What do you do when you see a stop sign? What are you supposed to do when you see a stop sign?  Why is it so hard for us to do what we are supposed to do?  Some times the Holy Spirit will put up a stop sign in our lives.  When we see this spiritual stop sign – it means STOP!  Don’t go anywhere and don’t do anything!  Stop and survey the situation.  This is easier said than done!  After you stop and make sure that everything is as it should be, then you can go!

We Need To Stop And Check Things Out! The right Church gives us an opportunity to stop!  When we go to church, if we are going to get out of church what we could and should, then we need to use our experience at church as an opportunity to stop.  Stopping is vitally important to our safety and our continued journey!  Stop or you will be stopped – one way or another.  You and I can make the choice to stop in safety, survey our situation and move forward with confidence that we are doing the right thing, or we can keep moving and be stopped by the tragedies, frustrations and challenges of life, which can often produce a lot of harm and dysfunction!

All of us need to take some time to stop! When you stop, ask God to help you to survey your life and the way that you are living it.  Does anything need to change?  Is their room for improvement?  The purpose of stopping is to make sure that our life is headed in the right direction.  When you know that it is, rev up the gas and enjoy the ride!

A Good Message! Yesterday a good friend sent me a message that they were praying for me.  I really needed that message because when you are serving the Lord and trying to live for God’s glory, then you are always going to have some people in your life that just don’t get it.  People who often, with the best of intentions, end up doing more harm than good with their mixed up actions and destructive tongues!  You get the picture!

Powerful Challenge! My friend concluded their message to me by sharing this challenge from the Scripture: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In the flesh this would be impossible, but in the Spirit it is already a done deal!  God gave me a little greater clarity this morning in my devotional reading, when I flipped to Matthew 7!

Matthew 7:1-5 says: “1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Be Careful! If we are not careful, then we can let others living in the flesh drag us to that low place of living.  Jesus came to set us free.  Jesus came so that we would live above and beyond the flesh in the Spirit.  Realize this:  No matter how much growing you do and no matter how far you make think you are ahead of others, you are always in danger of being pulled back or down.  Stop and survey your situation!  Make sure that your life is intersecting with God’s plan and yield to Him!  Trust me you will be glad that you did!  I am!  And “man oh man” do I still have a lot of work to do on me!  Thanks for listening and I hope this helps!

I love to get out and ride my motorcycle! One of the things that I have learned that is very important to having a good ride is this:  You have to learn to look for and pay attention to signs!  Road signs help us to answer some very important questions!

The first question that signs help us to answer is “Where Am I?” It is really easy to get lost, especially when you have direction coming from so many different directions!  If you want to get to “there”, then you have got to figure out where “here” is.

The second question that signs help us to answer is “How Do I Get There?” Signs mark the way by helping us to know where we are so that we can get to where we are going.  You can’t get there from here, until you figure out where here is and then when you find out where here is, you have to follow the signs that help to lead you to there.

The third question that signs help us to answer is “What Do I Do Now?” Signs help you to get prepared for whatever is coming next.  But a sign will do you no good, unless you pay attention to it!

God gives us signs that direct us to live free in the Spirit with Him!  Where are you?  Be honest about it – where are you?  Are you where you need to be?  How do you get to where God wants you to go?  God’s Word will guide you, if you will pay attention to it!  What do you need to do now?  What is the step or steps that you need to take?

Pay attention to the signs that God is sending your way – you will be glad that you did!