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.

To simply love . . .

What we are talking about is love. Specifically, simply love as described in 1st Timothy 1:5 – as read in The Message. This love is to be a “love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God.” In what I read here in this scripture, I see simple love – a love that we have not attached some selfish desire to. Often times we complicate the love of God by attaching some convoluted meaning to it. We need to get back to understanding that God loved us first while we were un-lovable. Love only comes from God – apart from Him we would not have a clue what love really looks like. Love is not self serving – that would be lust.

Also in this scripture I see that love should not be contaminated by counterfeit faith. Often time we say that we have faith and we do – in one form or another. I am sorry to say that the faith that I often see is a faith that professes God with our mouths but deny Him with our lives.

So what does it mean to simply love as seen in the context of this verse in 1st Timothy? To accept people and care for them exactly where they are. And love them enough to allow God to change them without any of us playing Holy Spirit. Should we withhold biblical guidance from someone walking with God – never! Should we withhold our personal opinions that do not stand up in light of God’s word – absolutely! One of my favorite music groups is Casting Crowns. They did a song called “What the World Needs.” They deal with this in music form in a great song – if you have not listened to it – find it and give it a listen.

One last thing and I’ll warp up this post. The last part of the verse that we have been talking about says – “a life open to God.” Honestly – that is the only way that we will ever simply love someone – through a life open to God. If we live a life open to God and His guidance and direction we can simply love people the way that He loves us.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and open up and let God live through you.

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.

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.

My walk in The Journey . . .

Last time I talked about The Journey and I told you that I would let you know where I fit into The Journey. Well, I have the privilege of being asked to be the Connections Guy at The Journey. You may ask, what is a connections guy and what exactly does he do? As the Connections Guy I am the person in charge of connections – meaning that I will help organize and help to keep on track the L.I.F.E groups, Growth Partners and Ministry Teams of The Journey. I will talk about each of these aspects of The Journey in separate posts.

One of the foundational beliefs of The Journey lies in Matthew 22:37-38. I believe that those of us who follow Christ generally do a pretty good job loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Where we often fail, especially in today’s busy life, is in loving our neighbors as ourselves. More often than not, I have found out that we don’t even know who our neighbors are. I did a series of posts on who our neighbors are in the last couple of months. You can re-visit those posts here, here and here.

Next time we’ll look at how we think we can begin to build relationships with our neighbors through the L.I.F.E. groups at The Journey. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and say hello to your neighbors.

Clown Program - report . . .

To those who read the post about the clown program that we did last night in Union, I thought that I would give a brief report. We had the privilege of doing the program at the First Baptist Church. We were invited by our friends Janet and Spencer Ledford. Janet is actually the one who prayed me into clowning, so it is always a special time to gather with them and their family. It was extra special since this is their first ministry as staff at a church. We had a great time and so did all that were in attendance. The best part of the night was that God allowed us to see a harvest for His kingdom. A teenage young lady accepted Christ as her savior last night and we have a new sister to journey through life with. It is always fun to make people smile, laugh and bring joy into a church, but it is special time when you get to see a life changed. We thank the Lord for what He did last night, we give Him the glory and thank Him for the opportunity to join Him in His work. That is what makes all the effort worth while.
Until next time - keep your eyes on Jesus and keep smiling - people will wonder what you are up to.

Clown Program . . .

For those of you that follow what we are doing as clowns - we have a program with PeeWee and Bumper tomorrow evening at the First Baptist Church in Union, SC. This is Irene's home town. Pray that God will use us in a mighty way to bring joy to the people of this church and even bring a harvest of souls for the kingdom.

Until next time - keep your eyes on Jesus and smile, there are clowns on this page.

What this world needs . . .

A quick shout to Ms. Mary Roach who prepaid for me and several others to get a copy of Casting Crowns newest CD – “The Altar and The Door”. Ms. Mary you are da’ bomb! This collection of songs is incredible!! If you don’t have this CD yet, run – do not walk – to a store and buy it.

I have realized while typing this that this post will need to be in multiple posts to keep it form being too long. With that being said - on to the post. The title of this post is the first track on the new Casting Crown cd “The Altar and The Door”. This song is beyond great. It hits me in the heart – right where I am living right now. After listening to this track over and over I decided to go to the Casting Crowns website and do a little research to check out the back ground on this song. The following is what I found:

Galatians is the main basis for this song.

False teachers were slipping in and adding to the Gospel. Jesus + being good = the believer’s life. Paul builds in a foundation for the Galatian people that it is by faith in Jesus that we are saved.

Even today, we, the church, are in danger of adding to the Gospel. Jesus plus my denomination. Jesus plus our style of worship. Jesus plus good behavior. We must be careful not to strap ourselves to the Gospel.

The last statement that is made – “we must not strap ourselves to the Gospel” – really took some chewing on for me to understand what is being said. The conclusion that I came to is this – if we strap ourselves to the Gospel we bring ourselves – our preconceived ideas, our agendas, our likes and our dislikes to the Gospel. What we need to understand is that the Gospel stands on it own – without our help. God does not need us for His Gospel to do its work. God allows us to be a part of what He is doing – it is our privilege granted by God. The Holy Spirit makes the changes in people’s lives – He does not need not our rules, demands, or preferences.

One last thing to finish today’s post – the following is from the song – spoken by teenagers, from the sound of their voices:

“People aren’t confused by the gospel they are confused by us
Jesus is the only way to God but we are not the only way to Jesus
This world doesn’t need my tie, my hoodie, my denomination or my translation of the bible,
They just need Jesus
We can be passionate about what we believe but we can’t strap ourselves to the gospel because we are just slowing it down
Jesus is going to save the world but maybe the best thing we can do is just get out of the way.”

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and watch the Gospel change lives.

Who do people see . . .

It always amazes me how good God is. It should not, but it does. I really wanted to talk with a friend of mine in TN last night. I was on the way to the bank to deposit my check and talking with Irene, asking her for a phone number for my friend. We had basically decided that it may be too late to call and a call came in on my other line. When I picked up it was my friend. God knew how much I needed to hear his voice and to be able to talk with him. My friend is in a church plant in TN and he has been on my heart the last couple of days. I also needed his wisdom in things that I am praying about. Through that phone call it got me thinking back to clown camp in July – which was the last time our families had anytime to spend together. What it actually triggered was meditation on the verse that was used as the focus for our week at camp this year – II Corinthians 3:18.

This verse talks about the believer being the reflection of our God. Sometimes I think we do a very bad job of that – at least I know I do. One of the things that I try to teach our students is that people around us should be able to see Jesus through our life by the way we live and conduct ourselves everyday. If we live our faith out loud – that is – we are a reflection of our Savior; that is the greatest witness that we can have. We should always be prepared to share the gospel, but our lives should be the greatest witness we can offer. It is easy to tell people what we believe, but what we live comes from our heart. I challenged our students to pray that God would give them the opportunity to share the gospel with at least one person everyday. That should be in all of our prayers – whether young or not so young. I believe that those opportunities will come when people around us see more of Jesus than they see of ourselves.

My question to those that read my blog is this – when people look at you – who do they see? My prayer for myself and you is this – that people who come in contact with me everyday could see more of Jesus and less of us. God grant that prayer. Help me die to myself so that you can live through me.

A quick shout to the students that read this blog – read and study this scripture – you may hear it again real soon. By the looks of the votes on the poll, I would say that most of you get it.

Until next time, keep your eyes on Jesus and let us be a reflection for all to see.

What are you willing to do ? ? ?

That was my question to our students this past Sunday evening. The question actually went something like – what are you willing to do to get someone to Christ? This questions stems from the scripture in Mark 2:1-12. If you have been in church for any length of time, this is a familiar story. This is the story of four men who brought a man to Jesus but could not get into the house where He was teaching. These men had brought someone to Jesus so that his legs could be healed because he could not walk. Since they could not get into the house because of such a large crowd, they changed to a more radical plan – they tore the roof off and lowered the man down into the room where Jesus was teaching. They did what ever it took to get this man to Jesus.

My question to our students was, once again, what would they do to get someone to Jesus? Sometimes I think that we will do whatever it takes as long as it fits in our schedule, or it’s not to inconvenient. Yet the example set in the scripture involved hard work. Chances are it did not fit into their schedule, since this meeting happened when people found out that Jesus had returned. It was a spur of the moment, it brought about a change in plans. These men had an urgency about what they were doing, since they actually tore up someone’s house. It does not say in the scripture, but they probably had to repair the house after the man was healed. The point is that they were willing to do whatever it took to get this man to Jesus.

So, once again – what are you willing to do? Are you willing to invite someone week after week until they say yes? Are you willing to get others involved to get that one person to Jesus? Are you willing to pick-up the tab for lunch to get them to church? Are you willing to change your schedule, to be inconvenienced, to work hard, to get someone to Christ? Are we willing as followers of Christ to set aside our personal preferences in order to see people accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord. What I truly believe is that when we get to the point of understanding that what we are called to do has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Jesus, we will do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

The mission that we have been called to do, is the last words spoken by Jesus to His followers in Matthew 28:19-20. These are the marching orders of the believer. The work is laid out before us. So my question to you is – what are you willing to do?

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and do what ever it takes to get them to Jesus.