Just a quick note here: reading the bible everyday has been pretty amazing, huh? If you’ve dropped off, don’t worry but pick it back up!! God will speak through His Word! Keep going.
Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Last Evening Of Our 21-Day Fast
2012 -
01.29
It’s a little before 10pm. Today was just juice and water again; no vegetables or solid anything. I wanted to go stringent again here at the last because this is not just about food! I want to discipline my body to remember that I’m in charge of it, not the other way around. I want to hear from the Lord and not just have one more fast under my belt. I want more than anything to have a surety of my connection with Jesus being stronger than ever. I want to hear from God.
I read that when a rescue boat goes out to pick up survivors of shipwrecks, the most dangerous time is the period between when the victim sees the rescuers, and when the rescuers actually can pick them up. The victims tend to relax and stop trying so hard, relieved that somebody else is going to rescue them. Can you imagine giving up right before the rescue?
I’ve also seen an Olympic swimmer who was ahead of the competition for an easy win swing his arms for one last stroke and glide to the finishing touch at the end of the pool, only to look up and see that somebody else was hungrier for the win, and stole that gold medal right from him because that other person swam with all his might ALL the way to the finish. No gliding. Can you imagine? Silver medal because he coasted in the end.
I am going to finish this fast well. I’m going to eat tomorrow night with thanksgiving, but until then, I’m still going to fast well. I’m going to pray like God is going to answer, because He does. I’m going to pray like it’s up to me to pray, because it is. I’m going to believe like it will make all the difference, because it does.
And that is why we are going further and farther than we’ve ever gone before. The person I used to be was not willing or even able to go the distances I can go today. That’s one reason I didn’t receive the blessings back then that God gives me today.
Take inventory of yourself, and keep swimming! Don’t give up! God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him! Be diligent and He will reward!!
What Have You Been Reading?
2012 -
01.28
Karen and I have been in church all our lives. On the surface that sounds like a blessing, and it is a great blessing! But it’s come with a cost. We’ve heard soooo many different opinions placed forward as if they were the Word from on high! We’ve seen soooo many things in the church that it could cause us to make some decisions that would have kept us from filling our role in history.
I heard a minister on TV crying to the camera, “I’m the only one bringing the true Gospel through the airwaves, and if I don’t have your support…” You know the drill. Then I tune in a couple hours later and there’s a minister preaching the very pure truth of the Gospel, and not crying about needing more funds.
So which one would you listen to? Truth is: they’re both men, and they’re fallible.
Then hear a minister who says, “We have a bunch of books in our church bookstore, and I don’t want anybody just running down to the local Bible book store to buy things willy-nilly. Don’t buy things there because we haven’t screened them. You just buy the things we’ve approved.”
And then I heard a minister trying his best to say that the things God tells him are as inspired and infallible as the words the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible writers to record, and that they’re just as legitimate for edification, correction, and instruction.
Ummm…wait just a minute!
There really is one Bible. The 66 books in what we call The Holy Bible are the Word of God. Apologetics is an entire study on how and why the books we have in the Bible are really the Word, and that study is a whole library by itself! But when somebody, anybody promotes his own words to the level of God’s word, that’s the same spirit that got Lucifer kicked out of heaven. And although I like the idea of a minister reading and previewing healthy materials and offering the to the congregation, I am a little skittish about telling people, “Only buy what I tell you.”
When I was teaching at the Bible school at Southhills, one day I brought out a genuine $2 bill and a high quality photo copy of one. (Relax, I destroyed the fake afterwards…I’m not a counterfeiter!) The whole exercise was to show that you can really tell a fake when you know the real thing very well.
I think that’s what I’m trying to say here. Get to know the real thing so well that anything that’s not, no matter how good it looks, can’t convince you it is the real thing. If you know what the real thing looks like and even feels like, you can spot a fake no matter how good it is.
Read the Bible. First, and most, read the Bible! When somebody prints a book about their life and what they’ve learned, you can tell if it lines up with what God says because you know what God says! For me, even when I haven’t had a black-and-white example in scripture, I can tell if something is of the same kind as scripture is. You know: it’s like I’ve said a ton of times. The Bible doesn’t say anything about bicycles or the Internet, but it says everything about the people using them.
Oh, and that minister who said his words are on par with James, Peter, and Paul? He’s still out there. Still stumping his wares. And you know what? He’s got a lot of fruit in his ministry that shows he is moving the cause of Christ forward. I’ll let God deal with him on His terms.
Meanwhile, you and I need to read the Word, get to know God’s voice, get more time spent with His Holy Spirit speaking into our spirit, and grow closer to God. That way He can whisper into our spiritual ear and tell us, “This is what I’m saying to you, and here’s how it applies to you, and here’s how I want you to tell it to others too.”
It’s Thursday
2012 -
01.27
Last night during Bible Study, we saw that the Apostle Paul teaches us this:
Use whatever reason you can find to send you to prayer!
Like that time I bought flowers for Karen because it was Wednesday. Or the time you called that friend because you saw a flock of seagulls and it reminded you of a concert where you saw somebody who reminded you of them. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, as long as you use it as a reason to go to God like it matters!
So….it’s Thursday. What are you going to do? I know what I’m doing.
Quoting a GREAT Comment!
2012 -
01.22
Hey! Did everybody see how Stacy ended her last post?
“I have made a conscious choice after today to no longer allow Flesh people to have a voice in my life. ”
That is the smartest thing anybody could say!!
None of us are alone. All of us need each other. See you in the morning for the Word and Worship!
Testing *OR* Proving
2012 -
01.17
In the Bible, the word ‘Test” and the word “Prove” are sometimes used interchangably, depending on the English translation you’re looking at.
We can look at a grammer school test that shows whether or not we’ve learned to talk right. I mean speak correctly. Or maybe in Junior High, (or what’s called Middle School nowadays,) the test may show whether we have improoved our speling. I mean that our spelling has improved. Or by the time we reached High School, we might have had a test that was called a Pre-test that showed us where we still needed to grow in order to actuallyu pass the test when it comes along.
Then we grow up and the real tests begin, huh?
We all really do have something to prove. The only way to show that it’s really provable is to test it. Now the purpose of the test isn’t to show our shortcoming. It’s not even to show whether or not we’ve learned a lesson. It’s to show we HAVE learned. Not whether or not. Just whether. Yes. Not Yes or No.
3 x 3 = 9
It always will. It always has. And when that equation is written on a page and it sits in front of me, it’s not to test whether or not I know it. Duh. I got that one. I can work that out. Even if the 9 isn’t filled in for me, I can finish that equation because it’s inside of me; it was taught to me and I’ve experienced in my own life that it is true, and nobody can talk me out of it. 3 x 3 = 9. Everytime.
To me, that’s not a test. It’s a proof. Semantics, I know, but go with me on this.
There are non-negotiables inside of me which have been taught to me – by one teacher or another – and that I’ve expereinced to be true, and they become part of my very soul. I know them and nobody can talk me out of them. I’m married to them and it’s ’til death do we part! Still, from time to time, circumstances set a page in front of me with a question on it that asks me to confirm, “Is this really true?”
When I got to college I had developed a system inside of myself for taking tests. I usually didn’t get an “A” on my first test of any class. In fact, most times I got a B- or a C+. Shock! Me! A smarty-pants genius, getting a C? Yeah. That first test was, in my young mind, a throw-away that would get dwarfed by my successive victories. What I did on that first test was get to know how my professor tested. I learned, “Oh! That is the type of thing he is looking for,” so when I studied for tests, I knew what types of things to emphasize. “A+” after that made several of them ask me what I changed to boost my grade. My answer was that I studied better, and that satisfied them. The whole truth was that I studied my prof, and knew what they’d be looking for.
Gladly, I didn’t have any professors who actually *wanted* to trip up students in the tests. They wanted to have the students Prove they’d grasped the materials. They wanted to confirm that we understood.
Ah! Now we’re looking at a difference. Subtle, and trust me: not consistent, but a difference.
I think, for me anyway, that Testing shows where I can go until I fail, and Proving shows that I can succeed.
Sometimes we equate Tested with Tempted, and maybe that’s a good evaluation, but only sometimes. A temptation that two people experience may be a temptation for one person to stumble, and a confirmation to another that it’s not that big of a deal. Demand a four-year old to work their multiplication table up through their 3′s, and you’ll get a crying child. You’ve tested them and found them lacking.
God loves you. And when you are Tested in the way I described above, by a loving Teacher, it’s not to show how bad you are or how much of a failure you are or how dumb you are. It’s to show you your limits right now and to be there to offer this: In your weakness, God’s strength is shown to be perfect and complete for you!
Here’s the important part! Whenever you reach a testing time, have you noticed that the Teacher is usually quiet? He’s already taught you some things, and during the test the teacher is typically quiet. And since our Teacher is the Lord, you can count on two things:
1. If this is a Test, it’s not just going to show where you come up short, but shows where He can step in and fill that gap.
2. If this is a Proving time, it’s not just going to show you how far you’ve come, but shows a new high-water mark in your life.
Welcome Testing, as embarrassing and humiliating and hard as it may be, because with the right attitude it can make us rely on God so much more. Welcome Proving, as hurtful and painful and frightening as it may be, because He has brought you so much further than you’ve ever been, and farther than you ever thought you’d be. Look at yourself! Do you realize what a successful testimony you already are?
We were lost! We were a big fat “F”! You may have been a good person, but just like a smart person who doesn’t know the materials, you couldn’t pass an examination.
I guess that’s what I’m saying here. It’s an examination. It gives a genuine analysis of where you really are right now. An honest assessment of your capability right now allows you to know the capacity of what you can do right now. Then you go back to class (Thank you God for the school of hard knocks,) and learn the material because you have another test coming. Or a proving time. It’s an exam.
Promise Church Fasting and Prayer Day 14
2012 -
01.14
If you don’t have a copy yet, print the Bible-reading plan we posted right here.
Today is Day 14 for the Promise Church Bible Reading plan on our corporate fast. Just yesterday morning Karen and I were talking with a long-time friend and the story of Joseph came into our conversation. Why? Because it’s fresh since we’re reading about his life’s story right now!
That’s a HUGE hint for all of us: read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will bring it back to your rememberance. But we have to put it in there to start with, huh?
So we’re talking with our friend, and I mentioned how God seems to very, very consistently move people into the *world* system for some kind of training, coupling it with the *God’s family* system training He has given them in order to complete their preperation process. Then, and only then it seems sometimes, are they ready for their Destiny to be fulfilled.
When I preach, I use my own life experiences as examples. Things like working the fast food restaurant when I was young, and the lessons I use today that I learned then. You know what I mean.
I don’t think it’s just that we should use all our experiences to help us today. I think the Bible shows us that God deliberately brings us through experiences that will enhance our ability and effectiveness. There’s no replacement for experience, right? That’s why I pay attention to other people’s experiences too. Sometimes I don’t have to go through things if I can learn from other’s lives.
So here in Chapters 41 and 42 of Genesis, Joseph is now brought UP. God’s miraculous empowering, (interpreting dreams,) coupled with God’s miraculous equipping, (Potipher’s house and the jail,) coupled together for the great promotion God had in mind all along.
We can’t look at the jail cell we might be in right now. We have to look at the Lord, and see where His eyes are looking. Why? Because He has a bigger idea in mind than anything we’ve considered so far.
And He knows how to use all that YUCK you’ve been through to make you the perfectly equipped person for the job!
The 2nd Adams Family
2011 -
09.18
Last Sunday at Promise we talked about the First Adam, and the Second Adam. Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the human race, placed as perfectly formed people in a perfect garden by a perfect Creator. Then comes that serpent and does a whopper of a job on messing things up! Do sin, and subsequently death, entered into the life of Mankind. Adam was the first Adam.
The Second Adam is Jesus. He is the only other man in history who didn’t have an earthly father, but was formed by the Creator inside Mary’s womb. And all you bible scholars who are mentally shouting, “What about Joshua? He was the son of Nun!” I get the joke, but Nun was his dad’s name, not None. Where was I?
Oh! Jesus is the Last Adam. Second Adam. Same thing! So Jesus enters the picture and fulfills the whole Law that was laid down on the First Adam’s lineage. What does that mean? PAID IN FULL my friends!! Paid in full! And then He set in motion a better covenant. His new covenant says a couple things:
1. You no longer have to pay the price for the curse of Man that was laid on mankind through the First Adam.
2. You still have all the rights and authority of Man that was laid on mankind in the first place!
3. Sin and Death entered into the life of Mankind through one man, Adam. So eternal life is now available through Jesus, the Second Adam.
I used the Addam’s Family as a general pattern. Talk about disfunctional! Reminds me of another family I know, but nevermind about that right now. 
The devil really did a number to convince a perfect family in a perfect place that there was an imperfection in their life. What a liar. What a pervert. What a snake.
He still says the same things he always said. He’s got a whole new generation who will listen to his lying tongue if we don’t tell them the truth.
Jesus is the 2nd Adam. He is now the One we connect with in a familial sense. I’ll always be a Son of Adam, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities thereof, but now I’m a son of God, a joint heir with Jesus, and yes — I have all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities attached thereto too.
I pressed POST, and then thought of something I wanted to append here. Being in the Family of God doesn’t exclude me from experiencing all the things life throws in my way. It doesn’t make me suddenly immune to the events that can hit us. What it does is this: it gives me the authority to claim my Family Name when those things come my way. I can stand in front of them and say, “My heavenly Father bankrupted heaven to send His Son to pay for all and all. How dare you come and try to collect on a bill that’s been paid in full! Now Get Off My Property!!”
Hope that helps.