Things my little girl has taught me

Now I know that I normally talk about a verse, but today I am going to do something a little bit different. My wife, Tuesday (December 1st) gave birth to our first child, a beautiful baby girl. So in today's post I want to talk about things that God has shown me from this amazing experience.

1. God is so amazingly patient with me!

I was trying to keep my baby from crying last night from 11 pm to 3:30 am! During this time I was getting so frustrated when I felt the Lord say to me "how do you think I feel?" What do I believe God was telling me? While I was holding this innocent baby who was crying because she was hungry (or something else, who knows), I was getting frustrated with her in the midst of her innocence. God, on the other hand, deals so graciously with me when I, unlike my baby girl, deliberately disobey Him. This baby has helped me understand how patient God is with me!

2. God deals with our messes

When my baby had her first mess, it was kinda crazy, because the nurse said "here dad, time to change her diaper." At that point I had a serious panic attack, because I had never changed a diaper (at least I don't remember ever changing one)! It was awful! I got baby poop all over my hand and in her little bed (which I have learned is called a bassinet). At this point I realized that God does a whole lot better with our messes then I did with my baby's first mess. God has given us His Word, which is alive and active, and if we take our messes to Him, He speaks to us on so many different levels. We give Him our problems and He gives us solutions or we give Him our dirty diapers and He gives us the opportunity to be changed!

3. God is ridiculously in love with us

The Word tells us that we are God's children, which has always been pretty cool for me to read, but now it has even more of an impact. When I look at my little baby girl, I think that I would do ANYTHING for her! I would die for her with a smile on my face and I will hold her while she is screaming her head off all night! So when God chooses that Father-son/daughter relationship to describe our relationship with Him, it now makes a whole lot more sense. One thing my baby girl has shown me is that God is ridiculously in love with me, because I am ridiculously in love with my daughter!

Love you guys!

Servants don't quarrel

"A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will learn the truth." 2 Timothy 2:24-25 NLT


I love this verse because it flies in the face of my fleshly nature (most verses do)! I seem to have a tendency to want to argue the truth with people because I am passionate about it. So I learn, that while my motives are good, my methods are often times very bad! Christians, we are called to not misrepresent Christ to this world. You know, the world is used to fights and people getting mad at them because they disagree with them. We have a great opportunity to use a disagreement for Christ's sake. When you are talking with one who opposes the truth (as this verse says) treat them gently and do not quarrel. Why? Because it might change their hearts towards God.

We represent Christ everywhere we go and sadly many Christians have misrepresented Christ to the world. For example, driving down the road when someone cuts a Christian off, they honk and cuss and sometimes more, only to later drive by that car and have a Jesus fish on the back of the car with a couple of Christian bumper stickers of how Jesus loves you! You see how this is such an awful representation of Christ's love? Christians when presented with an opportunity to get really angry with people who oppose the truth, train yourselves to be gentle with them and you might just win a soul for Christ!

God bless and have a great thanksgiving!!

Flee youthful lust

"Flee youthful lust..." 2 Timothy 2:22

This verse is pretty straight forward, but sadly is often times ignored by some in the Church. When Paul says to flee youthful lusts, he is simply saying to run away from any lusts that you have. What does this look like? If you are tempted in an area, FLEE! For example if one was an alcoholic and he said I'm not going to drink but I'm going to hang out at the bar. Well, that is just stupid, why? Because we all know that eventually he would get drunk! It applies to any sin. Whatever area you struggle in, run away from it, don't leave the door open for sin.

Two characters in the Old Testament give us good pictures of what we should do when we are tempted. The first one is obviously Joseph. It is obviously him because when he was tempted he did flee, literally! When Potiphar's wife (or as Pastor Robert Furrow say's "Mrs. Potty") asked Joseph to lie with her, she grabbed his cloak and he ran and left his cloak and all! Another Old Testament character was Nehemiah, who was responsible for building the walls of Jerusalem. Just as he built walls to protect the city, we must build walls to protect our integrity! If you are struggling with a sin, build walls to make it more difficult for you to give in to temptation. Using our earlier example, if one was an alcoholic, then a wall to build would be to restrict himself from going to bars. Have people help you be accountable, flee from sin and build walls to protect you!

The Great Example

"For this is a faithful saying:

If we died with Him,

we shall also live with Him." 2 Timothy 2:11

This verse is not speaking of martyrdom specifically, rather it is speaking of dying to our flesh. First of all what does this term "flesh" mean in this context? Well, I'm glad you asked! It means your sinful desires. So when I say to die to your flesh, what I am really saying is that you need to put God's will above your sinful desires. For example, if you want to tell a lie that will make people think more highly of you, well in this situation, dying to your flesh would be not telling that lie!

I think it is interesting that God tells us in this verse to die with Him. How did God die? Read Philippians 2:5-11. It essentially says that Jesus did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but made Himself of no reputation He took on the form of a man! Wow, that always amazes me. But what a great example to us! Jesus was God, but put that off and became man, because it was the only way that you and I can be saved! So we are to follow His example and die to

our selfish desires so God's will can be seen in our lives.

It is so amazing that this verse has a promise in it as well. If we are to die to ourselves then we will live with Christ! What a privilege you and I have everyday to be able to live with Jesus! We can seek His wisdom through prayer and the reading of His Word. We can feel His presence in difficult times, but more than living with Him here on this earth (which is awesome in itself) we get the amazing privilege of living with Him in eternity! Praise God!

May we die to our selfish desires and enjoy our lives living with the God of the universe who loves us passionately!

Consider this

"Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things." 2 Timothy 2:7

One thing I hear all the time is someone saying, "I tried to read the Bible, but I just don't understand it." I think it is amazing that we can give up on hearing from God so easily. This verse speaks straight to my heart on how I need to approach the Bible. We as believers need to approach God's Word with expectancy to hear from Him. We need to CONSIDER what God is saying to us, because according to the verse above, considering is directly related to understanding. What does this look like? When you open up the Word for your devotions, if you come across a portion of scripture that does not make sense to you, you must pause, consider and meditate on it, as opposed to getting frustrated and giving up. God's Word is powerful and does not return void, we will be truly blessed if we consider what it is that God wants to speak to us. May I encourage you to be overwhelmed with the fact that the living God wants to speak to you as opposed to being overwhelmed with how confusing the Word can be at times? We have an all powerful, all knowing and all loving God, who created us and wants to speak to us. He showed us He cares by giving us His Word, let's show Him we care by considering his Word and trying to understand it.

Lessons from the athelete #3

"Also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules." 2 Timothy 2:5

3. Play by the rules

After all your practice and performing in the game, you must always remember that you must play by the rules. It is obvious what playing by the rules looks like in the physical world (I mean, that is why we have ref's right?), but what does it look like spiritually? Well playing by the rules spiritually is simply, playing God's way or it could be said "following God's will for you life." Many Christians are really good at posing and even fooling other Christians, but that is simply not playing by God's rules. The rules that God set for your life are not fake and you cannot fool God. So what do these rules look like? It's simple, Jesus summed it up best by saying the two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. So to play by God's rules you have to put Him first in your life and others second. What does this look like? Well, to put God first in your life, you must do what He wants you to do, over what you want to do (spirit vs. flesh). To put others first, you must do what is best for them over what is best for you. These are difficult concepts, but they are scriptural. Let's not try to cheat our way through the Christian life, because it presents difficulties to us, instead let's play by the rules...God's rules.

Lessons from the athlete #2

"And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes by the rules." 2 Timothy 2:5

2. Perform

Practicing is great, but it doesn't mean a whole lot if you can't actually perform in the tough situations. One of the worst insults an athlete can receive is that they are a great "practice player". This is one who performs great in practice but is not able to perform in the game. How do we learn to perform in the game, spiritually speaking? The best way I can figure out how to put it is don't give opportunity to the flesh. If you know you struggle with something, don't keep it around! After practicing (read the previous blog), then go and perform by taking away Satan's advantage in your life. Here's an example... if some guy is struggling with lust, then he needs to get rid of his movie channel (maybe even the tv!). Or if a girl is struggling with gossip, she needs to remove herself from those that encourage her to fall in this area! Christians, let's be smart and build walls! If an enemy is attacking a city, it would be a whole lot easier for them to destroy a city with no walls (protection), this is the same spiritually! Build walls to keep the enemy out. Only you know all of your struggles, so only you can take this step. Please don't give the enemy a open door into attacking your life. If you do, then what's all the practice for?

Lessons from the athlete #1

"Also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules" 2 Timothy 2:5

I want to look at three points that we can gather from athletics and from this verse.

1. Practice

Someone who does not practice in sports is going to be someone who is watching from the sidelines, because they didn't put the effort in that the rest of the team did! The same thing is true spiritually. If you don't practice in your spiritual walk with the Lord, you are going to be on the sidelines watching other Christians compete in this spiritual battle. Practice is very important because you can be ready to defend yourself against the enemy. How does one spiritually practice? Well it's simple, first learn how to use the weapon God has given us. Learn the Bible! Read it yourself, listen to teachings (podcasting... it's amazing!), or do in depth studies. The second way to practice is to pray (getting to know the coach). The third way is to train yourself to be surrounded by Godly influences. To help with this, ask yourself "what am I doing that is bringing me closer to Christ?" After asking yourself this question, you must then keep the things that are bringing you closer to Christ (the above mentioned podcasting, Godly music, Christian friends etc...) and lose the things that are pushing you away from Christ (ungodly music, tv shows or movies that make you stumble, people who bring you down etc...). If you practice regularly you will be ready for the game!

Next blog will be point #2 from athletics... I didn't want you guys to have to read too much ;)

Who are we fighting for?

2 Timothy 2:4 "To please the recruiter, no one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of everday life."

When one chooses to enlist in the military, they are choosing to dedicate their lives to the protection of this country, no matter what. A soldier at war cannot tell his commanding officer, "I just don't feel like being a soldier today...I'm going to go into town and be a civilian, maybe tomorrow I'll be back." That absolutely wouldn't fly! So why do we do that in our Christian faith?

I love the verse above because it is so simple. If a soldier doesn't get concerned with everyday life (the picture is really a civilians life), then why do we as soldiers of Christ get caught up in worldly things on a daily basis? Our God is a more gracious general than any earthyly general! Let's show Christ that we are soldiers for Him and not get caught up in the "civilians" life, because if we claim to follow Christ and then don't fight for Him, we are essentially fighting for the enemy. So I have to ask you, "Who are you fighting for?"

If you are fighting in God's army (remember the kids song?) you have the greatest priviledge that has ever existed! The only problem is, US as Christians, we often forget that this is the greatest priviledge because we get caught up in the civilians life! The enemy makes us think about things that are not as important as our walk with the Lord. For example, how many of you have thought about golf more than God this week? Or about music, or movies, or friends etc... One of Satan's greatest weapons is getting us to forget the eternal and to have improper focus. I encourage all of you (and I strongly encourage myself in this too), to never forget that which is most important in this life, and that is our walk with the LORD! Soldiers let's pick up our weapons and our armor and fight the good fight and leave the civilian life behind.

I'm just dying to grow!

"But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." Matthew 13:23

I love this verse because it is so encouraging to know that if you abide in Christ you will not only grow but bear fruit. The thing I don't like is that most pastors only tell us that and don't explain. I love hearing the Christian language, but lets start teaching people what it actually means.

In this verse we see that if a seed, which represents us, is on good ground then we will produce fruit! It is so cool to see God use the seed as an example of us growing. Why is it so cool? Well, a seed, in order for it to grow, must first die! What an awesome picture Jesus gives us here in this passage of Scripture.

If you want to know how to grow in Christ and bear much fruit, then you must die! What does this mean? Well let's get practical. If you want to grow in Christ you must die to your fleshly desires (these are the desires that are opposite of what God wants for you). As you are dying to your fleshly desires, the great thing is you will be growing spiritually! This is the concept Jesus is drawing for us here. If you die to yourself, then what are you doing? Quit simply, you are living for God and others and that is how you grow! Thank God He made it so simple!

If you are a teacher of the Word please don't fall into the temptation of just using Christian language (i.e. Grow in the Lord or give it all to God) without any explaination. We need to learn to practice how to live properly, not how to sound spiritual. Simply teach the Word and watch God bless, because after all it is His Words.

Love you guys! Let me know what you think about the blog by dropping a comment below.

Food for thought

1 Corinthians 11:24-25 "and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'"

In this blog, we are going to use the communion elements as food for thought. What do I mean? Well, have you ever thought, "Why did God use two elements for communion (bread and wine)?" I thought He could have easily chosen one element to summarize everything...I mean He's God, He can do anything, right? So then I thought, "Why did He choose these two elements?"

As I was thinking (something I don't always do...but I try), I thought well the bread represents the body. What does the body mean? Well, the body is something that is temporal. What does that tell us? It tells us that Jesus gave His body to be beaten and hung on the cross, but have you ever thought about His whole life? His body was the shell He was in while on earth and for His sacrifice to be perfect, He, in that body, had to be perfect. Christians, Jesus didn't just die for you, but He lived everyday of His life for you! He had to, His sacrifice had to be perfect. That means that every time He was tempted, He didn't sin because He thought of you and you were worth it to Him! If He lived everyday for you, what are you doing in return for Him?

His body represented the temporal, so what did His blood represent? Without His blood, you and I could not enter into an eternal relationship with Him. So His blood represents the eternal! Jesus loved us enough, that He lived everyday for us and at the end of His earthly life, He died for us so we could enter into eternity!

I encourage you to remember and dwell upon His sacrifice for you. Not only will it cause you to be very humble, but it will emphasize the grace that God has given to us. Don't forget, the point of communion is to remember!

The Great Oxymoron

2 Timothy 1:8 NLT "So never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord. And don't be ashamed of me, either even though I am in prison for Him. With the strength God gives you, be ready to suffer with me for the sake of the Good News."

You've all heard of an Oxymoron, right? You know...jumbo shrimp, sharply dull, found missing, honest lawyer, good grief, alone together and soft rock. Well those are some more of the popular one's, but how about this one? Ashamed Christian! This is a sad commentary of the Christian Church today. Many Christians are ashamed of their faith or should I say their God.

This strikes me as so upside down (did you like the valley girl imitation?). We as Christians are ashamed of God...let me put that in different words for you. We, as created beings, walking around on this planet, which we feel is massive, making a mess of our lives, say that we are ashamed of God, the Creator of all things who loves us passionately! That's not only a little odd, but that is incredibly prideful. Think about it! God created this universe with billions and billions of galaxies, and we live in one of those billions and billions of galaxies and it is called the Milky Way (those of you who just got distracted because they are thinking of candy bars, start this paragraph over). In this massive Milky way, there is our solar system, in that solar system is our earth (which is 50 times smaller than Jupiter, which is 50 times smaller than our sun). Then on our earth, there is the United States and then there is the state you live in and then your city and then your neighborhood and then your house and then you and your saying "I'm ashamed of God." Wow! God not only made the universe (which He holds in the span of His hand), not only made us and passionately loves us, but He gave us His word and the PRIVILEGE to share His word with the world! How dare we be ashamed!

If anything God should be ashamed of us, because we make a mess of our lives and blatantly sin against Him, but He is always there for us. American Church, let's try something new, instead of being ashamed of our Almighty and All loving God, let's do what He says...let's make disciples of all nations! So that one day we can say what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:12 (just a couple verses down of today's theme verse) "That is why I am suffering here in prison. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know in whom I trust, and I am sure He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until the day of His return."

God bless, love you guys!

Just add a little salt

Matthew 5:13 NKJV "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt looses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and to be trampled underfoot by men."

Salt is interesting, it can ruin a good meal or save a bad meal. How can something so small makes such a large difference? Have you ever heard "just add a little salt to the soup and it will be perfect?" You see, salt, although it is small makes a big difference because it's taste is so strong! What would happen to salt if it lost it's flavor? It would be pointless.
The same goes for us as Christians as soon as we start to loose our flavor (ex. become lazy in our Christian faith, like not reading the Bible or going to Church or making sure we have Christian friends etc...), we become pointless! If our whole point is to live in the world but not of the world, then what happens if we start living of the world? We have completely lost our meaning!!!

I hear Ravi Zacharias (he's amazing) tell a story that went something like this...

Imagine there were a bunch of salt in a salt shaker and one of the salt was excited just to be around other salt. This salt would be an optimist. Then there was another salt, the pessimist, who was upset with the optimistic salt and pointed out to him or her (don't want to be sexist you know) that all the salt was going into the soup on the stove top. He didn't want him to be happy, because they were all going to be poured out at some point. Then another salt came up to them (he's the realist) and he says,
"Guys listen, I can resolve your dispute. Yes, it is awesome that we all get to hang out here in the shaker, but it is also true that we will be gone some day because we will be placed in the soup, but one thing I know is that when I leave the shaker and get placed into the soup, that soup will never taste the same again."

May we have this same attitude, as opposed to try to blend in, let's make a difference in the soup that God has placed you in.

Are we missing the point?

1 Timothy 1:5-7 NLT
“The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience and genuine faith. But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions.”

One of the largest put off’s many people have with Christianity is… well, Christians! Many Christians love, it’s just a little different then what Paul meant, they LOVE to argue! There is almost nothing more frustrating than talking with and even encouraging a fellow believer and constantly having to defend everything you say. Let me give you a great example: Someone is going through a hard time and so one encourages them with scripture, by quoting Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Immediately after quoting this passage the person who is going through the hard time, looks at the encourager and says “Was that New King James?! I hate NKJV! How could you quote that translation?!”
The question I have to ask in this situation is “Are we missing the point?!”
Please, Christians, let’s stop loving to argue, and start loving! Ha, what a concept! We are put here on this earth to be ambassador’s for Christ, but we end up fighting a civil war. Let’s all start point our weapons at the enemy and not at each other. Remember, even when you get upset with that other believer, Christ has more reason to be upset with you, but He chose to forgive! (Colossians 3:12-13 “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do." Yeah that was NKJV, booyah!).
Hey Christians, I have a challenge for you: let’s redeem the name of Christ and not have the Church be synonymous hypocrisy! Don’t miss the whole point, let’s be one’s who are known by the love we have for one another.
Thanks for reading and please give feedback anytime. Thanks love you guys!

Burying our Fears not our talents

Jesus tells us a story in Matthew 25 of a man giving his servants a certain amount of talents. To one he gave five talents, to another he gave 2 talents and to the last he gave 1 talent. The first two servants went out and doubled their money so that when their master returned and they were rewarded, but the last servant buried his talent and made nothing. He was strongly rebuked for his laziness.

In the American church, especially in the youth, there is an overwhelming sense of laziness! Why is this? Well I believe it is rooted in fear! God has given us a task and has given us the ability to do that task effectively, but instead we sit at home listening to our ipod's, watching tv, texting friends, playing xbox and heating up dinner in the microwave all at the same time! We say "well, I go to church on Sunday, so I'm doing what God wants." Why do we limit ourselves to this? I believe it is because we are comfortable doing this and scared to step out and do what God is calling us to do. Let's be a generation that rebels against this slothfulness and this fear and instead turn the world upside down, by burying our fear, not our talents!

Paul hit on this same thing when he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:7-8 when he said "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord..." So may I strongly encourage you who are reading this to not bury your talents and gifts God has given you, but instead take a step of faith and see how God does amazing things through the little you may have to offer him (5 loaves and 2 fish right?). Let's collectively come together and bury that fear that tells us to bury the gifts God has given us and see what God will do!

Thanks for reading and my hope and prayer is that you are encouraged by this, not condemned.