Monthly Archives: July 2009

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Let Go!

Northwood - The Building Where The Church Gets Ready!

Northwood Worship Center - The Building Where The Church Gets Ready To Go Out!

God hit me with this thought last week and I just came seem to escape from it!  “You say you have Jesus, but does Jesus have you?”

In Luke 9:57-62  - There are three guys that make the grand promise that they will follow Jesus, but before they do, they have just one thing that they need to take care of! I think that this is where most of us are living!  We want to follow Jesus, but there is always just one more thing that we have to take care of before we can step up and out!

Desire is easy! You should want to follow Jesus!  Most of us know that we should follow Jesus and I think that most of us want to follow Jesus – until following Jesus gets in the way of our plans of what we think is best for ourselves.

You can’t really follow Jesus – if you don’t trust Jesus! And I think this is where a lot of us get hung up.  We say we trust Him, but trust for most of us is really hope that he will get us out of Hell and into Heaven!

When Jesus was challenging these guys to follow – He knew that he had a cross of sacrifice in his future. His asking them to follow was going to cost him and them something!  Following Jesus does not guarantee us that life will always be comfortable, but it does promise that the comforter will always be with us!

We need to stop every so often and ask ourselves this question:  WHAT REALLY MATTERS? Much of what you and I will think and worry about today – does not really matter!  What does matter is this:  Do you have a real relationship with Jesus and in this relationship are you following Him?

You know that you are on your way to following Jesus, when you trust Jesus. You know that you are trusting Jesus when you open your heart and hands!  Your heart is the easy part.  Your hands are going to be the challenge.  What do you need to let go of, so that you can grab hold of the stuff of God?

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How Old Are You?

David's been crying because I never mention him in a blog - so here ya go!

David's been crying because I never mention him in a blog - so here ya go!

Last night we talked about “What’s The Big Deal About Age?” We are working our way through 1 Samuel 3 and we were taking a look at old Eli and Young Samuel and discovered that there are some things that we need to learn wherever we are in our journey!

The Problem With Getting Old! Getting old does not have to be a bad thing.  In fact getting old can be a good thing, if we will learn to age with Grace!  But for a lot of people, the problem with getting old comes when you get to a point where you stop learning.  Eli was loosing his physical vision and had already lost most of his spiritual vision.  He was more than likely loosing his ability to hear physically and he had certainly already lost his ability to hear spiritually.  There came a point in his growing older that he stopped learning.  There came a point when he just stopped seeing and hearing the things of God!  What a tragedy!

As we get older – we begin to lose our physical senses! As we lose our physical senses, we need to enhance and grow our spiritual senses.  As the physical dies – the spiritual should grow.  As the flesh grows old, the spirit should grow strong!  Getting old does not have to be a bad thing.  You just need to learn to make the switch from physical to spiritual.  This is what we ought to spend our lives doing any way!

As we all get older and begin to lose our physical senses – let’s make sure that we are working to grow, develop and strengthen our spiritual senses, so that we can hear, see and respond to the awesome stuff of God!

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Get Some Rest!

My Dad Getting Some Rest!

My Dad Getting Some Rest!

Luke 23:56 says “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment!”

We live in a 24/7 world, where activity is taking place on top of activity! Many people are in the process of doing three or more things all at the same time. We think that the more busy we get, the more important we are.  Our big problem is often a lot of activity, but very little result!  We stir up a lot of dust, but when the dust settles – what is there to show for it?

I think this is one of the reasons why God commanded a Sabbath! We need to take a break from all that we are doing, so that we can remember Who and what we are doing it for.  There are a lot of benefits to taking a Sabbath Rest!  Our mind, body and spirit get a much needed break from the often punishing routines of life.  Our life gets a chance to restructure and reorganize for better service that really makes a difference.  And we gain a clarity that can only come from taking a little time to survey the scene from a place of rest.

Genesis 2 says:  ”By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Who are we to think that we should not rest, when our Creator took the time to rest?

Make sure that you are taking some time to rest, so that you can give God your very best! In your time of rest make sure to take some time to think about God’s plans for you and your life and make sure that you take some time to thank God for your life and all that He has given and done to make it blessed!

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VACATION PREPARATION!

My Friend Mike Getting Ready For His Vacation!

My Friend Mike Getting Ready For His Vacation!

Are you prepared? I have been getting a lot of Twitter and Facebook updates from people that are getting ready to go on vacation and it is amazing for me to think about how much work and effort we put into getting ready to go and spend a week or two away from home!

Most people when they get ready to go on a vacation, do not just throw a toothbrush, change of underwear and an extra pair of pants in a bag and go! No way!   Most people take the time to think about what they are going to be doing, where all they are going and make a list of exactly what they will need for every moment of every day, so that their experience will be the very best ever!  Most people take the time to plan it all out, even if the plan does not work out as they planned!

What if we put the same effort into the everyday living out of our lives? What if at the beginning of everyday – we actually took a little bit of time to think about where we are going and what we will be doing during this day?  There is this thing called the Bible and in it – God gives us instructions on how to live our lives, so that we can get the most out of every day.

Take some time everyday this week to sit down at the beginning of your day and think though what God is doing and wants to do in and through your life! Open up your Bible and read about the plans that God has made for you.  Everyday can be an amazing day, if you will just take and make the time to enjoy what God has put in front of you!  Remember:  A little preparation makes the whole trip better!

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Three Things You Can’t Do!

“Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God!”  Romans 5:1-2

There are three things that you cannot do, no matter how hard you try!  You can pretend to do these things and many people do, but to what advantage?

You Cannot Save Yourself! Scripture tells us that we are “justified through faith!”  Our being justified (made right) comes through faith, but not just any ole faith will do.  We must have faith in someone or something that matters or it is all for nothing.  We are made right with God through our faith in Jesus Christ!  It does not matter how smart or slick you think you are.  You will never be smart or slick enough to save yourself.  Jesus came and died on the cross – to do for you and me – what we could not do for ourselves!

You Cannot Manufacture Peace! Because we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I am not talking about a moment of no worries.  I am talking about an inner certainty that everything is going to be okay as we trust, yield and follow God.  The very best that we can do in our everyday living is to put a band aid on the situations and circumstances that are bringing us down.  When you are made right with God through faith in Jesus, then you know that whatever is going on in your life is being used for God’s glory and man’s blessing as we trust and surrender to God and His magnificent will!

You Cannot Waste Grace! Faith in Jesus allows us to stand and walk in grace!  I think a lot of people now a days are living with a “fake grace!”  We like to say that we have received this beautiful gift from God, but the truth is this: If you have the gift of grace – it will change your life and the way that you live it! I see a lot of people now a days wasting grace, but it’s not God’s grace.  It is a grace that man has made up to justify his doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants and that is not grace at all!  It’s real or it’s fake and the way to tell is by how you are living your life!

Where Do You Stand?

You can’t save yourself, but you can be saved!  Just put your trust in the only One that really matters and let Him take care of the justification.

You can have peace, but you have to get rid of that pretend stuff that you have made up to open up your life to the real stuff that flows out of a growing and meaningful relationship with Jesus!

You got grace just waiting for you to allow yourself to really experience freedom.  Not freedom to do whatever you want, but freedom to do the right things that guide your life into and through blessing!

Realize what you can’t do and get out of God’s way and let Him work!  As God works on, in and through you, make sure that you are living the life that is giving Him the glory and you can’t help but experience the blessing!

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Healing Feeling!

Floating Grace!

Floating Grace!

W.W.J.D?  (What Would Jesus Do?) That’s a good question! But the question W.W.J.D? really gets it’s power when it changes the way we answer W.W.W.DO?  (What Will We Do?)  When what Jesus does – changes what we do, then there are three things that we must do!

Learn And Teach! What are you learning as you walk through this life with God?  What are you teaching to help others to grow for God’s glory?  Everyday we should try to learn something from God and everyday we should try to share something that we are learning with others!

Live And Preach! Are you allowing God’s Word to change the way you live your life?  Is your life being lived as a positive message for others to see, hear and be influenced by?  Everyday you get to preach a message to the world with your life and the way that it is lived – so what are you preaching about?

Love And Heal! What is hurting you today?  Do you know that God wants to take that hurt and use it to heal you and make you better?  But before God can take the hurt and make you better, you must make sure that you have gotten from that hurt whatever it is that you need to get from it.  What is hurting you and taking away from your life?  Why is it here in your life right now and at this moment?  What can you learn from it and how will you let it make your life better?  (Take just a moment to walk back through those questions and really think about your answers!)

God wants to help you and heal you, but you must also be willing to help yourself, so that your life can be opened up to His healing.  When you begin to do your part – God will come in and do some amazing things to make you whole, so that you might share that wholeness with others.  Love God because God loves you and has blessed you with the capacity to love!  Love yourself because you are a special, gifted and talented creation of God!  Love others because it brings great glory to God when His love is shared and grown!