Tuesday, May 17, 2011
EXCUSE ME, ARE YOU JESUS?
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago . They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly-missed boarding ALL BUT ONE!!! He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.
He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor.
He was glad he did.
The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her; no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.
When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears.. He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister...." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"
He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?" Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, life and grace.
If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.
You are the apple of His eye. Although, we all may have been bruised by a fall, He stopped what He was doing and picked us up . . . on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.
Please share this. IF you feel led to do so, if not, that's ok too. Sometimes we just take things for granted, when we really need to be sharing what we know...Thanks.
Live Like Jesus!
Saturday, May 14, 2011
HAVING A PLAN
Proverbs 19:21
Many plans are in a man's heart, but the Lord's decree will prevail.
Former UCLA basketball coach and legend John Wooden said this:
"Either you overcome adversity, or it overcomes you."
I believe that God wants to put us in the best possible position to be successful in glorifying Him in all we do. But many times, we believe that it is important for us to have a gameplan and try to stick to that gameplan. If the gameplan is our own plan of how life should be and turn out, then we shouldn't be surprised when that plan fails miserably. When we are set up to follow God's plan, then we are set to be able to withstand the crazy storms of life that we run up against.
My kids sing a song based on Matthew 7:24-27 which talks about the wise man who built his house upon the rock. It goes like this: :)
________________________________________________________________________
We must always remember that God is sovereign and His plan is perfect. How we handle adversity is a reflection of what type of plan we truly believe in. When we believe in ourselves and our plans fail, we give in to the emotion and thought process that we are losers in life and we will never be able to amount to anything. I would say that this is a true statement in the fact that without Christ, we are nothing. But putting full faith and belief in His plan will allow Him to use us right where we are. Does that mean that life will be perfect? Absolutely not!!
Look at James 1:2-4. It tells us that we WILL face trials and that we should be excited when we do. That sounds nuts doesn't it. But what's awesome is that (read on) the reason the Lord puts us through trials is to grow us and mature us. If you ever take a few moments to ponder your dumbest decisions in life, I bet you will realize that on the other end of the spectrum, there was definite growth involved. In many cases pain was probably involved. But hopefully, in the end, you are now in a place in life where you can look back and say: "That was pretty stupid, but I am a better person for having gone through that." I believe that God will even give you opportunities to share with others and help them avoid some of your same pitfalls.
So as you take a moment to reflect on your life today, who do you believe is in charge right now? Are you in the boat of thinking that you call the shots and your life is your life? Or do you understand that God uses all things for His good, which includes using your life for His plan? I pray that God will give all of us the wisdom to seek Him and be an instrument/tool to be used for Him daily.
Live like Jesus!
Many plans are in a man's heart, but the Lord's decree will prevail.
Former UCLA basketball coach and legend John Wooden said this:
"Either you overcome adversity, or it overcomes you."
I believe that God wants to put us in the best possible position to be successful in glorifying Him in all we do. But many times, we believe that it is important for us to have a gameplan and try to stick to that gameplan. If the gameplan is our own plan of how life should be and turn out, then we shouldn't be surprised when that plan fails miserably. When we are set up to follow God's plan, then we are set to be able to withstand the crazy storms of life that we run up against.
My kids sing a song based on Matthew 7:24-27 which talks about the wise man who built his house upon the rock. It goes like this: :)
________________________________________________________________________
The wise man built his house upon the rock
The wise man built his house upon the rock
The wise man built his house upon the rock
And the rain came tumbling down
Oh, the rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
And the wise man's house stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
And the rain came tumbling down
Oh, the rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
And the foolish man's house went "splat!" [clap hands once]
So, build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
And the blessings will come down
Oh, the blessings come down
As your prayers go up
The blessings come down
As your prayers go up
The blessings come down
As your prayer go up
So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ.
_________________________________________________________________________The wise man built his house upon the rock
The wise man built his house upon the rock
And the rain came tumbling down
Oh, the rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
And the wise man's house stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
And the rain came tumbling down
Oh, the rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
And the foolish man's house went "splat!" [clap hands once]
So, build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
And the blessings will come down
Oh, the blessings come down
As your prayers go up
The blessings come down
As your prayers go up
The blessings come down
As your prayer go up
So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must always remember that God is sovereign and His plan is perfect. How we handle adversity is a reflection of what type of plan we truly believe in. When we believe in ourselves and our plans fail, we give in to the emotion and thought process that we are losers in life and we will never be able to amount to anything. I would say that this is a true statement in the fact that without Christ, we are nothing. But putting full faith and belief in His plan will allow Him to use us right where we are. Does that mean that life will be perfect? Absolutely not!!
Look at James 1:2-4. It tells us that we WILL face trials and that we should be excited when we do. That sounds nuts doesn't it. But what's awesome is that (read on) the reason the Lord puts us through trials is to grow us and mature us. If you ever take a few moments to ponder your dumbest decisions in life, I bet you will realize that on the other end of the spectrum, there was definite growth involved. In many cases pain was probably involved. But hopefully, in the end, you are now in a place in life where you can look back and say: "That was pretty stupid, but I am a better person for having gone through that." I believe that God will even give you opportunities to share with others and help them avoid some of your same pitfalls.
So as you take a moment to reflect on your life today, who do you believe is in charge right now? Are you in the boat of thinking that you call the shots and your life is your life? Or do you understand that God uses all things for His good, which includes using your life for His plan? I pray that God will give all of us the wisdom to seek Him and be an instrument/tool to be used for Him daily.
Live like Jesus!
ACCOUNTABILITY
Proverbs 27:17
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Have you ever had life beat you up or throw you curveballs and you felt like you were doing it all by yourself? God did not create us to do this life alone, yet so many times that's what we choose to do. I believe that one of Satan's most destructive weapons is to take "secret sin" and use it to attempt to keep us in a box. He will use it to utterly destroy a life and render it useless for Kingdom work if we allow his deception and lies to put a freeze on our growth in Christ. So how does the Lord put a plan together for us that allows us to shield off this fiery weapon of Satan? I think one important element is.....
ACCOUNTABILITY
So what is accountability and what does it look like? I don't know what the perfect setting looks like, but I will tell you what it looks like in my life. I have 2 sets of accountability partners. One set is a group of guys that I have been meeting with for a couple of years now. We started as a group of guys meeting at McDonalds once a week and just having an opportunity to be open and honest with each other about what is going on in our lives. I was amazed at how I many times felt that I was struggling with things in my life and I was the only one with those issues or problems. As we met more and built a trust in each other, it took courage, but we were able to open up and be real and vulnerable with each other. We were able to really bounce sound Godly advice off of each other and watch God work in each other's lives. It was also very freeing to find out that we each struggled with different things, but we also had some of the same struggles. It was very awesome to see God work through the goods and the bads in our lives. For every struggle that we fought through together, we were also able to see God place miracles right in the middle of our lives. Miracles in the forms of babies, and marriages, and books, and so many others. Now please understand that our little group is not perfect. We have been tested in the realm of meeting and time. As time progressed and life changed for us all, morning meetings were becoming very difficult for all to attend. So we went through a phase where a couple would meet and the meeting was very sporadic with no consistency. We stayed in contact, but could tell that as a group we were drifting. It was at this time that a couple of us ended up at a men's retreat that we work called Tres Dias. We huddled up on Saturday evening and said a prayer for restoration of our group and decided that we needed to make a time change and commit and let God work. We now meet on Monday nights as best we can. We are really watching it evolve in front of our eyes in trying to not only meet and help each other as guys, but we are also trying to include our families and build family bonds as well. This has been pretty cool. It is still hard for us to all meet together with life as crazy as it is, but we all know how important it is to keep plugging away as best we can. God always blesses that time and I know we all leave better because of it.
My second group is a newly started group, but it too has been very awesome and very helpful. This group is a group of 3 other guys that go to church with me. God put it on my heart and the heart of others at a men's conference with Steve Farrar a short while ago, to get this group going so that we can begin to truly strengthen the relationship bonds within our church. We meet pretty much every Saturday and it has been a true blessing. This group is in the early stages of building that trust and openness with each other, but each passing week is drawing us closer together and allowing God to move in us and through us to share and do life together. Again, I cannot stress how important it is in my life to have Godly men surround me and be able to get Godly counsel whenever needed. It breaks my heart to see folks who live life trying to keep up the perfect image on the outside, but literally being eaten away daily on the inside. If there is one thing we all need to get through our thick skulls, it is this......
There was only one perfect person to ever walk the face of this earth.
We will never be perfect, and the Christian life is not about being perfect.
But our focus in life IS to try to be more like Him every day!
If you have struggles in your life and you think that you are the only person with those particular struggles, know that you are being popped by one of the biggest lies of Satan.
1.) God does not want us to be entrapped by the sin in our lives. Ephesians 4:17-27 is great instruction on how God wants us to do life.
2.) Please know that accountability should never ever become more important than that one on one growth time with the Lord. We can never grow closer to Christ or live like Him if we put our faith in people. Accountability is NOT about putting your faith in people. It's about people putting their faith in God and wanting to help each other in the growth process of a life fully surrendered to Him.
My wife bought Mandisa's new cd entitled "What if we were real?" WOW is all I can say.
The title of the cd is also the title of one of the best songs on this album. I think it is the epitome of the thought process that goes on for all of us in life.
My favorite lines are towards the end of the song and leaves us with a great thought.
If we were more real with each other, would it help us to be more like Jesus?
(Song and lyrics below)
_____________________________________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixViCAIDDM
"What If We Were Real"
Well, I'm tired of saying everything
I feel like I'm supposed to say
I'm tired of smiling all the time
I wanna throw the mask away
Sometimes you just have a bad day
Sometimes you just wanna scream
Tell me I'm not the only one
Tell me that you feel just like me
We keep tryin to make it look so nice
And we keep hidin' what's goin on inside
But what if I share my brokenness
What if you share how you feel
And what if we weren't afraid of this crazy mess
What if we were real
What if we were real
I'm over hidin my tears
I think I'm gonna let em' go
I'm over actin so strong
When I ain't even in control
We make it so complicated
But why does it have to be
Why can't we open our hearts and let everybody see
We keep tryin to make it look so nice
And we keep hidin' what's goin on inside
But what if I share my brokenness
What if you share how you feel
And what if we weren't afraid of this crazy mess
What if we were real
We'd think a little less of ourselves
We'd care about someone else
'Cause we'd know just how they feel
Maybe we could let someone love us
Maybe we'd a little more like Jesus
Why can't we learn to real
Na,na,na,na,na,na,na(yeah,yeah)
Na,na,na,na,na,na,na
We keep tryin to make it look so nice
And we keep hidin' what's goin on inside
But what if I share my brokenness
What if you share how you feel
And what if we weren't afraid of this crazy mess
What if we were real
You've got to be real
You've got to be real
You've got to be real
You've got to
You've got to
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Have you ever had life beat you up or throw you curveballs and you felt like you were doing it all by yourself? God did not create us to do this life alone, yet so many times that's what we choose to do. I believe that one of Satan's most destructive weapons is to take "secret sin" and use it to attempt to keep us in a box. He will use it to utterly destroy a life and render it useless for Kingdom work if we allow his deception and lies to put a freeze on our growth in Christ. So how does the Lord put a plan together for us that allows us to shield off this fiery weapon of Satan? I think one important element is.....
ACCOUNTABILITY
So what is accountability and what does it look like? I don't know what the perfect setting looks like, but I will tell you what it looks like in my life. I have 2 sets of accountability partners. One set is a group of guys that I have been meeting with for a couple of years now. We started as a group of guys meeting at McDonalds once a week and just having an opportunity to be open and honest with each other about what is going on in our lives. I was amazed at how I many times felt that I was struggling with things in my life and I was the only one with those issues or problems. As we met more and built a trust in each other, it took courage, but we were able to open up and be real and vulnerable with each other. We were able to really bounce sound Godly advice off of each other and watch God work in each other's lives. It was also very freeing to find out that we each struggled with different things, but we also had some of the same struggles. It was very awesome to see God work through the goods and the bads in our lives. For every struggle that we fought through together, we were also able to see God place miracles right in the middle of our lives. Miracles in the forms of babies, and marriages, and books, and so many others. Now please understand that our little group is not perfect. We have been tested in the realm of meeting and time. As time progressed and life changed for us all, morning meetings were becoming very difficult for all to attend. So we went through a phase where a couple would meet and the meeting was very sporadic with no consistency. We stayed in contact, but could tell that as a group we were drifting. It was at this time that a couple of us ended up at a men's retreat that we work called Tres Dias. We huddled up on Saturday evening and said a prayer for restoration of our group and decided that we needed to make a time change and commit and let God work. We now meet on Monday nights as best we can. We are really watching it evolve in front of our eyes in trying to not only meet and help each other as guys, but we are also trying to include our families and build family bonds as well. This has been pretty cool. It is still hard for us to all meet together with life as crazy as it is, but we all know how important it is to keep plugging away as best we can. God always blesses that time and I know we all leave better because of it.
My second group is a newly started group, but it too has been very awesome and very helpful. This group is a group of 3 other guys that go to church with me. God put it on my heart and the heart of others at a men's conference with Steve Farrar a short while ago, to get this group going so that we can begin to truly strengthen the relationship bonds within our church. We meet pretty much every Saturday and it has been a true blessing. This group is in the early stages of building that trust and openness with each other, but each passing week is drawing us closer together and allowing God to move in us and through us to share and do life together. Again, I cannot stress how important it is in my life to have Godly men surround me and be able to get Godly counsel whenever needed. It breaks my heart to see folks who live life trying to keep up the perfect image on the outside, but literally being eaten away daily on the inside. If there is one thing we all need to get through our thick skulls, it is this......
There was only one perfect person to ever walk the face of this earth.
We will never be perfect, and the Christian life is not about being perfect.
But our focus in life IS to try to be more like Him every day!
If you have struggles in your life and you think that you are the only person with those particular struggles, know that you are being popped by one of the biggest lies of Satan.
1.) God does not want us to be entrapped by the sin in our lives. Ephesians 4:17-27 is great instruction on how God wants us to do life.
2.) Please know that accountability should never ever become more important than that one on one growth time with the Lord. We can never grow closer to Christ or live like Him if we put our faith in people. Accountability is NOT about putting your faith in people. It's about people putting their faith in God and wanting to help each other in the growth process of a life fully surrendered to Him.
My wife bought Mandisa's new cd entitled "What if we were real?" WOW is all I can say.
The title of the cd is also the title of one of the best songs on this album. I think it is the epitome of the thought process that goes on for all of us in life.
My favorite lines are towards the end of the song and leaves us with a great thought.
If we were more real with each other, would it help us to be more like Jesus?
(Song and lyrics below)
_____________________________________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixViCAIDDM
"What If We Were Real"
Well, I'm tired of saying everything
I feel like I'm supposed to say
I'm tired of smiling all the time
I wanna throw the mask away
Sometimes you just have a bad day
Sometimes you just wanna scream
Tell me I'm not the only one
Tell me that you feel just like me
We keep tryin to make it look so nice
And we keep hidin' what's goin on inside
But what if I share my brokenness
What if you share how you feel
And what if we weren't afraid of this crazy mess
What if we were real
What if we were real
I'm over hidin my tears
I think I'm gonna let em' go
I'm over actin so strong
When I ain't even in control
We make it so complicated
But why does it have to be
Why can't we open our hearts and let everybody see
We keep tryin to make it look so nice
And we keep hidin' what's goin on inside
But what if I share my brokenness
What if you share how you feel
And what if we weren't afraid of this crazy mess
What if we were real
We'd think a little less of ourselves
We'd care about someone else
'Cause we'd know just how they feel
Maybe we could let someone love us
Maybe we'd a little more like Jesus
Why can't we learn to real
Na,na,na,na,na,na,na(yeah,yeah)
Na,na,na,na,na,na,na
We keep tryin to make it look so nice
And we keep hidin' what's goin on inside
But what if I share my brokenness
What if you share how you feel
And what if we weren't afraid of this crazy mess
What if we were real
You've got to be real
You've got to be real
You've got to be real
You've got to
You've got to
Friday, May 13, 2011
TIME TO WRITE
I am so glad that I now have a spot to write, write, write!
I have another blog that I have used, and need to continue to use to document family life.
But the purpose of this page is to be able to document and reflect on things that the Lord is wanting me to learn and share. I know that the Lord wants to use us and teach us on a daily basis.
I am so excited about this opportunity and anxious to see where the Lord takes it.
2 Corinthians 5:15
And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.
I have another blog that I have used, and need to continue to use to document family life.
But the purpose of this page is to be able to document and reflect on things that the Lord is wanting me to learn and share. I know that the Lord wants to use us and teach us on a daily basis.
I am so excited about this opportunity and anxious to see where the Lord takes it.
2 Corinthians 5:15
And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.
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