So we are now in the full holiday swing with commercials from companies trying to get you to spend money you don’t have on crap that you probably don’t need. I normally don’t watch commercials because my wife and I have been lured in quite firmly to using DVR and recording all of our shows. My dad and nephew were with Yolanda and I this past weekend for Thanksgiving and I noticed a couple of commercials while we were watching football games that really made me sad and concerned for the marketing that is being used to encourage people to buy their product. One was for the new Nintendo WiiU which seems harmless enough, but what Nintendo was promoting was disappointing. They had a kid in his room playing his video game and a mom came in to tell him to turn the game off and she stood in front of the TV so the kid could not see. The kid then proceeded to just use the handheld touchscreen on the WiiU controller and keep playing after his mom told him to stop. The kid looks at the camera with a sly look and the mom just laughs like, “you sure got me son.” So essentially to promote the large playable touchscreen on the WiiU remote they were essentially saying that even if your parents stand in front of or turn the TV off then you can just keep on playing and ignore their direction. Very disappointing that this angle was taken to promote the game console and flies in the face of the scripture “children, honor your mother and father.” I know this may seem like a stretch, but it just struck me as wrong and a HUGE signifying factor about where we are as a culture and the relationship now with kids and parents which is equal and not at the proportion God intended. The other commercial was for the Buck Lacrosse. It starts out with a guy buying his wife a new small different brand of car with a bright red bow on it and he surprises her and she hugs him and is completely happy. Then, as she is hugging her husband, a Buick Lacrosse drives by behind his back and she stares at it and all of the sudden is not happy with the car her husband bought her. He tries to hug her again and get her attention away from the Lacrosse but she keeps staring at the Buick with her arms at her side. What a classic example of not being content with what you are given. That is really what our culture is all about; being unhappy with what you have, to spend money on something you don’t need. I was again disappointed in Buick but should not expect more considering the core desire of our flesh which is to want things that we don’t have and not be content with what we are given or what has been sacrificed for us. We do the same thing with Jesus in each of these instances. He steps in and tries to give us direction and we get distracted or “go around” what he is saying to keep doing what we think is best. He gives us something and we are not happy with it and desire something else that is not in our possession. Don’t let this holiday season be about distractions and greed for something more than you have. I pray that you get the same kind of revelation I received from watching two simple commercials and considering where I am in my mind and life. Let us be only focused on Jesus and grateful for the things he has given us. Please share this link in Facebook or Twitter if you know someone who would benefit from this post. Thanks and have a great day!
Thankfulness Provides an Atmosphere for Change
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This post is specifically directed at those people who are having a hard time being thankful today. Maybe today you are seeing all the posts on Facebook & Twitter about Thanksgiving and you don’t feel like you can post anything. Never forget that thankfulness provides an atmosphere for change. If you want things to change in you life, whatever it might be, then it is important and even imperative that you find something to be thankful for. Thankfulness does not change anything in life itself, but it certainly changes the atmosphere and attitudes of you and the people around you. When you are thankful in life you are not ignoring possible crap that is happening but you are choosing to focus on something positive, possibly, in a sea of negative. On this Thanksgiving, I challenge you to really examine you life and consider giving thanks and seeing if the rest of the un-thankful parts of you life don’t turn around for the better. When your focus is forward and not backward you cause your mind and heart to see potential in life and not the “reality” of where you think you are. It really is one of the main reasons I follow Jesus; the good in Him replaces the crap in me. And that is CERTAINLY something to be thankful for. 🙂 Have a blessed day and weekend!!
Some Get Emergency Prayer and Some Don’t
I am sure that I have many Facebook and Twitter friends who wonder why I post Emergency prayer requests for certain people and not for others. I wanted to take a blog post and let people know why I do this and help explain why I pray that way sometimes for people. I am trying to pray and listen to the Holy Spirit every day of my life. Facebook for me is a great way to see what people are up to in their lives but also to see the needs of people I have known through the years. I normally know when I get a “check” in my spirit and feel a need to post something going on in someone’s life that needs an extra dose of prayer and encouragement. That is why I will do a Facebook post for them. There are so many things that I hear about through Facebook Friend Prayer Day on Tuesdays. I could be posting emergency prayer requests all day! Its not that I am trying to play favorites but that the people I post on my feed for prayer are ones that I feel like God has prompted me to raise visibility of their need. When I see needs on Facebook I pray for them so I am getting prayer to really anyone who posts a need. But I need to stay obedient to God when I feel like the Holy Spirit wants me to get more people praying than just myself. I don’t feel like I am the “determiner” of what is more or less important but I am only doing what I feel God wants me to do. You will always notice that I say on prayer days that I will AGREE with you in prayer. This is not that I will pray for something and then the “magic will happen” because it’s not about me. It’s about God and his power and mercy being exhibited in people’s lives. I really want Facebook and Twitter to be vehicles to touch more people than I can on a daily basis living in Denver. Emergency prayer requests are just another way of helping people see that Facebook is not about posting what you had for lunch or vacation photos (although sometimes those things are appropriate :). It’s about doing something for someone else at their point of need. Jesus did that for us 2000 years ago by dying on a cross for our sins. Which was the ultimate “Facebook Friend Emergency Prayer” for each of us. Have a great rest of the week.
The Most Effective People I Know
The followers of Christ who make the greatest difference in the world are ones who are not “doers” of the Word but are “be-ers” of the Word. Oswald Chambers stated it this way about helping others find Christ; “soul winning should not be something we do, but something we are.
I believe this thinking applies to all disciplines of the Christian faith.” I want to be someone who influences others based on my relationship to God and not primarily my relationship with them. The only way I can do that is by knowing God and spending time with Him. For the rest of this weekend, focus your attention on knowing/hearing from God and letting the things you “do” for God be an overflow of that time well spent.
Proverbs Devotion with Dad
My dad and I just had a great discussion and devotion about Proverbs 8 and Wisdom this am. I love how this chapter really “gets going” towards the end and talks about Wisdom being there before the earth and was with the planning process for the world and all of us. Proverbs 8:17 is an awesome little verse “I love those who love me. Those who look for me find me.”
I am so happy that the God I serve and all the good things about him are not elusive and hidden from me. The only times in my life when I felt like he was not there or hidden from me was just that; when I THOUGHT.” Don’t let your circumstances keep you from knowing that God loves you and that wisdom is attainable for you to have and walk in. According to Proverbs, Wisdom is like the glue that holds everything else together and is worthy of being sought and can be obtained by ordinary people like you and me. Have a great day!!
The True GOLD Standard
Revelation 21:21 is a great “perspective” verse about what heaven is made of and what we feel is important. “21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.”
Some economists talk about the potential astronomical value of gold in the coming years because of such a volatile US and world market system. By the way, we are not going to “elect” our way out of a crappy economy with this presidential election. We need to stop trying to spend more than we take in. Period. (but that is another blog for another day 🙂 I like the comparison you can make that the most important thing on this earth, gold (or money/economy) is just pavement under the feet of those in heaven. Think of it this way; anything the world thinks is important is the exact opposite to God. Popularity, money, status, etc. So, basically, the “gold standard” on earth is just the “pavement standard” in heaven. Our prayer needs to be each day that we keep our lives in perspective while realizing the necessity of earthly things like money, but with the correct level of focus on those things. Have a great week!!
If you are changing, others will notice
This morning I was thinking about the word “change” and what quantifies change in a persons life. As a follower of Christ, if I am not changing each day than I know I am not becoming the person God needs me to be. I slip into a stagnant relationship with Jesus that becomes less relevant to a hurting world and makes my life meaningless. There is already a great work that Jesus did in me when i first accepted him but my flesh always will want to stay stagnant not change. The key thing that separates a successful and valuable person from everyone else is the ability to change. If I think I am changing then the people I come in contact with, especially those closest to me, should notice something different about me. More patient, listening better, smiling more, etc. A great litmus test in your life can be the reaction of others to you, positive or negative. One thing my dad always told me was that you can learn something from anyone, even something negative and seeing what you don’t want to do or be like. I really don’t believe there is anyone on the face of the earth who wants to be the personal illustration for a dad telling his son, “now THAT, my boy, is what you do NOT want to do/be in this life.” Yet, we can all recognize people in the course of our lives that we would consider “bad examples.” Change is a beautiful thing but not automatic. The only way we can truly change into the person we need to be for this world is by submitting ourselves to God but also to those who we trust and want to see us succeed. None of us have all the qualities in this life to finish up living just the way we are. If I call myself a follower of Jesus, I need to be asking God to help my actions line up with the change Christ has already brought inside of me. Maybe there is something to the verses in the Bible that talk about iron sharpening iron and that I am being changed from glory to glory. The thing I will work on today is my will lining up with those promises of change. 🙂 Have a great weekend.
The Outward In or The Inward Out – Devos from India
This was a little blog post i put together while traveling through Delhi, India last week. Thought i would share it with you!
I am currently sitting in the Delhi India airport waiting to see my bags (which they need to get their crap together, by the way, as far as transfer passengers) I was reading my Watchman Née – Secrets to Spiritual Power book for my morning Devos. This book is so loaded with good, biblical thoughts to chew on so I thought I would share a little something from the other side of the earth. 🙂 Watchman says, “One way to discern between the work of satan and the work of God in a persons spiritual life is this: God always works from the center out while Satan works from the outside to the center.” I know that many times I am reacting to the outward circumstances satan throws at me instead of living from the inside truth that Jesus has it all under control. Don’t let your today be robbed by allowing the devil to make you focus more on his power to deceive instead of focusing on God and His power to ALREADY deliver you. The key is us realizing that the work is already finished. God is ready to work from the inside out instead of letting you be distracted from things on the outside trying to maneuver and get into your life. Have a good day and blessings!
Pastor Wally was Just Like Jesus
Today I was thinking about Pastor Wally Hickey and the legacy he leaves on this earth. So many people from so many countries around the world will feel his passing. I truly believe that when we are born and start our lives that we strive to be a world changer. Someone who will be remembered for something great and leave a lasting mark on this world. The interesting thing for Pastor Wally was that he only wanted to be known because of Jesus inside of him. Not for the glory or the fame, but if he had those things, he would turn it back to God. I have only been at Orchard Road for a little over twelve years and many people here have known Wally for much longer than I have. I didn’t have to know him for his whole life to see who he was. When you would ask someone about Wally, you would only hear about Jesus’ love shown through his actions. Whether it was through his singing worship, rhyming in prophetic words, favorite sayings, his “Dear Ones” in the bulletin, loving his kids Michael and Sarah or supporting his world evangelist wife, you saw how Jesus would handle the situation. Pastor Wally was not perfect, as none of us are. But he consistently and frequently consulted God on all decisions which is why so many people can say, “that man touched my life.” His life is an example of staying faithful to the things that matter most in life; to God, to the vision God gave him, to his wife and to himself.
If you knew Pastor Wally, I ask you to think about how you are going to allow his legacy to live on in your life. I know that I want people to not say some day when I am gone that I was tall, funny or other irrelevant things. I want them to say I was a lover of God, my wife, my family and the people he put in my path. Not that I am perfect, but I serve a perfect God who, when I let shine through me as Wally did, can have a sheen of perfection because of Jesus in me. Let Jesus love shine through you too. It would put that slight smile on Pastor Wally’s face and make him happy, which is just like Jesus.
Last Night in Nepal
Well, we had a great trip to the boarder of Nepal next to Tibet. We spent three days just loving on the people and doing dental work, handing out glasses and praying for the sick. We saw about 195 people in the eye clinic and about 170 in the glasses. We also got to pray for about 16 people and saw one lady accept Jesus into her heart and one man healed of chest pain. I loved just sitting and listening to all the stories of the people we came in contact with. Some people on the last day took a bus from their house and walked three hours up the mountain to where we were ministering. Many if not all of the people we saw had never been to a dentist or an eye doctor in their entire life. The church got all the names and addresses of the people who came to see us so it was a great time of spreading seed of God’s love as well as just praying for people and letting them know about the love of Jesus. We so appreciate the doctors and their wives who came at their own expense to touch the lives of so many people who desperately needed to see and experience the love of God through action.
The awesome thing is that you don’t have to go to Nepal to show the Love of Jesus to the world around you. Many times we say, “if I could only go to a far away country and show people that Jesus loves them…” But you have friends and family that need to see Jesus’ love on display and not in some foreign country. I challenge you today to ask God to give you an opportunity to share His love and to be used by Him. Many times we wait for moments to “stumble upon” a person or situation that needs a God infusion instead of being targeted with our requests and then letting God do the rest!! Have a great night/day and our next stop is a 9 hour layover in London!! Woohoo!! Good times and we will see everyone Sunday am!
Holy Crap 