Growing

A Great Time With God!

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This past Thursday evening through Friday morning, I had the opportunity to spend some real meaningful time with the Lord.  I did not get to far away from home, but I got far enough that I did not have any of the usual distractions!  During this time – God took me back to when I first began to understand and deal with His call upon my life to serve Him as a Minister of the Gospel.  It was great to travel back to that time and remember the fear and the faith that was walking me through it!  God reminded me of some things about His calling upon my life!

He reminded me that I speak representing the very voice of God Himself!  Every time I open my mouth something could and should happen.  I have a choice to make – I can communicate with my mouth or with my heart.  I decided to go back and find my heart!  It’s not that I’ve lost it, it is really still where it has always been.  I have just recently discovered that years of serving in ministry has caused it to be covered over and coated with a lot of well intentioned, but misinformed and inappropriate agendas that were provided by some of my brothers and sisters in Christ!

God has chosen through the foolishness of preaching to confound the wise and to save the world.  God has blessed me with a calling to preach His Word!  I represent Him because I know Him and He knows me and somewhere a long the way, He put something in me that He wanted to use to share Him during this time and at this place!  I don’t know what I would do, if I could not preach and teach about our amazing God and the incredible blessings that come from having and growing in a real relationship with Him!

It would be a great tragedy to have bottled up inside of yourself a message from the Creator and Sustainer of life and not be able to get that out.  I am thankful to God for His calling and for giving me the gifts to fulfill His calling upon my life!  I am thankful for Northwood and Ridgewood Partnership and the opportunities that they afford me to do the thing that God has called and gifted me to do!  I am thankful for my family who support me, my brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage me and for any and every occasion that I have to share the amazing truths of an amazing God who has an amazing plan for our lives!

I hope you will find some special time with God this week and allow it to change your heart and life!

Fellowship

You Are Something!

God is good!  And when I stop and take a moment to think about it – I can’t help but realize that God has been so good to me!  He really is – so much better than I could ever dream that I deserve!  I love serving Him as a pastor of His Church!  There are days that the politics will threaten to make you crazy, but even with all of the mess that we people can make of a good thing – God is still in control and still manages to accomplish amazing things for His glory and our blessing!

 I believe that Northwood has ahead of it – it’s greatest days of ministry and community impact.  I just can’t wait to see what God is going to do next!  A few weeks ago I was preaching from Acts 2:44-47 (one of my favorite scriptures)  It’s where about three thousand where added to the church that day, because they had received the Word!  It then goes on the tell us that those that made up the church – devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and fellowship!  The result was that everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, as many wonders and signs continued to take place!  The Believers were together and had all things in common, so they started to look out for each other an take care of one another’s needs.  They loved being together, they loved giving God the praise, they had the favor of God and the people and they grew everyday!

This is a beautiful picture of the church – working as it could and as it should.  A picture of the church without all of the junk of personal politics!  This is a picture of fellowship – people coming together with all of their differences because of the great thing that we have in common – our relationship with Christ!

Our relationship with Christ allows us and even motivates us to have relationship and ongoing fellowship with each other!  When we allow God to bring us together and keep us together, we will get past ourselves, our small agendas and personal politics.  When we get past that stuff, we can really enjoy God, each others and the difference that Church can and should make!  I am glad that I have a realtionship with God, because that means that I can have a relationship with you!  And you really are something special!

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I Just Can’t Get Over Jesus!

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Jesus is my Savior!  He came into my life and made it count for something!  It’s absolutely amazing that Jesus would save me, not because of righteous works that I do, but because of His mercy!  (Titus 3:5)  I mean, when I really stop and think about the fact that Jesus loves me, forgives me and restores me – I just can’t get over it! 

I still to this day do not know what He saw in me!  I’m not down on myself, in fact, I kinda like myself.  But I know that I am not anywhere near as good, cool or smart as I like to think I am.  Jesus does not focus on what I am – His focus is on what and who I can be! 

I can’t understand how He could love me!  I like to think of myself as a pretty lovable dude, but the truth is:  I can be very unlovable!  I don’t get out of bed in the morning – clean, smooth and charming!  Jesus sees me when I am dirty, rough and disgusting and He still loves me!  Jesus does not look at my failures and flaws – Jesus looks at my potential and appreciates me for me and all that I can be with Him!

I won’t ever be able to repay Him!  When I think about all that Jesus has done for me – I will never be able to repay Him!  I can never live good enough, long enough to even come close to giving back to Jesus all that He has given to me!  He saved me, not because of what I had done, not because of what I had not done.  He saved me – simply because He loves me and has an amazing plan for my life!  My salvation and right relationship are not based in any way on me, but all on Him and His mercy!

Because of His mercy – I don’t get what I deserve!  Because of His grace – I get what I don’t deserve!  Jesus made it possible for me to be reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit.  I just can’t get over it and I hope I never do!

Telling Stories, Sharing Grace And Loving Folks!