Sunday, October 18, 2009
Are you ready?
John 14:2 says "In my fathers house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am goign there to prepart a place for you." In verse 3 Jesus says "And if I prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am." The question is, are you ready and in condition to go with him? Or will you be left behind?
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Joshua 1:9
Have I not commanded you? Be stron and courageous; Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
What does this verse mean to you?
What does this verse mean to you?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Thank you Tyler and God Bless the Juden Family
As I stood outside in line with the rest of our community and the procession for Tyler passed by, I was moved to tears. A family's sacrifice. A Soldiers ultimate sacrifice. Today we carry a beloved son, friend and soldier to his final rest. I didn't know Tyler, but as a retired sailor I do call him shipmate. And I also call him brother in christ. Please pray for the Juden family, for the friends of Tyler, for his loved ones. They may not understand why Tyler was called home to glory now, but it will be for Gods Glory in the end.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Timelessness
In my entire life, I have never seen God move as I have seen him move in the past year. Is that perhaps because I wasn’t paying attention or that God was waiting on me to get somewhere first. Either way, I am blessed that he loves me enough to show me some wonderful things. As many of you may or may not know, prayer is a vital part of our faith. We are told by Paul in Ephesians 6:18, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep praying for all the saints.” Paul admonishes us to pray “in” the spirit and with all kinds of prayers and requests. Again, in Phillipians 4:6 Paul says “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanks giving, present your requests to God.”
For anyone out there that has prayed, you know sometimes, it’s hard to do. You get uncomfortable, random thoughts come through your mind. You lose your focus. Let me tell you that those are Satan’s attempts to interrupt your communications with and from God. Remember what Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against, the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against eh spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. So pray, pray for what you need, and when you don’t know what to pray for remember what it says in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
I have talked about how to pray before, but what I want you to get today is just how powerful prayer can be. First you need to take it with the right attitude, remember its not about you or me or anyone, its about the will of the Father, and we can see that in prayer Jesus gave in Gethsemane in Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done”. It is our submission to the will of God that allows the true power of prayer to come to the front. Praying in the Spirit is next. What does that mean to “Pray in the Spirit”. Praying in the spirit is focused prayer. Some believe you must speak in tongues to be able to Pray in the Spirit. Other’s put it as a connection between you and God in which you can truly feel the presence of God during your prayer. For me, the best example I can give, occurred just recently.
As we waited for our Pastor to being service, he paused and then gathered us all together to begin praying over various members of the church. Now for me, this is hard, this is usually when Satan works on me the hardest, disrupting my thoughts. You can imagine why, this is the time when each of us is trying to directly connect with God. Something Satan desperately wants to prevent. So, here we are and we begin to pray. First for one person, then another, pretty soon we’ve gone through several dozen or more people and I’m left thinking that was fast, that wasn’t much, maybe Pastor will still deliver his message. That’s when my wife looks at me and goes “We better hurry if your going to get on the radio today. I looked at the clock and nearly 2 hours had passed I was flabbergasted. I was totally at a loss. Where had the time gone. Then I smiled and realized something very important. Time with God has no meaning.
I want some more of that. I want more time where I am lost in God. Where I am just there and He’s there. Where the Spirit pours itself out and spreads its all over us. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Can you imagine a time when we won’t have to bow our heads when we can just think it and God knows it? Folks, that time is already here. If you don’t have it in your life, and you want it, if you can’t feel Him and you want to you have to reach out to Him.
Psalm 91:14 says “Because he loves me”, says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.” Acknowledge Him. Acknowledge God and what He has done for you. Acknowledge Christ and what He has done for you. Do as Paul tells us in Romans 10:9 and confess with your mouth, say it out loud, that Jesus is the Christ. That he died for you, that he rose again from the grave 3 days later and you will be saved. Nothing you can do, accept this, can save you from your sin. Eternity awaits, timeless, without end, I got a sample of how that would be during that prayer. Yet what type of eternity awaits now depends on you. You can confess as Paul directs or you can hold your voice and spend eternity in hell.
With all my heart, I encourage you, I plead with you. Give yourself over to Christ, do not delay, for the time is short and soon you will be face to face with Eternity and then you can’t change your mind.
For anyone out there that has prayed, you know sometimes, it’s hard to do. You get uncomfortable, random thoughts come through your mind. You lose your focus. Let me tell you that those are Satan’s attempts to interrupt your communications with and from God. Remember what Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against, the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against eh spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. So pray, pray for what you need, and when you don’t know what to pray for remember what it says in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
I have talked about how to pray before, but what I want you to get today is just how powerful prayer can be. First you need to take it with the right attitude, remember its not about you or me or anyone, its about the will of the Father, and we can see that in prayer Jesus gave in Gethsemane in Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done”. It is our submission to the will of God that allows the true power of prayer to come to the front. Praying in the Spirit is next. What does that mean to “Pray in the Spirit”. Praying in the spirit is focused prayer. Some believe you must speak in tongues to be able to Pray in the Spirit. Other’s put it as a connection between you and God in which you can truly feel the presence of God during your prayer. For me, the best example I can give, occurred just recently.
As we waited for our Pastor to being service, he paused and then gathered us all together to begin praying over various members of the church. Now for me, this is hard, this is usually when Satan works on me the hardest, disrupting my thoughts. You can imagine why, this is the time when each of us is trying to directly connect with God. Something Satan desperately wants to prevent. So, here we are and we begin to pray. First for one person, then another, pretty soon we’ve gone through several dozen or more people and I’m left thinking that was fast, that wasn’t much, maybe Pastor will still deliver his message. That’s when my wife looks at me and goes “We better hurry if your going to get on the radio today. I looked at the clock and nearly 2 hours had passed I was flabbergasted. I was totally at a loss. Where had the time gone. Then I smiled and realized something very important. Time with God has no meaning.
I want some more of that. I want more time where I am lost in God. Where I am just there and He’s there. Where the Spirit pours itself out and spreads its all over us. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Can you imagine a time when we won’t have to bow our heads when we can just think it and God knows it? Folks, that time is already here. If you don’t have it in your life, and you want it, if you can’t feel Him and you want to you have to reach out to Him.
Psalm 91:14 says “Because he loves me”, says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.” Acknowledge Him. Acknowledge God and what He has done for you. Acknowledge Christ and what He has done for you. Do as Paul tells us in Romans 10:9 and confess with your mouth, say it out loud, that Jesus is the Christ. That he died for you, that he rose again from the grave 3 days later and you will be saved. Nothing you can do, accept this, can save you from your sin. Eternity awaits, timeless, without end, I got a sample of how that would be during that prayer. Yet what type of eternity awaits now depends on you. You can confess as Paul directs or you can hold your voice and spend eternity in hell.
With all my heart, I encourage you, I plead with you. Give yourself over to Christ, do not delay, for the time is short and soon you will be face to face with Eternity and then you can’t change your mind.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Peace and Fear
Here lately, the economy has been doing pretty bad. There are war’s and conflicts all over. Hunger and famine seem to be the norm in a growing part of our world. Bringing it home, we’ve had a couple of business close, nothing drastic, we’ve had our losses from the conflicts we are in around the world. In other words, things are not going as well as we would have wished for. Luckily, we don’t have to worry about wishes. You see, I have a secret. Well, a secret that’s not so secret. You get my meaning! When time’s get tough, I can lean on Christ to carry me through. See, God has made us a promise that he’ll take care of us, just as he takes care of the sparrow in the field.
But what does that mean to take care of me? Of us? Does it mean that he’s like some giant wishing machine and he grants unlimited wishes? No, of course not. Does it mean that only good things will happen to us in our lifetime. No, obviously not. What he is telling us is that if we give control of our lives over to him, he will in turn take care of our needs. Now, that’s a pretty powerful statement if it’s understood correctly. A lot of times we mistake wants with needs. But God, being all knowing, knows exactly what we need when we need it and is the only entity capable of giving it to us.
So God knows what we need. Just so you know, he also knows what you want. One of the things we all are seeking in these tumultuous times is peace. Just a moment to breath, in John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” I take huge comfort in that verse. More than that, I have peace. For those that don’t know at one time I was a walking fear factory. I was afraid of this that or the other thing. I didn’t know the future and it terrified me. You could literally say I lived in fear. And that fear was destroying my life. It made me angry, bitter and resentful.
Let me be clear, it made me angry, bitter and resentful…before. Before what? Before I became a follower of Christ. Before I laid my needs at his feet along with my heart mind and soul. That changed everything. In that fraction of a second, in that briefest of moments, everything changed. I knew, that I knew, that I knew that I knew I was saved. That my course was set and my future sealed. In John 10:28 Jesus says “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” And again in Romans 8:38 and 39 Paul states “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation , will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
Those are some pretty powerful promises and convictions. If we believe in the bible then we must believe them as well. If we have accepted Christ those promises are ours to claim. That my friends, is where my peace comes from. Let me be frank here, I still have fear, I still have my moments of weakness. I’m not perfect, nor will I ever be in this lifetime. But, no matter what happens in this life time, I know where I’m going after this.
So the economy is bad. So there are war’s and conflicts all over the world. So lifelong neighbors are
getting into feuds. I have peace. In the book of Job it tells the story of the man named Job and how he went
from plenty to poverty almost over night. He lost his prosperity, his family, his friends, he lost his heath, he
lost everything that was of any worth to him. But he resounds all through the book with this common theme
from Job 1:21 “And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave
and the Lord has taken away: May the name of the Lord be Praised”.” This man lost it all, and still he praised
the Lord. Imagine the faith this man must have had to be able to hold on even in times of deep personal
scrutiny.
Do I want to lose my house, my friends, my family, my business? No on all counts, but if that is where
the Lord wanted to do with me, I would follow along. Why, well first of all He is God and I will obey my God.
By being in obedience to God we can find peace. The first step in that obedience is to acknowledge that Christ
is the Savior of all man. Confessing with our mouths that we might share in his righteousness. If you are
ready to do that, go to him on your knees in prayer. Lift your thoughts to him above who’s name is chosen
above all names and nations. Tell God that you know you’re a sinner and let it go of all that’s inside of you and
give it to him, confessing that Jesus is the Savior of all Man.
But what does that mean to take care of me? Of us? Does it mean that he’s like some giant wishing machine and he grants unlimited wishes? No, of course not. Does it mean that only good things will happen to us in our lifetime. No, obviously not. What he is telling us is that if we give control of our lives over to him, he will in turn take care of our needs. Now, that’s a pretty powerful statement if it’s understood correctly. A lot of times we mistake wants with needs. But God, being all knowing, knows exactly what we need when we need it and is the only entity capable of giving it to us.
So God knows what we need. Just so you know, he also knows what you want. One of the things we all are seeking in these tumultuous times is peace. Just a moment to breath, in John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” I take huge comfort in that verse. More than that, I have peace. For those that don’t know at one time I was a walking fear factory. I was afraid of this that or the other thing. I didn’t know the future and it terrified me. You could literally say I lived in fear. And that fear was destroying my life. It made me angry, bitter and resentful.
Let me be clear, it made me angry, bitter and resentful…before. Before what? Before I became a follower of Christ. Before I laid my needs at his feet along with my heart mind and soul. That changed everything. In that fraction of a second, in that briefest of moments, everything changed. I knew, that I knew, that I knew that I knew I was saved. That my course was set and my future sealed. In John 10:28 Jesus says “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” And again in Romans 8:38 and 39 Paul states “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation , will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
Those are some pretty powerful promises and convictions. If we believe in the bible then we must believe them as well. If we have accepted Christ those promises are ours to claim. That my friends, is where my peace comes from. Let me be frank here, I still have fear, I still have my moments of weakness. I’m not perfect, nor will I ever be in this lifetime. But, no matter what happens in this life time, I know where I’m going after this.
So the economy is bad. So there are war’s and conflicts all over the world. So lifelong neighbors are
getting into feuds. I have peace. In the book of Job it tells the story of the man named Job and how he went
from plenty to poverty almost over night. He lost his prosperity, his family, his friends, he lost his heath, he
lost everything that was of any worth to him. But he resounds all through the book with this common theme
from Job 1:21 “And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave
and the Lord has taken away: May the name of the Lord be Praised”.” This man lost it all, and still he praised
the Lord. Imagine the faith this man must have had to be able to hold on even in times of deep personal
scrutiny.
Do I want to lose my house, my friends, my family, my business? No on all counts, but if that is where
the Lord wanted to do with me, I would follow along. Why, well first of all He is God and I will obey my God.
By being in obedience to God we can find peace. The first step in that obedience is to acknowledge that Christ
is the Savior of all man. Confessing with our mouths that we might share in his righteousness. If you are
ready to do that, go to him on your knees in prayer. Lift your thoughts to him above who’s name is chosen
above all names and nations. Tell God that you know you’re a sinner and let it go of all that’s inside of you and
give it to him, confessing that Jesus is the Savior of all Man.
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