Getting focused

Sometimes I take on too much.  Maybe I get excited about what I am doing.  Maybe I get worried that I am working on the wrong thing so I get working on many things.  Maybe I am trying to prove that I can do something.  I don't know.

But I do know this... that too often the distractions I create or rather the distractions I choose, even if they are good things to do... even if they are God things... cost me more than I care to admit.

Why?  Because for me it demonstrates a lack of trust (moving forward with confidence and security in the ability of...) in the Lord.  It moves the glory of the Lord and on to me.  It moves it off the One who can do all things  to the one who is trying to do something. 

And so what is the antedote for this particular dose of pride...

Are you in your dress blues

Pull on the whole armor of God. So that you will be able to stand.

We want so much to live in the victory that is ours on Christ that we too often forget that we are still in a battle.

The armor of God was never meant to be worn as dress blues. 

"Dress blues" is the name given to a soldier's uniform that is to be worn in a formal situation... not in battle.  In battle... they wear what is necessary to survive... to fight.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood... but we DO wrestle.

Brothers... we need to fight.

We have be fitted with ARMOR!!!

And just as s soldier... when not in battle...
We need to be in TRAINING!!!

And that training is... being in the Word of God... which is our sword.

Learn to handle your blade.

SDG

Does the Bible teach the doctrine of the Trinity?

Why yes… it does. 

If anyone tries to tell you it doesn’t you can speak the words of Christ to them and say, “You do greatly err for you know not the scriptures or the power of God.”

And then, just point them to 1 John 5:7 where it reads:

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

We may not fully understand it, but we can deny that the word teaches it. 

I like to use the metaphor of a language.

Get a security blanket

I remember this blanket that my grandmother made for me.  It was blue and white.  I kept it on my bed even in to my teenage years.  It was special because she made it. 

My daughter had a pink blanket that she loved.  My grandson had one with Dalmatians on it.

They carried them everywhere.  They need them to know they were safe.  And then, because the world said that had to… they “outgrew” them.

Isn’t it a shame that the world does the same thing to us about God?  When we are younger, innocent, full of absolute faith in God… people let us believe.  They do it in an almost patronizing way… but they do it.

A frozen steak doesn't cook all the way through.

We bought these great steaks.  We had to freeze them for a couple of days.  When it came time to make the meal I goofed and didn’t take them out of the freezer in time.  But we had already promised steak for dinner so we had to hope for the best.

Funny thing is… a frozen steak doesn’t cook all the way through.

The outside gets burnt… which leaves it un-edible, and the inside stays raw… which leaves it un-edible.

The whole steak is useless because too much heat was applied too soon.

Kind of like the heart of a man.

The purpose of prophesy

Prophesy is speaking on behalf of God.  We talked about the three levels of prophesy in a past post so we won’t get deep into it here.

However, it is so important to understand the purpose… or purposes of prophesy to the body…

The key to answered prayer

One of the hardest things that Christians face is seemingly unanswered prayer.  They wonder… I wonder… why some prayers are long in coming (if ever it may seem) when prayer is poured out earnestly and fervently.

As hard as it might seem… the scripture is not silent on this.  Does it have to do with faith?  Yes… but not as it has been shared so often.  I think it is something more specific.  I think it is the first half of faith that needs to be enacted.

Took Him for a prophet

Before Jesus died on the cross… before He conquered the grave… before He rose… and then ascended…

“People” had a general consensus of who they thought Him to be.

“…the multitude, …  took him for a prophet.” Matt 21:46

“And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” Matt 21:11

When Jesus asked “whom do they say that I the Son of Man am?” (Matt 16:13)  The answer…

Getting past the bait… right to the hook.

Have you ever been in a situation when someone asks you a question that you know is mean to bait you?  You know the ones I am talking about… they try to lead you and then snare you.

Jesus faced that all the time.  We know of the classic “render to Caesar” coin catch.  But I would like to look at another instance.  One where Jesus not only destroyed the bait… but went further and bent the hook.

The story plays out in Matthew 22: 23-33.  It starts like this…

Can I get a word in?

This is what the Lord asks to me quite often.  When I am talking… even when I am talking about Him… He will often impress upon me that He would like to join the conversation.

Sometimes I hear Him… others I don’t… but when He wants to…

Resistance training

I remember the first time I saw a guy running with a parachute attached to his back. It was a small chute that hooked up to a belt that was around his waist. He was running wind sprints on the football field.

Like weight lifting… running against resistance pushes your limits… which builds strength and stamina and speed.  So that when you have to run without the chute… you can go faster… and longer.

It is no different in the race we run.

The sorrow of loss.

“Jesus wept.” John 11:35

Possibly… if not certainly… the shortest verse in the Bible.  Two words.  Two powerful words.  Two words that showed compassion… that showed sorrow… that showed love.

Two words that give us permission to grieve… two words that showed that the Lord Jesus was truly Man.  Two words that preceded a demonstration of His power showing He was truly God.

But there is something amazing about this.  Something that I hadn’t caught before that really shows how much Jesus loves each of us.

Doing some soul searching?

Someone said this to me today… “I’ve been doing some soul search myself lately.”  It is a phrase we hear often.  It is often something we will do ourselves.

But there is a real secret to soul searching.   Actually there are two things that we need to understand before we can find what we are looking for… two critical questions…

God at bat…

Bottom of the ninth… scored tied… based loaded… two outs… full count…

That is about how it seems to always work out.  At the last possible second… when we have nowhere else to turn… when all of our options have been exhausted.

He steps up and hits one out of the park.

Which is great… but can be stressful.  It makes you wonder…

The power of Radio…

Did you know that the Bible calls the devil the “prince of the power of the air?”  Let’s take a look at what the Word of God has to say about that…

“Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” Ephesians 2:2

I want to stress something here.   In Christ, we need to claim the air.  We need to cast down the prince of the power of the air.  We need to lift our voices and lift a joyful noise.  We need to disrupt the airwaves…  to make our own waves!

Conversations with the opposition.

The enemy can still get my ear.  I have found this to be true in my life.  I don’t like to admit it, but I have to be honest with myself.

When I am tired, frustrated, feeling sorry for myself…

When I spend too much time disconnected from the world around me…

When I have experienced victory through Christ… (yes… then too)

That is when the adversary comes with his smooth talk… trying to tell me what I want to hear, rather than what I need to hear.

Do you ever experience that?

To whom shall we go?

In this world, where everything comes at us so fast; where we are fed line after line and lie after lie; where everyone is trying to get something from us…

Who can we go to for truth, for comfort?  Who can we go to knowing that they are looking out for us and not themselves?

We aren’t the first ones to ask this question…

Discernment…

How do you know when it is God that is speaking to you? What is discernment?  And can we call exercise it?

For me the answer is clear.

We are commanded to discern… therefore we can all discern. 

Before you say that discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit… and that not every gift is given to all people (which, by the way I disagree with… but we’ll save that for another day) I am not talking about discerning of spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10) but the discernment  discussed in Timothy.

Are you diabolical?

When we hear about a diabolical plan we often associate it with a villain or the “bad guy.”  We know that a plan of this nature is typical not for good.

But many more of us would have to admit that we were all too often diabolical.

The word from which we get diabolical is the Greek word diabolos.

Wait a minute… I know this word… I have seen it somewhere before.

Oh… that’s right.  Jesus used it:

He is your Savior… but do you serve Him as Lord?

Jesus is referred to as “Lord Jesus” approximately 180 times in the New Testament.

As Savior… 11 times.

Yet many seem so ready to claim Him as their Savior… to redeem them from their sins… to give them new life… but then to dismiss Him as Lord.

But it is the very truth that He is Savior which should drive in us the very desire to serve Him as Lord.

The word for Lord that is used in the New Testament… the word that is used to describe Jesus as Lord is kyrios…

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

What was the last thing your wife did to hurt you?  If you knew the answer without even thinking… you may be keeping a record of wrongs… and therefore not loving her.

It is almost impossible to do.  We always seem to remember things that hurt us.  Even if we don’t want to.  But is remembering and “keeping a record” the same thing?

I don’t think they are exactly the same.

Do you still serve a Saul?

When Israel begged God for a king He – in His patience – gave them Saul.  Literally head and shoulders above the others he seemed the right choice.  His initial response was a good one when Samuel told Him that the Lord had chosen him.

“And Saul answered and said, [Am] not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me?” 1 Samuel 9:21

Sounds like a humble guy right?  Not only does God honor him but God even gave him people to follow him…

God meets us on the side of the road.

Sunday at church our pastor went off on one of his usual tangents.  The congregation finds it amusing.  He admits it and gets back to the point.

But I wonder… does he go off on a tangent… or does the Spirit lead him there?

When a brother wrongs you

I had been wronged by a brother in Christ.  He had broken his word.  It hurt.  But he was a brother in Christ.  So what was I supposed to do?

Had I been the one who wronged him the scripture is clear… I would need to go to him.  So I guess he was supposed to come to me.

But how do you get that to happen?  I needed help.  So I went to the Lord.

High grass

If you have ever watched any of those nature shows you know that the predators always can be found lurking in the high grass.  It conceals them.  It gives them cover.  It gives them a chance to get closer than they would otherwise, and it gives them a chance to stalk their prey.

Farmers and ranchers in places where lions are abundant will often cut down the high grass that surrounds their fields or ranches.  They will clear it out so that the area is safer.  It doesn’t completely prevent the lions from coming, but it will make it harder for them to get closer, or to come without being spotted.

So let me ask you…

It’s getting cold

We might still have some time before we have to turn on the heat or light up the fire place, but winter will come.  It always does.

Some winters are harder than others… some more mild… but no matter what the temperature does one thing is for sure…

The nights are longer.  And nights are dark.   Maybe that is why Paul wrote to Tim…

A spirit of accusation

There is a coin that is called “accusation.”  One side is fact, the other fiction.  One side leads to repentance, the other to revenge.  One saves, the other slanders.

To understand how an “accusation” can be neutral and to see the difference between both sides of the coin we need only look to its use in scripture.

I was peeling an orange…

It was a thin skinned orange, but the skin was tough, so it was hard to peel it in one swoop.  I started thinking about a cooking show I saw once where they were trying to get a certain look to the orange so they cut it into a square to get the peel off.

I thought, “What a waste of a good orange.” 

But it dawned on me today.  It wasn’t a waste…

What did they know they refused to believe?

OK… let’s set the scene.  Jesus is preaching.  The “chief priests and the elders” confront Him and ask, “By what authority do you do these things?”  Now I say “confront” but I truly believe that there were some who really wanted to know.  There were undoubtedly some among who longed for God.  Perhaps they were among the first to here Peter’s Pentecost sermon and believe.

But back to the original discussion... Jesus answers them and says He answer if they will.  Then he asks,“The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?”

Their response…

The ass and the colt

Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem in what is called “the Triumphant Entry.”  It is the famous scene where He comes riding in on a donkey and people are crying “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed [is] he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” Matt 21:9

And Jesus says to His disciples, “… Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose [them], and bring [them] unto me.” Matt 21:2

Why and ass and a colt? And what were they saying?