Tag Archives: Jesus

June 11, 2013 · 8:30 AM

Opening Doors

Yesterday my son was trying to open a door that was too heavy for him. He grabbed the handle and pulled back. He was trying so hard that he was squinting his eyes. He readjusted his feet and pulled with both hands. The door wouldn’t budge. He knocked on it, moved the handle some more and started pulling again. He turned his body away from the door and pulled trying to use his leg strength. Finally he said, “Dada” and gave me a come help me look.

I walked over, pulled on the door and opened it. He smiled and said, “Thank you, dada.” He’s learned what so many of us still haven’t. He’s learned to call out for help when he can’t get the next door open. He knows who has the strength when he doesn’t. He gave it a valiant effort in his own strength, but when he realized he couldn’t, he called out to the one who could.

I find myself trying to open doors in my life that I feel God wants me to walk through. In my own strength and ability, I’m not able to. Sometimes I’ll stand at that door knock, pull and readjust trying to open it. In the end, I have two choices. I can say, “God must not want me to walk through this door”, or I can say, “God, can you open this door please?” Too many times I choose the first option and miss a lot of blessings God has.

When I can’t open it in my own strength, I reason that God is somehow not wanting me to go through that door. Jesus told the parable of the man who had someone show up to his house late at night. He needed to feed them, but had not food. He went to his neighbor’s house to get food. The neighbor told him the door was locked and he should go away. Instead of leaving, he continued to knock and asked for help. The man finally relented and opened the door.

Prayer is the power in your life to opening the doors that God wants you to walk through. A life of faith isn’t walking through all open doors or doors that you can personally open. A life of faith is recognizing you don’t have the power and then praying to the one who does. God watches as we struggle and pull on the knobs of the doors in our paths. He’s waiting for us to call out to Him in our weakness. He wants to help, but He’s waiting for us to recognize we can’t do it on our own. We need His help. Then we can truly depend on Him.

What doors are you trying to open right now but don’t have the strength? How long have you been trying to open it? Admit your weakness to God and ask Him to open it. While there is power in prayer, there is more power in fasting and praying. If you’ve tried praying and it’s not opening, go to the next level. Jesus showed us that there is more power when we combine the two. Don’t give up on opening your door, knock harder on Heaven’s door.

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June 10, 2013 · 6:56 AM

Shackled to the Temporary

I had a dream last night that I died. As I was ascending to Heaven, I called out to God, “Wait! I can’t die. I haven’t had the chance to fulfill what you called me to.” God replied, “You had the chance, but you never took it. You focused on the things that didn’t matter and let them keep you from your calling. I had to find someone else.” With that, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep for a while. My mind was replaying it over and over trying to find another ending.

The only ending God is interested in is me fulfilling what He’s called only me to do. He created me for a specific purpose. He created you for a specific purpose too. Somehow life gets in the way of doing what we were made for. We swap His priorities for earthly priorities. We get ourselves shackled into the things that don’t matter and dream of doing what really does matter.

It’s not a fast transition. It happens over time. “I’ll do what God wants me to do after I…”, we say. What happens is we spend a lifetime doing what we want while always promising to do what God wants next and then wonder where time went. Each time we pass on what God wants, we tighten those shackles a little more. We bind ourselves to the things that have no eternal value whatsoever. We treasure the temporary and dismiss the eternal.

I don’t want to live that way. I Corinthians 3:13 says that when I get to Heaven, God will take all the things I’ve built in my life and put them in fire to see what has value. If I’ve done the things that have eternal value, I’ll receive a reward. If I focused on temporary things, they’ll all be burned and I’ll have nothing to show for my time on earth. I don’t want to be standing there looking at a pile of ashes on that day.

That motivates me to find and seek out the things that will last for eternity. That makes me want to do work for God’s Kingdom. That resets my priorities and refocuses my attention on what truly does matter. Each of us have the opportunity to do what matters for eternity. Each of us are called to “go”. When Jesus left this earth, He didn’t pick out a few of the disciples standing there and tell them to “go into all the world.” He told all of His disciples to go.

Where are you going today? Wherever that is, you have the ability and the opportunity to do something that will survive that fire. You have a choice to make. You can choose to do what matters for eternity or you can choose to do something temporary and tighten those shackles a little more. I choose to do what matters so when the time of my death comes, I won’t be calling out to God to send me back so I can do what He called me to. I want to go knowing that I’ve done what He asked and knowing that I’ll hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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June 7, 2013 · 8:55 AM

The Snooze Button

If you’re like me, you love the snooze button on your alarm. Somehow I feel like I’m pulling a fast one on my body and I am really getting extra sleep. I have mine set to a maximum of five snoozes. On that one, there is no option to hit snooze anymore. It’s just a red “X” on my screen. I have to get up. I have to get out of bed and get ready for work. There other days where it goes off and I don’t remember hitting snooze or hearing the alarm and I wake up late.

Sometimes we treat the Holy Spirit like a snooze alarm. He comes to warn us of approaching sin or danger and we push Him away. He comes right back telling us to run or change our course, but we don’t listen or we tell Him, “I’ll be all right. Just a few more minutes wont hurt.” Eventually, we quit hearing Him because we’ve become immune to the sound of His voice warning us.

There is a war going on inside each of us. The Holy Spirit is wanting us to live one way and our flesh another. We get to choose who we hit the snooze on. Paul put it this way in Galatians 5:16, “But I say, walk and live habitually in the Holy Spirit (responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit); then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh.” He asks us in verse 18, “Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit?”

The Holy Spirit is in our lives to point us to living the way God desires for us to live. His desire is to produce the kind of fruit in our lives that comes from living God’s way. Those fruit are listed in verses 22 and 23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Why would we ever want to push the snooze button when it comes to developing these? These are the qualities God desires to bring out in each one of us.

Paul also makes it clear what fruits come when we snooze the Holy Spirit and choose our flesh. In verses 19-21, some of the fruits he lists are: an accumulation of mental and emotional garbage, paranoid loneliness, all consuming yet never satisfied wants, a brutal temper, divided homes and divided lives and the habit of die personalizing everyone into a rival. These are the things that living according to the flesh produces. There is a clear difference between the two.

Understand that fruit is the end product. When the choices are presented, you don’t see the fruit that will bear from your decision. If you were presented with the end product, it would be easy to choose the Holy Spirit every time. That’s why Paul spelled it out this way. He knew we would see the choices before us and not think of what the end result would be. He knew our internal, fleshly desire is to snooze the Holy Spirit. When we look at the fruit that each choice bears, it should make our choice easier. Who are you going to snooze today?

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June 6, 2013 · 8:29 AM

Ministering in Love Languages

At church last night, our group was discussing a church in Austin, Texas that had someone who ministers to the homeless in that area come in and speak. At the altar call, he didn’t ask anyone to come down and get saved. He didn’t ask anyone to come down for prayer. He asked that each person would pray and ask God if they should give their shoes to the homeless. If they felt they were, they were to come to the front, take off their shoes and leave them there.

I started thinking about that and the book “The 5 Love Languages” by Dr. Gary Chapman. In it, he describes five ways that people give and receive love: words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, physical touch and gifts. Then I started thinking, if those are the ways people receive love, shouldn’t we the Church be showing love to the lost in their love languages? The story in Austin was showing love through gifts. For a lot of believers, this is the easiest way to show love because we give out of our abundance and then move on with our lives. What if we continued to give gifts until it came from our necessity and not our abundance?

Words of affirmation are another one that doesn’t require much of us, but we hardly do it. I was having a rough day recently and had a lot on my mind. As I stopped to pump gas, my mind was working. A lady on the other side of the pump said, “Hey, you should smile every once in a while. It’ll do wonders!” I snapped out of my thought coma, looked at her and smiled. She said, “See. Doesn’t that feel better?” She got in her car and drove off. Her words of affirmation changed my mindset. It made my day better. We can do that too.

Where things start to get difficult are the remaining three. I once heard it said that many people spell “love”, T-I-M-E. Quality time is not something we usually want to do with “the least of these”. We’d rather give something that costs us less. The problem is that those who receive love this way are left out when we’d rather take the easier route. If we truly care about the lost, we need to find ways to spend quality time with them, invest in a relationship and share the love of Christ with them.

I like acts of service when reaching out to the lost. I call it “putting sweat equity in the Kingdom”. Give a day of your time, labor and talents to someone who needs it. This speaks volumes to those who receive love this way. Find a widow or elderly couple nearby who need yard or house work done and help them. Find a single mom who needs help and offer to help her. Find a ministry who is doing one of the other love languages and help them. It requires your time and effort, but is well worth it.

Finally, there is physical touch. Jesus was good at this. He laid His hands on people and touched them. He wasn’t afraid to go up to lepers and touch them. They were considered unclean and people were forbidden to touch them, but Jesus did it anyway. Who are today’s “lepers”? Who does society deem “unclean”? They need us to reach out to them, hug them and to share God’s love with them.

The book shows that we typically give love in ways we like to receive it. In a relationship, you have to learn someone else’s language to keep their “love tank” full. In ministry, I think that if you’re good at giving love in your language, that’s the area you need to show love to others in. Each church should have ministries that give love to others in these five ways. It will allow those in the church who give love those ways a place to plug in. It will also allow the church to share love in the ways that people in their community receive it. Think of the difference that could make for your church and God’s Kingdom.

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June 5, 2013 · 7:45 AM

Action vs Inaction

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I mentioned a couple of days ago that my uncle and I built a swing set for my son. What I didn’t tell you was that we did it without instructions. I downloaded the picture you see above here thinking there were instructions involved. This turned out to be a material and cut list. There were no instructions included. We were able to take that picture and create what you see just below this sentence.

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Walking in faith is a lot like that. God gives us a picture of where He’s taking us, but doesn’t provide the step by step instructions on how to get there. It’s hard to know where to begin, what’s next and how to make it happen. We feel overwhelmed. When I looked at that drawing of what could be, I got excited. When I looked at my driveway full of cut lumber with no instructions, I got worried.

When I look at the plan God has for me, the big picture, I get excited. When it comes down to taking the next step in the process, I get nervous. I start to wonder, “Is this really the next step? What if I mess up? How do I know this will work?” Question after question fills my mind until I question myself out of the next move. Fear of messing up or taking the wrong step paralyzes me.

My uncle and I must have gone back to the initial drawing a hundred times. I’d ask, “What do think is next? What cuts of lumber go there? How many of those do we have?” He’d say, “Just grab it and let’s go. If it’s not right, we’ll unscrew it and try something else.” When God says, “Move”, our fear of inaction should be greater than our fear of incorrect action. God is more than capable of correcting our wrong actions.

When we fail to move or fail to act, we aren’t just holding ourselves up, we are holding someone else up. My son was watching us through the window the whole time. He was anticipating and hoping to play on his new swing set, but he needed us to do our part first. The same thing happens in faith. Someone else, who you may never meet, is praying for God to answer them. God is asking you to act on their behalf even though you don’t know it.

What you do in faith isn’t just for you. There’s a ripple effect going on and your action is their answer. Someone else’s action is your answer to prayer. God could do all of it on His own, but He chooses to allow us to participate with Him in faith. He chooses to use you and me to accomplish His will. It’s a big job when you think about it. It can be scary. Your mind tells you that you don’t want to mess things up for God or someone else. But God can’t use your inaction. He can only do something with your action.

What is the next step in what He’s asked you to do? What excuses have you been using to keep from doing it? What can you do today to start acting in faith and moving towards that complete picture of what He’s shown you? Don’t be scared and don’t be upset if your next step is small. It’s a series of small steps that create the greatest works of faith.

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June 4, 2013 · 8:15 AM

The Butterfly Effect

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Going through trials is difficult. It’s part of life and especially part of the Christian life. Jesus told us we would have them. In John 16:33, Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer, take courage, be confident, certain and undaunted for I have overcome the world.” He knew we were going to face difficult times. He faced difficult times Himself. He didn’t want us to be defeated by our problems.

He told us that we should take courage because He overcame. If He was able to, we are able to because His spirit lives within us. We forget that sometimes, especially when we’re in a trial or in distress. We don’t rely on the power that is inside of us to overcome. We worry about the problem instead of focusing on the One who gives us strength to overcome.

I heard it said before that a butterfly won’t be able to fly unless it has that struggle with the cocoon. The difficult battle that it has to emerge from the problem that is wrapped around it is the very thing that will help it to survive once it is free. It can choose to give up in that struggle or it can get gain its strength needed in that struggle. We all have that choice.

We shouldn’t be surprised that life doesn’t always go as planned. We shouldn’t be caught off guard that a person does us wrong. Bad things happen to everyone. We can take courage in our frustrations. We can be confident in our ability to overcome. We can remain undaunted in our mission even though obstacles stand in the way. We can have peace in the storms of life.

Our ability to stand firm in tribulation and to weather the storms of life does not lie in our own strength. If you are trying to stand in your own strength, you will grow tired and weary from the struggle. Zechariah 4:6,7 says, “It’s not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says The Lord of hosts. For who are you, O great mountain of human obstacles?” It goes on to say that The Lord will turn that mountain into a plain.

Whatever mountain, struggle, trial, frustration, distress or tribulation you are facing today, The Lord knows about it. He is building strength in you during this time. Don’t give up or quit. You have supernatural power inside of you to overcome. You have the ability to persevere in this time and overcome because He has and He lives in you. Speak to your mountain today. Ask God to make it a plain in front of you. Keep moving forward in His strength today.

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June 3, 2013 · 8:02 AM

Chopping Roots

My uncle and I built a swing set for my son last week. After building it, we decided to put up a fall zone perimeter around it and fill it with wood chips to protect him. We measured and then placed the boards around the swing set. As we were screwing them together, one of the boards wouldn’t square up right. The ground was raised up and kept the board from being level. I grabbed a shovel and started to dig. It wasn’t long before I hit some roots.

I took the shovel, placed it against the roots and jumped on it to break the roots. Sometimes that worked and other times the shovel didn’t move. As I broke some roots, I had to grab the ends of them and pull until they came all the way up or until the were far enough away that I could chop them and get no future trouble from them. As I looked back at the area where they were, it was now soft soil and I could easily pull the dirt back and place the board on level ground.

I started to think about my life after that. When I try to line things up, they don’t always come together the way I think they should. No matter how hard I try, it just doesn’t work. There are roots below the surface that affect things in each of our lives. We may not always see them, but they’re there. They create uneven surfaces in our lives and have a way of messing things up from time to time.

A scripture that always comes to mind when I think about roots is Hebrews 12:15. It says, “Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you.” We’re all susceptible to these roots because life isn’t perfect. Things happen that we can’t control and we allow roots to grow in our lives beneath the surface. They get nourishment from the feelings we keep hidden. They grow until we deal with them and cut them out.

Some roots cut easily because they are young. Other roots will take a lot of strength and effort to remove from our lives because they’ve been there so long and haven’t been dealt with. It’s important that we recognize when roots are trying to take hold in and then prevent them. Hebrews said we need to watch out so that the root doesn’t grow. Understanding and knowing what situations cause roots like this to grow is the first step in preventing their growth.

You have to mentally determine not to let them grow up in you. If you are susceptible to them growing in trials, be on your hard during those times. If you are susceptible to them when someone dies, make a determination not to be angry or bitter. Whatever the case may be for you, it’s important that you do what you can to prevent them. In my trials, I consciously pray, “God, please don’t let a root of bitterness spring up in me so that this situation affects me in the future.”

What roots do you have in your life that you need to put the shovel to? Dealing with it now is better than later. You need to kill it at its source so that it will not continue to grow and affect your life negatively. You need to dig it up, pull it out and chop it off. Afterwards, you’ll notice that the soil in your life is a lot softer, more even and able to have something better planted in its place.

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May 31, 2013 · 8:50 AM

Faith and Fear

One of the things I’m teaching people in the business world is that fear comes from a lack of knowledge. We are often afraid of those things we don’t understand or have little knowledge about. When our knowledge is low, so is our confidence. When our confidence is low, our fear goes up. That fear causes our demeanor to change and then our actions reflect it. We begin to act out of fear than out of a confident faith.

To act out of confidence, we need to increase our faith. There are a couple of times in scripture that I can think of off the top of my head that tell us about that. The first was in Mark 9:23-25 when a father brought his son to Jesus for help. He told Jesus, “Have mercy on him if you can.” Jesus said, “What do you mean, ‘If I can?’ Anything is possible if a person believes.” The father replied, “Lord I believe, but help my unbelief.”

When is the last time we’ve prayed that prayer? I believe God honors prayers that grow our faith. Some people are afraid to pray a prayer like that because they think it’s like asking God to help you be more patient: you’ll get a lot of opportunities to grow it! God always desires that our faith and trust in Him will increase.

Another instance that talks about growing our faith comes from Romans 10:17. That says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Are we taking time each day to fill our hearts and minds with the Word of God. I don’t mean just reading a chapter to check off a box. I mean really getting into God’s Word and reading it to search for Him and what He says to us personally through it.

Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed are those who trust in The Lord and have made The Lord their hope and confidence.” You may not have much confidence on your own, but you can have it in God. You can have a boldness like you’ve never had before in Christ. It comes when you’ve learned to trust Him. That trust is learned when you’ve done all you can do in a situation and finally say, “God, I can’t do it. I need your help.”

I think that sometimes God sits back and waits on us to get to that point before He steps in. He needs us to understand that we weren’t made to do everything on our own. If we could, there would be no need for faith. Our confidence would be in ourselves and not in Him. That’s not what God desires. He told Paul in II Corinthians 12:9, “My strength and power are made perfect and show themselves most effective in your weakness.”

It’s in our weakness that we begin to allow our faith, trust and confidence in God arise. It’s not so He can have an ego boost. It’s so we can learn dependence on Him in our lives. It’s so we can have confidence in Him and His ability to supply our needs. It’s so when an impossible situation arises, we don’t have to ask Him if He can, we will know that He can. You can act out of a confident faith rather than fear today.

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May 30, 2013 · 8:13 AM

Flight Attendants and Preachers

I’m sitting on an airplane this morning as I travel for business. I’ve been flying for years and over the last few, I couldn’t count how many times I’ve flown. As we all sit here, the flight attendant is giving safety instructions should anything bad happen. I’ve always noticed how few people pay attention. Maybe because it’s a canned speech. Maybe because it’s something they’ve heard before. Maybe because they don’t care.

It’s got me to thinking how many of us go to church and do the same thing. Many of us have been going to church for years. As we sit in the pews, the preacher gives spiritual safety instructions. Like the people on the plane, we sit there, eyes glazed over and we rarely pay attention. Maybe because they aren’t a dynamic speaker. Maybe because you’ve heard this before. Maybe because you don’t care.

A pastor is a shepherd. Their job is to protect the flock that has been given to them. They preach, not because they have to, but because the safety of your soul compels them to. They are called to watch over you and give you what you need for spiritual protection and to show you the path to Heaven. Yet many of us sit there and play on our phones, talk to our neighbor or sleep. I say, “us” because I’m guilty too. I look at my watch and wonder how long it is until noon too.

Are we going to church because “it’s the right thing to do”? Are we going to be seen by others? Are we going to church because we want our kids to know this stuff? Or are we going so that we can adopt the culture of the kingdom? I realize that the building itself, while we call it “church” is not the church. You and I are the church. The Bible says that we should not forsake the assembling of the brethren. That means we should not treat being with other believers lightly.

Whether you go to a Mega church like Lakewood, a home church in someone’s home or anywhere in between, we are to go and get as much out of it as we can. It’s not the preacher’s job to feed you. When you go, expect to learn something. Expect to gain wisdom. Expect to build relationships with other believers. Expect God to move in your life. Expect to leave different than when you showed up. God’s desire is to meet with us daily, but most of us only give him a couple of hours on a Sunday. Even then, we aren’t giving Him much because we’d rather be doing something else.

What I tell people every day is that you will get out of this meeting what you put into it. The same is true for going to church. Are you there to participate or are you there to observe? Participate in worship. Participate in the sermon by taking notes and writing down your own thoughts of how what’s being said applies directly to your life. Don’t just go to church to go. Go to receive and to participate. Go to meet God and be prepared to be met by Him.

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May 29, 2013 · 7:08 AM

God Ideas

Tonight my church will host one of my favorite event that we do. We will have an outreach for the youth of our community that will draw hundreds of kids to the church. We will feed them, give away door prizes, an iPad mini and a car. The kids at the church get excited about the event and invite their friends from school. It presents them an opportunity to share their faith and to invite someone to church who they might otherwise not invite.

This event started a few years ago when our youth pastor was praying. He was seeking God on a way to impact more youth than he thought possible. While praying, he said out loud, “God, I’m going to give away a car!” After saying the words, he thought, “How am I going to get a car to give away?” He recognized it as a God idea and began to ask God to provide. He knew that God ideas require faith beyond our ability.

God took him to Habakkuk 2:2 that says, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.” So he wrote letters to several dealerships telling them his vision of giving away a car so that many kids who wouldn’t normally go to church would come and he would have the opportunity to share Jesus with them. A local used car dealer responded and gave him a car.

It wasn’t long before a more prominent dealership responded and said that’d love to help. They said, “As long as you hold this event, we’ll give you a car to give away.” They had caught the vision and have supplied the need for several years now. It’s amazing to see how many kids this brings into our church and gives us the opportunity to plant seeds, water seeds and harvest them. It all started with a vision and a God idea.

What idea has God placed in your heart? Are you struggling while trying to figure out how to accomplish it? Let me save you some time, you can’t. If its a God idea, it will take supernatural provisioning to accomplish it. Write the vision down. Let others know about it. What God births in you is accomplished through others. He needs visionaries, dreamers, planners, financiers and doers. It takes all of us working together to bring about his plans.

Have you figured out what part of God’s plan you are? If you’re the dreamer or the vision caster, write it down so that it’s plain to others. If you’re a planner, sync up with a dreamer or a vision caster to help them create a plan for others to follow. If you’re able to help finance, ask God where He’d like you to invest in His kingdom. If you’re a doer, look around you and see where you can put your skills to use. Each of us play a part in building the kingdom. We just have to learn to work together.

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