Another great Sunday!  It seems like we get to say that every week at Northwood.  While there were a lot of challenges to my day, it still turned out to be a pretty amazing day of God’s presence and power!  Here are a few of the highlights!

*Woke up after an up and down night with my ten-year old.  Discovered after Joy took her to the doctor today that she has another bad ear infection  (she was just treated three weeks ago for the same thing).  She has started a round of omnicef which is supposed to do the trick!

*The real bummer is that as we start a lot of our Christmas traditions as a church, my family had to miss it today and tonight.  When you have been pastoring the same church for over ten years, church and family are interwoven in ways that are hard to imagine.  Really missed my physical family being with our spiritual family in this beginning of the Christmas Season for Northwood!

*Thankful for my spiritual family and really enjoyed our time together.  Glad that God has blessed us with some very special traditions and had some fun today looking back through the years and thinking about how God has grown us in so many ways!

*Talked about the wonderful gift of HOPE this morning in Worship!  As our Hope Jesus should challenge and change our lives!  I hope to share a little more on this tomorrow in my blog post!

*Had fun tonight with our simple, but sweet “Triming The Trees” Service!  Love the family atmosphere and think that we are blessed to be a church that has active and sometime rambunctious kids!  (Remember they are just like their parents!)

*Enjoyed the fellowship and really felt blessed to have someone bring me a plate already prepared and then to be served a diet Pepsi by a couple of my brothers in Christ!

*It’s been a challenging, but good day!  Looking forward to another amazing week of ministry for God’s glory!

I love you all and thank you for allowing me to be a part of your family!

SOUND THE ALARM! It seems to me that the devil amps up his attacks upon me and my life on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings!  This has been a trend for most of my ministry!  Last night and this morning, we had a rough night with a sick little girl and just about the time I would fall back to sleep, BAM!  Wake Up, think about how tough life is and go back to sleep if you can!  Now I am not blaming a sick little girl on the devil, but the thoughts that walked into my life and head came from somewhere!  You know the thoughts I am talking about, the ones that really don’t even have anything to do with what you are going through at the moment!

BE CAREFUL – YOU MIGHT BE ONE! I’ve also noticed that Saturdays and Sundays are the times when you seem to have the biggest problems with people.  Either I will say something and it does not come out like I mean it, someone will take it wrong, or someone will say something that does not come out right or that I take wrong.

THE ATTACK OF DISTRACTION! One of the biggest and most important days for the Church is Sunday!  Could this possibly be the motivation for these attacks?  Could it be that the attacks are actually efforts at distracting us from what is really important?  I think and believe that this is exactly what they are.

THE POWER OF GENUINE WORSHIP! The devil wants to distract us from true and genuine worship of our Creator King!  When we truly worship God, we are drawn to Him.  When we are drawn to Him, we can’t help but to grow in a closer and more meaningful relationship with Him.  When we grow in a closer and more meaningful relationship with Him, we are filled with His power and purpose.  When we are filled with His power and purpose, watch out devil, because your days are numbered and your influence limited!

YOU CAN DO THIS! I am not sure when or how the devil attacks you, but I know this:  Stand strong, weather the storm and we will all be better for it!  Hope God’s see you and you see Him in church today!

I went to my Doctor today for a check-up!  I’ve lost about 35 pounds, have been exercising and trying to eat better!  My Doctor said I was the easiest patient that she had seen all day!  It made me feel good!

I went to meet my Savior this morning for a little personal time!  I’m forgiven of my sin, been working to be a better witness and am trying to live 24/7! for Him!  The Holy Spirit said to keep up the good work!  It made me feel great!

Several of us at Northwood have gotten into losing weight, eating healthy and exercising regularly.  This is a very good thing, because the Bible teaches that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit!  1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says:  “19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

Let’s think about this verse for a minute!  Our body is the Holy Spirit’s temple!  The Holy Spirit (God) resides in you and me!  We need to take care of ourselves.  We need to eat healthy and exercise regularly, but we don’t need to do it at the expense of our to take and make the time for growing and developing spiritually.

The Word teaches that the motivation for taking care of our bodies should be because our bodies are filled with the Holy Spirit of God, not so that we can fit into a smaller size of jeans!  If we are not careful, we can get so caught up in eating right, exercising at all hours and totally miss investing time with God and others.

This Scripture teaches that we are to honor God with our bodies!  So while we are getting fit physically, we need to make sure that we are also getting fit spiritually!  Both matter and both are important!

1 Timothy 4:8  says “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” I don’t think you have to choose one over the other, but if there is a choice to be made, the Bible makes it pretty clear what is more important!

Let’s keep working on our physical bodies and let’s make them healthy and happy temples for the Holy Spirit.  Let us also work on our spiritual lives by learning to live 24/7! for God and His glory.  He could return at any minute, so make sure that you make every minute count His way!  God Bless, Press On and G3!