Getting the big head

Have you ever met someone who is all puffed up? Or, they get all big headed when they do something good in life. When those moments come that they really feel like the accomplished something they are walking in the clouds. Well, I have news for you, we all fit that description. We all fall into a category of having the big head. If you have ever accomplished something, or if you have children and have watched them accomplish something your head has swollen. I like to go to church children's performances, they're funny to watch because you just don't know what the kids will do for sure. You see adults who have worked for months and months on the play, and you see them all stressed out because they know what the kids may say or do that isn't part of the show. Then, you watch the parents. They are beaming from the second the show starts. Smiling from ear to ear with their camcorders, everyone is weaving, bending and jumping around trying to get the perfect shot of their kid. If you go to their homes you'll see that the camera is focused on their child and nothing else. They're proud, they're excited to see their kids do something that they have worked hard on, and even more excited to share it publicly. Another time this happens is at graduation, I see moms and dads so proud. Even though most of them will go on to college and graduate from college, they are proud to see this day come. It is the culmination of 13 years of getting their kids out of bed, fed and making sure they do homework and study for tests. It's hard work and they can take full credit for it.
Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works so that no one can boast.
The day you turned your heart to God, you accepted Him as your Savior and admitted your sins there were several people beaming. Your parents were probably proud that years of getting you up on Sunday morning and getting you to church, years of praying for you had now culminated in your public profession of faith. But, in the truest sense only one person can be proud, that's God. He can be proud of the gift that He gave you, of the fact that He sent His Son to die on a cross to give you this choice. No one else has anything to do with it. Not the youth pastor, children's minister, pastor or Sunday school teacher, not even the parents. God had everything to do with it, and it is His free gift of grace to each of us who choose it. So don't get the big head that you are saved, that you can call yourself a Christian, you didn't do any of the work. You simply accepted a gift and any 2 year old at a birthday party can accept a free gift.
Thank God for His part in your salvation and the salvation of your family today.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

perception is reality

In life you can only come to grips with so many truths. Like, the Gospel and God's love for you, money is the root of all evil, and perception is reality. The latter is so true and we don't even realize it. I have worked hard most of my life to make sure of this, but I have also slipped at times. There are those who only know me by the slips and that is a painful reality.
I remember playing highschool sports, and especially baseball. I can recall one particular night that we were playing against a pretty good team and I was pitching. This was a team that we had beat pretty bad the time before. I had a decent game against them the last time and I was ready for this one. There was a hitter batting third in the line-up that I had struck out 2 of 3 at bats the game before against them. I had struck him out with fastballs inside(which is usually a major no-no in highschool baseball, but I just threw what my coach had called. This time, the batter stepped up to the plate and I was told to throw a fastball outside and low and did, then change up, curve, change up and I couldn't figure out what my coach was doing. I was 2 weeks removed from having thrown several inside fastballs right by this guy and coach won't call it any more. So I shook off the pitch called(coaches hate that by the way) and I waited until the catcher(looking quite puzzled now) gave me the fastball sign, then I shook off location until I got what I wanted. I checked the runner on first and delivered what was easily going to be strike three, a fastball just inside on the hitter's hands. I let the pitch go and had just enough time to turn over my right shoulder and watch the ball bounce off the left field wall for a double. After the inning my coach let me in on a little secret. The hitter I was facing had trouble with the inside fastballs and couldn't hit the previous game because he was just coming back from a broken wrist. That slowed down his swing and allowed me to throw a fastball inside by him. You see I was basing all the at bats on my prior information, much like perception. I percieved him based on the last game we played and did not have the total picture.
Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right" (Prov 20:11).
From children right on to senior adults, we are percieved by our actions on a daily basis. The things you do today mold what people think of you tomorrow. The scary thing is that some people may only be in contact with you once, today and never again. Their perception of you does not take into account how bad of a day you are having, how rude the other people may be to you every day, or any circumstances at all. All they see is your actions, and hopefully your actions today are full of Christlikeness. That should be our perception given off, that Christ is in us and living through us. After all your actions today, tell of your relationship with Him, make them count!
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Coach Dad

So as you may or may not already know I spend a lot of time around sports. I pastor the football team at Pedro Menendez(who won their 7 on 7 game last night) and I coach girls' softball at St. Augustine High School. Well, on my free afternoons during the summer I have been taking Alexa to play softball. Sometimes we pitch, other times we hit, and sometimes we just run and play catch. Whatever it is we are doing I make sure she realizes why we are doing it. And I have to be very careful that she realizes we aren't just doing it to make dad happy(though it seems that way sometimes). We are doing it to get better, the important thing is that she has to want to get better. If my desire for her to be good at it was enough she would be on the Olympic team already at age 8. She has to want to get better deep inside of herself.
The same goes for my coaching, the girls have to want to get better. During the spring we have mandatory practices every day. During the summer we have practices on Mondays and games on Thursdays and they are anything but mandatory. We just allow people to show up when they can, and play when they can. The summer tends to show us just who wants to get better and who needs us to push a little.
These things are exactly the same with God. If we want to grow as Christians we have to want it for ourselves. He did not make us as robots or puppets so the same choice we have for salvation is the amount of choice we have in our SPiritual growth.
1 Peter 2:2 says, "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation."
There you have it, Peter is telling us we have to want it, and crave it. You need to crave that spiritual growth just like a baby cries out for milk. The same way you feel when you are hungry is the way you should feel toward your spiritual growth. You have to want it, it isn't enough for your Savior to want it for you, or even for your Pastor or Sunday School teacher to want it for you, you have to want it. You should start your day out with hunger, hunger to grow closer to God that day and wanting to do it through reading the BIble and prayer. It's for you, and it's done by you no one can do it for you. So try this mindset, start your day out with a prayer that you will long to grow closer to God and stronger spiritually, then act on it.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.

by-products

So about a year ago I decided to start a diet, it was a diet I had done before to lose weight. Each time I have dieted it has been for a different reason, this time it was for clothes. At Tara's school someone saw that I wear jeans a lot and gave her some very nice, name brand(rare for us) jeans for me. When I heard what size they were I just knew they would fit me, wrong! Tara got them home and I almost pulled a leg muscle and tore my shoulders out trying to get them pulled up and zipped. I decided right then to diet, to lose enough weight for those jeans to fit. It wasn't just one pair it was about 5 pairs of brand new jeans. So I began to diet, I started out strong and lost more and more weight. Then, finally the inches started to drop off and after about 3 months I could squeeze into them. Now, today they fit just fine, so well that a few pairs of them are about worn out. I lost all that weight to get into nice clothes, but as the journey went on I started to feel good about myself, I started to have more stamina and more drive. My product was to fit in jeans, but the by-products almost outweighed the product because I felt better, I had more energy and I was able to do a lot more with our softball girls as well as my own daughters. More energy meant more to do with the girls in the afternoons and evenings and I love it.
Yesterday, we talked about the product of a Spirit filled life, it was peace. But there are in-numerable by-products. They are all listed in Galatians 5:22.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
So you start your journey with God hoping to gain a personal relationship with Him. You along the way hope to find His peace in your life so that you can deal with the things of this world. Then, you start to discover other things in your life, other by-products that you had not even taken into account. Things like love, joy , patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are all things that I can honestly say have been developed in my life as my walk with God has strengthened.
So you see the peace that comes from knowing Christ and knowing you have a reservation in Heaven is only the beginning of the blessings of knowing HIm and growing closer to Him. As your walk grows, so will the list of by-products out of that relationship. Just like that diet, I had one particular motive but got blessed by several others.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Products and by-products

Through out my life I have known a lot of people that I would call powerful. They are people that seem to be very driven, and very empowered having no problem whatsoever going in the direction they are led and leading. From pastors, to businessmen to moms all have showed tremendous strength in adversity and peace when there seems to be none. How is this? What is so different about them from the average person, what do they have that many do not? Well, Paul talks about it briefly in Galatians and in 2 Timothy.
For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline" (2 Tim. 1:7).
First of all we see that as God's children, as born again believers we have the Holy SPirit living and breathing inside of us. With that knowledge comes power love and self-discipline. These are all direct products of having the Holy Spirit living right inside of us. Those strongwilled, driven leaders understand that the Holy Spirit has given us power love and self discipline, and not fear, unsurity and second guessing. The word that covers over all of this is peace.
That's what peace is all about, it's not those moments in your life where there is no noise(although those are nice), it's not those times when your mind is clear of all distractions and you can think completely clear.
God's peace is different and it makes each of us act different. God's peace is the comfort of knowing that the Holy Spirit is living inside of us. It's knowing that the Holy Spirit will empower us to face all the obstacles of the day no matter what. It's understanding what God's power, love and self-discipline is all about. All of those are products of the Christian life, but they work together to produce peace in our lives.
So if you are feeling timid, or fearful, or anxious that is your human flesh controlling. Pray that God will remove those feelings and allow Him to give you peace through the power of the Holy Spirit living inside you. Then you can face life one day at a time, with not one bit of fear or reluctance.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

integrity

A survey was done a few years ago in which about 500,000 people were asked a series of questions. They were asked questions about their lifestyles, their church life and their beliefs. The first question was somewhat different though. THey were asked what they would be willing to do for 1 million dollars if there was no way it could possibly be found out. Embarassingly enough over half of those who were married would be unfaithful, about a quarter of them would be willing to steal from their own family, and thirty percent of all of them would do something completely immoral. Thesee statistics may or may not surprise you, but out of all of them, 60% of those who would be unfaithful were regular church attenders. Of the 30% who would do something completely immoral, almost half of them were church members. What am I getting at? Today's church is starving for real Christ followers, those who are willing to set aside all things to seek the glory of God.
Proverbs 12:6 says, "Righteousness guards the man of integrity,, but wickedness overthrows the sinner."
The key word in that passage is integrity and integrity is what is lacking in today's world, scarily it is even missing in today's Christians. We need to be people who are seeking to live lives of integrity in all aspects of life. People cheat on their taxes, thinking that it will never be found out, people cheat their books in their business or cheat others out of jobs in the corporate world to get that promotion. Today's Christian needs to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord no matter where or what they are involved in.
I sat in my desk at the Homeless Coalition about 2 years ago and felt something under my feet. I reached down and it was a paper bag, it has over $300 cash in it and a few receipts no markings or names anywhere on it. I dug through and found nothing to tell me whose it was, or to prove that it was anyone's at all. I had to back track to see who had been in my office and I figured out that two days prior there was a lady in there who had used my desk to fill out some things for one of our programs. She had sat her stuff under the desk and the bag had fallen out, she had just cashed a check from a charity to pay her bills. I had witnessed to her atleast a couple times directly, and several hundred times with the things that I did, with no impact whatsoever. But, when I called her to see if she had lost a bag, she told me exactly what receipts were in there and how much cash was there to the nickel. To this day her grandkids still attend our youth group every Wednesday.
Integrity, people believe in you when you show integrity. That may be your strongest witness, so don't compromise to see what you can get for yourself, keep your integrity and see what you can do for God.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

the secret to life

Philip Parham tells the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat. “Why aren’t you out there fishing?” he asked.
“Because I’ve caught enough fish for today,” said the fisherman.
“Why don’t you catch more fish than you need?’ the rich man asked.
“What would I do with them?”
“You could earn more money,” came the impatient reply, “and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish. You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you’d have a fleet of boats and be rich like me.”
The fisherman asked, “Then what would I do?”
“You could sit down and enjoy life,” said the industrialist.
“What do you think I’m doing now?” the fisherman replied as he looked placidly out to sea.
Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised" (Job 1:21).
In today's world people are constantly in want. Everyone wants this and that and never do you hear people saying they are content. Coveting is the sin of choice as it leads to adultery, stealing, cheating, and even idolatry. So much of today's economic problem is based on wants over running actual needs. Last night I told our teenagers that the secret to life is not to get everything you want, but to have everything you have. To know that the things you have you have been blessed with from God.
If we can just learn from Job to praise GOd for what we have, and not worry about what we don't have, or what we have lost we will find peace in life. Remember the key to life is not getting everything you want, but learning to want everything you have. Praising GOd, and worshipping Him for who He is will make all the difference in finding this mindset.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Finish it off

Having worked in construction I understand both sides of the builder-homeowner saga. I have been the guy wanting the contractor to return to finish a job they started, and I have also been the guy who someone was waiting on. I hated the feeling of knowing I could go finish a job, but had others in the way. Permits were usually the problem, waiting on permits or inspections meant we either have guys standing around doing nothing, or we take them to another job and put them to work. Usually the latter was the solution.
How about in your life? Since your conversion and that moment you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior have you finished everything? There are things that are part of a sinner's lifestyle that cannot be a part of a believer's life. There are things that we do in the flesh because we live in the flesh, that should not happen once we are living in the Spirit. But, unfortunately it all too often does, and it is because we didn't finish the cleaning process.
When you accept Christ as Savior, you start a process that cleans up your life and your habits. But, there are so many that we let slide and don't take care of right away and they linger, and eventually they will come back to bite you. You'll find a time when things aren't great, when everything is not going your way, and you will stumble. Many times what we stumble on is the remnants of an old sin that we used to struggle with. I had a friend who struggled with pornography, he accepted Christ and lit a fire in his backyard burning everything that even remotely reminded him of the nasty habit. Then, he was preparing to move and when he was packing up he found an old magazine, he opened it up and looked and felt those old feelings of temptation take over and eventually fell right back into it's grasp. Why? Because he didn't finish the deal, and even after he didn't finish it he should not have opened that magazine.
"When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely" (Judg 1:28-29).
The Israelites had been told by God numerous times to get rid of the Canaanites completely but instead they kept them as slaves. In doing so they did not follow GOd's commands on this and eventually stumbled several times as a nation because they did not get rid of them completely. It's the same way with our sins, we can't just shove them in a closet or under a bed and say that they are gone. We must spend much time in prayer and preparation and remove them completely. We need to finish the job and clean up the entire life, not just areas of it.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

prepared in advance

So there I was, fairly new at the whole youth ministry atmosphere. I had planned out an entire night of games, some outside and quite involved, some inside and not so crazy, but all in all they were fun. They were games that I had planned out for several months just to have a kick off type of youth night for the new school year. I had games to fit every personality and every little mini-clique we had in the group. Athletic games for the jocks, sit down thinking games for the brainiacs, and everything in between. I was excited, we advertised the night, got all set and then it happened. First, in the morning it rained so the outside games were not going to be so attractive to some of the kids that don't like to get dirty. Then, I found out that there was a schedule conflict with a highschool football meeting that would knock out some of my most faithful as well as their friends. And ofcourse I had a family out of town that accounted for about 5 kids so that hit hard. But, as they say the show must go on. We had about 1/4 the kids I had planned for, most of them did not like the outside games and none of them participated wholeheartedly. It was a major let down, and it still stings a bit today now 6 years later.
I go through situations like that from time to time today. A sermon that I seem to focus on someone as I am planning it. Feeling like it should touch them in some way or motivate a certain person and then they don't show up that Sunday. All of these can be most frustrating.
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
Think about how God feels when His house is open on Sundays and we aren't there. Or when we skip our quiet times, or when we don't show up somewhere that there was a major blessing prepared for us. Every time we don't answer to God's calling, or don't do the things that God has asked us to do we miss out on a potential life changing event whether big or small. Every time I skip out on something that I feel God has led me to be a part of I feel those overwhelming disappointments that I have experienced and know that I must be 10 times the disappointment to God many times.
We know where we should be and what we should be doing for God, let's make every effort to get there and be a part of the things GOd has planned for us.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

getting your fuel

How did you sleep last night? well, I tossed and turned with all my stress until after 1am and then I was out, the next thing I recall is the alarm going off at 6:20 this morning. I usually sleep like that, once I am out there is no stopping me. Many people sleep that way and rest very peacefully. I want to point out that when you sleep that is the one time that you are wholly trusting in God. All day long you make decisions, you drive, you walk, you cook, you eat, and so on. Each of those decisions you play an important role in. You watch where you are driving and keep a close look at the mirrors(atleast I hope you do) and when you eat you check out your food and make sure it is good to go. What about sleep? Well, once you are asleep you are trusting in GOd to keep you safe, and to give you rest. There is no thought process involved, no checking around in your sleep you are fully committed to His watch.
Well, why not start your day off right after seeminly resting in His arms with a refueling process. Start your day off in the Word and in prayer and continue this process, rather than jumping out of the bed and snatching control back, acknowledge the fact that you have rested peacefully under His watch and care. A good morning refueling can be pivotal to surviving today's ups and downs. I can tell you that I can't operate throughout the day without this refueling process. I spend time in the word, and in prayer. Then I take my shower, get ready for work and drive to the office. Once at the office, I put my thoughts together, type out my blog and work on my sermons for the coming weeks. Again, right back in the Word and whatever the world throws at me, I am going to be ready because I gave the day to God, and I gave to Him my first moments so that He will guide the rest of the day.
So try it, if you don't already have a refueling session in the morning, try it out. They say it takes about 7-10 days to create a habit. So why not purposely create a good habit.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! We will be on the road tomorrow so probably won't be blogging.

Salt and Light

Have you ever been to a restaraunt with my wife that serves french fries. It's so funny, one of the first things she will do is taste the french fries and see if they are salted. She loves her salt on her french fries and can't live without it. It's a taste, not a feel. Salt cannot be faked, if there was salt on the fries that had no taste it would be a lot like that sandwich you eat at the beach. You know, the one that you bite down on and feel the grains of sand crunching as you chew and then swallow. I can't imagine there being much worse things than grains of salt that are not salty.
Ofcourse through the years salt has had it's negative uses as well. THousands of years ago salt was used mostly to preserve things. It was primarily a preservative and rarely an addition to a meal at all. But, in those days it was also used in wars. If an army was able to break into a camp, or settlement and tear down the homes, burn the village and rob the people they would then walk out into their crops and pour salt all over them and stomp it into the ground. This made sure there was no chance of those crops recovering from having been torn down. Salt also does that, so keep that in mind.
In Matthew 5:13 Jesus says, " You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."
THere again, salt without flavor is no longer salt. You wouldn't use it, you wouldn't want it in your home. It would not longer be useful for anything except what we talked about above for killing crops and grass.
It's the same way with Christians, once we start to lose our saltiness we are seemingly flavorless. We are useless to the church and the spread of the Gospel. We are then actually in the same form helping the enemy out and being used by Satan to stop growth. We are simply in the way of progress.
How do we lose our saltiness? By neglecting our daily devotion times with GOd, by not attending church, by becoming fleshly and worldly. By chasing pleasures of the world rather than God's satisfaction in our lives. By doing these things, we transform ourselves just like salt, into something that is only used for negative results. And someone in that position is not someone that God can use.
So keep your saltiness, stay in daily contact with God and grow to be used to flavor teh world, rather than to tear down the church.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Busyness misses out

An ethics professor at Princeton Seminary asked for volunteers for an extra assignment. About half the class met him at the library to receive their assignments. The professor divided the students into three groups of five each. He gave the first group envelopes telling them to proceed immediately across campus to Stewart Hall. He told them that they had 15 minutes and if they didn't arrive on time, it would affect their grade. A minute or two later, he handed out envelopes to five others. They were also to go over to Stewart Hall, but they had 45 minutes. The third group had three hours to get to Stewart Hall. The students weren't aware of it, but the professor had arranged for three drama students to meet them along the way. Close to the beginning of their walk, one of the drama students had his hands on his head and was moaning aloud as if in great pain. About half way to Stewart Hall, on the steps of the chapel, the seminary students passed a man who was lying face down as if unconscious. Finally, on the steps of Stewart Hall, the third drama student was acting out a seizure. In the first group of students, those who had only 15 minutes to get across campus, no one stopped to help. In the second group, two students stopped to help. In the last group, the one that had three hours for their assignment, all of the students stopped to help at least one person. The professor had clearly shown these seminarians that hurry hinders ministry.
The disciples have been out on their own preaching, driving out demons, and anointing and healing the sick. When they return they gather around Jesus and report in. They had done good work and they must have been excited about the new authority they held in the name of Jesus. Jesus must have been excited to see his apostles too; he wanted to hear about their experiences, so he invites them to come aside.In Mark 6:31 JEsus said, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while."
This actually happened just before the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus saw all that the disciples had done and accomplished and wanted to share with Him. But, He also saw the importance of slowing down. He wanted them to slow down for 2 reasons.
FIrst, He wanted them to slow down so that they can prepare their hearts for more work by focusing on God again, and not on their accomplishments.
Secondly, He wanted them to slow down because when busy we miss out on a lot of sharing opportunities. Think of the number of conversations you cut short because of needing to get somewhere. The places that you rush in and out of to get a bite to eat when the place is full of people to share with. We do it at church too, we have so much to do so we rush around doing it forgetting that we're supposed to share that time with others.
So slow down, don't get rushed because you will rate the things that happen by importance. When you are running late or rushing somewhere all things seem less important. When I am driving to work in teh afternoon stopping to talk to a neighbor in their yard is always important, but if I am in a hurry it gets forced into a wave goodbye. Which is going to impact their lives more, a hurried wave and the feeling of not being as important as where ever I am headed. Or stopping, putting the window down or getting out and talking for a few minutes. We show people that they are important to us when we slow down and give them our time. Making them feel like there is nowhere else for us to be during that 3-5 minutes of interaction.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Adversity, is good?!

So I realize as a pastor and as a believer we have to go through the valley times. Those times when we often question our calling, question whether we are doing something wrong, or whether we just aren't in tune with where God wants us to go at the time. I have officially arrived, I went through this period about 7 years ago as well and soon after that the ministry I was working in began a new outreach strategy and all of a sudden I was back on the peaks of the mountains. I am praying for that experience once again.
When I go through these periods there are several verses that come to mind. One is in Proverbs where we are reminded, To trust in the Lord with all our heart, and lean not on our own understanding, in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will make our path straight. I have to remember that if I want a straight path, if I want any type of ministerial success I have to trust in the Lord 100%. If I want to climb out of the valleys, I need to trust in God and understand that there is nothing that I can do myself to get out of there without His guidance and His will being at the front leading the way.
I am also reminded of James 1:9, "The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position." We should be glad of the fact that we are being humbled and brought down to earth. It is a sign that God is at work pruning us and working to make us into a greater final product. I struggle daily with the things that aren't going on, but I am thankful for the fact that God is right there with me at the peaks and in the lowest of the valleys. He is there guiding my every step so that when I do come out of it, and things do become fruitful again I can give Him 100% of the credit for all that has happened.
The last verse that I recall during these times is this."Everything that does not come from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). I struggle often with the true meaning of this verse, and I ask myself as I strive so hard to grow a church am I doing it, or is it being done in a way that God is teh pilot. I have to check my motives, my heart and my desires daily to make sure I am not doing anything out of selfishness or fleshliness and simply for His glory and by His leading.
So when you're in the valley, remember that God is using that time to help you become stronger, and remember that you should be proud that we serve a God that doesn't make life a cakewalk, and loves you enough to allow you to struggle so that your relationship with Him can be complete.
Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!

motivation

Having grown up around sports, playing sports and loving sports it is sometimes hard for me to read a verse and not make a comparison to sports. I now am team pastor of a highschool football team and coaching a highschool girls softball team. I notice a lot of things, and leadership definitely comes from the top. But, good leaders reproduce other great leaders underneath them.
For example, a great motivating coach will have his or her team ready to play every time they step onto the field. But, that motivation only goes so far and then it has to be picked up by the players. On every team you will have atleast one or two players who are active leaders and motivators on the field. You will see young athletes who take charge when they are out on the field and whether it's picking someone up when they let the team down or shouting encouragement and motivation before every play they just motivate their teammates. A church should work the same way, you get your encouragement on Sunday mornings from the pulpit and from the corporate worship of CHrist. You should also get your motivation from being around others through out the week. And most importantly you should get your motivation from quiet times alone with your Savior.
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another(Hebrews 10:24-25)
Encourage one another, lift up one another that is what God is telling us in this verse. And every chance you get, meet together with others from your church and have lunch or dinner. Spend quality time with them so that you can grow together, and if nothing else be there with encouragement for one another when it is needed. If we keep this mindset we will stop starting every sentence about our church with "I" and starting thinking about the others.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

self inflation

Being a pastor there are certain things you need to do, and others that you don't. It is so tough at times to walk into somewhere and not throw on the pastor badge with pride and promote everything that I do and everything that our church stands for. I do presentations at the schools and I am finding myself wanting to promote the church and make myself sound as good as I possibly can so that people will come to Freedom. It's a temptation to make people realize that I am the pastor at their child's school, I am the one coaching girls' softball just to minister to their kids, I am the one at football practice each day with a cooler full of Gatorade and cookies. That is self promotion and it is a dangerous thing.
Our job as CHristians is to promote God. When a student has been in our ministry for 1-15 years it is your hope that they remember all the things you said, all the things that you taught them about God and not you. If a kid leaves and stays on fire for Christ, spreading the Gospel and sharing their testimony and never remembers who taught them to do it, or who they had listened to every Sunday as a child or teenager that is just fine. Again, self promotion is very dangerous.
It's actually a fine line, you want to use every opportunity you have as a chance to promote Jesus and the church, but you also want to play it cool. I prefer to do everyting I can out of servanthood and let the rest take care of itself. I don't have to stand up there and announce that I am pastor Jeff Gatlin of Freedom Baptist Church and we are here to invite you to church every time I speak. But, I do want to let them know who I am, and let God send the increase. I plant little seeds each day and let God plant them deep in their hearts in hopes that they do walk through our doors, and they do accept Christ.
"So David's fame spread throughout every land, and the LORD made all the nations fear him" (1 Chron 14:17).
There you have it, David's fame spread throughout every land, and God made the nations fear him. David didn't have to go to every country and every city for his fame to spread. He didn't have to go everywhere spreading this fear. He did what he was called to do as a king and a leader, and GOd took care of the rest. As Christians that is all we can do, do that servant thing that God is calling you to do, plant those seeds and stay involved in your community. Then spend time in prayer before and after these opportunities that God will spread His message through you whether through your words or your actions.
This is called total dependency, independence is when we make it about us and that is very dangerours. Dependency is when we do all we can as a servant and make it about God and His love, grace and mercy.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Passing Pleasures

Are you familiar with the term passing pleasures? I am and it takes on all kinds of meanings but it originally came from a teenager in our youth ministry about 5 years ago. We did an exercise where everyone turned their back to the group in a circular formation on the floor with the lights turned off. We went around the room and prayed and then each person was given the opportunity to lift up a praise to God, and then they were given the opportunity to lift up a sin or a struggle in their life that they know constantly creates a barrier between them and the life God wants for them. As we went around the room this one young man who we knew struggled with some things spoke out, we were shocked but excited, and he lifted up passing pleasures as his concern and sin. He later elaborated on it and it was an eye opening experience for me.
He said he struggles with sexual sins and with drugs and drinking from time to time. He said he will go clean and pure for about 2 weeks and then stumble in some way and he knows that only God could get him through those 2 weeks, and it was going to take a stronger relationship with God to get farther away than 2 weeks. He went on to tell me that he was so upset and depressed many times because of his sin. This young man never made a profession of faith, or anything like that publicly but I could see a change in his attitude after a ski trip a few years before this night. We all noticed it and we have prayed since then that he had accepted CHrist that night. Well, back to the story at hand. He said he got depressed a lot because he would come to church on Wednesdays and on SUndays when he didn't have to work and feel good. He said he would even see friends who used to pressure him into such mistakes, but he didn't cave in. He didn't feel the urge to, then he said out of no where he would get the urge to watch something on the internet that he shouldn't, or to go get some drugs and smoke them. He would cave in and within an hour be completely depressed, he said the depression had 2 parts.
First, he was depressed because the sensations of the sin did not have the same affects on him as the first time he had done it. Yet, each time he indulged he expected those feelings to be as great as the first time.
Secondly, he was depressed because he had traded several weeks of hard work and resisting temptation, and the coming days facing depression for just a few minutes of pleasure. This is a unique and awesome way to understand how we operate as humans.
Every time you sin you are being selfish, and exemplifying a lack of humility. You are chosing yourself over God's desires for you and your life. You are often doing it to do something wrong for a few minutes and possibly feel the affects for months or even years.
Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright" (Gen 25:34).
Think about it this way, Esau had everything Jacob wanted. He had the birthrite and all the skills and tools that Jacob wished he had. What did Esau do with it? He traded it all away for one meal. How ridiculous is that, he traded away his life and his entire inheritance for one meal.
That's how we act, we trade away a perfect and pure relationship with Jesus Christ every time we sin. And the sins usually last a few minutes, gratifying our impulsive lack of humility for a passing pleasure. ANything from lying, cheating or stealing, to immorality and drunkeness, they all separate us from GOd and do not deliver anything worth the separation for even one moment.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Troublemakers

So I put the final touches on my message for this Sunday yesterday afternoon and I had to plug it a little today. I am concerned about where we are with today's youth, I am really struggling I believe for the first time to get teenagers plugged in. They come, they enjoy and have a great time, they learn and grow but they disappear. Many of them disappear with their parents, they are devoted to anything but God. There are young people today that don't play any more sports, or do any more at their schools than teens that I had 5-7 years ago, yet they are in church far less. They have baseball practice, then games and none of it takes place on Wednesday night yet they find other practices and other games to go watch on Wednesday nights. They get on teams that require their presence on Sundays or they miss youth nights because they are tired from football or basketball or whatever it is. I must admit I am excited at the prospect of Alexa getting more involved with baseball and basketball but I am even more excited about the stand she can take when it conflicts with church attendance.
ACts 17:6 "THese men who have cause trouble all over the world" are right here before you. The original wording is actually translated, these people have turned the world upside down.
They were referring to Paul and Silas and how they had impacted the world for Christ. Sharing the Gospel message and changing lives all over the world. THey had literally turned the world upside down. In so many of our young people today there is the potential to turned the world upside down, but instead they are in the world so much that it has turned them upside down. We need parents who are raising children to be devoted to God, and to the Gospel, when we start having that we will see our community reached for Christ. This SUnday I may offend some with my message, but I am praying that it gets through and our parents and young people become empowered by God to become, trouble makers in our community. That we start turning this community upside down starting with it's teen culture and spreading into the adults it comes in contact with.
Thanks for reading and have an awesome day.

Take a closer look

Have you ever felt all alone? Like you are the only one who is doing what God is calling you to do, or maybe in the workplace you are the only one who is doing what is right. This is an ordinary feeling for people to have, because we get so wrapped up in doing our jobs, accomplishing things that we forget to notice what others are doing. We may know our comfort levels and be pushing right on through them, but, we don't know the strengths or comfort levels of others so we judge them.
It's very easy to put yourself on an island in these situations. I've been there, and in some circumstances left the situation and looked back to see that I was correct. I have also stepped away to realize I was completely wrong and that my "perception" was way off.
In the church setting, what is said outside of church is just as important to the church as what is said inside. What is shared on Sundays, and felt during its meetings are just as important as what the community thinks of the church. Perception is reality, and the only reality that we have sometimes is what we percieve, and what we perceive is what we know. Take a closer look at yourself, at those around you, and your church family. What is the community saying about you? As a person, as a body of believers what does the community see you standing for, and against? Does the community feel like you are important to them? These are all important questions.
"The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too" (1 Kings 19:14).
In this passage the Israelites as a whole seemed to be rebelling against God, and the majority were. But, there were those who were not, but the perception that was given off was far too strong. Now we won't always be able to have any say at all in what the community thinks of our groups, and our bodies of beleivers, but our imput can affect the perception.
You've heard the saying, "The only Jesus some people see is what they see in you." Well, the only perception of your church people may see is what they see in you. So take a closer look at how effective you are in the perception of your church, and see what changes must be made to reach your community for Christ.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

listening good

I have worked in places where the leadership, or "bosses" are so puffed up they don't listen to the people under them. I have been in churches where the staff doesn't seem to listen to what the church members are wanting or not liking. I have also been in situations where people listen too much. I raced at a dragstrip where there were changes made almost every other week to the rules and the way things were done because they were listening to everyone and trying to appease everyone. So where do you draw the line? How do you decide when to listen and when to block it out?
In ministry I don't believe there is one single moment that you don't listen. There isn't an instance where you say, "oh don't bother, it's the minority group speaking again". I try my best as a pastor to listen to all parties, in all positions and not just the "majority". I have always been this way, as a worker and as a youth pastor. Seeking to meet the needs of everyone that is involved. Afterall, I would far rather have someone come to me and let me know that they are unhappy than here the murmurs or have them talk behind my back.
"The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice" (Proverbs 12:15).
In this passage there are two things going on. FIrst of all we are seeign that the way we do things always seems right to us. The difference is whether we realize when we are wrong or not. We have to listen to others, and advice to get a better view of what all is going on. We can't just sit back and thin we are always right and doing things right.
Second, we are told to listen to advice not necessarily apply it. If there is anything I have figured out in past endeavors it is that everyone wants to have their feelings validated. We all want to have a voice, and use our voice, not just to complain or to make noise, but to have it heard. Many times I have seen arguments erupt and they start because someone feels like they aren't being heard. It isn't always the case that people want to make you change, many times they just want to validate their feelings and have a voice. If you are a leader, especially in a church you have got to listen to them and let them be heard. The longer you ignore them, the more upset they become.
So listen to advice, understand that you aren't always right, and know that everyone wants their feelings validated and you must do that.
Thanks for reading and have a great July 4th weekend!

Praying for your opposition

So if you have lived any amount of time on earth you have no doubt at some point run into someone you didn't like. You've either worked with someone, played on a team with someone, lived next door to someone, or even been related to someone that pushes your buttons. Well, you know as a believer that you are to love them the same way you love yourself. Those are Jesus' exact words, but what about when you have loved them as yourself, when you have done all that you can do and they still rub you the wrong way? Well, pray for them.
Now I know when you are angry at someone, or someone has done something wrong to you that there is temptation to be mad at them when praying. But prayer, is not a weapon or a tool to be used against your enemies. If anything it is a weapon to be used for your enemies. Pray for them, pray for them to have a change of heart, for God to soften your heart in a way that you can be used to reach them with the Gospel message.
Jesus talks about this in John 17:17 "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."
Jesus was trying to reach everyone he came in contact with but, they resisted. As a matter of fact many of them were completely against Him and seemingly they were His enemies. They were plotting for His capture and eventual death. Jesus had tried to share with them, He had preached to many of them, and He had prayed for them. In this verse we see JEsus' prayer for many of them in His own words. He doesn't pray any harm to come to them, He simply prays that God will spare them from the works of Satan. He knows that if they will simply turn away from their sins, and accept Him they will be changed people.
That is what we should want for our enemies, changed lives. Not anger, not hate, not revenge or even competition but changed lives. We should be praying daily for those who are against us, and praying that God will spare them from Satan and his work. If we pray like this our enemies will start looking a lot less like enemies, and when God does answer that prayer you will have been a part of affecting heaven with your heart and soul.
So pray for your enemies, love them, and see God change them for the better.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!