The Lord is With You

Sometimes God asks us to do something or go conquer something that seems much larger than our capabilities.  Listen to what the angel of The Lord said to Gideon.  "The angel,of The Lord appeared to him & said, "Mighty hero, The Lord,is with you!" Now probably most of us don't see ourselves that way but God does.  And it's not on our strength & ability that we are mighty warriors but because God is with us.  Don't go against difficulty in your life on your own strength.  God promises to he with us & nothing can stand against us when God goes with us.  He will help us do things that we could not do & He will deliver us from things that come against us, & He will bring down the mountains that stand in our way.  I think that fear & in effectiveness come about because we as Gideon look at our own abilities & see how weak we are.  It's time to start looking at Gods abilities & see what He can do through us.  If we do that, all of a sudden fear disappears & great things are accomplished.

Strength In Numbers

The verse for today comes from my wife & from personal experience over the last few weeks.  It's from Matt. 18:19 "I also tell you this: if two of you agree on earth concerning anything you ask, My Father in heaven will do it for you. " My wife suggested to some of us that we do a "prayer walk" weekly around different places which a friend & I just got done doing for the first time.  It was an awesome experience & I'm excited to see what God is going to do with it.  There was two of us which means God was there with us because the next verse says He is there with us when two or three are gathered together.  When God is involved there is great power.  Also over the last few weeks it has been amazing to me how many people have told me that they are praying for me.  I can never express the gratitude & humility I feel over that.  I want you to know as I go for surgery, I will be thinking of all of you praying, the angels in the room, & Gods healing power flowing through me. I really believe that a lot of things would change if we would start praying & agreeing together & declaring Gods word.  So today I want to encourage you that if you think "all" you are able to do is pray, find someone to agree with you, pray in the power of Jesus name, & watch with expectancy how God works in the situation.  Never underestimate the power of prayer & especially when there's more than one praying for God to move in a situation or on someone's behalf.  From one who is on the receiving end of the power of those prayers, thank you & keep it up, Gods working!

Lighten your load

1 Peter 5:7 says "Give all your worries & cares to God, for He cares about you."  It's important to know that God cares for you.  The world & Satan will tell you that He doesn't but we can't even begin to understand the depth of His love for us.  Once we know He cares for us , we can take all of our cares & worries & leave them there.  One of my favorite books is Pilgrims Progress.  It talks about a man named Pilgrim who carries his burdens around in a backpack.  All it succeeds in doing is weighing Him down & holding him back.  As Gods children, He invites us to lighten our load & leave(that's the key word) our worries with Him.  Too often we sit them down temporarily only to pick them back up again.  That defeats the purpose.  He wants us to trust Him enough to allow Him to take care of our worries.  He's going to do a better job than we will anyway.  I know for me, I spend to much time trying to solve my worries when if I would leave them with Him I could spend more time doing the real work He has for me to do.  Fear & worry come from Satan.  Courage & hope come from God.  So let worry & fear go & enjoy the lighter load.

Let Me Help

Today it seems like there are so many ideas on how to make people's lives better.  Commercials are constantly offering suggestions. Weight loss, new medications, new inventions, all promise to be the key to improving our lives. Self help books & seminars abound.  If we could just create more jobs, improve the economy, start this new program, or get this political party in charge, everything would be better. Here's a verse from Gods word that gave me a thought.  It's Matt. 25:40,"And the King will say,'I tell you the truth, when you did it to the least of these my brothers & sisters, you were doing it to me!'  What if instead of trying to always get ahead, we looked for someone we could help? What if instead of thinking of ourselves first, we put others first?  What if instead of being served, we looked to serve others? Would Jesus say today that we had helped Him by helping "one of the least of these"? Maybe this is the key to making a difference.  The other things might all be good but from the look of things I don't think they're the key.  I know maybe you think this is a nice fairy tale dream,but it could never happen today.  My question to that is, is there anything too hard for God?  After all, this is the example Christ gave anyway. And the next question is are you willing to step out & say "Let me help"?  I promise the blessing will be greater than the cost.

What if that happened today

Lets go back in time a little ways.  Lets go back to around the time when Jesus started His ministry.  Christianity hadn't started, nobody really knew who Christ was, & Christ was looking for workers to spread His word.  That got me thinking that those conditions were not really all that different from today.  So that got me to thinking what if that happened today.  Christ had just got done preaching & was walking along the seashore when He came upon a boat of fishermen.  That's right fishermen, not a church full of preachers, not a seminary of pastoral hopefuls, but fishermen.  That was who Christ chose to spread His word & change the world.  So what if He was walking by & come upon us at our job & asked us to fishers of men, to spread His message & change the world.  Would we be too busy, not unqualified, or would we do as the first disciples did & follow Him. Because they did follow Him  he gave them the words & power they needed to do His work.  Could a group of 12 today with Christ working through them, change the world.  Why not?  Could you be one of the 12 He would ask to do such a thing?  Could you be one of the disciples He could use today?  Thre is a great work to do & there is a need for workers devoted to Christ, who believe in His power, to get out & be willing to be one of those disciples.  Why not you?

It's been a while

Hey, welcome back!  I've been working a lot & I've had a really hard time posting the last couple of weeks but its great to get back.  Despite the crazy hours lately, I really feel like God has been working on me a lot lately.  I have also decided that that's good because I probably need a lot of work done.  One thing He has been working on me with is what Christ talks about in Matt. 28:19.  "Therefore, go & make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, & the Son, & the Holy Spirit".  I've not really been a think inside the box type person & I think that it might be time to get out of the box or comfort zone in order to follow Christs command.  We can't just keep waiting on people to come to church to learn about Christ.  For whatever reason, there are a lot of people who just don't see the need to be in Church.  We are going to have to be about reaching people outside the walls of the church in order to bring them to a relationship with Christ.  We do this by our actions daily, by showing Christs love to them daily, basically by walking the walk.  We do this by asking God to move through us to reach others & by praying for opportunities to share Him with others.  The world is hungry for what Christ has to offer but if we don't show it to them, they will have no idea that they need Him.  I really feel like God is preparing me to go out & make disciples of Him & for me to share Him with others.  I also believe that we all need to be out doing that daily.  It's time.  So please pray for me as I seek what it is God has for me to do & I will pray for you that He shows you as well.

Almost there

Sometimes you feel tired, strength is running low & your out of ideas & Christ says one more time. You might not really see the point because you've been trying & it hasn't worked so far. Do you give up or do you do it one more time. In Luke 5:5, the disciples gave their response to Christs instruction,"Master, Simon replied, we worked hard all last night & didn't catch a thing.  But if you say so, I'll let the nets down again." We might not understand but that's when we have to just place our trust in God & know that He's going to work it out.  The disciples did & their nets were overflowing.  Satan wants to discourage us & get us to give up before we do it one more time & receive the victory that God has for us.  If we don't follow Christs instruction & share Christ with that person one more time, what might be the consequence?  What if we give up on the promise Christ has placed in us one time too soon?  What will we fail to accomplish, who will we fail to reach, what sickness will we fail to overcome, what ministry will we fail to do, all if we don't try one more time?  Are we going to let Satan stop us & discourage us when we're only one more try away?  Today I'm encouraging you to try one more time!  Don't give up!  Don't quit too soon!  God has victory in your future!