God's recipe for best in your life

Growing up, I remember that my mom made the best banana pudding ever.  I realized after I got older and attended some family reunions that it was really her mom's recipe and that some of my aunts could make it just as good.  Then the year came for me to actually contribute to the family reunion and not just show up.  I was at a loss as to what to make.  Then I decided to try my hand at a banana pudding.  I called mom and asked her for the recipe.  What she gave me was more than just a list of ingredients, but included detailed directions on what to do with those ingredients.  When I finished, it looked right, but I couldn't very well take a pudding to the reunion with any missing, so I had to hope it tasted okay.  After the reunion, several of my cousins asked who had made Grandma's banana pudding.  Boy! did that make my day!  But there is something important to notice here:  they didn't ask who made the banana pudding, but who made Grandma's.  Why was it Grandma's?  Because I followed her recipe.
That's the way life works.  If you follow the recipe, it turns out right.  In the Scriptures, I believe God has given us the recipe to have the very best in life.
2 Chronicles 7:1 reads: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."  There it is.  Simple, yet effective proven steps, a recipe if you will, to get God's attention and His best for your life.  Let's take a quick look at these steps and the result of following them.
1. Humble themselves.  The Bible makes it clear that pride is a sin and goes before a fall.  The phrase goes before a fall literally means will cause the fall.  Is. 14 chronicles the fall of Lucifer from heaven and makes it clear that pride was the contributing factor.  There is no room in the heart of God's children for pride.
2. Pray.  If you want to know the secret of the success of Jesus' earthly ministry, notice how many times He went, usually early in the morning, of by Himself to pray.  He is our example and we need, so much more than He did to spend time in communication with our heavenly Father.
3. Seek my face.  Too often, as the children of God, we are interested only in what He can do for us.  In other words, we are guilty of seeking His hands.  God wants to do things for us, to bless us, and to give us good things, but He wants us to seek a relationship with Him, not just to look to Him as our heavenly vending machine.
4. Turn from their wicked ways.  We seldom hear talk of repentance anymore.  Recently, I polled a group of church members about what they thought repentance meant.  Most thought it had to with feeling guilty or bad about something they had done.  Repentance actually has nothing to do with our feelings.  It comes from a Greek military word literally meaning 'about face'. Repent from your sins literally means "quit sinning".
So what happens if we will do these simple things?  God Himself gives us the answer.
1. He will hear us.  This one little thing is what makes prayer effective.  It's not how eloquent we are, or how much scripture we can quote, or even how long we pray.  Prayer works because God hears us. 2. And once He hears us, He will forgive our sin.  This is the whole gospel in a nutshell.  God is in the forgiving business.  When you read the Scripture, you should see the futility of all that we can do on our own.  The Bible clearly states that our righteousness is like a dirty rag.  So we cannot attain holiness on our own.  The Bible goes on to say that without holiness we cannot be with or even see God.  So, this makes the forgiveness of our sin so important.  It is the good news!  God forgives sin!
3. and He will heal our land.  This is where the best comes in to play.  God will heal our land; all of it.  Not just our spiritual condition, but our finances, our relationships, our families, everything that concerns can be healed by God if we will but follow this simple recipe.

Dads don't like to say no

 In my recent post, 'the power of the mind' I wrote about the camping trip I took my kids on a few weeks ago.  On that same trip, the same hike up Morrow Mountain, as a matter of fact something happened that made me think about how blessed we are that God considers us His children, not just His servants.

Coming back down the mountain, I was exhausted.  My years in the Army and of being in any kind of halfway decent shape are way past.  I was dragging, so tired I was ready to sit down and quit.  The kids had gone way down the trail, barely in my sight.

Connor, my youngest, was running.  (I have always said that if I could bottle his energy, I would be rich.)  He tripped over a rock or a root and went sprawling.  I found energy that I did not know I still had from somewhere and ran down the trail to him.  He was crying, and had some scratches but nothing serious.

But of course, he was done.  He didn't care that we were miles from the campsite and still had some walking to do.  He was finished.  "Carry me, Daddy." He said through his tears.  As tired as I was, I leaned down and picked him up.  I put him on my back and gave him a piggy-back ride the rest of the way down the trail.

And as I was carrying him, the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:11, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask them?"

We sometimes have this picture of God as a mad, mean person looking for ways to say no.  But that is not the picture that Jesus paints of our Heavenly Father at all.  He is love and He is our Father.  He wants to bless us, to give us what we need (and more), and to take care of us.  And here is the thing:  God doesn't get tired, so He can always give us what we need.

Good enough really isn't

It seems today that the idea of just getting by is prevalent in church society.  Oh, I know it's everywhere, but it bothers me more when I see it in God's house.  Recently someone brought an old crib to our church to put in the nursery.  When they told me that a friend of theirs had donated it, they gave this explanation: "It's old and won't pass modern safety standards, so we can't use it, but we figured the church could."  The 'spirit of good enough.'

I want to sound out that God is deserving of much more than 'good enough.'  We need to learn to do what we do for God and His house (the church) with a spirit of excellence and the 'spirit of good enough.'  

No matter how good something is, I believe there is always room for improvement.  Jim Collins explains this expertly in his book Good to Great.  I definitely recommend this book for all pastors and church leadership.

Paul understood the concept of needing to move beyond good enough.  Think about Paul for a minute.  He didn't even get saved like anyone else.  Me, you, DL Moody, every Christian you know; God sent a person or a preacher to tell them about the gospel.  Not Paul.  The Lord Himself stopped him on the road.  He wrote almost half of the New Testament.  At one point he was caught up to the third heaven.  And yet this man said I haven't attained.  I'm still pressing on, still beating my body under submission.

John the Baptist understood this as well.  This is the man who was filled the Holy Ghost while still in his mother's womb.  As the Lord's cousin he would have known Him his whole life.  He is the one, out of all of Israel that was selected to be the forerunner of the Messiah; the one who was privileged to baptize and introduce Jesus to the world.  And yet, when his disciples left him, instead of getting mad or jealous, he simply said, I must decrease and He must increase.  What any example of moving away from the spirit of good enough.

So, the next time you are tempted to just get by, to say well that's good enough, remember what the Apostle Paul said.  I'm not there yet. And take Jim Collins' advise and move from good to great.

The Power of the Mind

While taking my kids camping and hiking this past weekend, I realized several things.  First, I miss camping a lot more than I realized.  Second, I am way more out of shape than I realized.  And finally, I realized just how strong and resilient the human mind can be.

One of our campsite neighbors was a kayak-er, solo camping.  This absolutely fascinated my nine year old son, Connor, since most campers tend to be families or at least couples.  Connor took to calling this neighbor 'Lone Survivor' since he was by himself.  Late Saturday morning, after a big breakfast and cleaning up the campsite, we started on a hike up Morrow Mountain.
Shortly after we started hiking, Connor decided he was hungry.  Now, if you have seen any of the snickers commercials about not being yourself when you're hungry, then you understand the dilemma I was in.  My wife puts it this way, 'Connor doesn't get hungry, he gets hangry.'

So here I am in the middle of the woods  with a hungry and grumpy nine year old.  I thought back to when Connor crawled out of the tent earlier that morning and had looked over towards our neighbor's campsite.  "Lone Survivor is already gone kayaking," he said.  I called my three kids into a huddle and took a knee in the middle of them.

"Here's the situation from headquarters," I said, winking at the older two.  "Lone Survivor has gone missing and we have to find him."  My kids managed to fill in the details and they were off on an adventure with me struggling to keep up.  I had given Connor a granola bar at the beginning of the 'briefing' but by now he was so into his little adventure that he had forgotten all about being hungry.

Now, I am definitely not suggesting that he was really hungry to start with or that all of a sudden his hungry vanished.  What I am suggesting is that the human mind is a lot stronger than we ever give it credit for. It is the power of our mind that enables to push way past our human limits and accomplish more than we could have imagined.

I think the Lord understood this.  I think that's why He was more interested in changing our thought patterns than our actions.  He knew the actions would fall in line once the thoughts were right.  Read the sermon on the mount.  He was as concerned about lust and anger as He was adultery and murder; which makes sense, because the former lead to the latter.  If we can control the lust, adultery will never be a problem.  Paul put it best when He said be 'transformed by the renewing of your minds" in
Romans 12.

It is our thinking and mind that will transform the rest of us.  So, the next time you are struggling with your actions, remember Connor and his 'Lone Survivor' and get your thinking lined up.  The rest will follow.

3 Fridays in your life that need a Sunday

Some people might say it is over-used or even cliche', but I still say, 'It's Friday, but Sunday is on the way!'  The Friday that Jesus was crucified seemed to be the darkest day in history.  There was an eclipse, the very Son of God was dying on a cross, and God Himself turned His back on the world.  That's pretty bleak, pretty dark.  But we can do something the people living that day could not do; we can flip ahead a few pages and read about Sunday morning.  Well there will be many dark days in your life, many Fridays.  So, just as on that first Good Friday, on your Friday you can rest assured that Sunday is on the way! So let's take a look at three 'Fridays' that you will face.

1. The Friday of fatigue.  Life will tire you out.  The day to day struggle of just living is tiresome.  Anyone who tells you different is selling something.  However, Jesus promises us rest.  In Matthew 11:29 Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."  The Sunday of the Lord's rest will show up and carry you through.
2. The Friday of failure.  All of us will fail at one point or another.  And when we fail, we feel all alone.  We let everyone, including ourselves, down.  Failure will make you feel like giving up.  When Judas realized that his betrayal of Jesus was a failure, he hung himself.  Peter might have felt like doing the same thing, but he waited for Sunday.  And on Sunday morning, when Jesus told the women to tell the disciples that He was alive, He singled Peter out and wanted them to make sure that Peter knew He was alive.  So when you fail, understand that God is a God of 2nd chances and realize that your failures are not fatal.
3. The Friday of fatalities.  Guess what?  Not only are we all going to get tired, not only are we all going to fail, but, unless the Lord returns first, we are all going to die.  It has been said that the only sure things in life are death and taxes.  But according to Hebrews 9:27 the only sure thing is death; it tells us that "it is appointed unto men once to die..." But, thanks to that first resurrection Sunday morning, we know that death is not final.  The same verse in Hebrews tells us that after death comes the judgement.  Did you catch that?  AFTER death. Since Jesus rose, we know that we too will rise after death.  

In conclusion, let me encourage you today by reminding you that no matter what kind of 'Friday' you are going through, Sunday is on the way! 

3 places Jesus bled -- 3 places I am healed

As we observe Holy Week this year, we have come to Thursday night.  It was tonight that Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples for the last time and Communion for the first time.  It was tonight that He prayed fervently in the garden, was betrayed, arrested, tried in a mock trial, beaten, mocked, scourged, and  began His journey from Jerusalem to Golgotha.  Especially now, but always we need to be thinking about the events of this night and the next day.  A great resource for every Christian is Max Lucado's Six Hours One Friday: Living in the Power of the Cross.  Today, I want us to think specifically about the three places Jesus bled from the time of His arrest, until His death on the cross.

1. Jesus bled when He prayed in the garden. The gospels tell us that when Jesus prayed in the garden after the last supper, He prayed so fervently that His sweat became as blood.  (Luke 22:44) I believe this is our provision for emotional healing.  He is our Jehovah-Shalom, our peace and this is possible because He shed His blood while He prayed.
2. Jesus bled when He was scourged in Pilate's judgement hall.  We are familiar with the story.  Pilate did not think Jesus was deserving of death, so he thought he could appease the crowd by having Him whipped.  History tells us that when a Roman prisoner was whipped, he would be tied over a post, and two soldiers (one on either side) would whip the prisoner.  Isaiah knew this would happen to our Lord years before He was ever even born and said that it was by those stripes that we are healed.  This is the provision for our physical healing.
3. Jesus bled when He was crucified on the cross.  And this covers the most important healing of all, our spiritual healing or salvation.  The Word of God has been clear since the Garden of Eden, without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins.  As Andre Crouch sang for so many years, 'The Blood will never loose it's power'.  We are saved because of the blood that Jesus shed on Calvary.  

God is concerned about our whole being: our spirit, our emotions, and even our bodies.  And since He is concerned about all of us, He provided healing for ALL of us, not just part of us.

Heaven IS for Real and Jesus is Alive!!!

I just re-watched the movie Heaven is for Real. While it is good to finally have good, clean, and wholesome entertainment, I am troubled by the general premise of the movie, especially right before Easter. The idea that heaven is real because we believe it in our minds and hearts is very troubling. The fact is, Heaven is real, and not only because we believe it in our minds and hearts. Heaven is a real place, a prepared place. The reason this is especially troubling around Easter time is because there are many people who do not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. They say that He rises again every time someone believes in Him. See the connection? It only happens in our hearts and minds. But I submit that just as Heaven is a real place, Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead. The entire foundation on which the Church is built is the fact of the resurrection. This foundation is under attack more today than has ever been. And it is under attack from both without and within the church. I want to address some of the attacks from within the church. There are those, like already mentioned, that only believe in a Spiritual resurrection of Jesus and that this happens every time someone believes. The idea ignores the whole of the NT. Thomas was invited to place his fingers in the nail-holes and his hand in the spear-hole of Jesus. This let's us know that Jesus had a physical body after the resurrection. Then there are those that would have us believe that Jesus did not actually die on the cross. Obviously these people are not at all familiar with Roman crucifixion. Death from crucifixion came as a result of asphyxiation and was the guaranteed outcome. Jesus died. His dead body lay for 3 days in a borrowed tomb. The tomb was sealed and guarded by the Romans. He absolutely rose from the dead, because He absolutely died. So, just as we know Heaven is real by faith in the Word of God, we know that Jesus died and rose again on the third day because of the written Word of God. So, when you watch Heaven is for Real, enjoy it; but understand that Heaven is real not only in our hearts and minds but in reality and remember, Jesus died, was buried in a borrowed tomb, and rose, physically from the dead on the third day.