theunchurch

The Beautiful Side of Jesus

2012-01-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

We are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Theword of G-d says that this process should be ever increasing. That means thatmore and more—as time passes by—we should look more like Him. The way thathappens is grace. Jesus is our starting point in our walk of faith—and Jesusand grace go hand and hand. They are inseparable from one another! Jesus andgrace are like…

Scooby and Shaggy. Peanut butter and jelly. Mashed potatoesand gravy. Milk and cookies. Cake and ice cream. Mac and cheese. Salt andpepper. Cheeseburger and fries! Man I am hungry!

When you find Jesus you find grace. You just don’t find onewithout finding the other. When you find Jesus—you find grace. As a matter offact—you can’t find Jesus without finding grace!

Eph 2:4-9 But because of his greatlove for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even whenwe were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And Godraised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms inChrist Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparableriches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For itis by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, itis the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

It is by grace that we have been saved! The very basics ofseeing the image of Jesus correctly is understanding grace! You would thinkthat with that being the case—that the entire church would be on the same pageconcerning the grace of G-d. But all of us know better than that don’t we?! Ifthere is ANYTHING that the Church is on the same page about—it is that we arenot on the same page about ANYTHING! And when we get done talking about gracetoday—we probably still won’t be on the same page! As a matter of fact—we mayhave more questions about grace than answers by the time I get finished! But Iam ok with that—because I believe that G-d is big enough to answer anyquestions that may be raised in our minds as we look at His word.

So Corinthians describes the work of grace as “everincreasing”. Ephesians speaks of grace as, “incomparable riches”. And listen towhat John has to say about grace…

Jn 1:16-17 From the fullness of hisgrace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was giventhrough Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

So Jesus has the fullness of grace. He takes from that vastsupply of grace—and not only does He bless us—but the bible declares, “Heblesses us and blesses us,” one blessing after another!

If you would like to hear this message in its entirety – hitup the link and download the file (sorry for the weird spot in the audio when Iam talking to my congregation about a picture you cannot see in an mp3 file)

How Can We Know the Way

2012-01-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

How Can We Know the Way MP3
Lk 10:38-40 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, hecame to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She hada sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She cameto him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do thework by myself? Tell her to help me!”

Martha was the Church. Wasn’t she? And so was Mary. What Imean to say is, they were both followers of Jesus. Those of us that arefollowers of Jesus, we make up the Church. And so Martha and Mary were theChurch. There are a lot of people in the scriptures that get a bum rap. Marthais one of them. But I can relate to Martha. I think most of us can relate toMartha. There really are a lot of things that need to get done. At least wethink there are don’t we? The pace of life can seem overwhelming. With so muchto do and so little time to do it—who has the time to just sit down and listen?Martha and Mary are a picture of us all. They were the Church. We are theChurch. Both of them were presented with the same opportunity to know Jesusintimately. Only one of the two took advantage of the opportunity. Andlisten—because I think that it is important that we take not of this; Marthawas distracted from knowing Jesus by GOOD STUFF!

It was GOOD STUFF that was keeping her from the BEST STUFF!I think that is important that we note that because sometimes our excuse fornot really knowing Jesus intimately is that we are “distracted and upset aboutmany GOOD things”. Martha was making dinner for Jesus! If anyone was ever doingGOOD STUFF—Martha was doing something good! If anyone ever had a GOOD excusefor not sitting down and having their devotional—Martha had a GOOD excuse! ButJesus didn’t excuse her did He? And listen—all of the GOOD STUFF we are so busywith—it’s not going to excuse us either. Like Martha and Mary—we have adecision to make. We can do what is GOOD or we can do what is BETTER! What didJesus say to Martha?

Lk 10:41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you areworried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary haschosen what is BETTER, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Good is good. But better is better. We need good. But good is not enough. We need better too.

If you would like to hear this message in its entirety please feel free to download the MP3 file and have a listen.

Blogging On the Go

2012-01-13T11:26:00.001-08:00

Well - this isn't an actual post. Even though it is an actual post. What I mean to say is that I have just added the Blogger application to my mobile device and I am checking out if it will be possible to blog from it.

We shall see.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I will see you in church on Sunday. Until then - hold fast. And may the grace of G-d be upon you.

2012-01-08 Who Do You Say I Am

2012-01-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

Look out 2012 -I am on a roll! Two weeks in and two blog posts! Whoa!

Again - at this point - this blog is basically going to serve as the format to make my sermons available to anyone that would like to hear them for whatever reason. Maybe you are having troubles sleeping at night? If so - download this file (the title is the link to the mp3 file) and turn it on. You should be asleep in no time. The following is a little excerpt...

Jesus asked His friends, “Who do people say I am?” But do you know what? Jesus really didn’t care who people said He was! What was Jesus’ main concern for His friends? Jesus’ main concern was, “Who do YOU say I am?!” “If YOU really knew me…” That’s the all important question this morning isn’t it?! It isn’t what our organization believes about Jesus that is going to change our lives! It isn’t what our parents believe about Jesus that is going to change our lives! It isn’t what our friends believe about Jesus that is going to change our lives! It isn’t what our spouses believe about Jesus that is going to change our lives!

“But what about you?” he asks us! “Who do you say I am?!”

It is what WE believe about Jesus that is going to change our lives!

“You are the Christ the Son of the Living God!”

If we would adopt but 1 creed as our own—then I would recommend that we take the words of Peter and hide them deep in our hearts! He is not just a good teacher! He is not just a historical figure from the bible! He was not just a prophet!

“You are the Christ the Son of the Living God!”

Be great!

I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life

2012-01-08T15:50:00.001-08:00

WOW!

So I posted one time in 2011! That is a little bit horrible. Haha! On the upside - it will not be hard to do better in 2012!

So it's a brand New Year and I have got a brand new scripture that I am going to be looking at and meditating on and preaching from in 2012. Ready?

Jn 14:6-7 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

I know what I need in 2012. And I know what you need in 2012. We need to really know Him.

(If you would like to listen to my first sermon of 2012 simply click on the title of this update to follow the link to the MP3 file. Then download the file and listen to it on your computer or Android device. If you have an iphone or ipod please destroy them and support Google. Thanks)

Luke 11:33-36 The Lamp of the Body

2011-10-28T06:01:00.001-07:00

"When your eyes are good, your whole body is full of light. But when they are bad, your body is full of darkness. See to it then that the light within you is not darkness."

Let's keep our eyes good by getting them fixed on Jesus. And once we have got them fixed on Jesus - let's keep them there! One of my many problems is that I have the tendency to take my eyes off of Jesus. I'll start my day off right -looking to Jesus. But by the time my day winds down I am looking somewhere else. If we want to be strong in the Lord and His mighty power - then we will have to deal with our drifting eyes.

I want my eyes to be good. I want my life to be full of light. The best way to make that happen is to constantly direct our gaze on the Savior. We need to refresh our vision of His splendor.

Isaiah saw the glory of God and he said, "Woe is to me! I am ruined!"

The prophet saw the Lord seated on His throne high and lifted up and it ruined him! We need to see Jesus! And we need to let our vision of Him ruin us for the distractions of this world.

I don't want the light in me to be darkness. I want the light in me to be the light of the world!

Don't Call It a Comeback

2010-12-15T10:19:00.001-08:00

Well - my venture into blogging has not been so good. That is an understatement. I got to give props to the people that are so much busier than I am that still find time to do this every week or even every day.

Respect.

I am almost tempted to say, "In 2011 I am going to really get disciplined about my blogging efforts," -but I am not going to say that. Just not going to do it.

On the more positive side - youversion.com is awesome! If you are looking for tool to add to your bible study repertoire - youversion is a great place to get started. I love the reading plans! I used to be very methodical about bible study. It was great. But the last couple of years my studying has been more sporadic and hit and miss. Youversion has bible reading plans that help you keep track of what you have (and have not) accomplished in your devotional time. So it has really been an eye opener for me to see for certain how desperately my study habits need to be disciplined.

Hopefully I will be able to say like my friend Paul, "Don't you know that in a big race, all of the contestants launch off of the starting blocks -but only one of them will win the prize? As servants of the risen Christ -we should be the ones running like we want to win that prize! I'm not going to pretend fight -shadow box! I'm going to put up my dukes! I am going to give this old man of mine the K.O. uppercut so that after I have boasted about Christ to you all -I will not be humiliated in the end!" - 1Co 9:27

Keep the faith everyone. We may give in -but may we never give up! Hold fast!

That's My King - The King of Encouragement

2010-09-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get discouraged? I do. As a matter of fact it is one of my greatest battles as a Christian. It shouldn't be! And here is why. Jesus is the King of Kings and He is the Lord of Lords. He is the Beginning and the End! The Alpha and Omega! If I am discouraged- somehow I have taken my eyes of of Jesus! What I need to do- what we need to do- is get our eyes fixed on Jesus! He is the One that wrote the story of our faith. And He is the one that will see us through to the "The End" of our story!

I hope you enjoy the audio - it was inspired by a sermon by the late Pastor S. M. Lockridge.

As per usual - the title of the blog is the link to the mp3 file.

Help

2010-09-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

"Help! I need somebody! Help! Not just anybody! Help! You know I need somebody! Help!"

You may not know this- but if we are going to make it through life -we are going to need some help! "Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD -the maker of heaven and earth." If He created the heavens and earth in six days and set aside the seventh to get some rest -I am pretty sure that no matter what it is I (we are) am facing, He will be able to help me through it.

(as is normally the case - the title of this blog is also a link to the mp3 file of a sermon entitled, "Help".)

He's coming back!

2010-05-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

"After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” - Acts 1:9-10

The Day of Pentecost is coming up this Sunday. So I have been reading the first couple of chapters of Acts. I thought this little passage was interesting. Here you have the apostles who have spent the last three years of their lives falling in love with this Man named Jesus. At the end of those three years their Master is taken from them and brutally murdered and they are filled with sorrow. But then three days later Jesus appears to them and reveals that He is resurrected. Now their sorrow is turned to joy. And for the next 40 days Jesus continues to appear to them and reveal the kingdom of God to them.

But then finally this day comes. The last day that Jesus would minister to the Apostles in the manner that they had grown accustomed to. He would no longer be present in a physical body on a daily basis. He wouldn't be there to touch, to hug, -no more physical shoulder to cry on. Could you imagine being in their situation? Jesus starts to rise of the ground and ascend into heaven -and what do you do? Would you turn your back on that sight? I know if that were me -my eyes would be glued on my Master -hoping for one more look.

So isn't it interesting what the angels say to the apostles...

"Why are you guys all standing around watching Jesus as He goes up? Don't you know that He'll be coming back down?"

It is as if they were trying to convey to them (and to us) the sense of urgency that they should have as followers of Jesus.

"There's no time to stand around and watch Him go up! You need to get busy because He is going to come down! There are people that need to hear the Good News!"

The Bible says that we should, "...redeem the time because the days are evil...". Well, I can say that for the last several months I have not been doing a good job of this. I want to do more than, "watch Him go up." There is a world full of hurting people out there and before Jesus went up He told us to reach out to them. I need to get my eyes of of the sky and get my hands on the plow. Because, "...this same Jesus is coming back!"

Prayer Request?

2010-03-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Anne- did you send me a prayer request? If so, please resend it. I deleted it because I did not recognize the email address and I am leery of opening attachments on my computers (with all the viruses and such). Sorry. I did pray for you though (I figured G-d knew what was going on).

You Are Branches

2010-03-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

Here is the morning sermon from March 07, 2010 (the link to the sermon is the title).

And here is just a quick random thought -picked up my bible this morning and opened to Ezekial. I noticed in chapters 40 and 42 Ezekiel describes the 2 "rooms in the temple". That were built especially for the 2 Levites. I am going to look into this more (maybe) -but this is what I thought was interesting; the L-rd built rooms in the temple so that there would be a place in the temple for His servants. Why? Because the L-rd desires our fellowship!

We Are Never Forsaken

2010-03-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

Well- it is Sunday morning so I don't have a lot of time to update. But here is my latest sermon. If you have ever wondered, "Could God really love me after all of the things I have done? And all of the mistakes I make?" I hope this will encourage you to know that our loving Savior will not forsake us because we make mistakes. "While we were yet sinners- Christ died for us!" Don't you think if He died for us when we didn't even want to know Him, that He will keep us by His side now that our desire is to know Him? I think He will.

(The link to the sermon is the title of this post)

We Are His Friends

2010-02-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

"What is man that you are mindful of him?" That is a good question. For whatever reason- God loves us so much, that He gave His one and only Son, so that we could be saved from the power of sin. Have you ever thought about this- what would it be like to be friends with someone famous? I will probably never be friends with Barrack Obama. The president just can't make time for me in his busy schedule. He has many more other important things to do than just sit down and spend a few hours listening to my problems. But there is Someone with much more power, prestige, wealth, status, etc., -and this Someone died because He wanted to spend time with me. As a matter of fact- He can't get enough of me. It is comforting to know that in a world that places conditions on friendship- God love us unconditionally. We are His friends.

If you want to hear the sermon- just click the title of this post. It is the link to the mp3 file.

We Are Weak

2010-02-21T07:27:00.001-08:00

Well, I thought this blogging thing would be easy. I am finding out it is more of a challenge than I originally expected it to be. I am quite a few weeks behind in posting my sermons. I will get caught up though (eventually). I guess this post and the sermon I am posting go hand in hand. We are weak- but He is strong! We can't make it on our own, but we can make it with His help (a lot of His help)! If you are facing tough times- stand firm. The L-rd is good. He will walk you through it. He will carry you through it if He needs to! Below is the link to a sermon that I hope will help somebody.

http://tinyurl.com/20100124WeAreWeak

Because He Said So- That is Why

2010-01-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

Well- here is the latest from theunchurch. I hope that it helps someone. Remember, G-d is great! He is greater than satan, greater than problems, and greater than we are! If you are looking for the link to the sermon, click the title (it is the link) and it should take you to the mp3 file to download.

Study With Me

2010-01-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I wanted to share what I am studying with my friends and church family so if they desire, they can study along with me.

I am trying to look at a couple of things.

1. Of course I am looking at Romans 8. Especially verses 31-39. That is the passage we will be focusing on this year. The idea being; if we discover who we really are in Christ, it will help us to live the victorious Christian life that God intends for us to live.

2. Along with that I am looking at the life of Moses from Exodus chapter 3. Moses was a great man of God, but not until he believed he could be who God said he was.

3. And then finally I am also reading the book of Galatians. On Sunday night we are going to be studying Galatians 5:1

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

Jesus Christ has set as free. We need to know that that means to us and we need to learn to walk in that freedom. But we also need to balance our freedom with maturity. I am free- but I am not free to sin. I am free- but I should not use my freedom if it becomes a stumbling block to other Christ followers.

Romans 14 is a good passage to study along with Galatians 5.

New Year = New Scripture

2010-01-03T17:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been slacking. But, hopefully with the New Year will come new and improved habits. I am hoping to post my morning devotional here (every morning). So- dare i say it? I will. Go ahead and hold me accountable. If you don't see any posting going on send me an email so I can get convicted.

We have a new scripture for 2010. It is actually a passage from Romans 8. Verses 31-39 with an emphasis on a phrase in V.31- "...you are...". The L-rd Jesus Christ defines who we are in this life. We need to believe His definition.

Here is a link to the MP3 file for my first sermon of 2010. Hope it does someone some good somewhere.

http://tinyurl.com/100103-YouAre

Happy New Year!

slacking

2009-12-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

Well, i haven't posted in almost a month. Sorry for that folks. With the holidays and everything, been pretty busy. I will try and get updated here when I get a little more time. UNtil then, have a merry Christmas and remember- Jesus is the answer the entire world is looking for (even if most of them don't know it yet).

Zero Or Hero Part 3

2009-11-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

Well, with the holidays i have fallen a little behind on posting my sermons. Not sure if anyone uses the service, but I hope that maybe someone gets some use out of these. Couple more instalments on the Hero series and then going where ever the Lord leads us.

http://tinyurl.com/HeroOrZeropt3

Hope this helps and encourages someone.

Hero or Zero?

2009-11-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

Well, the world needs heroes. You are a hero in the making. Here is the first instalment of a series I am working on. I had to upload it in two different parts. Part 1a and part 1b. Hope you will forgive me for the inconvenience.

http://tinyurl.com/HeroOrZeroPt1a

http://tinyurl.com/HeroOrZeroPt1b

And I hope someone is encouraged.

Breafast with Jesus

2009-10-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

My church sent me and my wife to Pismo for three days so we could go to the SoCal Assemblies of God minister's retreat. It was awesome! My mother-in-law came up to watch the girls, so we got to go and get our spiritual batteries recharged.

Jeff Lucas (from Timberline Church) was the speaker and he did an outstanding job. Very challenging and very funny. I love when a pastor can do both.

This sermon was inspired (practically plagerized) by the teaching from minister's retreat. Hope it encourages someone out there.

http://tinyurl.com/BreakfastWithJesus

The Power of the Book

2009-10-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

We had a member of the Gideons make a wonderful presentation about what the organization is doing to get billions (that is billions with a "b") of bibles into the hands of people all over the world. I shared this word in conjunction with Brother Wayne Coopers presentation.

http://tinyurl.com/PowerOfTheBook

It is The Book that changes lives because Jesus Christ is The Word of God.

Out of Your Mind

2009-10-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the 4th and final installment of a series aimed at uplifting our faith-to "beat ourselves up" so to speak...

http://tinyurl.com/OutOfYourMindpt4

This one was pretty fun to preach. Down load the mp3 file and you can listen to it in the car, or where ever.

Beat Me Up-Please part 3 Failure

2009-10-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to todays sermon (10/04/2009). This is the third in a series of sermons intended to encourage and uplift. Hope that it helps someone.

http://tinyurl.com/Beat-Me-Up-Please-part3

"Beat Me UP-Please! Part 2"

2009-09-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is the next sermon in my series based on 1Cor 9:27... (09/27/09)

http://tinyurl.com/Beat-Me-UP-Please-part2

It's a pretty fun topic to preach on.

Beat Me UP!-Please

2009-09-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

Hey-

Here's a link to last week's sermon on mp3 if anyone is interested in listening...

http://tinyurl.com/Beat-Me-UP-Please-part1

Life is the Pits part 2

2009-09-19T15:27:00.001-07:00

The pit is not always the result of a wrong decision. Sometimes the pit is a part of the plan! Some of us, our wounds are self inflicted, we got ourselves into the pit by making bad life decisions, and we must partner with God’s grace if we are ever going to get out of that pit and into abundant life. Others of us though, our pit has nothing to do with something we have done, but it has only to do with something He wants to do! Sometimes the pit is a part of His plan! We didn’t dig our hole, we got thrown in it! I am not saying that God digs the pit, but I am saying that God will use the pit to get us to where He wants us to be.

2Sa 23:20 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab’s best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.

I will agree with this—the pit is not a fun place to be. I’ll bet you there were other things that Ben could have put on his “to do” list for the day besides jumping into an inescapable pit with a ferocious predator and then battling to the death.
“Let’s see… …water the grass… …replace that squeaky swamp cooler motor… …watch pre-season football… …update my Facebook account, or,… …kill a lion with my bare hands…”
Hmmm. Tough call—but I would probably go with updating my Facebook account. So why would Ben choose to do something so contrary to human nature?

Isa 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

1Co 2:14 “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Here’s what Ben understood that we need to understand; the pit is not always punishment—sometimes the pit is a part of His plan! See, sometimes God uses difficult circumstances and situations to actually position us for the promotion that He wants us to have in the future. Did Ben have to go down in the pit? He didn’t have to distinguish himself as a “valiant fighter”. He could have settled for just being another foot soldier among so many hundreds of thousands of other foot soldiers. But there was something on the inside of Ben that hungered for more than just life in a rut. Ben wanted to live a life of destiny and to reach out to take hold of the fullness of his possibilities. So Ben didn’t update his Facebook account, “he went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion”. That is why later on when you read about Ben’s life you find that he was numbered among the elite as one of David’s mighty men and the captain of the king’s bodyguard. That pit with that lion was part of God’s plan! God didn’t design evil for Ben, but God turned evil circumstances around and then used them to promote Ben into his destiny later on. There is a little fire in every heart that burns just like the fire in Ben’s heart burned. We were created in the image of God. Our spiritual nature is not satisfied with life in a rut—we long to experience the Abundant life of Christ coursing through our veins. We need to let the wind of the Spirit blow on the coals of that little fire so that the pit we are in will not serve to extinguish the embers, but instead we can let the pit be the place where the wood is gathered and stacked up so that the pit actually serves to ignite our blaze to a degree brighter than we have ever seen before!

Remember, sometimes you don’t dig the hole—you just end up getting thrown in! Hold on to the promises of God when you are down at the bottom and they will find a way to lift you up to the top into a place beyond even your own imagining. If you have dug your own pit through making bad life choices, then you may have to do some climbing out—but if you have been thrown in the pit through no fault of your own, then you don’t have to scratch and claw to try and get yourself out—God Himself is going to get you out. In fact, resting in God’s grace is the best thing you can do if you have been thrown in a pit; anything else will wear you out and you won’t make any progress because in some cases—the pit is part of the plan.

Here is what we have got to understand…

The pit is _satan’s plan to pound you into defeat.

The pit is God’s opportunity to promote you into your destiny!

We will be pounded or we will be promoted—the decision is ours. If we understand that the pit is part of the plan and we trust in God; that He is good, that He will never leave us nor forsake us, that no matter what the adversary shows us in the physical realm, our Lord Christ is the ultimate authority of every realm—if we can stand firm in our faith while the pit seems to be swallowing us up—then we will come out of the furnace of our afflictions without even the smell of smoke on our clothing. But if we cave in to doubt, unbelief, hopelessness, and despair, than _satanwill pound the abundant life of God right out of us. In the case of Joseph God used the pit to launch the young man into his destiny. When Joseph was 17 years old he had dreams. He dreamt that someday he would be in a position of such high authority that his brothers and even his father and mother would kneel before him. And then what happened? His brothers threw him into a pit. Ultimately Joseph was promoted—but his promotion came by way of the pit.

Life is the Pits part 1

2009-09-05T20:01:00.001-07:00

Have you ever felt like life is the pits? Have you ever been living your life, going along, and then you come to the sudden realization that you are “stuck in a rut”? You are living, but you are not really living. It is just the same old rut everyday—day in and day out—the same rerun over and over again. I think there are a few people here, and you feel like you have been thrown in a pit, shoved down in a rut by life and ran over by a Mac truck. You have probably been told this before, and I think that most of us gathered here this morning believe it—life in Christ is not supposed to be like that.

Eph 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

So how do we reconcile the two? On the one hand we have the life of God as the scripture presents it to us. And on the other hand we have the life that we are experiencing on a daily basis. Often our experience is not cooperating with our faith. What conclusion do we draw when our life experience does not coincide with our faith expectations? Too many people draw the wrong conclusions. When we read the great and precious promises from God’s word, but then life is the pits, or we are stuck in a rut, we draw the conclusion that God’s word doesn’t work. We place the fault with God. The question I ask myself when I am tempted to blame God; “Why does someone who is faulty want to place blame on the only One who is faultless?” If God’s word isn’t working for me, could it be that maybe, just by chance, I am the one that has missed something somewhere along the line and not the Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient Creator of heaven and earth?

Listen to this quotation from author Eugene Peterson…

“What we know about God and what we do for God have a way of getting broken apart in our lives. The moment the organic unity of belief and behavior is damaged in anyway, we are incapable of living out the full humanity for which we are created.”

What we belief must be reflected by the way we behave. Belief and behavior need to parallel one another. If we want to make sense out of the fact that the bible promises us abundant life but in many cases we would describe our own life experiences in any terms except abundant, we can begin by thinking about this: is what we believe to be true from the bible paralleled by and reflected in the way we behave and the decisions that we make every day? Because when what we believe to be true does not affect the way we behave or the decisions that we make we dig a pit deeper than we are able to climb out of.

Want to hear some inspirational audio from this sermon series?

http://tinyurl.com/lifeisthepitspart3

(To be continued)

2009-09-05T18:49:00.001-07:00

ok- so i was thinking about blogger's mobile ability & i had the sudden realization that i cuold use blogger as a mobile note pad. there are times that i think of something i need to remember- a scripture comes to me, or a sermon idea, or just something i need to pick up in town. since no one reads my blog, i can just shoot whatever i need to blogger. if i had a smart phone i could avoid the drama, but i really don't want to pay $30 extra a month to have a smart phone.

Desire the Fire

2009-06-09T21:39:00.001-07:00

A small spark.

James makes a powerful little statement in his writings to the church in the New Testament.

Jas 3:5b “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.”

I understand that James was making reference to his teachings on the tongue, but his statement is one of truth in regards to other areas as well as the tongue. “A great forest is set on fire by a small spark.” We have a responsibility as Christians to our brothers and sisters in the L-rd. And we need to hold one another accountable to making good on these responsibilities. Each of us have been given the solemn duty of keeping a fire burning in our bones that others may draw on in their time of need.

Leviticus 6:8-13. The Burnt Offering.

V.12 “The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it. 13 The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.”

Brothers and sisters, we need one another. We need each other to have a substantial fire on the altar of our hearts and lives.

Camp fire Christianity vs. bonfire Christianity.

A camp fire is usually built out of necessity. When it’s time for a meal, we start the fire. It is built only large enough to serve its purpose. Often camp fires are built conservatively. You only put enough wood on to fix breakfast in the morning or to warm your hot cocoa and make smores in the evening. You don’t want to put to much wood on the fire because you know that you will be leaving camp to go fishing or turning in for the night – and you never want to leave the fire unattended because there is always a chance that an unattended fire could start an unintentional fire.

A bonfire on the other hand is completely different. The word conservative does not come to mind when I think of a bonfire. Bonfires are not built just for cooking or for warming. They are built for celebrating and rejoicing. A bonfire is not built just small enough to serve its purpose, instead it is built as big as possible and will long out last any sort of purpose. You cannot cozy up to a bonfire – the white hot flame is so intense that you must stand far away from it to escape its scorching blast.

It seems the church is busy building campfires when we should be building bonfires. Our fires are for necessity. We know that we are going to need something from G-d sooner or later, so we have got to keep a little fire burning. We come to church only enough to stoke the fire for another week. We read and pray enough only to serve our purpose. Our fires are built very conservatively. They are well under hand so as to make sure there are no unintentional fires. That is exactly what the enemy has planned for the church!

The enemy wants to extinguish our fire!

Rev 12:15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Listen, the dragon is enraged at the woman (that is the church). The anti-Christ sentiment is alive and well and gaining strength and power on a daily basis in our nation. Why? satan is terrified by “bonfire” Christianity, but he is not intimidated by campfire Christianity. The devil doesn’t care if a bunch of lukewarm church attendees gather every Sunday morning for song, sermon-ette, and socialism! he is not afraid of American country club Christianity, neither is he afraid of the politically correct, cultural Christian theology that says, “Can’t we all just get along? You start with Muhammad. You start with Buddha. You start with Darwin. I will start with Jesus. And we will all meet in heaven at the top of the mountain.” satan loves the gospel according to Oprah, and anyone that goes along to get along will not be the target of his displeasure. But if you happen to be one of the dissatisfied customers of campfire Christianity, and you are longing for more from your relationship with Jesus than a new Cadillac—if instead you want to experience this Jesus from the pages of scripture that set the captives free, healed the sick and even raised the dead—then get prepared for battle, and look to Christ to be your strength, because the serpent has poured out water like a river in an effort to sweep our faith out from underneath us.

What we need in the church are some people that want to build their lives a holy bonfire unto the L-rd! We need to stack on the wood of prayer and fasting, we need to throw on the logs of bible study, we need to fan the flames through fellowship, until we have achieved a white hot raging inferno capable of drinking in any amount of water the serpent would send our way! Let that old dragon open his mouth! Water may proceed from the serpent’s mouth, but a sharp double edged sword proceeds from the Savior’s! “By my G-d I can run through a troop! By my G-d I can leap over a wall!” (2 Sam 22:30) His word is a fire (Jer 23:29), and though His heal has been bruised, the serpent’s head has been crushed! The Savior needs some people that will get on fire for G-d so that those lost in the darkness of sin will come over to our camp and watch us burn! We need some bonfires in the church that we all can draw on when our own embers are burning low! It should be the desire of our hearts to stoke the fire of our lives with enough spiritual firewood so that the rest of our tired and weary brothers and sisters might see our blaze! We cannot create a fire on the earth if there is not first a fire in the church! We cannot give them what we do not have and they cannot become what we are not first ourselves! Iron sharpens iron; one man sharpens another. Your fire will encourage me to build my fire, and my fire will encourage you to build your fire, and your fire will encourage her to build her fire, etc. And when each of us as individuals gets busy throwing fuel on the fire of our lives, collectively the church will become the raging forest fire; and all of the water rung out from every wet damp believer, O, all of the water heaped on by every casual Christian, O even a river of water that comes pouring out of that old serpents mouth will not succeed at extinguishing the holy flames of a church that is burning with passion for Jesus Christ! Amen!

dinner.

2009-06-09T21:03:00.001-07:00

testing mobile blog ability 1

2009-04-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

so i am helping with this community project called "Christmas in April". the general idea was to help an elderly homeowner with some much needed repair. this woman in our community qualified. she needed a little roofing work done on her home. we got a good start today. unfortunately, not much community got involved. we were blessed because on local very large business is behind the project. thanks goes out to New Era Energy (the solar plant) for all of their hard work. i hope and pray that others will believe that they can help and make a difference in the community.

L-rd, Remember Me

2009-03-29T15:50:00.001-07:00

Mt 16:5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. 6 “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 7 They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.” 8 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? 9 Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 11 How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Mt 16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

I want you to see what I saw when I studied these scriptures. Chronologically, these events happen one right after the other. Jesus gets in the boat, the disciples didn’t bring any bread, Jesus bewares them of the Pharisees yeast, and they are panic stricken because they are afraid they are going to go hungry. Then they get to the other side and sit down to talk and Jesus asks them the very pointed question, “Who do men say that I am,” and Peter offers an equally pointed answer, “You are the Christ the Son of the living
G-d!” So Peter has the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ. Peter mentally assents to the truth that Jesus is the Son of the living G-d. But at the same time, while Peter is in the boat with this man He confesses as the Son of G-d, his heart is filled with worry, that his stomach might not be filled with food!

And Jesus turns to Peter and those men in that boat and says three very powerful words, “Don’t you remember…?” In other words, "Don't you remember what I have done for you in the past? And don't you think that what I have done for you before, I can and will do for you again?!” I mean these guys are in a boat with Jesus worrying about bread and Jesus had just fed 15,000 people with a few loaves for crying out loud! There was no need to worry about bread! The challenge from the Holy Spirit this morning is for us to recognize that we are no different from those men and that we need to apply the agent of the word of G-d to our minds so that we can be different from them. “Don’t we remember?!” What is it that you are worried about?! What cares and anxieties are so filling your mind that you can’t sleep at night?! You know that He is the Christ, the Son of the living G-d. Whatever it is you are facing, He is in the boat with you! He won’t let you go hungry. Whatever it is, He will satisfy your needs. Can’t we remember what He has done for us in the past? And don’t we believe that what He has done for us before, He is still good, and He will do it for us again?

Again, in the passage from 2Pe Peter says…

2Pe 1:13, 15 “I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body…” 15 “And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.”

Do you know what I find? Even though I know this to be true, I find that I need a good dose of reminding at frequent intervals—I do not serve some impotent weak and beggarly G-d that is unable to work on my behalf—no! I serve the G-d that raises the dead and calls those things that are not as though they were! I serve the G-d of the long day that caused the rotation of the earth to come to a grinding halt so that Joshua and Israel could finish doing battle with their enemies and utterly destroy them. The apostle Paul said it this way…

2Ti 2:8 “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…!”

Church, who do we say He is?! I know what we confess with our mouths, “He is the Christ the Son of the living G-d.” Now the challenge for us is, that which we confess with our mouths, remember it in our hearts and our minds so that it will transform the way we live our lives.

Remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Lk 23:38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Of course you know that when I read this story, I always fancied myself as the penitent thief. You can probably imagine that my feelings were hurt when the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart and convicted me that I was a lot like that other guy. And I said, “How L-rd? How am I like that other guy?” The Spirit directed me to look at what the unrepentant thief said, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” He did not care about Jesus’ sufferings! He was not concerned about the will of the Father in heaven! He could care less about the salvation of humanity, deliverance for the bound, freedom for the captives—his only concern was, “If you are the Christ than save me from my troubles!” Jesus said that I am a lot like that unrepentant thief—that many in the church—if we would be honest, we would see ourselves in the unrepentant thief. We do not stop to think about why we are experiencing trouble, we do not allow G-d to deal with our hearts through our troubles, we do not stop to consider, neither do we care that G-d may be working something wonderful through our difficulties—no—we are not concerned with becoming mature in our faith if it means the inconvenience of the cross! “Aren’t you the Christ? Then save me from my troubles!” The cry of our heart cannot be, “Save me from Your will O G-d!” Don’t you remember what Jesus prayed when He was facing the crucifixion?

Jn 12:27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”

We should not say like the unrepentant thief, “Save me from this hour.” But instead we should echo the words of the penitent thief, “Jesus, remember me! Father, glorify your name!” If there is anything that Jesus will do for you, I guarantee that He will remember you!

Isa 38:1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” 2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 “Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5 “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.

The L-rd will remember you! G-d will remember every tear you have wept.

Ps 56:8 Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll—are they not in your record?

I know that some of you are going through severe difficulties and are under terrible pressure and strain—you wonder if you will even make it through the times you have been handed. In the middle of the valley of the shadow of death, have you made the time to get alone with Almighty G-d and cry out to Him? Have you poured out your soul like a drink offering at His feet? Have you had your own personal season of weeping bitterly? Listen, if you don’t run to Him, you may run away from Him. There is something about a soul humbling themselves and crying out to G-d; the L-rd cannot help but to remember a broken and contrite heart, because that is what His word says.

Heb 5:7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

1Pe 5:5 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead!! Let us change our prayer from the accusatory, “If you are the Christ, then you would save me from this,” and let us humble ourselves and cry out, “Jesus, remember me! Father, glorify your name!” Whatever that means in the grand scheme of things, we can be sure of this, He is the Christ, the Son of the living G-d! We are in the same boat together—you and Jesus are in the same boat—and no one can snatch us from His hand because His Father who has given us to Him is greater than all. Amen.

Would you like to read the entire inspirational writing? Click here.

Learn to Think Like Him

2009-03-21T23:39:00.001-07:00

Since Jesus went through everything you are going through and more, learn to think like Him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you will be able to live out your days free to pursue what G-d wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. You have already put in your time in that G-d ignorant way of life… Now it is time to be done with it for good.

We have got to learn to think like Him. Even after we confess Jesus Christ as L-rd, thinking like Him does not come naturally to us, it is a learned behavior. And we must set our minds on learning it! Could you imagine what our lives would be like if we, instead of thinking the way we do, if we were able to think like Jesus?! I can’t even fathom what would become possible to us if we thought like Him!

Remember when Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem and Jesus accidentally got left behind at the temple?

Lk 2:46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.

By the time Jesus was 12 years old He was sitting down with temple rabbis amazing them. By the time He was 30 He could ask questions that no one dared to answer, and when He was asked questions that were purposely formulated to be impossible to answer, like this one…

Mt 22:15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

They thought they had outwitted Jesus. It was a trick question. There were only two answers and they were both wrong. “If He says we should pay our taxes to Caesar, then we have made Him an enemy of the Jews. If He says not to pay, well then, we have made Him an enemy of Rome.”

Mt 22:18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Jesus had such power of thought and mind that He had answers for questions that could not be answered. When was the last time something you said amazed someone? That is why Peter tells us…

“…learn to think like Him…”

Jesus and His followers, even His closest followers, can both be looking at the same picture and yet they see two different things.

When they are confronted with 15,000 hungry people that have been following them for days on end, Jesus’ friends say, “Send the people away so they can get something to eat.” But what does Jesus say? “Have the people sit down, and you give them something to eat.”

Jesus walks into a room full of people that are crying, weeping, beside themselves with sorrow – Jairus’ daughter was dead. But Jesus sees a little girl that has fallen asleep, and He has come to wake her up. When He tells the people, they all laugh. But when He takes her by the hand and she rises from that bed, you could hear a pin drop!

Over there sits a blind man begging for enough money just to buy a little bread for the day. The apostles see him and ask, “L-rd, who has sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus explains that neither this man nor his parents were to blame – but He sees an opportunity to bring glory to G-d, makes some mud, rubs it on the man’s eyes, and sends him to wash. And the man returns with his eyesight fully restored!

When you and Jesus both sit back and look at your life and everything that is going on in it, you are both looking at the same picture, but unless we learn to think like Him, we will see two different things. We can look at our lives and all we can see is opposition everywhere we turn. Our marriage; opposition. Our children; opposition. Our health; opposition. Our finances; opposition. Jesus can look at our lives and all He sees is opportunity! If Jesus can look at a man that was born blind and see the glory of G-d, then Jesus can look at your marriage, your children, your health and your money, and somewhere in there He can see the glory of G-d!

When do we have the greatest opportunity to show the world the glory of G-d in our lives? Do you think that the lost are impressed when everything in our lives is good and we can praise G-d?

Read Daniel 3.

When do we get our opportunity to show the world the glory of G-d in our lives? Are the lost impressed when everything in our lives is good and we can praise G-d? Was Nebuchadnezzar impressed with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s faith before the furnace? Heck no! Nebuchadnezzar didn’t care in the least bit about what they believed or about the G-d they worshipped before the fire. But after the fire that all changed. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s response to the fire changed everything – changed the entire course of a nation! We have got to learn to think like Him, because Jesus can look at a furnace and see the glory of G-d.

The lost are not impressed when our lives are good and we tell them all about how great G-d is. They are doubly not impressed when our lives are bad and they hear us complaining about how terrible our lives are. As a matter of fact they are downright confused and turned off to the message of the gospel as they wonder to themselves, “Just last week they were saying how great and wonderful G-d is and all I have heard from them this week is how terrible their lives are. Huh? Guess that Jesus stuff doesn’t really work after all.” But I will tell you when the lost are impressed – they are impressed when they can see that we have gone into a furnace that has been heated up seven times hotter than usual, and that while we are in it we continue to walk with that fourth Man in the fire! G-d is glorified by people that go into the fire and come out of it without the fire harming their bodies, without a hair of their heads singed; their robes un-scorched, and no smell of fire on them! The only way to face the fire and come out untouched is to learn to think like Jesus!

2Peter 3:1-2. Dear friends this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

How are we going to learn to think like Jesus? According to Peter we are going to learn to think like Jesus by thinking about what it is that Jesus has already said. Stimulate your minds to think wholesome thoughts!

The apostle Paul said it this way…

Phil 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

“Such things” do not have their origin in the world in which we live. Such things have a different origin – they originate in the word of G-d. Wholesome thoughts have their origin in the word of G-d! “I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.” Listen, the world has its answers for every difficulty you are facing. Marriage problems? Get a divorce. Money problems? Get a credit card. Health problems? Get a prescription. Emotional problems? Get a therapist. Are we in the church going to deal with and face our furnaces in the exact same manner that those in the world are? What if Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had done that? Can you picture it? Out in the courtyard of the palace, there are thousands of people gathered there, and the music starts to play. How do all of the people in that courtyard respond to the music? They bow down and worship the image. Immediately Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are confronted with the question within themselves, “How are we going to respond to the music. We can bow down like everyone else and worship the image and save our lives. And why not? That is what everyone else is doing? Besides, G-d understands. He will forgive us.”

And do you know what? G-d did understand and He would have forgiven them. But, if Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had bowed down to the image, would Nebuchadnezzar’s life have been changed? Would Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have been promoted? Would G-d have been glorified in Babylon? Absolutely not. It makes me think of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker. Neither of these men did anything that other people in the world aren’t doing every day. Why then were there such ramifications for their actions? Why were there such huge scandals? Because these men were supposed to be men of G-d. Even the world knows that when the music plays, Christian’s are not supposed to bow down with them. And I am sure that G-d has forgiven these men for the mistakes they made. But I am also sure of this, their ministries are nowhere near where they would be today if they had thought like Jesus, and instead of doing what everyone else was doing, they had made a decision based on the word of G-d, to go into the fire, and get together with that Fourth Man.

The same principles that applied to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the same principles that applied to Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker, those same principles apply to us. We have a decision to make. The world has built an image that dictates to us their perception of the way things should be and should be done. And when they play the music, they expect everyone to get down and worship. There is a power that we can obtain that will enable us to resist the temptation to bow down and do it the easy way. That power is derived from wholesome thinking based on what G-d has said by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through the apostles. When we learn to think like Jesus, not only can we face the furnace, but we can go into the fire, and bring back with us the glory of G-d that will usher in our promotion, and usher in the promotion of the kingdom of G-d on earth. Amen.

2009-03-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

so much to say, so little time to say it.

Get on the Right Side

2009-03-17T23:31:00.001-07:00

The question I always find myself asking on a sub-conscious level is "How am I going to do some good, so I can get G-d to like me?"Do you know that preachers have been making people's lives miserable for almost two thousand years now?

For the early church, it was not about how they could do something good. It was about who they could do something good through. In the same way, it is not about us receiving a bunch of pressure and condemnation, "because I haven't done anything - that is why I haven't received my promise. Now pastor is saying a have got to do something for G-d if I want G-d to do anything for me."

That is not what I am saying. I am not saying, "If you will start doing good, then G-d will start doing what you want." That is how preachers have made us all miserable. Most of us, not all of us, but most of us, we feel like we have to earn from G-d.

We feel like we have to earn G-d's love.

"I haven't felt the presence of the L-rd lately. I better start reading my bible more faithfully."

We feel like we have to earn answered prayer.

"Well 15 minutes of prayer isn’t getting me answers, I will bump it up to 30 minutes."

We fell like we have to earn forgiveness.

"Well, I messed up again. Did that thing that I swore I would never do again and now I have done it. L-rd, if you will forgive me one more time, I will fast once a week for the next month."

If you feel like that, you are not alone. I feel like that all the time. There are days when I wonder how G-d could even love me from a distance, much less want to see me before His throne. But Paul said something wonderful about the place where G-d dwells – it is a throne room of grace that we can enter into with confidence, and that when we enter that throne room, we do not find guilt, shame and condemnation, instead we find mercy and grace to help us in our time of need.

We don’t need to earn from G-d, we need to learn from G-d. It is true, we cannot just sit around and wait for our breakthroughs while we watch TV. But at the same time, we cannot get caught up in a bunch of well-doing trying to earn the favor of G-d on our lives. There has got to be someplace in between those two places where we find the presence and power of G-d flowing from our living relationship with Him. I think I have found it. It is on the right side of the boat.

Jn 21:1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. 6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. 7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved (John) said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.

Now, Peter and his friends were all experienced fishermen. They all had real jobs before they became preachers. So these guys knew how to fish. And they fished all night long and didn't even catch one fish to share for breakfast. Then, some guy standing on the shore, some "shore" fisherman know-it-all, who is kinda like an annoying back seat driver, says, "Hey, you know what you guys are doing wrong? You are fishing on the left side of the boat. Try the other side. Try the right side of the boat." Peter and his friends are thinking, "Oh brother. Listen to this guy. What possible difference could it make if we fish from the left side of the boat or the right side of the boat?” So, just to humor the guy on shore, they draw up their nets from the left side of the boat and they cast their nets on the right side of the boat, and low and behold when they did, they caught so many fish they could not even bring in the nets! And then John says one thing that makes all the difference in the world, he says…

"It is the L-rd."

Spiritually speaking, we have been fishing all night long, and we haven't caught a thing. We pray; nothing happens. We wait for our breakthrough; the breakthrough doesn't come. We work as hard as we can, and we do anything we can; still nothing happens. It seems we are darned if we do and we are darned if we don't! There has got to be an answer! I think the answer is this; we have been fishing on the wrong side of the boat. We cannot just sit around and wait and do nothing, but when we do everything we can, we wear ourselves out and still have nothing to show for it.

"Think on such things." This is what I want you to spend the week thinking about. "Forget how, and remember who." "Forget how, and remember who." The apostles could have waited all night in their boat praying for fish. Fish were not going to jump in the boat. The apostles could have fished from that left side all night long and the next day - they were busy doing good – but it was not doing them any good; they were never going to catch anything fishing on the wrong side. It was not the left side or the right side that mattered, or the front of the boat or the back of the boat that mattered. All that mattered was what John said…

"It is the L-rd!" "It is the L-rd!"

That is what I meant when I said, "Forget how, and remember who." Forget about how you think what G-d wants to do for you is going to get done and instead remember who it is that said it is going to get done. Most of my life story can be describe as an empty boat with an empty net. If you can relate to that; this is how we are going to change our lives together - we must stop doing nothing at all, we must stop doing anything and everything we can think of that sounds good and may earns us an answer, and we must look to the shore and listen for His direction. I don't know how your breakthrough is going to come to you. Will it come through prayer? Will it come through fasting? Will it come through teaching? Will it come through worship? Will it come through giving? All I know is, if you are supposed to be fishing on the right side of the boat and you are fishing on the left, nothing is ever going to happen. So the only thing that matters is that there is someone infinitely wiser than we are, and He is standing on the shore shouting directions to us.

"It is the L-rd!"

If we can just focus on what He is saying - not how it is going to get done, but who it is going to get done through - then our nets will be filled and our boat will runneth over. Amen.

If you want to read this inspirational writing in its entirety click here.

My Life as a Pet

2009-03-14T11:10:00.001-07:00

What a life. I have looked at my animals laying around all day and wished I could be one. But when G-d created us HE said, "Let US make man in OUR image." We were created in the image of G-d. That is pretty cool.

Get Out and Get Wet

2009-03-13T22:37:00.001-07:00

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” - Mt. 14:28

You may have a desire in your heart that the L-rd has not yet ratified. There is something that you want to do, that He, as of yet, has not told you to do. Does that mean that you have to shelf the desire because the L-rd wasn’t the one who directly told you to do it! How much have we as the church missed out on in our lives, and in our relationship with the L-rd, because we have denied the desire of our heart, waiting to see if the L-rd will tell us to do that thing we want to do?

“Are you saying we should do something that the L-rd did not tell us to do?”

That is not what I am saying! What I am saying is follow Peter’s example. There was something that He wanted to do, that the L-rd had not told him to do. Peter had two choices. 1) He could not do what his heart was longing to do, or, 2) he could seek the endorsement of Jesus so that he could do what he had not been told to do. I want you to think about this with me and we will draw our conclusion together. Jesus comes walking on the water. Peter thinks, “I wish I could do that.” Peter remains silent. Would Peter ever have walked on water if he had not sought an audience with Jesus and asked the L-rd’s permission to do something he had not been told to do? Absolutely not. If Peter had not made his request known, Jesus would not have granted Peter’s request, and Peter’s dreams and desires would never have come to life. Jesus was going to walk right on by that boat. He wasn't going to stop and ask, "Any of you guys want to walk with me on the water?"

Church, we need to follow Peter’s example. Right now, I want every one of you to take this word very personal. There is something that you want to do for the L-rd. There is a burning desire in your heart. There is some sort of “crazy hair brained scheme” you have concocted in the strange depths of your own heart, and if you told someone about it, they would laugh out loud. Imagine Peter working with his friends out in the fishing boat. He looks across that calm glassy water and remembers the words of Christ, “With men this is impossible, but with G-d, all things are possible,” and he tells Andrew, James and John, “Someday, when the opportunity presents itself, I am going to walk right over that water as if I were walking on a solid rock.” And what do Andrew, James and John think? Do they congratulate their friend for such faith to believe in that which is completely impossible and unheard of? Heck no they don’t do that.

I’ll tell you what they think, “This guys a few French fries short of a happy meal. His elevator does not go all the way to the top floor. He has been out in the hot sun for to long.” “Hey Pete, why don’t you go on home and get some rest, we’ll finish mending the nets by ourselves.” Can I say this to you; if you are waiting to do that strange, wonderful thing until you get the green light from the religious community – you may as well forget about it. You will never do it, because you will never get it. The church isn’t exactly known for embracing change or welcoming something new with open arms. Your one and only concern need be, “If it is you L-rd,” then let this come to fruition in my life – "bid me that I might come unto Thee."

“Oh, I want to. But as hard as I try, I just can’t seem to make it happen.”

There are things that we are going to want to do that we simply cannot do unless the L-rd tells us to do them. So 1) we can either give up on our dreams, or 2) we can sit in the boat waiting for the L-rd to tell us to do something He may never tell us to do, or 3) we can seek His audience and pour out our hearts to Him – “L-rd, this is what I want to do. I know that without You, I can do nothing. But I also know this; that if you will tell me to do it, then there is no power in heaven or hell that can stop me from doing it. So I pray, ‘Bid me to come unto thee on the water.’ Here is the desire of my heart. If you will tell me to do it, then I will do it for your glory.”

I would rather walk on water and sink, then stay in the boat and float! I want to be like Peter. “Yeah, but Peter sank!” Yeah, but Jesus caught Him! Have you ever considered this, Peter did something that no other human being in the entirety of the human race has ever done! Peter stands alone as the man that had the audacity to make the ridiculous request of Jesus, “Bid me to come unto Thee.” Peter was living the dream! He was doing what we only dream of doing! “Yeah but Peter sank.” Why do you keep bringing that up!? That is our struggle isn’t it church? Peter sank. That is what is going to keep us in the boat of fear, pride, complacency, apathy, and religious normalcy. How long will we forfeit the wonders that rightfully accompany a relationship with Jesus, all because we are afraid of a little water? Jesus caught him! Jesus will catch you! Jesus will catch us! The world needs us to jump out of the boat! Besides, you know in your heart, you are longing to jump out of the boat. There is only one thing left to do; acquire the L-rd’s permission for your hearts desire and step out on the water.

Fridays

2009-03-13T13:07:00.001-07:00

Friday can be really great or really stressfull. It depends on how my sermon writing goes. I am thankful to GOD in heaven that today went well. I know that this may sound crazy, but sometimes I skip prayer because i just want to get into my writing. Today I spent a little while in prayer and worship before I started and wouldn't you know - it seemed like that sermon just flowed right out of my brain, through my fingertips, and right into my C drive. Thanks L-RD.

2009-03-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

funny.

You Can Walk on Water

2009-03-10T00:25:00.001-07:00

Jesus walks on water.

Mt 14:28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

Are you sure you can be sure of what you are sure of? Will you always recognize G-d? Will you always be able to discern what is the work of the L-rd? If we want to prepare the way of the L-rd, then our hearts must be open, because there are times when the L-rd appears, and if we do not recognize Him an opportunity may pass us by!

Mt 14:25-27 “During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“Well, that is just that one time. Jesus said, ‘My sheep know My voice…”

Jn 10:3 “The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

He did say that. In fact He said that in John chapter 10. How then do you explain…

Luke 24:13 On the Road to Emmaus

Jn 20:10-16 (14) At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

Jn 21:1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. 6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. 7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.

He did not appear as the L-rd, but He was still the L-rd! I am afraid of the camp of believers that have got G-d all figured out! Woe is unto us who find more comfort in religious tradition then in the work of the Holy Spirit! What we must understand, is that Jesus may appear to us in a way or form so far from what we have imagined, so unlike anything we have experienced, that it is possible, we might not even recognize Him or His work.

Jn 3:8 “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Ac 13:41 “ ‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’ ”

We are always looking to do what the L-rd tells us to do. But what about when there is something you want to do and the L-rd hasn’t told you to do it? What do you do, when you want to do something that is unbelievable, something that some old religious prude may look at and say, “Well, that’s not of G-d.” What recourse do you then have? Do what Peter did.

“L-rd, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water.”

Peter wanted to do something unique. He wanted to do something no one else had ever done. He wanted to experience G-d’s wonders. He wanted to do something no one would ever believe, even if someone told them that it really happened! For sure, I do not want us to lose sight of this – the number one focus for experiencing the miraculous and being a part of divine manifestations of the wonders of G-d is to secure the salvation of the lost. But – then we have this example of Peter. No one got saved as a result of this miracle. No one was there to see this awesome display of G-d’s power except a small group of believers. They were out in the middle of a lake in the middle of nowhere. So this divine manifestation was not for the purpose of the salvation of the lost.

Peter was in that little boat with his friends, and all of a sudden, across the waters comes this apparition, “It’s a ghost,” the apostles shouted! They are all terrified and dumbfounded, with no idea as to what they are going to do, and then the figure speaks, “Hey guys, its just Me.” They all look at one another, “What’s that you say!?” The L-rd answers them, “It’s Me, Jesus.” And Peter’s heart is stirred. “Wow,” he thinks to himself. “Look at what Jesus is doing. That is awesome. Man, I wish I could do that.” And, like Newton sitting under the apple tree, suddenly a thought falls on Peter’s head, “If it is you L-rd, bid me to come unto Thee on the water,” he says. And the rest is history.

There are other important reasons for experiencing the supernatural manifestations of
G-d’s wonder working power besides the salvation of the lost.

Even if Peter did get a little wet, how do you think he felt when he got back in that boat? “I just walked on water! James, John, did you see me. I was walking on water!” When he got back in that boat, He was ready to tackle principalities and powers of darkness! “Talk to the hand satan, I can walk on water! By my G-d I can run through a troop! By my G-d I can leap over a wall! There’s nothing I can’t do!” Isn’t there anyone left that wants to do it just because!? Just because Jesus did it, and He said that we would do it also.

Jn 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Isn’t that scripture enough to stir our hearts so that we would say to our selves, “Self, by golly, if that is what Jesus said, then just like Peter doing it, just like Paul doing it, I am going to do it also!

What a Wretched Man

2009-03-04T19:28:00.001-08:00

All of us need change. We are human beings, and as such, our lives are subject to all the frailties of the human character. We can easily find ourselves sitting down with Paul the apostle and agreeing with his assessment of the spiritual struggle for freedom and supremacy over our fallen nature in Romans 7…

Ro 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing… 23 I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I truly appreciate the apostle Paul. He was no ordinary pastor. No – no professional Christian would ever speak so frankly about their own struggles, faults and failures. After all, we have an image to keep up. It is mildly amusing that we put on a happy face to fool one another at church, when the L-rd can see right through our mask, into the very depths of our hearts. He knows exactly who we are, every shortcoming – and He loves us anyways! The bottom line is, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of G-d. The temptation when we read Paul’s words in Romans 7 is to simply agree with that portion that excuses our carnal nature and then refuse the change that we so desperately need. We are too quick to say…

“What a wretched man I am. Oh well. I guess that is life. I guess I just can’t change.”

What some of us mean by that is that we really don’t want to change in the first place, and if Paul got away with being a wretched sinner, then hopefully we can get away with being wretched sinners as well. But I have a feeling that when Paul wrote Romans 7 he never intended for our focus to be on that wretched man that lives as a carnal Christian unable to gain victory over his human condition.

Consider this; no one wants to read a book, or go see a movie, where the hero is invincible and impervious to harm; from the first chapter to the last he is always able to save the day, gain the upper hand, and stand victorious. How boring is that?! We want a character that is truly good, but that struggles against overwhelming odds; that takes on a seemingly impossible task, and when it looks as if all has failed – suddenly he arises from the smoke and dust and overcomes the darkness. That is someone we can cheer for. Well, the apostle Paul sees that very hero in you!

Romans 7 is not a story about a wretched man that continues in his wretched ways. It is a story about us! It is tragedy and drama that ends with that seemingly impossible glorious victory. Our problem, whether it is by our own design, or by the design of our adversary, is that we got so focused on that wretched scene in the middle, we never went on to read the end of the story! Verse 24 does not end with a wretched man, but it says this…

24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

We are the heroes of our story, because we have a Hero who is at the same time just like we are; but still infinitely beyond our own reckoning. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?!” See – we are not wretched men left to our wretched ways – but our story is one of rescue. Thanks be to G-d – Jesus Christ is our rescuer! His story is the ultimate tale of tragedy and triumph! He was weak enough to be beaten and bloodied, weak enough to be stripped and nailed to a cross and laid in a cold dark tomb. But He was strong enough to conquer death, hell, and the grave! He was strong enough to wash all of our sins away! With one fell stroke, His mercy and grace has driven out the darkness and given us access to the very kingdom of His glorious light! And Paul’s final words in the chapter, I have read them often, but I have never seen them the way I see them now.

He says, “In my mind I am a slave to G-d’s law, but in the sinful nature I am a slave to the law of sin.” What that means is, that if we live in the Spirit, then our minds will be set on the desires of the Spirit. A spiritual mind will cause us to become slaves to G-dly desires. But if we do not want to be rescued from our tragedy, if we prefer the sinful nature and walk in it, then we will be slaves of the sinful nature’s desire. A spiritual mind will lift us up out of the quagmire of sin bondage, while a carnal mind will keep us down wallowing with the hogs. We do not have to continue in the sinful nature as slaves to the law of sin. Listen to what Paul says as he continues writing in Romans 8…

Ro 8:5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

So we see, that one of the keys to receiving the change that we so desperately need as Christ followers is having a spiritual mind, or, possessing the mind of Christ. “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” Now I am sure that most of us will deny that our minds are sinful, that is a point that you and the L-rd will have to come to terms with. Instead of contending on that point, let’s turn our attention to the other phrase Paul used, that I think most of us would be willing to admit we struggle with; is your mind “controlled by the Spirit”? Paul said there was an avenue, and that if we would pursue it, we would find ourselves walking further and further away from a life of constant failure and never ending struggle and as we continue in that direction of training our minds to think spiritually, one day we would find ourselves awakening to the realization that our lives have become real life; life more abundantly, and that the peace of G-d has so filled our hearts it has left no room for doubt, discouragement, or distraction. But Paul said that this is not something we are just going to stumble upon one day by accident; it will only happen as we learn to yield and surrender our minds, our thoughts, and the meditations of our heart to the Spirit of G-d, so that we come to a place in our spiritual journey where the Spirit of G-d actually controls our minds.

Unless You Change

2009-03-02T06:43:00.001-08:00

1Pe 2:1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The “therefore” at the beginning of verse one is a grammatical indicator that points backwards to the previous statement. There is a reason to rid our lives of that which pertains to our carnal nature.

1Pe 1:24 For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.

We are like grass that springs up in the morning but then withers in the heat of the day; our lives are a vapor – one minute we are here and the next minute we are gone, “therefore”, the word of G-d is to be given the utmost consideration as it relates to every avenue of our lives. If the Holy Spirit has convicted you concerning unforgiveness, greed, lust, etc., today is the day of salvation – don’t put it off until tomorrow – tomorrow may never come. When we are born again, we have the opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to recreate our lives in the image of our L-rd. We can get rid of those parts of our lives which are not pleasing to G-d and are not particularly pleasing to us or our neighbor. To do that, we must be willing to become like little children – like new born babies, crave pure spiritual milk…

“He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” – Mat 18:2

First I want to highlight three words in that passage. Jesus said, “Unless you change…” Being a Christ-follower is about being changed! Jesus said, “If you do not change, you will not go to heaven.” That is a pretty radical statement. The question we all need to ask ourselves is, “How have I changed since I gave my heart to the L-rd? If we find that question difficult to answer, than we have to ask ourselves a harder question, “Have I changed since I gave my heart to the

L-rd?” With our eternal destiny weighing in the balance, I think it is a question we should take very seriously. What I fear is that people pray a prayer at the end of a service and start going to church, but they never allow the grace of G-d to effect an inner change and transformation on their spiritual man. “Unless you change, you will never enter heaven.” We are to “become like children”, “craving pure spiritual milk”, Peter says, so that we can, “grow up in our salvation.”

What will help us to experience this spiritual growth that is so vital to our walk with G-d?

“Taste and see that the L-rd is good!”

Why do we lack spiritual growth in the American church? We lack spiritual growth because we lack spiritual experience. Peter said that through this pure spiritual milk, “we may grow up in our salvation, 3 now that we have tasted that the Lord is good.” When Paul wrote to Timothy, listen to what he said…

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” – 2Ti 3:1

Paul said in the last days there would be people who lived like this; they would have a form of godliness, but they would deny its power! You know what the best part of having a Costco card is, when you go to Costco, at the end of every other isle there is a person there with some sort of hot plate and a pile of toothpicks and they are handing out free samples. They know that if you taste how good a product is, that you are more likely to leave their store having purchased the product. It is a simple technique that works and you think the church would catch on. But instead we have done the opposite. We have quenched the fire of the Spirit from manifesting on our meetings out of fear that someone may not come back next week. So people that come in spiritually starving, instead of getting a sample of how good it is to know the L-rd, they get three songs and a pep-talk and leave the building as hungry when they got here. If we want the church to go forward, then we have got to give people a reason to make an investment. We can be a dead church that is able to keep other dead people who don’t want change, or, we can be a living church that is able to keep dead people that want to live again. But if our hope is for people to grow in their salvation, then we must foster an atmosphere where the presence of G-d is welcome, and where people can taste His goodness.