Are You Listening?

~ Psalm 81:8 “Hear, O my people, and I will warn you— if you would but listen to me.”

 After thousands of years this plea from God still rings true. God is wanting to warn us, helping us as we go through life. He is speaking to us every day. The problem is that we are not listening. Whatever reason we give; to many other distractions, we’ve never done it this way before, to busy, we’re smart enough to figure this out, etc. … the reality is that we just don’t want to listen. My challenge this Christmas season is to do something very simple, slow down long enough every day to listen to what God is saying. It may surprise you how much it will help.

Dad…I See God!

The other night on the way home from town, my young son bursts out, “Dad, I see God!” This caught my attention so slowing the van down I asked him, “Where do you see God?” Pressing his little nose to the window he told me that God was outside in the sky. He then, in a very matter of fact tone of voice said, “God is the brightest star, shinning brighter than everything.”

It always warms my heart when God uses kids to reinforce a truth about Himself. If only more people would understand that God wants and should be the brightest thing in our lives. Does He outshine everything else or is He lost in the confusion of a multitude of priorities just trying to be noticed by us, let alone anyone one else examining out lives?

Letting God outshine everything is a constant challenge in our daily lives. So how do we make sure God out shines everything in our lives so that it is not only obvious to us but also to anyone who looks at our lives? This means that God needs to be so important that no one and nothing else even comes close. For this to happen we need to do two things:

·        1^st, we must work hard. The Scripture says that our spiritual lives should be like those of an athlete who is training to win a completion. Such an athlete literally makes their training their life, everything they do is focused on training. Can we as follower of Jesus say that our days and lives are all about God, that He is the focus or motive behind why we do what we do?

·        2^nd, we must guard or protect our relationship with God. When people have something of great value they to go extreme measures to protect that item. The greater the value the greater the efforts to protect it. Can we say this about God in our lives? So often we take following God so casually that literally anything will distract us from guarding our time with Him. A phone call or text, something on TV, a book, a situation at work, our health, etc.. We could list just about anything that comes to mind. Usually that is exactly the problem, anything that come to mind distracts us from showing how much we value God. To guard against this takes effort, discipline, and commitment. However, the sacrifice of living like this is nothing compared to the prize of we win of “seeing God in our lives and having other see God shining brightly in our lives.”

God Wants You to Pray Bold Prayers

Psalm 67:1-2 “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us—  so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”

How bold are you in your prayer life? I believe that God wants us to stop holding back and wants us to start praying bold prayers for our own lives. Prayers that will shake the up the way we live changing it forever and turning our world upside-down.

Many time we are willing to pray bold prayer for others because they don’t seem selfish to us, yet we hesitate to pray anything close this when it come to those things that impact our own life.

Why this hesitation? I believe that it is connected with motive. When we pray regarding things that impact us our focus us usually inward focused, what will be best our own comfort or desires. But if we just follow what this passage it shows why we should not only pray like this but to do so on a regular and consistent basis. Bold prayers for God’s goodness and blessings in our lives should be prayed so that the character of God may be seen clearly in every aspect of our daily lives. The world desperately needs to know God, His ways and His salvation, yet for most this will never happen unless they see is clearly through our lives. We truly are the only Bible they will ever read.

So pray boldly that God will bless you, being gracious to you, while His presence in your life is obvious and undeniable as the noon-day sun. So that the world will know how real God is.

Obeying or Performing ... How do you relate to God

I thought that the following was very though provoking on helping us understand the difference between performing in live compared to living a life of obedience. What do you think? How is God asking you to adjust your life?

Obedience is seeking God with your whole heart. Performance is having a quiet time because you’ll feel guilty if you don’t.

Obedience is finding ways to let the Word of God dwell in you richly. Performance is quickly scanning a passage so you can check it off your Bible reading plan.

Obedience is inviting guests to your home for dinner. Performance is feeling anxiety about whether every detail of the meal will be perfect.

Obedience is following God’s prompting to start a small group. Performance is reluctance to let anyone else lead the group because they might not do it as well as you would.

Obedience is saying yes to whatever God asks of you. Performance is saying yes to whatever people ask of you.

Obedience is following the promptings of God’s Spirit. Performance is following a list of man-made requirements.

Obedience springs from fear of God. Performance springs from fear of failure.

My prayer is that we all learn to obey God more.

A Faith Filled Journey

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. ---


What a verse for today. Are we living worthy of the calling and title of “Children of God”? Or are we labeling ourselves that while living like orphans? Accepting God’s love and lordship, by its very nature, should radically change every aspect of our lives.


So how should this change be noticed? The rest of the verse tells us. First, the good purpose which we were created for will be accomplished. Is God accomplishing things in your life that go far beyond your dreams and that will impact eternity? Then this is happening. Now a way to know that this is happening is that more and more of our actions will be done because of our faith. To understand this we must remember what faith is…it is the knowledge that God will do what we can’t. In others words, we are prayerfully acting with the full knowledge that if God isn’t involved in what we are doing, that it is doomed to failure. You see if we can accomplish this in our own strength and wisdom then what do we need God for? Faith is trusting God for what we cannot do and living based on the fact that He will do it.


Are our lives filled with such acts or have we slipped into the mundane rut of living where God will have to “force” miracles into our lives to show us what faith can do? I don’t know about you but I want every moment of every day to be fill with act prompted by faith. I can’t even imagine how wonderful, exciting and fulfilling life will be. Join me on this faith filled journey!

Giving Glory to God

As people who have put their faith in God and have decided to follow Him, one or our tasks is to glorify Him. Remember what the Scripture says in Psalm 34:1-3 “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.” So what does this mean for us? How do we glorify the Lord on a daily basis?


Most people glorify God on a weekly basis when they go to church but before we can learn to glorify God daily we need to understand what it mean to do this. It means: to give praise to God, or to make clear the character of God by praising, admiring, and giving honor to…resulting in God receiving more attention than normal. So how do we do this on a regular or daily basis?


This must be an intentional or planned activity. And being an activity it takes planning and effort. If we hope it will happen spontaneously then we will be frustrated and disappointed. Planning in advance how we will glorify God in various situations will allow us to act without being caught off-guard. Determining that now will ensure that God does indeed get that glory.

So does God get the glory in our homes, at work, while we drive, in times of sorrow and frustration, and when we are excited and joyful? Determine now to give glory to God, all the time, regardless of what is happening. Come let us glorify the Lord together.

A God Sandwich Every Day Makes Life OK!

Consider what God says in Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”

Even though this is just a short verse it gives us insight on how to make the most of each and every day. Everyone is looking for encouragement and the strength to face the situations of life and get through the day. So when we are given the way why don’t we do it? Well, in this world of “hurry up and go faster” the idea of waiting for anything seems foreign. Yet if we want to experience God’s encouragement and strength for each day we must learn to take time to wait for God.

Consider when we are encouraged to wait for God. This verse starts and ends with waiting on God, and I believe that this would be a great pattern for us to begin and end each day with God. It would be a pattern that makes our days go better and our nights more peaceful and restful. Starting our day with God is always a great practice. It gives us a fresh perspective to start the day. It gives us the strength we will need to deal with the expected and the peace required to adjust to the unexpected. It also shows God what we want our day to be directed by Him.

Even though many Christians don’t think of this, ending the day with God is equally important. It gives us a chance to refocus, unwind and commit the events of the day back into God’s care. It allows us to set the burdens of life that we have picked up during the day into our Lord and Savior’s care. Doing this will give us what God promised, “Peace that passes all understanding.”

Imagine the difference this will make as everything we do will be surrounded by or sandwiched in God.

Only Settle for the Best

Have you ever wanted the best of something, not wanting to settle for what is OK or good? Well God does as well. He wants what is best for us and He tells us in Philippians 1:9-11how we can achieve it and what it will result in, in our lives.  And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
 
First, how do get what is best: well it all starts with prayer. We must be asking for the best from God for our lives and we must be willing to let go of everything else. The willingness to let go is tied directly to what we love. The things we love the most we will not want to let go of and we need to determine that we will only love the correct or godly things. Once we have set our hearts on what to love we must not be satisfied with the how of our love. You see, we can all learn to love better or more completely. Every time, we make the decision to love it is based on partial knowledge at best. Often, when we learn more, our love diminishes. Yet here we are challenged to allow our love to grow in knowledge. So the more we learn the more we love. The more we actually love, the better we should learn how to love. That is letting our love abound in knowledge and depth of insight. This is what will lead to what is best for us.
 
Moving toward and achieving what is best will also produce results in our lives. The first result is, we will become pure and blameless. How? Well if we are loving with the growing love of God it will change our thoughts, words and actions resulting in our becoming pure and blameless. We will also notice other things being produced in our lives, the side effects of living in right standing with God. The list of what these are can be quite long but let me mention just one. Peace! When we are in right standing with God there is a peace that guards and guides our hearts and actions. This is the peace of knowing that we are living and loving like God wants us to and it is one of the first fruits to develop in a our lives. Are we living in that peace today? If not we may need to work on achieving what is best…experiencing and passing on the love of God.

Becoming God's Confidant

Have you ever wished that people would open their heart and confide in you? When this happens we feel appreciated, trusted and that we have worth. Now imagine that the one who is confiding to you is important and powerful, how much more would we feel valued? Scripture tell us in Psalm 25:14 that God, the creator of all, wants to and promises to confide in us.

That’s right; God wants to confide in you and me. He wants us to know the details and depths of His promises or covenant with us. Imagine, God wants to teach us the immensity and details of His promises to mankind. This is more than just knowing what the promises are, but includes understanding them intimately and in a life altering way. God wants us to know that these promises are based on His Word to each of us. It was a legally binding promise that can only be broken by God. He will never break it so we can have eternal confidence in it. What we must do is believe and take God at His word, accepting what He has promises.

Now you may be thinking that there has to be a catch and you would be kind of right. You see it’s not so much a catch but a condition to having God confide in us. We must first live a life of ‘fearing’ the Lord. This is a continual growth process and the more we learn to fear God the more He will confide in us. So, what does it mean to ‘fear the Lord?’ This concept is referred to more than 280 times throughout Scripture so understanding it is important to our Christian life. The ‘fear’ being talked about is not to be afraid of the wrath or judgment of God. Fearing diving punishment. The ‘fear’ we should have is that of disappointing God. Much like a small child wants to do their very best to hear their dad say how proud they are. We should be living in such a way that we are worried if God will be disappointed in us and this should motivate us to always do better. When we live like this, God will want to share His plans with us so that we can live according to His expectations. What an awesome opportunity we all have to become God’s confidants as we learn to fear our loving heavenly Father.