Surrender, but does that mean I have to give up?

"Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it." - Matthew 10:39 "

Jesus paints a magnificent picture here.   We all have a survivalist  mentality don't we? Even in my house from time to time we all kind of go into our survival mode. Lack of sleep. Lack of attention. Lack. Lack  and more lack. It's so opposite for us to think of letting go. Jesus doesn't really ask us here to , please lose your life. He in fact is telling a fact. That those who fight to hold onto life we will lose  and those who lose their life in him will be given life! If we let go of our life, our way of doing things and follow him we gain life. Breathe in for a second. (don't hold your breath)  Your life, it doesn't belong to you . That's right . Your life if you follow Jesus is no longer yours. Now that doesn't mean you are going to wake up dead ( yeah I know), but that  surrender has to become part of your daily vocabulary.  Jesus when he taught us to pray, Our  father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Now let's stop for a second.  We know what's next. On earth as it is in heaven.  Jesus desires for us to have heaven on earth! That does  not always translate to wealth! There is more to heaven than wealth... but I digress.  You see in order to gain life we need to let go.  Jesus , what do you want for me today and want do you want from me today. How can I let go... can I let go of my will, emotions, finances, and control over what I do to  God. I hope this leaves you with reflection of how to surrender. I always start with just prayer and finding a way to serve others today. How will you surrender.

Your Heart: Let it Not be Troubled

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me." (John 14:1 NKJV)

When Jesus makes this statement, He gives away a big clue which quite often we overlook. You see we think He's implying you have no reason to fear, which is true, however the clue teaches us that we have control of the fear. He says "LET NOT your heart be troubled..." Meaning that we either LET our hearts be troubled or LET NOT our hearts be troubled. The 'letting' rests on us. We turn it on or off. We let it in our keep it out!

Proverbs 4:23 says "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life." We are the ones gate-keeping our hearts! So what if our heart is troubled? What does that mean? It usually means we are fearful. Fearful of the future. Fearful of the outcome. Maybe you have every NATURAL reason to be fearful...but that's ok...because you serve a SUPERNATURAL God! He hasn't given you a spirit of fear! His promises are yes and amen. His thoughts toward you are good and not evil; to give you a future and hope. Fear in your heart is the choice to believe that what's happening to you in the physical is greater than the promises God has written over your life. Fear is a 'scare-gun'; it makes a lot of noise but has no real impact...unless you let it! Today choose to let not your heart be troubled. Trust, hope and believe in the promises God has for you. Let them into your heart. Praying this thought turns your day around...

What If?

 

 

What if? Such a simple query of words. I was deep in prayer after this terrible week of tragedy in Boston. The bombing had me ready to pick up my bags and get to Beantown immediately. Some of course, would mock this, but you do have to know me some. I am former Marine.  A 9/11 Marine at that. I was drawn in after the attacks of 9/11. I felt a that strong sense of service for my country to find a be an instrument of justice. I feel this overwhelming need to serve others. I really didn't care for the war in Iraq. My friends and so many others all felt the same way about it. That it was not what we thought it was. Moving on now. I kept coming back to that thought though. What if?  Why can't I just go an serve where I feel needed? I was blessed to be able to but always know that I have a wife and two kids requires my coordination of our household funds and just whole other mess of things ! I still kept coming back and waking up in the night with, What If?

 

What if I really lived completely for Christ? What if I really loved my neighbor? What if I really fed the starving and clothed those without? What if the fire and hunger in my spirit really took over all of my life!? What if? What if? What if I kept my mouth shut? What if I spoke? What if I was going into all the world? What if I laid hands on the sick? What if I really cut myself off from entertainment and focused on what was good for my mind, body, and spirit? What If? What if? What if I laid down my life and scooped up the life Jesus told me I could really have in him? What if I was kinder? What if I was more open? What if I  really could learn to live a life of sacrifice? What if? What if? What if I prayed more? What if just forgave someone ? What if I picked up the phone? What if ? What if I could really be his hands and feet? What if I had just said one more word? What if ? What if?

 

What will you do with your What if?



Your Thoughts Pt 2 :Capture

"...and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2Cor 10:5

Today it's another of my fave passages. If you know me, I've probably quoted it to you a dozen times! The Bible says we have to take our thinking and make it captive to Jesus. The thoughts that aren't Christ-centered cannot stand to be in His presence long BUT all too often we don't even police those thoughts! We allow anything and everything to waltz right in, do a jig and then take up residence! When you study the Greek behind this passage, "taking captive" literally means to lead away at spear-point!

 That's what you need to do. When a thought comes to say "you're ugly!", lead it by spear-point! When a thought comes to say "you're a sinner you don't deserve blessing"…bring out that spear! When a thought tries to entertain you with "I'll never succeed", "nobody likes me", "I'm a failure" - spear! Spear! SPEAR! Speak over those thoughts and say "In Jesus Name GET OUT OF MY BRAIN!" - If you commit to this, those thoughts won't last long and soon you'll start thinking the way Jesus already does about you. Then you'll start living the way the Bible promises you should! All starts with the thoughts...

This week commit yourself to prayer and reading God's word with this in mind.

1. Start with Worship
2. Surrender
3. Pray with confidence
4.Make it a relationship and not an obligation

Love God. Love People.

Matt 22:37-39 (the Message Bible) Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

 At our church, we sum up these verses as "love God, love people". Loving God isn't a fleeting or romantic notion... It's a life-changing path you actually place yourself on and walk down. To love God with all your passion, prayer and intelligence is to focus your whole self on Him. Your thoughts and prayers, your strengths and actions, your hopes and dreams, your desires and faith - focused on, motivated and compelled by your love for Christ. It changes the way you live.

 Love people - now this one can get complicated due to the nature of humanity and the corrosive effect of sin. When Jesus died, he paid the same price for every single individual both past, present and future. The highest value was paid and sacrificed FOR ALL... We are ALL desperately loved by God. He doesn't ask us to place ourselves in abusive situations, stay in manipulation, or tie ourselves to dangerous people, but loving others is as simple and as uncomplicated as seeing them as Christ does. Born with purpose, great love, and the hope of eternal life. It changes reaction to response, hates to compassion, and indifference to kindness. Love God, Love People.

Your thoughts:Fix!

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." - Phil 4:8

 You may've picked it up in some of our other daily devotions, but transforming your thought life is a real passion of our church. So much of what you are seeing and experiencing today is a reflection of what you thought about yesterday. That's why the Bible talks about your patterns of thinking so much (2 Cor 10:5; Rom 12:2; Isa 26:3; Prov 4:23). Your thinking is the gateway to your heart ("As a man thinks in His heart so is he" Prov 23:7) which overflows into the tongue ("Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks…" Luke 6:45) and the tongue has creative power ("Life and death is in the power of the tongue" Prov 18:21). To put it simply; transform your thinking = transform your life! That's why Phil 4:8 says "fix your thoughts…". God has gifted each one of us the creative freedom of choice (we are creators, created in His image) so the choice remains with us to control what we create. If we let our thinking go any-which-way it feels the influence of sin-nature will lead it down and down. However if we "fix" our thinking, which means a constant and conscious effort to direct what we think on, we'll constantly look up and be directed up. I know which way I want to go…how about you? Today we challenge you to discipline your thinking. It may be a real struggle for some but ask God for the help…He will give it to you! I will leave you with this truth. Give over your thinking. Let go an Let God. 

Next Post is about: Capture our thoughts!

Do Good

"So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up." - Gal 6:9 On a wall, in Mother Teresa's home for children, is written a variation of the Paradoxial Commandments by Dr Kent M. Keith. One of the lines reads "The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway!". Doing good is fun and easy...when it's acknowledged! When it's not, it gets a lot harder however that doesn't mean we should stop! Think about your heart for a moment...it's doing a great job of keeping you alive by pumping blood through your system but how often do stop to tell it "thank you". What about your big toe? Without it you couldn't maintain balance standing up. Do you constantly need to cheer it on with "you're doing an awesome job! Keep going!"??? No these parts of the body continue to "do good", without recognition, making everything work together for good! In the same way, we should never be discouraged or tired of doing good. Since we are all connected and 'each part fits together to make the whole body work'. Be encouraged that the good you are doing is valuable. The unseen hours in the middle of the night is making a difference. The challenging season raising your children will pay off. Those people you are helping out, praying for, or looking after do need you and value what your doing. This verse in Gal 6:9 goes onto say that "you will reap a harvest.." but the key is NOT to give up! We love you and are committed to helping you on this journey so together we can all be a blessing.

Shaken

 

 

Your love never fails, it never gives up, never runs out on me. Your love!

Is 54:10 "Though the mountains be shaken and the hills removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you." There is no greater security in life than belonging to the Kingdom of God, being a Christian - a Jesus follower. I've said this a few times before, but none us of knows what tomorrow, or even today, holds. Climbing and falling economies, unrest between nations, health issues, political movements, family tragedies... Things can change in an instant and it can be easy to fall into the trap of living governed by the fear of tomorrow. It causes us to put up walls, hoard our love, money and time... Or waste these things on momentary living. But no matter what happens in the physical realm, our eternal future and intrinsic value is assured in Jesus Christ. Great tragedy may come, we may face hardship and pain, challenging times, but through it all we have Hope in Jesus who is not rocked, moved or shaken by anything - He is steadfast and true. So today be encouraged to put your hope in Jesus. His unfailing love never, fails

Prayer Pt 3 Rooted

As my youth are in day 6 of our 21 days of prayer. I thought about my own days as a youth. I know. Wayyyyy back in the day! I lived in prayer. I really did.  I started following Christ at age 15 and he really was after me. My  life in little less than two weeks would be turned upside down and slam dunked and my family and I would never be the same. Our much beloved matriarch of our mother's side was dying and it was taking a toll on everyone.  She was peaceful, prayerful, and  the glue of the family. Then she died. I knew my mom was devastated. She had just lost her mother and best friend.  Then the wheels came off. Just an hour after the funeral. We had come back to the house my mother grew up in. We were packing  and getting ready to leave. My sister had asked my grandfather if she could use the phone and he said she could use the phone in his room. Then the unthinkable happened. My grandfather comes in and seemingly forgets all this and begins to yell at my sister, my mother comes in to see what the commotion is all about. They begin to yell and my mother says "keep your hands off of my daughter!"   Then my grandfather begins to strangle my mother and my sister screams for help. My dad runs back to the room and pulls my grandfather off of her and he begins to choke my dad. This was so heartbreaking as a 15 year old boy to watch unfold. Following this my grandfather comes out and tell us..."You are cut off. You are all dead to me!'

Now I said all that to say if I had not been taught to pray first. pray often. I really don't know how I would have made it through all of that. Our prayer life has to have roots. It can't be a surface relationship  or as my wife and I like to say, a rescue prayer life.  Those next 4 years of my life would be a lot of pain that most of my friends would never know or often thought I exaggerated. My mother would suffer from depression and addiction and lose her job because of it when she was only a few years from retirement after 27 years of working for the same company. My brother would drop out of high school and suffer through addiction. I  didn't know from week to week if my mother would end her life. I did my best to hide my pain.  Most every Wednesday was a night of war for me. I would go to church, only to have to come back to what waited for me. Usually my mother would be drunk and what always followed was chaos. Violence. Verbal abuse. Physical abuse. She would lock herself in her room for hours and I would be on the other side listening to her cry and say she was going to kill herself.  Now, it would take years before my mom finally healed. I am so proud of the many changes she did to get to a place where her will is stronger than the bottle. 

I spent many of those nights just locked in prayer. I still do. When Paul writes in 1st Thessalonians 5  as  his  final advice.

Paul’s Final Advice

¹² Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. ¹³ Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other.

¹⁴ Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.
¹⁵ See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.
¹⁶ Always be joyful. ¹⁷ Never stop praying. ¹⁸ Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
¹⁹ Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Do not scoff at prophecies, ²¹ but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. ²² Stay away from every kind of evil.

I think if we focus in on verse 16 & 17 . Stay Joyful. Never stop praying.
Lay the roots of prayer in your life. It takes time to develop. If we develop this we can stand when the storms of life come and become stronger. Stop and thank God for all and start today!

Prayer pt 2 Pray First & about Everything!

This is a must in my house! In fact my wife & I often remind each other when talking about anything , "Did you pray first?".  I quote it to everyone. God has given you the tools to overcome stress, anxiety, and worry- and it's called prayer! Worrying taking the steering wheel from God, when our job is to trust him. So let go today and talk to God!  The future if we stare at it to often can look scary, but God reminds us in ( Jer 29:11) I have a future for you. I have a plan.   So when you feel the worry set in, discipline yourself to pray.

With praying for everything, pray first! Pray before making that big purchase. Pray before you go to that next meeting. Pray before walking out the door, sending that email, etc..... It may seem excessive, but 1 Thess 5:17 tells us to simply pray without ceasing! 

My prayer for you:

God, I come to you now and humbly ask for your forgiveness of things I have done knowingly or unknowingly. I give you my heart, my thoughts, my will, and emotions. I let go of my worry and trust you! I rejoice and thank you because you are an amazing God who loves me!
Amen

Talking to God to doesn't have to be formal! It's about a relationship.  I hope that you were encouraged and that you develop a prayer life that is infectious!

Stay Hungry

It's funny isn't it. Look at the meal above. No one would sit down to a table and simply have just a pea. Yet, spiritually we do this with God's word. Why do we do this?  How can we stay hungry ?

 

Deuteronomy 8:3

New King James Version (NKJV)

³ So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord

It's interesting this scripture would be used again by Jesus against a temptation from the devil. I think we all go through days where we just DON'T want to really read. No one reads any more. Maybe you need to get back on track or maybe you have never really spiritually hungered after God's word. Some people literally don't even bring their bible to church anymore. Look around.
Here my top 3 things for not reading.

1. I can get what I need from my pastor- Imagine working  a 40 hour week and only eating ONCE  a week. Who would do this? While your pastor may be awesome, you need to get in the word FOR YOU!
2. I am too busy- Well we all have this, but we can pray and ask God for direction and yet not open up his word. God's word has so much for you! Try a few different things. ChurchoftheHighlands.com offers a 1 year bible study and it takes a second just each morning.
3. I can't relate- We all can relate to relationships. If you think about what the bible really is. A revelation of God is. Get to know him today. Know his promises.

First. Pray. Ask God for a hunger. Worship in his word. Pray according to his word. You wouldn't starve your physical man on purpose, why would you deny spirit the same nourishment.

May God grant you a hunger today for his word that you might know him more.

How to be a Fool

Everyday life can be complex. No this is not a lesson in  how to be a fool, but rather how to avoid it. Are you on the list:
1. Speaks too much - Proverbs 17:28
2. Hopes in money - Proverbs 11:28
3. Lacks self-control - Proverbs 25:28
... 4. Gossips - Proverbs 10:18
5. Never plans ahead - Proverbs 19:2
6. Meddles in the matters of others - Proverbs 26:17
7. Speaks quickly - Proverbs 29:11
8. Stubborn - Proverbs 12:15
9. Lazy - Proverbs 13:4
10. Stingy - Proverbs 28:22

Things we should avoid!