Tag Archives: faith

Being A Go Giver

Epaphroditus is one of the lesser known people mentioned in the Bible. He was barely mentioned at the end of Philippians 2. From what Paul tells us, we can tell that he was a former soldier possibly from the Praetorian Guard. We also know that he was a believer in Christ and a big help to Paul. We don’t know how he was saved or how he ended up in Philippi, but we know that he was willing to give his time, energy and life for the sake of Christ because verse 30 said he risked his life for the work of Christ.

He is a great example of giving for each one of us. We don’t have to have a lot in the bank to give something. We can be like the widow who gave her two mites in the offering. Jesus said she gave more than all the others. We can be like the churches in the New Testament who gave to the apostles as they spread the Gospel. Without their contributions, the Early Church wouldn’t have had the ability to spread like it did. We can be like Epaphroditus who gave of his time and talents to help others.

God isn’t so much concerned with how we give as He is with us just being givers. I heard a phrase yesterday that sparked something in me. It said, “We need to be go givers instead of go getters.” The world tells us to be go getters. “Take all you can, save up your money, get rich and live in luxury.” But that’s not what Jesus said. He said, “Sell all you have, give it to the poor and come follow me.” His point was that we shouldn’t be tied to earthly wealth. We shouldn’t store up everything only to make ourselves comfortable. We should be mindful of others and store up our treasures in Heaven.

I’m not saying that saving money is bad or even having a lot of money is bad. I believe God blesses each one of us according to our abilities and willingness to give. If you want more of what you have, give it away. If you want to know what it’s like to have the windows of Heaven opened up and blessings poured out that you can’t contain, then give. Give your time, your talents, your abilities, your money or whatever God asks you to give. He is interested in our ability to trust Him for our needs rather than for us to feel self sufficient in our own abilities to accumulate wealth or to develop talent that will get us where we want to go.

One of my favorite phrases from one of my favorite hymns says, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” God’s love for us outweighs anything we could ever do to repay Him. The least we can do is to give back to Him what He has blessed us with. For Epaphroditus, that was his life in service. For the widow, it was all the money she had. For the Early Church, it was their possessions. Each of us have a choice. We can be like the rich, young ruler and walk away sad because we’d rather be a go getter or we can choose to be a go giver. We can be someone who stores up treasures in Heaven through giving. What will you give to God today?

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Spiritual Sportsmanship

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I love watching the Olympics because I love sports, competition and people performing at their best. I don’t celebrate when people from other nations fall or mess up. I’m sure it’s devastating to them. They’ve spent a lifetime trying to perfect a skill and then, when the whole world is watching, they slip up and fall. We shouldn’t celebrate when anyone messes up simply because we don’t like them, are in competition with them or they’re from another country. We should celebrate with those who win and help those who didn’t.

I read the story of Dario Cologna from Switzerland. He won the gold medal in men’s cross country skiing. After skiing 15 km (9 miles), he, like everyone else collapsed at the finish line. He had given it his all. Instead of going back to get a massage or to celebrate, he waited until the last person came across the line and congratulated him for completing the race. Roberto Carcelen of Peru finished in 87th place and about 30 minutes behind Cologna. Carcelen is Peru’s first winter Olympian and raced even though he fractured a rib in training. The last person he expected to see was the gold medal winner.

Each one of us are in a race as a Christian. Paul told us to run as if to win the prize. At the end of his life, he said, “I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful (II Timothy 4:7).” He wanted us to approach the Christian life as a race. It takes training, discipline and hard work over time. We are to stay focused on the prize as we run it. At the end of our life, we should be able to say we gave it our all and collapse at the finish line. We should be like the gold medalist in the Olympics who knows they gave it their all and has a great feeling of accomplishment.

We should also be like Dario Cologna from Switzerland. We should celebrate with others who complete the race. We should encourage others to keep going when they’d rather give up. We should recognize this life isn’t just about getting across the finish line in first place, but it’s also about helping others make it to the end. Galatians 6:1 says, “If another believer is overcome by sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.” We shouldn’t be so competitive in our faith that we fail to stop and help others who have fallen. We shouldn’t be so self righteous that we celebrate when other believers whom we don’t like fall.

Its never a good day when someone falls, especially those who are well known in the faith. It’s our responsibility to help them up. It’s our responsibility to restore them. It’s not our job to laugh or to make fun of. Each one of us are human and will fail in our race at some point. Each one of us will need restoration from other believers. Keep your eye out today for others who need a hand back up. Look out for those who may not be as swift as you are in the race. Celebrate their victories and share their burdens when they fall. That’s how we can fulfill the law of Christ.

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Free From Discouragement

It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back. To celebrate, I’m giving away “The Favor of God: Embrace All God Has Prepared For You” by Jerry Savelle. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

My plan today was to write about getting free of discouragement, but an accident blocked the freeway and ate up all the time I had to write. I began to get discouraged just sitting there thinking that I wouldn’t be able to write today. I didn’t think of the people who were in the accident having a much worse day. I imagine they must be a lot more discouraged than I was. What about the other people who were in traffic who may lost their job because they’re showing up an hour late? None of us got off to the morning we thought we’d have when we woke up. None of us got to do the things we thought we were going to get done this morning.

The difference in a believer’s life is that we don’t have to stay discouraged when circumstances alter our plans. We don’t have to crumble when life throws a curve ball. It’s human and natural to get discouraged in bad situations. It’s the Holy Spirit living in us that reminds us where our hope is. My hope is not in man’s ability. My hope is not in the plans I have made. My hope is in The Lord. The way this morning started off was no surprise to God. He knew my plans would be thrown out of the window before I did. He knew that I would face set backs. He knew that things would happen in my life that were beyond my control.

What He wants me to know is that He’s in control. He’s my source of hope, my source of strength and my provider. He alone is the one who can bring encouragement when I can’t seem to find any hope. I just have to remember to look for Him when things aren’t going right. I have to remember that circumstances can’t affect my praise. I have to quit focusing on the negative outcomes of my situation and focus on the One who can turn it into a positive. I have to remember the one who has carved out my path, drew out the blueprint for my life and orders my steps. He is where I find my hope and encouragement on days like this.

I leave you with what David wrote when his circumstances changed his plans and life. He said, “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you. (Psalms 42:5, 6 NLT)” Even the psalmist, the guy after God’s own heart, the man who constantly praised had times of discouragement. He told us what he did in those times. He remembered the God he served. We can do the same.

If you would like to win the “The Favor of God” by Jerry Savelle, all you have to do is go to my Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (February 22, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already liked my page and enjoy reading these daily devotionals, you are already entered. Please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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The Pathless Journey

I’m on a journey right now. I know my destination. I know what God has called me to do. I’ve known for a while now. After running from it for years, I decided to embrace it. I told God I was ready to step into my calling. All of a sudden things started happening quickly. Faster than I could keep up with. I began to make life changing plans to accommodate where I was going. Confirmations that I was on the right path were coming left and right. I knew I was on my way to my destiny. My calling was sure. My path was clear.

One night, my pastor pulled me aside to talk about it. He saw the changes happening and God spoke to him about it. Prophetically he told me, “Be patient on your journey.” Almost immediately the trail went cold. The path disappeared. The confirmations quit rolling in. I can still see where I’m going, but not the path. I still believe in what God has called me to do, but I can’t see how to get there from here. That was two years ago that he spoke those words to me. I’ve had two years of asking God, “Where did you go? Why did you quit leading me? Why is the path hidden? What’s my next step?”

I’ve traced the cold path back to that night. I’ve blamed the lack of progress on those words. I’ve looked for excuses and other paths that will lead me to where I’m going, but have had no luck. I’ve struggled with God as He’s had me at the point for a while. I’ve listened to His voice and waited for His direction, but I’m still sitting here. I’m still waiting. I’m still hoping. I’m still believing. Each day that I wait, the desire to do what He has called me to grows. Each day I become more restless and fed up with where I am. I’m a doer, not a sitter. I’m a go getter, not a watcher. That’s my personality. Sitting still is hard for me.

God used Mark Batterson’s words to help me in this limbo. One of the things he said is, “The longer you wait, the more you appreciate.” That hit my soul. He also said, “God wants you to get where you are going more than you want to get where you’re going.” Then He must really want it! Then he hit me between the eyes. He said, “God is more concerned with who you become in the journey than with getting you to the destination.” That changed my thoughts. If God is more concerned with who I become on this journey, so should I. This is the training ground before I step into my calling. He is molding me and shaping me into the person He needs me to be so I can completely fulfill His calling.

Then there were the words of reassurance to calm me down. He said, “God knows how to get you to become who He wants you to become in the process of the journey.” All of a sudden my pastor’s prophetic words made sense. Change takes time. It takes pressure. It takes faith to trust God and to keep going when you can’t see the path. It takes patience. I want things now. I want them to happen in my time. I want to be in control of how God moves my life. On the journey I’ve learned to trust His timing. I’ve learned that I shouldn’t take matters into my own hands and try to force the calling to come to a reality. I should be patient and be faithful in the process of becoming who He wants me to be on this journey.

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God Is Looking For Nobody

When American Idol first came on TV, it was one of the most popular shows ever. People couldn’t get enough of it. Since that time several shows with the same premise have begun. The draw to reality shows like this is that it gives a nobody the chance to be somebody. It tells us that there’s a chance for each of us to be great, famous or known. It gives us a cut in the line to stardom, to bypass years of plugging away following the normal route. In essence, shows like that give each of us hope that we too will be discovered one day.

As I was reading Paul’s account of Abraham in Romans 4:17-18, it occurred to me that God only uses nobodies. When you look through the scripture and think of the great people of faith, they were nobodies. David was a shepherd minding his own business tending his father’s sheep when God chose him to be king. Abraham was a devoted husband who just wanted to give his wife a child. He was taking care of his possessions when God asked him to move. Mary and Joseph were just two young lovers trying to plan a wedding when God chose them to be the parents of Jesus.

Look at the disciples too. Most were ordinary fishermen, tax collectors and every day blue collar workers when Jesus gave the call to follow Him. Joseph was a teenager who ratted on his brothers one too many times when he was sold into slavery and dragged to a foreign land. He lived his life in obscurity until God chose to make him second in command of one of the greatest civilizations of all time. Moses was an abandoned child, who ran away from his adopted parents and was tending sheep in the desert when he had the burning bush experience.

The somebodies in the Bible all started out as nobodies. They didn’t follow the normal routes to greatness. They were just doing their normal every day routines when God stepped in. The difference between them and others was that they were willing to be obedient to the voice of God. David was willing to tend sheep as the king, Abraham was willing to leave his homeland with no questions asked, Mary and Joseph were willing to be ridiculed for having a child out of wedlock, the disciples were willing to leave everything behind to follow, Moses was willing to go home and face his past. Each person was willing to be obedient when it didn’t make sense.

That’s the difference in being a nobody and a somebody. Blind faith. God is still looking among the nobodies of this world to find somebody who will blindly obey. He’s looking for somebody to be great. He has not changed His methods. Blind obedience is still what He desires from you and me. Being willing to do whatever He asks even when it doesn’t make sense or defies logic is the trait He most admires. You and I have a choice when He comes our way. We have the choice to remain a nobody because we aren’t willing to do what He asks, or we have the choice to obey and be somebody great. What will your obedience look like today?

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I Choose To Love

It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back. To celebrate, I’m giving away “Unglued: Making Wise Choices In The Midst of Raw Emotions” 6 session DVD by Lysa TerKeurst. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

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A friend of mine, who has been married for almost fifteen years, was talking with me about love and marriage. She told me that several years ago her husband left her. Instead of moving on, she held onto her love for him and decided to win him back. She tried everything she could think of. Month after month passed and he wouldn’t break. He wanted to be free to do his own thing and told her he didn’t feel it anymore. Even when he dated other women, she hung on to her love for him. Four years went by before he realized that he would never find anyone to love him the way she did.

They started dating again and recommitted their marriage. They’ve been together several years since that separation and their marriage is stronger than ever. I asked her how because I couldn’t understand. Her answer was simple, yet difficult. She said, “I choose to love him. When he makes me mad, I tell him that I choose to love him anyway. When he leaves clothes on the floor instead of in the hamper, I choose to love him. When he forgets important dates, I choose to love him. When we get in heated discussions, I choose to love him. No matter what happens, it’s my choice to love him or to let the other things control my thoughts.”

She gets what a marriage relationship is all about. It’s not about feelings, because those go away. It’s not about looks, because those go away. It’s not about feeling trapped. It’s about making a daily choice to stay in love. It’s about making a choice to fight for the relationship you are in and fighting off the temptations that try to pull you out of it. It’s a choice to find new ways to keep the flame burning. It’s a choice to look beyond the things that drive you nuts and to focus on the qualities you love. It’s not easy to make those choices.

In fact, I tell people who are getting married that marriage is the hardest thing they will ever do in life. They will have to fight for that relationship every day for the rest of their life. They will have to set boundaries to protect their love. They will have to communicate when they don’t want to. They will have to force themselves to eat crow even when they think they’re right for the sake of the relationship. They will have to lose the mentality that they are two separate people and adopt the idea that they are one and a house divided cannot stand. They will have to choose daily to be in love with the same person day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Love is worth fighting for.

No marriage is perfect because it involves two imperfect people. It takes both of them freeing themselves of selfish motives and putting the other’s needs above their own. It takes one person carrying the heavy load while the other can’t or won’t. It takes understanding that marriage is not 50/50, it’s 100/100. Both parties have to give it their all for it to work. Marriage comes down to making the same decision day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Both parties have to choose to love the other more than they love themselves every day, not just on days where Hallmark tells them to. They have to put thought and effort into the relationship 365 days a year. Love is a choice.

If you would like to win the “Unglued” DVD by Lysa TerKeurst, all you have to do is go to my Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (February 15, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already liked my page and enjoy reading these daily devotionals, you are already entered. Please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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The Law of Concentration

Brian Tracy, who is a business consultant and motivational speaker, teaches about many laws of psychology. One of the laws he teaches is the Law of Concentration. It states that whatever you dwell on grows and increases in your life. If you are constantly dwelling on negative things, then negative things will increase in your life. If you dwell on good things, then good things will grow and increase in your life. If we think about things long enough, we’ll look for them. If we look for them, we’ll find them. If we find them, they’ll become part of our life.

As I heard him talk about this law, immediately my mind went to Philippians 4:8. It says, “Friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” Paul knew the Law of Concentration. He knew that many of us spend our days and sleepless nights thinking about things that are counterproductive to our growth in Christ. He knew the temptation to think on negative things instead of positive things because he dealt with it himself.

Paul must have wrestled with thoughts of unworthiness from a past that caused so much pain to families. He took parents away from young kids and either put them in jail or killed them because they were Christians. I’m sure he suffered many sleepless nights wrestling with the consequences of his past. At some point he had to make a decision to continue worrying about the lives he wrecked or to think on the lives he was changing. He had to force out the negative thoughts that kept him from being a minister and force in thoughts that were positive.

He told us that we’d do best to think on these things listed above. Why? Because he knew if we thought about them and meditated on them, they would grow in our lives. If we want the best things and not the worst to grow, we have to think about them. If we want the beautiful and not the ugly things to surround us, we need to think about the beautiful things. If we want to live a life of praise, then we’ve got to think of praiseworthy things. Our minds can only think on one thing at a time and we get to choose what that is. II Corinthians 10:5 tells us to bring every thought captive and teach them to obey Christ because thoughts are powerful and grow things in our life.

What’s growing in your life? Have you noticed the correlation between that and your thoughts? What do you want to grow in your life? What is one thing you can do today to help you think more about that than the negative things that are growing in your life? Your thoughts not only dictate what grows in your life, but they also dictate your attitude. When you think on the positive things, then the peace of God will reign in your life. Worry, fear, anger, hate and jealousy all have to leave when you think on the things above. They can’t stay around. You have the power to kick them out of your life because you have the power to control what things you dwell on. Think on good things from now on.

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Good Is The Enemy

I heard a quote from Jim Collins that resonated with me. He said, “Good is the enemy of great.” The more I thought about it, the more it sunk in how true this statement is. We quit trying to be great because good becomes acceptable. Good leads to satisfaction. Satisfaction leads to contentment. Contentment leads to stagnation, and stagnation is the beginning of the end. We as Christians have grown comfortable living good lives. We have accepted the lie that being good is all we need to be. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you could live a good life. He died so you could live a great life.

In John 14:12 Jesus said, “The person who trusts in me will not only do what I am doing but even greater things.” When is the last time you saw someone feed 5,000 people with a couple of loaves of bread and some fish? When is the last time you saw someone walk on water? When is the last time you saw someone raise another person from the dead? Jesus said we could do these things and greater things than these. We don’t see or do those things today because we’ve accepted the lie of the enemy that good is enough.

In II Corinthians 6:11-13 Paul chastised the Corinthian church because they were accepting the lie that good was enough. He said, “Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” Living a good life is living a small life. It’s fenced in to the boundaries that you have set on yourself.

We have to open our lives up to the possibility of fulfilling Jesus’ promise to us. Either we believe He meant what He said or He is a liar and our faith is in vain. The early church was able to do greater things. Christians throughout the ages have done greater things. Where are the men and women today who are doing greater things? Why have we fenced ourselves in with unbelief? Why have we settled for a watered down Gospel that just encourages us to live good lives? You were created to be great! You were made to do greater things!

To leave the good life and enter the great life, we have to be dissatisfied with good. We have to press on in our walk with God. We have to make the sacrifices of spending time with Him instead of our devices. We have to pursue Him the way He pursues us. We have to expect Him to move and work in our lives just like He did in the disciple’s lives. If you don’t believe He can or will do greater things through you, you have allowed yourself and future to be fenced into a small life. Live expansively and start desiring and expecting to be great today. Write out what you believe God will do through you and then say it out loud. Declaring leads to believing. Believing leads to expecting. Expecting leads to performing, and performing is the beginning of living a great life.

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The Garment Still Fits

I was speaking with a friend who is a pastor a while back. We were talking about ministry, living the Christian life and the struggles faced by those who walk away from their faith for a period of time in their life. I shared with them my story and my calling. I talked about how in the past I couldn’t see how God could still use me since my calling came before my falling away. I felt like I needed to be perfect to fulfill the role God had designed just for me and I had wrecked it. For a long time that is what kept me up at night. I knew there was no way God could use me after how I had lived.

They shared with me the story of their child who has walked away after having been raised in church. They told me about the struggles they face, not just as a pastor, but as a parent who has a child not walking in the way they were taught. With tears in our eyes I began to share my journey back and how I’ve come to the point that I believe God can still use me despite my past and how He can actually use that to His advantage. They looked at me and said, “it was no surprise to God that you walked away or came back. He knew what paths you were going to take. He took that into consideration when He designed your robe of righteousness. And you know what? The garment still fits.”

When you look at Ephesians 2:10, you see that we are God’s masterpiece. He has created you and I with a purpose in mind. When a sculptor is creating a piece of art and they come to an imperfection in the stone, they don’t start over. They don’t even try to cut that part out of the stone. They take those blemishes, those imperfection and they incorporate it into the art work. The imperfections that threaten the future of the masterpiece are what make it unique and are what really sets it apart as a work of art. The sculptor starts each project knowing there’s no perfect stone and knows they will have to work with imperfections to make each piece work.

The second part of that verse says, “He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” He knew long ago the life each of us were going to live. He knew long ago each of us would mess up. He knew we would have imperfections, sins, disabilities and doubts. He designed all of that into the plan He made for each one of us. It doesn’t matter if you found out the plan He has for your life before you walked away, after you walked away or are seeking it out. He has built the plan for your life around the things that would happen to you and the paths that you would take. He took all that into consideration and the garment still fits you.

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Philemon’s Predicament

I’ve read Paul’s letter to Philemon many times. It’s usually one of the books in the Bible that I skim through and move on. Partly because it’s only one chapter and another because it’s a personal letter asking Philemon for a favor that doesn’t concern me. This last time I read it though, I began to question why this letter was so important that it had to be included in the Bible. Why did God want us to see this personal letter? When I questioned it like that, I began to see why it was so important.

Onesimus was a slave who ran away from Philemon. Through God’s providence, he crossed paths with Paul and accepted Christ. Paul then became his father in the faith and discipled him. Through time, they discovered the connection and Paul encouraged him to return to Philemon. He encouraged Philemon not to look at Onesimus as a slave anymore, but as a brother. He wanted him to forgive Onesimus’ past and to accept him back debt free. I’m sure Philemon must have struggled with this, but ultimately responded positively to the request.

It reminded me of someone I knew in high school. A guy that I didn’t like much. We ran in the same circles, but I didn’t think very highly of him so I didn’t hang out with him. To me, he was a Christian in name only because his actions proved otherwise. After high school, I didn’t hear from him for nearly 20 years until Facebook came along. I accepted the friend request from him and began to Facebook stalk him. I saw that he was in ministry and I scoffed. How could this guy be in ministry? He didn’t deserve it.

As I watched over the next couple of years, every time I saw a post from him that had to do with ministry, I looked for something wrong. I tried to find his angle in messing with people. The more I looked, the more I began to see it was real ministry. I still held out on accepting it because of his past. I knew what was underneath. I knew who he was. I wasn’t going to buy in even if everyone else did. We had a history much like Philemon and Onesimus. It was hard to accept that someone who had done so much wrong in the past could be doing so much right in the present.

One day as I was reading a post and scoffing, God spoke to me. He asked, “Do I hold your past against you?” My heart sunk. I wanted to say, “But I didn’t do the stuff this guy did.” I wanted to make my past better than his because I would somehow be justified in my feelings. But I knew the answer. “No,” I replied. “Then how can you hold his past against him? I have forgiven him and it is gone. He has become a new creation and is being used for my purposes,” God told me. What can you say to that besides, “yes, sir”?

I, like Philemon, had to let go of someone else’s past and accept them as a brother. I had to release my 20 years of contempt and see them as a fellow servant doing God’s work. We all have someone who comes to mind here. Someone who has wronged us. Someone who we’ve held contempt for. Someone who we’ve disliked for a long time. Today, release those feelings and be free. You are not God and don’t have the right to decide who God can and cannot use. If they have wronged you, hand it over to Him and let Him handle it. He’s a better judge than we are and has the ability to change people completely. If you need proof, look in the mirror.

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