May 29, 2006
The Priestly Blessing
The Lord bless thee and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace!
May 19, 2006
Another good quote
From last night's sermon based in the Book of Malachi:
"The question is not "How much should I give God?". It is, "How much do I have a right to keep?"
Think about it.
"The question is not "How much should I give God?". It is, "How much do I have a right to keep?"
Think about it.
May 17, 2006
The Desires of Your Heart
"Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Psalm 37:4
May 16, 2006
"How to Work in Any Environment"
By: T.D. Jakes
1. Don't expect to be appreciated. Your only expectation should be to get a Paycheck. Don't come to work to have personal relationships. Don't allow what you do to affect who you are.
2. Do your job well, but remember your mission. God put you there to be a Light.
3. Seek opportunities to change the atmosphere without commenting on the problems. You have a God to talk to. You are on an assignment. Quietness and competence shall be your strength.
4. Don't let your environment get inside of you. You should influence it, not let it influence you. Stop going to work to be fed. You didn't come to receive, you came to give.
5. Increase your capacity to work with different personalities. God will often bless you through people you don't even like!
6. Remember, where you are does not define where you are going. This will deliver you from frustration. God has a plan for your life. Keep your eye on the prize. When Peter did this, he was able to walk in what other people sank in!
7. Get the optimum results with minimal confusion. Be effective without making the environment worse.
8. Don't be associated with one group or clique. Labels limit your usefulness. God wants you to work with everybody but be labeled by nobody. Use all your gifts.
9. Always keep your song near you. Keep a consecrated place in your soul. Hold on to your praise.
10. Understand that God anoints you for trouble. Put on the whole armor of God before going to work.
1. Don't expect to be appreciated. Your only expectation should be to get a Paycheck. Don't come to work to have personal relationships. Don't allow what you do to affect who you are.
2. Do your job well, but remember your mission. God put you there to be a Light.
3. Seek opportunities to change the atmosphere without commenting on the problems. You have a God to talk to. You are on an assignment. Quietness and competence shall be your strength.
4. Don't let your environment get inside of you. You should influence it, not let it influence you. Stop going to work to be fed. You didn't come to receive, you came to give.
5. Increase your capacity to work with different personalities. God will often bless you through people you don't even like!
6. Remember, where you are does not define where you are going. This will deliver you from frustration. God has a plan for your life. Keep your eye on the prize. When Peter did this, he was able to walk in what other people sank in!
7. Get the optimum results with minimal confusion. Be effective without making the environment worse.
8. Don't be associated with one group or clique. Labels limit your usefulness. God wants you to work with everybody but be labeled by nobody. Use all your gifts.
9. Always keep your song near you. Keep a consecrated place in your soul. Hold on to your praise.
10. Understand that God anoints you for trouble. Put on the whole armor of God before going to work.
May 09, 2006
Spiritual Heritage
A huge part of my personal spiritual heritage is my involvement with Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship at the University of Alabama. Here is a link to a post I made on the XA Alumni Blog this evening.
May 06, 2006
Thoughts on blessing.
I guess this is sort of a response or an extension of the previous post.
One of the things we have to remember about the thnings that we think are God's blessings is that they are conditional. I don't mean that God does not want to bless us outright. He does. However we have to remember that God's chief characteristics is holiness. If it weren't Jesus never would have had to die for our sins. Therefore God's true blessings rest on the obedience of his people. Malachi says that God is waiting to throw open the gates of heaven, once His people obey Him in the Tithe. So God wants to bless us, however because of His holiness He requires obedience. None of this is intended to take away from my brother's previous. All of that is true. It's just another take on the subject.
I would also like to mention and give thanks to God for the fact that as of Wed our church got the final permit so we could occupy our new, partially done church building. When we started having church in a tent many thought we would never occupy a building. However, God has roven faithful. We obeyed Him and He has enabled us to occupy the building in His time. We're not surec when we'll hold the first service there yet. We want to make sure we're not ahead of God, so we're taking some extra time to make sure we're ready both inside and out.
God is in control and will continue to bless as we obey Him!
One of the things we have to remember about the thnings that we think are God's blessings is that they are conditional. I don't mean that God does not want to bless us outright. He does. However we have to remember that God's chief characteristics is holiness. If it weren't Jesus never would have had to die for our sins. Therefore God's true blessings rest on the obedience of his people. Malachi says that God is waiting to throw open the gates of heaven, once His people obey Him in the Tithe. So God wants to bless us, however because of His holiness He requires obedience. None of this is intended to take away from my brother's previous. All of that is true. It's just another take on the subject.
I would also like to mention and give thanks to God for the fact that as of Wed our church got the final permit so we could occupy our new, partially done church building. When we started having church in a tent many thought we would never occupy a building. However, God has roven faithful. We obeyed Him and He has enabled us to occupy the building in His time. We're not surec when we'll hold the first service there yet. We want to make sure we're not ahead of God, so we're taking some extra time to make sure we're ready both inside and out.
God is in control and will continue to bless as we obey Him!
May 02, 2006
Wanna Be Blessed?
Don't we all want to be blessed? I have a few thoughts on the subject I wanted to post. These are just thoughts off the top of my head, based on my experience combined with my understanding of Scripture. I haven't done any special research.
First I should define what I mean by blessed. By blessed, first and foremost I mean being in a state of peace with God and as much as depends on you, with other people and your circumstances. Secondarily, I mean having "better" circumstances. I think we often have a different definition of "blessed" than God's. Guess whose definition is wrong? To a large extent, God defines for each of us individually what it means to be blessed. I think there are some blessings he wants for all of us to experience, such as eternal life with Him in heaven, peace with Him and others on Earth, and joy, to name a few.
It also appears that God's definition of "blessed" can differ among individuals. This prompts the humanly unanswerable theological question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I'm going to "cop out" and admit up front that I do not have the answer to that. I know people, myself included, that have been victims of what I will call external forces, whether it involves other people or natural events beyond their control.
Sometimes I have a problem with the "victim" theory, though. Too often people would rather claim to be a victim rather than admit their own faults and take personal responsibility. We must accept that God sometimes allows bad things to happen in our lives, regardless of our choices. I still assert, though, that God, even in these situations, is willing and able to give us the grace and peace we need.
That leads me back to the question, "How can a person be blessed?" The primary barrier to blessings is not God! He is the source of all blessings. Then what is the main barrier? I contend that we are our own greatest barriers to being blessed. How? Simply put, when we submit and surrender to God and follow His leadership in our lives, we will maximize our blessings. When we choose to go our own way, we will minimize our blessings. It is important at this point to remember my definition of "blessed".
There have been people who followed the Lord into hostile territory, only to be executed, tortured, crucified, and mistreated in more ways than we want to think about. Who is to say, though, that they were not blessed? I have read and heard stories of people who were martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ, who continued to praise the Lord and expressed amazing peace
and contentment while being killed. How can that be? To me, it's a deep, abiding faith in Christ and being completely surrendered to Him and full of the Holy Spirit.
Paul mentioned in Philippians 1:21, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (King James Version) Matthew Henry's Commentary on this verse states, "Death is a great loss to a carnal, worldly man, for he loses all his earthly comforts and all his hopes; but to a true believer it is gain, for it is the end of all his weakness and misery. It delivers him from all the evils of life, and brings him to possess the chief good. The apostle's difficulty was not between living in this world and living in heaven; between these two there is no comparison; but between serving Christ in this world and enjoying him in another. Not between two evil things, but between two good things; living to Christ and being with him. See the power of faith and of Divine grace; it can make us willing to die. In this world we are compassed with sin; but when with Christ, we shall escape sin and temptation, sorrow and death, for ever. But those who have most reason to desire to depart, should be willing to remain in the world as long as God has any work for them to do. And the more unexpected mercies are before they come, the more of God will be seen in them."
To me, it all gets back to our choices. Our first and most important choice is whether to accept Christ as savior. Once we have decided that, we have to decide to let Him be the Lord, in control, of our lives. Then we have to fight the battles every day against our selfish desires, bad influences, and risky behavior. This extends in to so many areas of our lives. This is the hard part for many of us, if we are honest with ourselves. We are like sheep. Sheep are not known for their intelligence. They tend to wander off. Isn't that just like us? The battle gets easier when we see that our moment by moment choices have a direct relationship to how much we are blessed in the long run. It gets even easier still when we realize that even if we cannot see the result, God will eventually honor our good choices. We need to continually ask Him to help us follow as we should. We should accept his chastening as a blessing. Even if it doesn't feel good at the time, remember that if you have accepted Christ, He will do great things in your life if you let Him!
I pray that you are blessed today and eternally!
First I should define what I mean by blessed. By blessed, first and foremost I mean being in a state of peace with God and as much as depends on you, with other people and your circumstances. Secondarily, I mean having "better" circumstances. I think we often have a different definition of "blessed" than God's. Guess whose definition is wrong? To a large extent, God defines for each of us individually what it means to be blessed. I think there are some blessings he wants for all of us to experience, such as eternal life with Him in heaven, peace with Him and others on Earth, and joy, to name a few.
It also appears that God's definition of "blessed" can differ among individuals. This prompts the humanly unanswerable theological question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I'm going to "cop out" and admit up front that I do not have the answer to that. I know people, myself included, that have been victims of what I will call external forces, whether it involves other people or natural events beyond their control.
Sometimes I have a problem with the "victim" theory, though. Too often people would rather claim to be a victim rather than admit their own faults and take personal responsibility. We must accept that God sometimes allows bad things to happen in our lives, regardless of our choices. I still assert, though, that God, even in these situations, is willing and able to give us the grace and peace we need.
That leads me back to the question, "How can a person be blessed?" The primary barrier to blessings is not God! He is the source of all blessings. Then what is the main barrier? I contend that we are our own greatest barriers to being blessed. How? Simply put, when we submit and surrender to God and follow His leadership in our lives, we will maximize our blessings. When we choose to go our own way, we will minimize our blessings. It is important at this point to remember my definition of "blessed".
There have been people who followed the Lord into hostile territory, only to be executed, tortured, crucified, and mistreated in more ways than we want to think about. Who is to say, though, that they were not blessed? I have read and heard stories of people who were martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ, who continued to praise the Lord and expressed amazing peace
and contentment while being killed. How can that be? To me, it's a deep, abiding faith in Christ and being completely surrendered to Him and full of the Holy Spirit.
Paul mentioned in Philippians 1:21, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (King James Version) Matthew Henry's Commentary on this verse states, "Death is a great loss to a carnal, worldly man, for he loses all his earthly comforts and all his hopes; but to a true believer it is gain, for it is the end of all his weakness and misery. It delivers him from all the evils of life, and brings him to possess the chief good. The apostle's difficulty was not between living in this world and living in heaven; between these two there is no comparison; but between serving Christ in this world and enjoying him in another. Not between two evil things, but between two good things; living to Christ and being with him. See the power of faith and of Divine grace; it can make us willing to die. In this world we are compassed with sin; but when with Christ, we shall escape sin and temptation, sorrow and death, for ever. But those who have most reason to desire to depart, should be willing to remain in the world as long as God has any work for them to do. And the more unexpected mercies are before they come, the more of God will be seen in them."
To me, it all gets back to our choices. Our first and most important choice is whether to accept Christ as savior. Once we have decided that, we have to decide to let Him be the Lord, in control, of our lives. Then we have to fight the battles every day against our selfish desires, bad influences, and risky behavior. This extends in to so many areas of our lives. This is the hard part for many of us, if we are honest with ourselves. We are like sheep. Sheep are not known for their intelligence. They tend to wander off. Isn't that just like us? The battle gets easier when we see that our moment by moment choices have a direct relationship to how much we are blessed in the long run. It gets even easier still when we realize that even if we cannot see the result, God will eventually honor our good choices. We need to continually ask Him to help us follow as we should. We should accept his chastening as a blessing. Even if it doesn't feel good at the time, remember that if you have accepted Christ, He will do great things in your life if you let Him!
I pray that you are blessed today and eternally!
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