I’m Back – I think . . .

Have you ever had one of Monday’s where it just seemed that none of your thoughts would connect into any thing that made sense? That is exactly where I am this morning. I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to the blogging world. Work has been crazy and I have not had a spare minute that I could focus on this. I really hate it when I don’t get to post over a length of time. I feel like I am letting myself down as well as those who may take the time to read this blog.

Let me take a minute and tell you where I am in my walk with Christ and where I want to go with posts this week. I have been convicted about my own discipleship ever since our trip to Idaho. Everything they do at Real Life Ministries is about intentional discipleship. While I was there I realized that as much as I enjoy disciplining others – I need someone who is disciplining me. I have asked Rev. Tim Lee to be that person and he has agreed. Tim was the last Pastor I worked with at Reedy River Baptist Church several years ago. We had a great relationship then and I look forward to where our relationship will go in the future.

Tim is challenging me about my thinking on grace. That is also what I taught on last night in our L.I.F.E. Group meeting at mine and Irene’s home. What I have come to realize – is that I really don’t understand as much about grace as I think I do. Oh, sure, I understand the basics of salvation by grace, but I don’t believe that I have fully embraced the concept of a grace life. I question sometimes if I am a grace abuser, now I wonder if sometimes I am a grace blocker also.

All of those last thoughts and a few more are things that I want to deal with for a while, so hang on to your hat. The topic is grace and it begins tomorrow. Until then – keep your eyes on Jesus and remember – grace is more than what you say over your meal – it is truly a way of life.

A quick shout . . .

I just saw this post and thought - people don't need to miss this one. WOW! Just a simple reminder - we are the only physical hands and feet that Jesus has in this world right now. We need to be helpers a little more often than we are note takers. The Pharisees had a tendency to look down on people instead of helping them up and look what that got them.

What does God want – the end – for now . . .

I want to wrap up this line of thought for now. I have posted about what it is that I believe that the scripture says that God wants – a relationship with us. This is not religion – it is relationship. It is knowing and loving God. It is a relationship such as that between a bride and groom. What I find as I continue to search God’s word is that He is all about relationships.

As I type this I go back, in my mind, to this past Sunday and Mike’s sermon on worship. Our worship should be all about our relationship with God. In fact – everything that we do should be about our relationship with God. I look at the woman at the well in John chapter four and this is what I see – a woman whose short relationship with Jesus so impacted her life that she brought a whole community to see Him. Do you remember when your relationship with Jesus so impacted your life that you wanted everyone you knew to know about this man they call Jesus?

Maybe we need to slow our lives down and focus on our relationship with God and remember the impact that His touch made on us. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and spend the time to rediscover your relationship with God.

What does God want – continued . . .

Please allow me to take a few minutes and continue the thought from yesterday. We started along the thought process that God wanted people to know Him and to love Him. That he was not looking for an acquaintance but someone who really knew Him. He is looking for someone who is actively seeking a relationship with Him. He is looking for someone that will love Him with a faithful love – a never ending love. The same type of love that He shows us.

Now as I am sitting here typing this and developing this thought something has just hit me – God is looking for us to love Him and know Him in the same way a bride knows her groom. Maybe that is the reason that God refers to His church as His bride. DUH!! To speak from my own experience – I do not just go through the motions of being married to my wife. Our relationship (my knowledge of her and my love for her) began to grow the minute that I met her and it is still growing and developing today. I can with all confidence say that I know and love my wife more today than when I met her and I will know and love her more tomorrow. That is my choice. If all I did was go through the motions of being a husband I would be no better than the Pharisees were to the early church. They went through all the motions as religious leaders but they had no relationship with the God they professed to follow.

For now, we’ll stop here since it is Friday, but more to come next week. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and how is your relationship with God?

Pleasing to God . . .

See I told you that I would get back to this subject – what is pleasing to God and how do we please God? Well, in the first two verses of the 12th chapter of Romans we find a couple of ways that we can be pleasing to God.

First we can present our bodies as a living sacrifice – holy and acceptable because that is the way to truly worship God. We can please God through worship, but note the restrictions put on this statement. We are to be a living sacrifice – not dead. Everything that we do should show the life that God has granted us. With a sacrifice we are giving up our control and turning everything over to Him. This sacrifice is to be holy and acceptable. God will accept nothing less than holy – set apart for His use.

Secondly in this verse we find that we can please God by doing His will. Well, you may ask, how do we know what His will is? According to this scripture we will know what His will is by not copying the behavior and customs to the world and allowing God to transform us by changing the way we think. You may say that there is nothing wrong with the way you think. I would say that if the way you think is not in line with God’s word, you have a problem with the way you think.

Enough for today – we’ll revisit this in the days to come, but for now – keep your eyes on Jesus and answer this question – have I been pleasing to God lately?

Pleasing to God . . .

This morning in my study of 1st Timothy, I ran across a statement
about our lives being pleasing to God. That really has got me thinking this morning. What does it mean – to be pleasing to God? Well, let’s start with what it means to be pleasing.

I started with at dictionary.com and searched for definitions of pleasing. What I found is the following: to act to the pleasure or satisfaction of; to be the pleasure or will of; to give pleasure or satisfaction. There were several others but these seemed most applicable to what I want to talk about over the next couple of days.

Over the next couple of posts we’ll take a journey through what it means to be pleasing to God and what the advantages and disadvantages are of being pleasing to God is. Until then – keep your eyes on Jesus and what do you think it takes to be pleasing to God?

Is simple easy ? ? ?

That is the question that I keep kicking around in my head lately – is simple easy? I know that I like it when my life is simple. I also like it when my life is easy. What I don’t understand is that they are mutually exclusive of each other. What I mean is – when my life is easy, it is not necessarily simple. What I have found out is that simple can be hard work at times. Like when we have over complicated things and we are trying to get back to simple. That is one of the thoughts that I had a few weeks back when I read “Simple Church.” How exactly did we complicate church to the point that we have? Anyway, that is another rabbit to chase at another time.

According to what I can find in an on-line dictionary – Simple can be defined as the following – easy to understand or deal with, not elaborate or artificial, unaffected, unassuming, not complicate or complex, not grand or sophisticated, common. I think that I could apply all of these definitions to the love that was shown us by God except common. There is nothing common about the love that God has shown us in order for us to have a relationship with Him. There is nothing common about giving your only Son to die on the cross so that we could have our relationship with God restored.

Next time I talk about what it means to simply love – but until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and tell somebody that you love them. Better yet, show them.

The goal . . .

To start with – I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to posting on this site. Honestly – my focus has been so scattered that words would not come together in any way close to a c complete sentence. Maybe with this series of thoughts I can turn the corner for a while.

This past Sunday evening I had the privilege of teaching the bible study during our time together at The Journey. We talked about loving God and loving others based upon the scriptures found in Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:29-31. This week during my personal study time I have been reading and studying in 1st Timothy. What I found was a verse (verse 5) that has steadied my mind. In this verse it states that the goal of our teaching is love. In The Message it is stated “simply love”. The questions that I have batted around in my head are – what is simple love and does simple mean easy?

Over the next couple of posts we’ll deal with both of these questions, but until next time – I’ll let you chew on the questions yourself. Let me urge you to read Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:29-31 in light of 1st Timothy 1:5 and chew on it for a while. That being said – keep your eyes on Jesus and Keep it simple.

Yard work and my spiritual walk . . .

Well, we have made it past another Memorial Day weekend and I am stiff and sore. This has traditionally been the weekend that we attack the yard work that we have let go for a while around our house. This weekend I have laid sod, put down stepping stones (which I still have some to put back down where I laid the sod), I have cut back Azaleas, trimmed tree limbs, bought a new gas grill (which I am trilled with) and a new set of chairs and a table for the patio. To be honest and transparent to those who read this blog – I really do not like yard work. That is the reason that I am stiff and sore. If I used these muscles all the time – by doing yard work and enjoying it – I would not be stiff and sore. You have to understand that I have seen all this work that needed to be done for a while – I just kept putting it off. If I didn’t put these things off to the last minute, it would not be so hard to get them done and my body would not have to be put through so much stress. But, I do have to admit, I like the way everything looks after it is done.

I started thinking this morning that sometimes our lives are a lot like Memorial Day weekends. We see things that need to be done in our lives (things that God has revealed to us) that need to be taken care of and yet we just keep putting them off. If we would just deal with those things when God revealed them our lives would be a lot easier and yet, we continue to hang on to them or put of dealing with them. I am far from perfect, and I procrastinate with the best, but I know in my life after these things are dealt with I like the way my life looks after it is done. Even dealing with the stiffness and soreness after dealing with something that God has revealed, the outcome is well worth what we go through. My question to you is this – what has God revealed to you that needs some attention?

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and let’s get the work done.

Living your life out load . . .

Are you living your life out load? Let me tell you what I am talking about. Are you living your life so that it affects those around you to the point that they become followers of Christ? You may say this can’t be done and I would say that you are wrong. I have had men and women who have affected the way I live my life just by the way that they live theirs and I would venture to say that so do you. The real question then is – how do we live our lives so that they affect others and their beliefs?

I ran across a scripture in the book of John this week that has stemmed this line of thought. In John 12:9-11 it is said that the High Priests plotted to kill Lazarus because people were becoming followers of Jesus because of him. Now I do find it strangely funny that they were plotting to kill a man that had already died once. Just by living his life – Lazarus was affecting peoples lives around him for the kingdom of God.

We need to live our lives so that we affect those around us. They need to see that we are regular people who lead regular lives – with one difference – where our faith lies. Our faith as believers lies in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. This should permeate every aspect of our lives to the point that people see Jesus in everything that we do. My question to you is – when people see you living your life – who do they see?

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and live you life out loud.

How do we impact our world . . .

Do you ever wonder how we impact our world? You know the people that you see everyday. How do you impact them for the kingdom of God? That is one of the things that we are thinking about continuously as we work at planting The Journey. Our focus from the very beginning is to “Love God and Love Others.” But in a practical way how to we do that?

Well, in Mark chapter 6 (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite books to study) in verses 18 – 20 (in The Message), Jesus told the man, that He had cast the Legion (many) demons out of, to "Go home to your own people. Tell them your story—what the Master did, how he had mercy on you." We don’t need to over complicate matters. We each have our own story of what Jesus has done in our lives. We just need to tell our own people – those that we come in contact with everyday what Jesus has done and is doing in our lives.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and who have you told your story too lately? Who’s the next to hear your story? Pray that God would give you the opportunity to tell your story soon.

Nuggets of wisdom . . .

Have you ever stumbled upon something that you were reading in the Bible, maybe in a different translation, and suddenly a light seems to go on? Well, that’s what happened to me this morning. I was reading in the 4th chapter of Mark in the Message this morning and suddenly a light went on. I know that I have read this same scripture lots of time and for some reason never had it hit me the way it did this morning.

This scripture talks about the way that Jesus was teaching the people. It says that He taught in stories to those who did not have the insight to the kingdom of God. By doing so the stories were “creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight.” I have been thinking a lot about the way I teach and those around me teach and whether we sometimes over complicate things, especially for those who may not have a relationship with our Lord. The conclusion that I have come to is that we should basically use the model that Jesus used.

Our teaching never should be overly complicated. Teach in stories that apply to the people that we are teaching allowing the Holy Spirit to work in their lives. What do you think? How do you teach? Let me know.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and keep it simple.

The road less traveled – revisited . . .

You know, I find it quite fascinating that I consider myself pretty well read and yet I have never seen this poem. I was talking about the latest post that I made with Mike Thompson and he asked if I knew that there was a poem with that name. Since I did not, I Googled it and low and behold there it was. So for others that may not have ever read this poem – here you go . . .

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet, knowing how way leads onto way

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood

And I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

I’ll revisit this topic again soon, but until the keep your eyes on Jesus and let’s see where this road goes.

Why I do what I do . . .

Do you ever just look at your life and think – there must be an easier way of life than this? Why do I do what I do? Well, as someone who can now be consider as a church planter – that question does pop into my mind. I guess that he has for a long time even prior to helping plant a church. That question I guess surfaces in all lines of work, especially if you work with people. But I think that I have stumbled upon the answer and it is not that I am simply a glutton for punishment.

I was reading in Matthew yesterday morning in my Blackaby study bible and came to the scripture where Jesus is talking about being yoked with Him. Blackaby talked about if our work is just wearing us out and beating us down, then chances are we are not yoked with Jesus. To be yoked with Jesus does not mean that our work will not be messy. Dealing with peoples lives will always be messy. What it does mean is that Jesus will ease the work load through His spirit within us. As our relationship with Jesus grows, our passion for working along side Him grows and with passion comes energy. We do not need to work out of a sense of duty but out of a sense of relationship.

I find it funny – since I started helping plant this church, it has been confirmed in my life that all that I have taught is the past about relationships was dead on the money. Our relationship with Christ and relationships with the people that we are surrounded with are tantamount (wow – big word – where did that come from) to doing the work of a disciple. What do you think?

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and let’s put on His yoke. To quote Blackaby – “God does not reward our duty; He blesses our relationship with His Son Jesus.”

A conference fully worth the time . . .

I spent Monday and Tuesday of this week at a conference at White Oak Conference Center and I can say that it was fully worth the time spent there. Now, I have been to conferences in the past and generally always came away with some little tid-bit that I could use in some way. This conference was different!! I came away with several pages of notes in my journal and excitement in my heart. You may ask what breeds this excitement. I finally see a working model of a way to do discipleship that I have been talking about for years.

We had the opportunity to hear Jim Putman and several of his staff talk about a discipleship method (notice I did not say program) that produces disciples that re-produce themselves. It is done in small groups of people and is based in relationships that are built. It is the most biblical model that I have ever seen.

I also was able to see a method of teaching that is probably the most effective way of teaching that I have seen in a long time and it revolves around telling stories. Avery Willis brought this part of the conference. Something that was pointed out and I have recognized for a long time is that people will remember a story and repeat it far more often that they will remember teaching in its other forms. It hit home in a mighty way when one of the speakers asked us to tell him the second point of his talk that he had given just one hour before and we could not, but we could all repeat the story that he led into that point with.

The main excitement that I carry within me right now is because this is the skeleton that we have been trying to put meat on since we started The Journey. I have so much information that I need to process now into a form that we can use in what we seek to join the Lord doing here in Greenville and there is a definite direction to move in now.

Keep watch in the future for updates and information as I get it processed, until then – keep your eyes on Jesus and I do truly love to tell the story.

“Quiet Strength” – By Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker

If you are a football fan and have not read this book, run – do not walk – to the nearest book store and buy this book. This is honestly one of the best books that I have read in the last few years. The lessons that can be learned form this book is almost limitless. I just found out that there is a bible study companion to this book and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. The following are a few quotes that hit me where it did some good:

• “It’s not all about football. It’s about the journey – mine and yours – and the lives we can touch, the legacy we can leave, and the world we can change for the better.”
• “Tony, I think you’re at a crossroads” said Donnie (Shell). “You know what life is all about. You profess to be a Christian, and you tell everybody that God has first place in your life. Now, when your career looks like it’s teetering, we’re getting a chance to see what really is in first place for you.”
• “It was the first time I was able to look at football as something that God was allowing me to do, not something that should define me.”
• “I learned three key truths from Nehemiah. First, Nehemiah’s opportunity came in God’s time, not his own. Second, Nehemiah diligently prepared his mind and his heart so he would be ready when God’s time arrived. Third, Nehemiah needed to be prepared to take on the problems, doubt, and adversity that would come his way both from the outside and from within.”
• “I’m a firm believer that the Lord sometimes has to short-circuit even our best plans for our benefit.”
• “Respond to adversity; don’t react.”
• “Be on time. Being late means either it’s not important to you or you can’t be relied upon.”
• “Execute. Do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do. Not almost. All the way. Not most of the time. All of the time.”
• “Take ownership.”
• “The competing views of success in our world often create an interesting tension. Society tends to define success in terms of accomplishments and awards, material possessions, and profit margins. In the football business, winning is the only thing that matters.
  God’s Word, however, presents a different definition of success – one centered on a relationship with Jesus Christ and a love for God that allows us to love and serve others. God gives each one of us unique gifts, abilities, and passions. How well we use those qualities to have an impact on the world around us determines how “successful” we really are.”

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and let’s talk football.

My Walk in The Journey – Continued . .

Well, it seems like it has taken me forever to get back here to continue the post about The Journey and the part that I play in it. In this post I want to spend a little time on the L.I.F.E. groups. L.I.F.E. groups are the way that we are going to reach our communities for Christ. This all ties back to our neighbors. Our job according to the Great Commission is to go into all the world and make disciples. That seems to be a pretty daunting task for any one person. Then God showed me in His word another daunting task. In the book of Nehemiah the people had to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. That would seem to me a pretty overwhelming task. Unless, you look at it as Nehemiah did – each family is responsible for the wall in front of their home. I believe that we need to be responsible for that part of the world right there where we live. If each of us becomes responsible for that – then the world will be reached for Christ.

Through L.I.F.E. groups we will be concentrating on four basic things:
L – We are going to learn from one another. One of the greatest motivators to learning is the people that we are learning with.
I – we are going to intentionally grow. Where there is no growth – there is no life. We want our children to grow and develop – God wants the same things for His children.
F – We are going to learn to follow biblical principles. We are going to seek out life applications to all of the lessons that we will be studying. God gives us principles to live by to help us live to our full potential.
E – We are going to evangelize through relationships. Through praying for our neighbors, building relationships with them and inviting them to join our L.I.F.E. groups we will evangelize our neighborhoods through relationships. These relationships will be developed when we see our community as Christ does – full of people that He was willing to give up His life for.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and lets focus on what is in front of us.

D – Develop spiritually

OK, finally I can start trying to explain the acrostic of disciple that a friend gave me. Understanding the foundation that I have laid in the previous posts about the personal responsibility discipleship, today we will look at how a disciple should develop spiritually. Discipleship is a continual walk with Christ. It was always meant to be a growth process that never stops. The same as a child continues to develop until adulthood, our discipleship should be a process of continual spiritual development until we arrive in the presence of Jesus.

Moses called the nation of Israel, in Deuteronomy 5:1, to three distinctive development stages – to hear, to learn and to follow. Let me take a minute to briefly look at each of these. We’ll start with hearing. We need to understand how we hear from God today. He has given us His word and we must spend pointed, focused time in His word each day. When we spend time in His word, He will begin to speak to our hearts things that we need to influence our lives. Hearing is absorbing and accepting information about God.

Once we have heard from God, then we need to move to learning from God. Learning understands what we have heard. We need to understand the meaning of what God has spoken to us and the implications of that meaning and the way those things will impact our lives. We need to grab hold of what God has given us and study it until we fully absorb it until it is a part of us and our way of thinking.

This will lead us to following. Following is putting into action all we have learned and understood. This is simply life application of what God has given us. We need to understand that is God gives us something, we study it, understand it and we don’t live it, our mouths may profess Jesus as Lord but our lives deny Him and His teachings.

As disciples we must develop spiritually in our lives. If we don’t, we all nothing more than children in adult bodies. Until next time – keep you eyes on Jesus and remember a race is not over until we get to the finish line.

Discipleship continued . . .

Last time we looked at what discipleship is not. Now, to look at what discipleship is, we need to look at the followers of Christ and what their lives modeled. What I learned as a definition of a disciple was a person who learned at the master’s feet. This is what I see in scripture, but I also see this going a step farther. Not only do I see disciples learning from the master, but I see what they have given up to do this. Jesus said that in order to follow Him, one must take up their cross daily. Those people that He was speaking to understood that in order to follow Jesus, they would have to give up everything. There were those in scripture that were not willing to do that and they walked away. That was their choice – their personal responsibility. Those that did follow Jesus, took the personal responsibility of doing so and understood the cost.

To take discipleship one step further, Jesus left instructions for those of us that are disciples to make more disciples. Once again, notice that there is personal responsibility involved in this part of discipleship. During this series of posts, I am going to expound on an acrostic that a friend gave me. We’ll take a walk and try to understand what Jesus meant when He commanded us to go into the world and make disciples.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and remember – church is the people, not the building.

Discipleship . . .

Have you ever sat down and thought about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, what discipleship really is or what it might cost? I have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of months. If the truth be known, most of my adult life has been spent trying to figure out discipleship. I will try to be brief in my conclusions.

Let me start by telling you what discipleship is not. It is not a program in a church. That is what the church has tried to do for years and it hasn’t worked because it was never designed to be a program. Discipleship was designed to be something very personal. I can remember growing up and going to something that was called Training Union. Then the program was renamed and called discipleship training. The problem lies in that discipleship was never designed to be ten people sitting in a room reading parts from a book. By doing what we have been doing in the church, we have removed the personal responsibility of discipleship. Discipleship is not a program, but it is a personal walk with Jesus.

Let me know what you think about this subject. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and a pizza with everything for me please.