to say to Him. Think through how you want to say it and then speak it to Him. It doesn’t have to be super fast. He’s got time.

There are lots of ways to pray and I’m not saying any of them are wrong. God is happy when we speak to Him. But if you’re like the disciple who asked Jesus to teach him to pray knowing that there’s another level, I encourage you to start practicing slowing down your prayers and being more contemplative with them. If we take time to think through what and how we should say something to others, we should do the same for God. Purposeful prayers are powerful.

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April 8, 2013 · 8:20 AM

Don’t be a Ye

This weekend was an exercise of faith for me. We were trying to raise money for a trip to build an orphanage in Haiti. We pre-sold BBQ tickets and Saturday was the day for them to pick it up. When I went to buy the meat, I decided to buy almost double what we had sold. I was believing that we could sell extra to people driving by. At the end of the day, I still had about 4 briskets left. The plan was to then sell plates after church on Sunday.

As I was prepping everything during church, my wife walked in and saw all of the meat. She immediately said, “I hope God honors your faith.” I told her that when it came to faith, I didn’t want God to call me “Ye”. We read all over the four Gospels, in the old King James, where Jesus would say, “Oh Ye of little faith.” Jesus was almost upset by the lack of faith especially when it came to His disciples.

I want to have the kind of faith that when I believe and ask God for something, He says, “Uh oh. I gotta go to work now. Chris is believing again.” I believe that if God gets upset with a lack of faith, He must get motivated by a lot of it. The thing that always makes my mind go haywire is that when I think I have a lot of faith, God looks at it and it’s not even the size of a mustard seed.

It makes me wonder, “How much faith is truly possible?” I must be limiting my own faith somehow. I can’t tell you the last time that I told a mountain to move and it did. Unless of course you consider 40 pounds of beef a mountain. Because that moved faster than I could anticipate. I was in position to block the exit doors of the church to redirect them to buy plates when I realized that people were automatically walking over there. I mentioned it to a few people as they left and when I looked back over, the mountain of plates was nearly gone.

As people walked up to the counter and the plates were gone, we apologized for having sold out. Many people that didn’t get a plate still offered money to help our team go. When all was said and done, we sold nearly 200 pounds of beef. God didn’t have to call me “Ye”. Instead, He acted on my faith and moved. He acted on our group’s ability to show up and work to be there when God moved.

That’s one of the great things about faith. Not only are we to believe, but we are required to do things with it. Peter had to get out if the boat. Martha and Mary had to roll the stone out of the way for Lazarus. Gideon had to step onto the battlefield with 300 men. Abraham had to climb the mountain without a ram. And you and I have to do the same. James says that faith without works is dead. Are you acting on your faith or just sitting their “believing” or hoping God moves? Trust that He will and work like He’s going to answer.

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April 5, 2013 · 7:44 AM

Smacked by God

My brother said I could share what happened to him yesterday. He was pulling into a fast food restaurant with his son to grab lunch. As he was turning in, a lady whipped in front of him nearly hitting them. She was in a hurry to eat as well until she got in the drive through line. Once she got there, she started using her phone. The line would pull forward, but she was oblivious. She’d look up and notice and then pull forward.

After what seemed like an eternity and I’m sure 10 minutes of complaining about her, they got to the window to get their food. He handed his card to the person at the window and they said, “Actually, the lady on front of you paid for yours. It’s free.” He looked at my nephew and said, “That’s how God disciplines us. It’s in love, but it hurts.” They then laughed the rest of the day about how he had been behaving and how God smacked him.

A lot of times, each if us let our pride, anger or selfishness get in the way of our attitudes. We let those things change who we are into people we don’t recognize. We complain, scream, argue and find fault with others. One little, insignificant in the face of eternity event happens and sets us off. We let it dominate our thoughts, our attitude and our actions. Before you know it, we aren’t in control anymore. Our blood is boiling for what seems justified at the moment, but not long term.

Thankfully, God cares about us and usually will do something to end it. In this case, and I think in most cases, a little dose of humility was in order. But God didn’t just impugn him to humble him. God blessed him and at the same time showed him the error of his ways. That’s what I love about God. He doesn’t act like us or think like us. If I were in charge, I don’t think I would have blessed him for how he was behaving. Thankfully I’m not God.

In Isaiah 55:8, The Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” He loves each one of us individually and corrects us how He sees fit. He knows if we need to be beaten over the head with a 2×4 because He can’t get through to us any other way (guilty). He knows if we need a gentle, quiet rebuke. His discipline always fits the situation and the person. No matter how He does it, it’s always done in love with our best interest at heart.

Hebrews 12:5-6 says, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when He corrects you. For The Lord disciplines those He loves.” If God corrects you or disciplines you, don’t get angry at Him. He loves you enough to correct you and to point you in the right direction just like a parent would for their child. Accept it in love, laugh about how you were behaving and then make the adjustment so He doesn’t have to do it again.

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April 4, 2013 · 9:14 AM

Driven by Love

I watched several episodes of “The Bible” on the History channel. I know they took some dramatic liberty in some areas and they admitted it. As I watched the final episode on Easter, one of the things that stood out to me was when Simon dropped the cross on Golgotha and they forced him away, they beat Jesus as he crawled to the cross. That’s one of those things that I don’t know if it happened that way, but I’m glad they portrayed it like that.

Think for a second if you were innocent and about to be killed for something you didn’t do. Would you willingly get on the cross? No. You’d be kicking and screaming and they’d have to get an army of people to drag you onto it and then to hold you down while they nailed you to it. You’d be acting like a crazy person even if you were guilty I think. That’s why I loved what they did.

Jesus left Heaven willingly to come here. His sole purpose was to die for your sins. He knew what He was going to endure and did it anyway. I loved that they had Him crawl willingly on the cross. Against what you or I would do, He was driven by love to endure the beating, the shame and the nails for you. In John 10:18, Jesus said, “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily.” We often think that it was the religious leaders or Pilate who had Jesus killed, but that’s not the case.

He not only voluntarily laid His life down, He even called out to God on behalf of those who killed Him. Jesus cried out from the cross in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” He was willing to forgive them while He was still in pain. While He was still hanging on the cross. To their faces. I don’t know about you, but I know I couldn’t have done that. Most of the time we don’t forgive others who have betrayed us at all or we wait years until the bulk of the pain is gone.

Jesus wasn’t like that. His desire was that not one person would perish, but that all would have everlasting life. Even those who killed Him. None of us deserve it really. Each of us have done something, or in my case, many things to offend God. We are not perfect, nor can we be. That’s why God’s love and grace are so amazing. He knows we can’t do it on our own so He shed His own blood to cover our sins. All we have to do is accept that act of love to cover our sins. The lyrics to “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” say it all: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

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April 3, 2013 · 7:57 AM

The Purpose in Pain

I had the privilege several years ago of watching a skilled potter work. He took a dark lump of clay and threw it on his spinning wheel. He had to make sure it was centered so it didn’t fly off at high revolutions. As it spun, he dipped his hands in water and began to apply pressure to the spinning lump. It immediately began to change. It grew taller and thinner as he worked with it. Every few minutes, he would stop, pull out a knife and dig into it. He could feel rocks in the clay and needed to cut them out or the vessel would crack later in the fire.

He then took a utensil and placed it in the center of the clay as it was spinning. He began to hollow it out. As he did, he would throw the extra clay in another pot. Once it was hollow, he began to really change the shape. You could now imagine a jar or a flower vase. My mind saw it all painted with gold accents. He then took a pointed utensil and began holding it to the side of the creation. He started making designs on it as it spin. It was really a work of art.

It reminded me of Isaiah 64:8. It says, “We are the clay and you are the potter. We are formed by your hand.” As I think back on my life and the things I’ve endured, I remember that potter with his knife and his utensils. I see times where there were rocks in my life that needed to be cut out. Having a knife stuck in you hurts. Especially when it’s the potters knife. The one you trust. At the time I couldn’t see that He was making sure I wouldn’t crack later.

I think of the times in my life when I was hollowed out. My life felt empty inside. I watched as my life was picked apart and thinned out. My wife left. My friends left. My business left. I had nothing. Now I realize that it’s only when I have been hollowed out that I can truly become a vessel that He can fill up. I was full of myself and things that didn’t matter. He had to empty me so He could fill me. At the time I couldn’t see that He was preparing me to be used by Him for His purpose.

At the end of the demonstration, he held up one of the most beautiful pieces of pottery I had ever seen. I started calculating how much money I had so I could buy this piece. I wanted it so badly. I had picked out the perfect place in my house. I was ready to get into a bidding war until he did something I’ll never forget. He crushed it. My heart sank. He had spent almost an hour meticulously creating such a beautiful vessel. Wasted time, effort and hope. He then said, “Everything I’ve done to this vessel means nothing until it goes through fire. Only then will it really be worth something. Until then, it is easily crushed.”

God allows us to walk through fire in our lives. He allows difficult things to happen because if we don’t, we will easily be crushed when it is time for Him to use us. He made us a promise though in Isaiah 43:1-2. God says to you, “I have called you by name; you are mine… I will be with you… When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up.” There is a purpose to the fires in your life. There is meaning in being hollowed out. There is hope when you’re in the fire. God is at work in you and thinks you are a vessel He can use. Don’t jump off the wheel, dodge the utensils He uses or be afraid of the fire. They’re for your benefit.

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April 2, 2013 · 7:55 AM

Lord Help!

I love Psalm 107. It talks about people in all kinds of situations and were all at the end of their ropes. He talks of those who were wandering aimlessly, those who were hungry, those who were having difficult times that caused them to live in darkness and gloom, those who have turned from God and rebelled, and those who were enduring a storm longer than they thought it would last. In each case, the people cried out, “Lord help!” And He came to the rescue.

In their cases and in most of our cases, we wait until it is an act of desperation to call out to God. It must be the way he hard wired us. We try to do everything on our own and in our own strength. I’m the first to admit that I’m the same way. I don’t think it’s so I get the glory and not Him. It’s more of an “I can do this” attitude. I don’t need anyone’s help. I got myself in this mess and I’ll get myself out.

Meanwhile, God is patiently waiting for us to call out, “Lord help!” He wants to rescue us. He wants to deliver us. We say, “the Lord is my shepherd,” but we don’t let Him shepherd us. We don’t let Him lead us to the still waters or the green pastures. When we go our own way and fall into distress, He is there looking for us to lead us back to safety. He’s not content to leave us in our situation simply because we’re headstrong and moved away from the pack.

What I’ve never understood about God is how He continues to love me no matter how far or often I move away from the heard. It’s a love I don’t deserve. None of us do. We all do things that get us in the situations listed in this Psalm. There also times where life just happens. There’s nothing we can do about it and don’t feel like we deserve it. Even in those times we have a choice. We can either have a pity party while life continues to rain on us or we can cry out, “Lord help!”

Psalm 145:8 says, “The Lord is close to all who call on Him.” He is waiting for us to call on Him. We often think we’re too far away from Him or done so much that we can never go back. I’ve been there. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to deal with facing those whom I thought I had let down. When I was near my lowest a friend said, “Boy, what are you doing? You need to get your butt back in that church where people know you and love you!” I gave every excuse I could as to why I couldn’t, but none were good enough.

Don’t let pride stand in your way of calling out for the Lord’s help today. Don’t make excuses why you can’t go home. His ear is listening for your voice. His eyes are searching all over for you. Jesus said that He would leave the 99 to find just one. You. You mean the world to Him. Don’t delay. Cry out today, “Lord help!” I promise you that He will come running to you. He will save you and rescue you.

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April 1, 2013 · 7:41 AM

Seeing Isn’t Believing

Yesterday we celebrated Easter. To me it’s the most important day in Christianity. If Jesus had not died and resurrected, His birth would have been pointless. Even His death was not enough. His resurrection not only showed He had paid for our sins, it proved He had power to do so. It was in the resurrection that victory was won. We don’t have to live defeated lives. We have a victorious savior who fights for us.

I can imagine that Sunday morning in Jerusalem. Since Friday evening at sunset, they had not been able to do anything about Jesus’ death. They had all day Saturday to sit and wonder about what just happened. They were in shock. A week before, Jesus had triumphantly entered Jerusalem. Surely He was about to set up His earthly kingdom and overthrow Rome. His death was a pill they couldn’t swallow.

They had barely enough time to get Him into the tomb on Friday before the Sabbath began. They needed to embalm Him better and find a more long term solution for His grave. This tomb was simply borrowed in order to house Him until other arrangements could be made. So Mary Magdalene and some others went as dawn was breaking in order to get an early start. They were unprepared for what they found.

The stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty. She ran back, woke the others up and told them. They ran to the tomb expectantly. When they saw the empty tomb, they remembered what they had read in the scriptures and what Jesus had told them. They went away believing, but Mary stuck around. She was distraught. With tears coming down her face, she looked in the tomb again.

Two angels were sitting where Jesus had been laid. They asked her why she was crying and she told them. She then turned around and walked out of the tomb into the garden. She saw someone else who asked her why she was crying. She said, “Sir, if you have taken Him away, please tell me where you have put Him and I will go and get Him.” Then she heard, “Mary!” It was Jesus who was talking to her. She then recognized Him, grabbed Him and hugged him tightly.

I started thinking, “How many times does God show up in our lives and we don’t recognize Him? How often are we seeking Him or His will when He is right there in front of us?” We search for Him and think we know what we’re going to find, but we aren’t really looking. Mary had allowed her mind to cloud her vision. She couldn’t see the Savior standing there in front of her because her mind wasn’t open to it. The disciples didn’t see Him when they went looking, but they believed anyway. They found their answer in the empty tomb.

What are you looking for? What are you believing God to do? Are you allowing your mind to control what your faith sees? Or are you like the disciples who didn’t see what they were looking for, but believed anyway? Jesus said it best in John 20:29. He said, “Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.” We don’t have to have that face to face meeting like Mary did in order to believe. The truth is that many of us have had that experience and didn’t recognize Him. Trust God today to bring you the victory even when you can’t see Him.

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