What we can learn from a wee little man . . .

Now before I end up with every vertically challenged person in the Blog-o-sphere mad at me – this post is about Zacchaeus. I taught this story this past Sunday evening in LIFE Group. Funny thing about it – this may be the first time I have ever taught this story. As I studied I ran across some really great lessons that I thought that I would pass along.

Who was Zacchaeus?

He is called the chief tax collector. This would have set him up as both a thief and a traitor to his own people. Not exactly the person that you would probably seek out as someone to have supper with.

He is referred to as a son of Abraham. Even though he was a Jew – one of God’s chosen people – heritage and genealogy made no difference. He was still separate from a relationship with God until Jesus changed his life.

Being a little undignified is ok if it leads to a meeting with Jesus. Zacchaeus ran and climbed a tree – something very undignified for a grown man of his place in society.

Although Zacchaeus was seeking a look at Jesus – he was the one that was found. He was the host who became the guest. The party was to be at Zacchaeus’ house but it was Jesus that invited Zacchaeus to join Him. Jesus not only met Zacchaeus but He changed him forever. Zacchaeus demonstrated a change within through an outward action.

Zacchaeus’ name means “righteous one”. He may not have been living up to what his name meant in the beginning, but in the end he is right on the mark.

A lot of great lessons for ten verses about a man that most people did not want around them. Maybe these are the people that we should seek out in our society. These are the ones that Jesus says that He came to seek and to save. Until next time – end your eyes on Jesus and let’s climb a tree.

The quote . . .

"If you ever become what you became when Jesus saved you;
Then, you must believe that you became what you should become."

The above quote was given to me by the guy who is disciplining me. Since then I have given it to several other people and asked them to chew on it and let me know what they think. It takes a little while of thinking about what it is actually saying for it’s meaning to begin to sink in. The scripture reference that I was given helps in applying this statement. I’ll give you the scripture tomorrow, for now just chew on the quote.

I will give you this much of a clue – it does have something to do with living a grace life. That’s where I want to rest for a minute. Do any of us really understand the grace of God? Do we understand what it means to live under and through that grace? Do we even understand what grace is? Grace is a gift from God that we don’t deserve and we could never work long enough or hard enough to earn. Grace is the love of God that comes to us while we are still un-lovable. Grace is the substance that restores a broken relationship with our heavenly Father. Grace is that which makes us righteous (in right standing) so that we can approach God without fear of rejection. Grace is that person that allows us to live an abundant life. I believe that grace can be a substance or a thing, but it is also a person – Jesus – the pure embodiment of grace.

That’s enough for now. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and chew on that quote – it can change the way you look at life.

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.

Consumed with a thought . . .

Have you ever been consumed with a thought or a concept? That’s where I’ve been lately – the consumed part. It seems that I hear a word or a concept maybe on a Sunday during a worship service and from then on it seems that it shows up everywhere I look. This week it is the word Grace.

As I sit here typing this I have all of these different meanings to this word grace running through my head:
- it can be a woman’s name
- it is something said before a meal in the south
- a name used in a beach music song – Ms. Grace
- it is something received that is not deserved

In the coming days we’ll look at some of what is said in the scriptures about God’s grace. For now – this is enough – I have work to do. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and when someone uses the word grace – what do you think of?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

How would you handle this . . .

For those of you that read this blog and have a heart for working with young people (students, teenagers, youth, etc.) I have a hypothetical situation for you. Let’s say that you have a student (non-church member – one far from God) that is coming to your Wednesday night program. One Wednesday night, this student steals a pair of expensive sunglasses – let’s say $100.00 plus. There is no doubt that this student is the one that did this. How would you handle it? Would it make a difference if the student was a member of your student ministry and a church member?
I am really curious about how others would handle this. If you have a student pastor that does not read my blog and you would like his or her take on this, send a link to this post to them. Comments are open and waiting. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and let’s work through a difficult situation.

Are you satisfied?

I’m sitting here working away and listening to a sermon by a pastor in the upstate and a question hits me – have I become satisfied? Has the church become satisfied? Does everything that our lives revolve around – revolve around satisfaction? I am going to deal with each of these questions in reverse order.
As far as our lives go – a great deal of our lives do revolve around being satisfied. We are satisfied after a good meal. We are satisfied after a nap. We can be satisfied with our jobs, the home we live in, the hobbies that we have, the life that we live. With satisfaction there is no struggle, no discomfort, no inconvenience, just an easy life without struggles – just comfort and often laziness. Yet, I’m sure that is not what God would have us be. God sent His Son to enable us to have life in abundance – not a life of satisfaction. We, as Disciples of Christ, are children of a King and yet, we live as if we would be satisfied to be the child of a ditch digger.
Now on to our churches. I don’t think that there is any doubt that there are a lot of churches out there that are full of satisfied people. They come to church once, twice, maybe even three times a week. They sit in their pews, sing their songs, listen to a sermon and leave very satisfied. As we look around us at a lost a dying world – how can the church be satisfied? What we have lost is the knowledge and emotion of how much God loved us and how much we should love Him. We no longer grasp the concept - that God has sent the church on a mission – and mission work is far from comfortable. If we are doing the work that God has called us to do we will be – stretched, uncomfortable, inconvenienced, pushed to do things that we would normally not do.
Now to the last question – have I become satisfied? I can honestly answer a resounding NO! I have become more and more dissatisfied over the last year than any time in my life. God has place anxiousness in me that has never been there before to see God work in miraculous ways and see people come to a saving knowledge of Him. I have a need to see people walk closer to God in their daily relationship. This all comes from not being satisfied with my relationship with Christ. I want to grow to know Him and love Him more each and everyday. That can only be done through my relationship growing. Through me being stretched, pushed outside my comfort zone, by me being inconvenienced.
My prayer for all that read this post is that God would stir a holy dissatisfaction within them about their personal walk with Him.
Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and let’s get to work.

Do we assume too much . . .

That may seem like a strange question to start with, but hang with me for a few minutes. The full question is – do we assume too much when we assume that everyone knows how we do church? Granted, I grew up in the “Bible Belt” and have been around church for a long time. But everyone living in this area today was not raised in or around church. As our city has grown over the years and even explosively over the last few years, people from all over the country and the world have moved into our area.

Even those of us that were raised in and around church all our lives can be confused by different denominations and beliefs. Let me give you an example: my wife and I went to a wedding this past Saturday at a Baptist church. But, the wedding was conducted in a Lutheran format. If it had not been for the printed order of service, we would have been totally lost. They stood at certain times and sat down at others. There was time’s that the Pastor would speak and the people in attendance would respond. Being raised in a Baptist church all my life, I will admit that I was confused.

Now, let’s think about someone that is invited to attend your church and they have never set foot in a church in their life – church can be a very confusing place. The terms that we use can be confusing. The directions for getting around our church building may seem crystal clear to us and confusing to someone who has never walks our halls before.

Maybe we should take a lesson from “Carrabba’s Italian Grill”. My wife – Irene – and I met some friends there last night for supper. When we arrived, someone met us at the door and welcomed us and asked us how many would be in our party. They walked us to our table – not point and give directions – and seated us with menus. Shortly there was our waitress, along with a waiter in training (mentoring is a great way to learn your job), welcoming us a second time. They made sure that we were comfortable and found out if this was our first time to visit this restaurant. After returning with our drink order, they were able to answer questions that my wife had about terms that were used in the menus that we were given. They checked on us throughout the evening to make sure that we were comfortable and happy. I was impressed that when we wanted to go boxes for our left over food, they took our plates and put it in boxes for us. At the end of the meal they thanked us for coming to the restaurant and for the privilege of serving us.

Maybe visitors would come back more readily to our churches if we took them as seriously as our waiter and waitress did at the restaurant last night. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and spend some time with a visitor. Who knows – maybe Jesus will change their life.

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.

What does it mean to be a disciple . . .?

Sorry this post was supposed to be posted yesterday, but we were having computer problems - so here is my Sunday post.

This morning was our first Sunday with Pastor Chad and Robbie. The early service went very well. Lyle, Ms. Terry, Mitchell, Crystal and Ashley led us in three worship songs – they did a great job. Rev. Ron Davis the DOM of the Greenville Baptist Association brought a great message to our church – it was on what it means to be a disciple of Christ. It was wonderful to sit and listen to this man of God bring a message that hits so close to where my heart beats. He even referred to our students as missionaries to their campuses. The following are the notes that I took form this morning’s sermon:

- Jesus never called us to go into the world and be good church members – he did call us to go into the world and be disciples.
- John 8:31 – a disciple will hold to the teaching of Jesus. We are not only to believe in the doctrine – the sound teaching from the word of God – but our lives should give forth the actions that comes from that knowledge.
- John 13:34 – a disciple will love others. Jesus says that others will know that we are His followers by our love for one another. We were cautioned that when we quit loving others we begin to judge others.
- John 15:8, 16 – a disciple bears fruit for our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not talking about the fruits of the spirit. A disciple bears fruit by producing other disciples.
Rev. Davis left us with one last challenge – that during this time of interim – without a Pastor to guide us – we should strive to grow.

There was a wealth of wisdom in this sermon – if we will take it to heart. There is a cost in being a disciple. Jesus said that if we are to follow Him, we are to take up our cross daily. That is to say that we are to die to ourselves – our preferences, our desires, our agendas – in order that the most important mission we have as Christians be moved to the front of everything that we do – to carry the gospel to the world.

Until next time - keep your eyes on Jesus and lets make disciples.

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.

A vision from God . . .

I am often confused by people that profess that they are believers in Christ but have a problem when someone tells them that they are doing something because God told them to. Someone feels lead to attend another church and everyone wants to know who made them mad and why they are leaving. No one made them mad and they are following God’s leadership never seems to be the answer that people want to hear. Leaders leave by the direction of the Holy Spirit and yet people will not accept that response.

What I have come to the conclusion about is that some people have a problem with leadership from God. A leader receives a mission from God – a vision – something only seen by the one God gave it to. Since that vision does not take into consideration others personal preferences, they have a problem with this call from God. What we need to understand is that God is not really interested in our personal preferences. God is concerned with what He prefers. Our personal preferences should never hinder the will of God.

Often times a call from God will bring about a change of course. We need to understand that if we keep doing what we are doing we will keep getting what we are getting. If we are not actively seeking what God wants us to do – the direction - the vision that He has for us, then we are not actively seeking God. God was constantly changing the way that He did things throughout the Bible. Change can be both scary and exciting – most rest in the area of scary. Most change will cause us to be stretched and carried far outside our comfort zone – that is the way that we grow in Christ. Some may feel that they can not offer God their best if they are not comfortable with what they are doing. I believe that God ultimately receives our best when we are relying on Him the most. This will often cause us to work harder. Often to change the way we think. It may cause us to stop doing something that we have been doing the same way for years. That is OK. The manner of doing God’s work may have to change to do what God has called us to do, but we need to understand that the mission – to carry the good news of Christ to the world – will never change. We need to remember that what we are supposed to be doing is reaching the world one person at a time.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and thank you to Rev. Ken Forester and Rev. Johnny Hunt for their obedience in bringing a word from God.