watering down the Word

As a child there were two major challenges with P.J. besides the obvious. The first was getting her to eat meat, she thought that(and still thinks) macaroni and cheese was a full meal. You could happily feed her with macaroni and cheese and then follow up with dessert. Ravioli was okay, spaghetti o's was alright and so on, but no meat by itself. Then we discovered something by accident, the kid loves ketchup. So from that point on any meat has been okay so long as there is ketchup. If she likes it a dab will do, if she doesn't like it she will submerse it in the stuff.
The second thing was medicine, we could not get medicine down her for nothing. We would buy the bubble gum flavored, cherry flavored, we tried it all she wouldn't do it. But, if you watered it down she was fine with it and would take it right down without a problem at all.
The Word of God is completely different but we do need to do some things when we red it to help us out. We can't dump ketchup on it obviously and we don't want to water it down at all because that is very dangerous. We need to sit down to read it and make sure that it applies to our lives. There is not one piece of the BIble that does not point us to the cross, and its' saving grace, there is also not a piece of the Bible that we cannot take and apply to our own lives in the past, present or in the future it is all useful.
Psalm 105:19 Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
God's word when analyzed correctly will be a lamp to help your steps and a light to reveal your path. It's so important that we read God's word, asking ourselves a few questions.
1. is there an insight in this passage?
2. Is there a command or principle in this passage?
3. Is there a promise in this passage?
4. How can I apply this to my life?
If you ask yourself these questions you will see that all scripture is fully applicable to your life in some fashion.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

strength vs. weakness

I remember in highschool being one of the "runts" in the weight room. I worked out every day during the offseason with a couple of my friends, all of whom were quite a bit stronger than me no matter what I did. I had teh work ethic, I had the willpower I just lacked the muscle and the strength so I worked hard to get it. After school during football season my sophomore year the weight room was usually pretty empty. I would go in there and work out alone at times or with a coach in there spotting me. I would start out with lower body and conditioning and work my way to upper body. Sets of curls, reverse curls, leg press, leg extensions, shoulder press and a few others. I would finish out my workout about the time the football team was coming in. There were a few guys that would come in to work out afer football practice as I was finishing up. THere were two seniors that I knew pretty well that would come over and help me finish out my workout, and then unknowingly insult me. Where I finished with my benchpress workout, at times where I maxxed out would be what they used to warm up. THey would take that weight and tell me, "Later Flash! We'll clean up." and then they would proceed to throw up my max weight about 12-15 times just to warm up before their workout. My strength was not even close to their weakness, on their worst days they would be stronger than my best.
1 Corinthians 1:25 FOr the foolishness of GOd is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Paul says it best, God's weakest(He has no weakness) attribute would be 1 million times stronger than our strongest attribute. His most foolish attribute would be 1 million times smarter than our smartest.
THere is no comparison to God, therefore there is no need to be proud of anything. God can accomplish more with a single whisp of his hand than we can in a lifetime of hard work. THis is why we need to make sure we are in GOd's will and allowing Him to work through us, rather than tackling things based on man's abilities and man's wisdom.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Feeling wise?

So we all go through a period of time where we think we know a lot. We gain new knowledge, add it to the old stuff and we think we have got it all. Now, I am not talking about as a teenager when you act like a know-it-all. As adults we come to places in life where we think we have got it all together, we know what is going on, we have all things planned out and we are in complete control. THat is exactly when God steps in and shows us more. He shows us that there is a lot more for us to know and for us to gain from life itself. We will never come to a point where we know it all.
I think of an internet provider commercial where a guy walks into the room and greets his wife. She is seated at the table doing some reading and she asks him, "I thought you were surfing the web?" his reply is, "I did, and I finished it."
To my knowledge there is absolutely no way that this can happen. There is an ending to what is on the internet but I can't imagine finding it.
Think about this in terms of your life and the knowledge and wisdom you have acquired in life. There is not an infinite amount of knowledge out there, because God knows it all. Therefore there has to be a beginning and and end to all knowledge but there is no way any human bein(outside of Christ ofcourse) will ever reach that point in their life.
1 Corinthians 1:19 FOr it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
In this passage Paul is summarizing a quote of Isaiah 29:14. Basically to reinterate what Jesus spoke of often, that our way of thinking is no match for God's way of thinking. The way He thinks and the knowledge that He has is infinitely greater than we can ever attain. He quoted this verse to back up what he had said one verse before in verse 18 of the same chapter. "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
There is no knowledge needed, no wisdom to attain when it comes to salvation. You simply accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, admit that you are a sinner and that you need help. That to a knowledgable, wisdom filled worldly person is completely frustrating. They cannot attain this knowledge, or work for it. They just accept it, and this is a prime example of God's thoughts blowing our minds.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Calling all enemies!

So it is really hard to go through life and not make an enemy of some sort. I have in my lifetime made very, very few enemies. This town is far too small to have enemies and far too closely knit to do ministry in a town where you have enemies. I believe it or not, have enemies in the ministry. Atleast they think of themselves as my enemy, I truly don't get it. They are people who I helped out while they were going through a rough patch, Tara and I were there for them and listened to them. Then, they got things back together and are now doing ministry. One of the first things they did when they started doing ministry was delete us from their friends on facebook. I don't understand why, Tara used to go places with them on a regular basis as the kids played together. It's sad, but these types of things happen all the time.
No, these people are not enemies to us at all, but for whatever reason they feel as if we are. So, I enjoy doing good things for them. First of all, because I don't feel as if anything has changed at all. Secondly because of a verse in Proverbs and in Romans 12:20: If you enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink, In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
My example above is a poor one in this sense. They are not true enemies in any phase of the imagination, but if you have enemies, known sworn enemies follow this verse. By doing this you are fulfilling to purposes(killing 2 birds with one stone so to speak, haha) First of all you are showing the love of Christ which should be at the forefront of everything we do as believers. SEcondly, you are winning the battle, you are breaking down the barriers and the walls lovingly. If they are truly mad at you, they will be overwhelmed by the fact that you are showing compassion toward them and then they will be even more angry with the situation and less angry with you.
So love your neighbor as yourself, and love your enemies even more!
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

He's still working

I remember as a kid, though I am ashamed I don't know more of the words, singing a song called He's still working on me. Part of the chorus was He's still working on me to make me all I can be. As I look back at that song it ties closely to so much of what scripture tells us.
First of all, God doesn't take time off. Each day He is revealing to us(so long as we are looking for and seeking) His plans for us and His will for our lives. He works each day to bring things into our lives, and out of our lives that will make us more whole and more of what He is planning us to be.
Secondly, He doesn't give up on us. God knows that His creation is full of sin. He knows that each day we will have hiccups along the way and He doesn't turn His back because of those hiccups. He continually loves on us and strengthens us through life's lessons and through other believers that we surround ourselves with.
Psalm 138:8 The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me; Your love, O Lord, endures forever.
The Psalmist says it perfectly, the Lord will fulfill His purpose for each and every one of us. His love endures forever. Which leads me to a worship song.
Give thanks to the Lord our God and King
His love endures forever
For He is good He is above all things
His love endures forever
Last night I issued a challenge to our young people to strive to listen to more Christian music and allow Satan one less opportunity to enter their minds through music. This in turn teaches us to remember that God is above all things and works through all things in our lives to reach His purpose for our lives.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Grace vs. Santa Claus

I'm sure we all know the tune, "he's making a list and checking twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice, Santa Claus is coming to town! He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!" This is a tune that we have sang since childhood about how Santa operates. It's a tune we use as leverage to get our kids to behave(come on admit it) at times that they seem almost out of control. It makes parenting easier through the months of November and December and every parent in America has played the "Santa card" at some point.
Well what if we attempted to write a similar song about Jesus? He is making a list, He has no need to check it twice. He knows for a fact that we are all naughty. There is no perfect child of God no matter how hard we strive to be. Jesus not only knows whether you are asleep or awake, He knows your dreams while you are sleeping and your thoughts while you are awake. Now, let's be honest if people knew what was going through our heads and some of the thoughts we have that we never, ever act on we would be looked at far differently, wouldn't we. Well, Jesus sees those things that are in our heads and never come out. The impure thoughts, the lust, the anger, the malice, all of these things are very apparent to Christ.
The point to teh Santa Clause is coming to town tune is that you have to be good for Him to come. The difference we see in CHrist is that He came because we can't be good, and He came knowing in full that we could never pay Him back in any way.

Romans 5:7-8 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This verse says it all, while we were and are still sinners Christ died for us.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

A little fun last night

I had a long day yesterday I must admit, I was at Alexa's softball camp from 9am to 2 and did a lot of catching. Which meant squating for long periods of time and standing up to chase the balls that went wild(she was rusty so there was a lot of this, haha) and then throwing them back. I also chased balls in the outfield and infield as well. Then, we got done there and I rushed home where I worked out with Alexa and got some stuff done around the house with Tara. I then went and met a family that we are doing a wedding for at the church and spent time with them and talked over a lot of the details, followed by a run through McDonalds and then home to get the girls cleaned up, bathed and ready for bed. About the time we sat down to eat there was a knock at the door, it was two nicely dressed young men. I went around to the side door and they greated me with smiles and introduced themselves. Then I introduced myself and let them talk a bit. I then let them know that I was a baptist pastor and they still went on. I told them I had studied Mormonisn in seminary and read parts of the Book of Mormon just because I was interested in knowing more. Then, they started with the did you know. I couldn't resist so I fired back at them with a few did you knows from the Bible. We exchanged a few quotes calmly and peacefully. Then, I decided to up the ante by asking them a did you know about the history of Mormonism. I stumped one of them, but the other answered the question carefully. Then I asked a deeper question and neither one of them could answer it and we called it a night.
I like to do these sorts of things, because this is the third time I have had a visit from them, the second time these very two same ones have been at my door. Persistence must be the first class they take at school for mormonism. It did however get me to thinking.
If God loves everyone, and JEsus died on the cross for everyone then why do we usually take no for an answer. I can honestly say if I had gone to the door of someone and they told me they were a mormon I would have shared my testimony and my heart and left it at that, I would not take them on in a trivial pursuit type of situation. I have friends who have told me no to Christianity and I do still invite them to church, but I do not do a great job of being persistent in sharing with them the Gospel.
1 Timothy 4:15-16 Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, becaus if you do , you will save both yourself and your hearers.
It does us no good to know the word of GOd without living it. We must persevere in our walk and our talk so that others will be changed through our persistence. Those young men get that, they seem to be walking and talking their beliefs, and they were persistent. But, if I saw one of them smoking pot or stealing from someone I would have a far greater door open to get to them.
So be diligent in your study of the word, your prayer life and in your outward acts so that you can go toe to toe with non-believers with full confidence that God is with you in every aspect of your journey.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Christian ingegrity

I talked about integrity yesterday, today I want to talk a little more in depth about Christian integrity. You see, there is basic integrity which means walking and acting in a Christ like manner at all times. Then there is Christian integrity which means far more. It is a lifestyle and a quest that you at all times are climbing closer and closer to God. It is not perception that you are, it is not a outward appearance or a snowjob so to speak. It's actually striving on a daily basis to grow closer to God. These are the people whom GOd can do the most through.
Jesus addresses this to the church at Laodicea in Revelation chapter three. You see non-CHristians can do a lot of damage to the church, and Christians can as well. But the person who can do the most damage is actually the luke-warm Christians. Those are the people who are there on Sundays, maybe even Wednesdays and they do very little for the body as a whole. They don't grow, they don't challenge others to grow with them, they just stagnate. Jesus even said He would spit them out of His mouth.

Rev. 3:14-16 These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
Jesus wants us to be hot, on fire for His glory. He wants us reading His word daily and striving to make a difference in the lives of others. But, He states that He would even prefer that you were completely cold than luke warm in teh middle. God can accomplish more by restoring His relationship with someone who is backsliding and falling away than someone who sits, riding the fence all day and all week.
So stay in the Word, challenge yourself today to keep on growing so that you too can be used by God to do big things!
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Integrity 101

What's in a name? If I say to you the name Jeff Gatlin what do you think of? There are those who think of the little kid Jeff, who at times got into trouble. What about the athlete who played baseball, basketball and football? Or the youth pastor of almost 10 years, or the pastor of over 2 years now. How about the new Jeff Gatlin pastorcoachJeff? I spend ample time wearing a hundred different hats from Alexa's dad, to P.J.'s dad, to Dave and Tommie Jean's son, to Tara's husband. From Pastor Jeff, to Youth Pastor Jeff, to Pedro's football team Pastor Jeff, and ofcourse who can forget St. Augustine High girls' softball team's Coach Jeff.
All those titles are nice, but the most important thing is what do you think of when you see those words or hear the name? It changes with time doesn't it, what we think of when we hear a certain name changes with time.
Think about celebrities, we change what we think of when it comes to celebrities quite often. We thought we knew a lot of the athletes who are letting us down, and pop stars who are falling into scandal, and politicians are doing the same. Here's a name for you Bill Clinton, what do you truly think of when you hear that name? Or how about one that started strong and is in the pits right now? Tiger Woods, we thought we knew him, we thought we had him tagged with integrity and family values. Parents trusted him being a role model for their kids. He has fallen and fallen hard.
The bottom line is one slip can take away all the integrity and change forever how people think of you. Paul completely understood this. He started of every letter he wrote which make up the majority of the new testament now, with a salutation that listed himself in relation to God.
He didn't introduce himself as Paul the man who reached the Jews and Gentiles, or the apostle of the thousands, or the greatest church starter of his time. No, he simply introduced himself in his own way. The funny thing is Paul at that time was a man who needed absolutely no introduction at all.
1 Corinthians 1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ by the will of God.
That was his intro. Now when I speak at public schools I get a different introduction almost every time. I am many times Pastor Jeff from Freedom Baptist Church, or Jeff Gatlin who was friends with my son as a kid and a great kid. Sometimes coach Jeff who coaches my daughter at St. Augustine High, regardless it's about integrity and my integrity in that function that they see me in. And hopefully I come off humble enough for people to see me as someone who was called by God, and can do nothing in of myself. Without the power of the Holy Spirit in my life and God's calling on my life I am meaningless.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Jesus in the workplace

So you don't want to go to work today, I must admit I don't either. I didn't want to get up and take a shower and face the freezing temps of another day. Sit in an office, make phone calls, beg people to let me come do presentations and all this today, especially not now that I have 3 day weekends at my disposal. I don't know of many people who do want to go to work on Mondays. When I was in the full time ministry I despised Mondays, they were my hardest day. If I was apt to get depressed it would be on Monday. Sundays, I had my crew all together at Sunday School and worship, then at lunch and possibly at the house over the afternoon. Then, I had them back together for a Bible study at night. This is all followed up with a Monday of studying, and spending time in the word, with no kids around and no teenagers in my grasp. Yuck!
I must admit, I loved being full time and I definitely long for the day that I am full time again in the ministry. I long for the days of waking up and working and answering to God's people right here at Freedom Baptist Church and them only. But, I must work to pay bills and feed my family. I must, I must, I must.
I want to look at the life of Christ and how free spirited He was. I long to just cruise around and speak, share with the lost and do it all day every day. But, then I take a closer look at his life and He did have a stint as a carpenter helping His earthly father out and working. Jesus did make 132 public appearances in the Gospels and only ten of those appearances were somewhere other than the marketplace. He was constantly witnessing and sharing in the workplace setting, so what better place is there for us to share Christ?
"Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him (Mark 6:3).
There you have it, one of the times when JEsus shared publicly He was taken lightly because He was considered simply a carpenter.
So if Jesus spent all of His time in the marketplace, then I guess we must too!
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

making withdrawals

So I like the new way of things being done electronically. I can basically make payments, check my balances and do all types of banking on line. I must admit I have never completely understood banking. I can go at 9am today and make a deposit and it may not be there until the next morning for me to do online bill pay, or I can go to the bank at noon one day and the money shows up before I am back in my office. Same paychecks from the same places taken to the exact same teller at the same bank. I just don't get it, nor do I desire to completely get it. All I need is to know how much money I have when I have it. There is nothing worse than going through the line at the grocery store, or ordering food somewhere knowing you just deposited your paycheck and having your debit card declined. I had to do this once at Wal mart with a grocery cart full of items for a youth event. I must say, it is humbling to say the least.
What about our hearts, and minds? Do you know what's in there, do you know your balance of good to bad? What types of things come out when you are in a pinch? You can only draw on what is in there, and many times there is equal good and bad because of the music we listen to, the movies we watch and the people we surround ourselves with.
Luke 6:45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.
There you have it, in JEsus own words. The good man will withdraw good things and the evil with bring out evil. Our thoughts are from the heart, our words are from the heart and while many of us have good hearts, we don't have them full of good things. THis is why it is so important to go to church when there are Bible studies and chance to grow, why it is important to listen to Christian music and avoid movies with a lot of bad things in there that shouldn't clutter our hearts and minds.
Fill yourself with good, and you will see that more good will come out of you.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
(I am experiencing technical difficulties and it took me 3 tries just to type this out, so if there is a day without a blog this week I apologize in advance until I get it resolved.)

God goggles

I remember as a kid riding in the truck with my dad to the parts stores and various places on Saturdays. I remember the rides and the talks, but most importantly I remember the songs. I recall the different types of songs he listened to and there was one in particular that seemed to come on the radio every time I was in teh truck with him. At this point he did not have a tape player and sadly enough cd's weren't invented yet. So it was fate that this song would come on, it was by George Jones titled "Rose colored glasses". It was talking about our perspective in life the old is the glass half full or half empty analogy fits well here. The song talked about how people put on these imaginary glasses and pretend everything is okay. In their marriages, their home life, their workplace, where ever they go they see the good things and the glasses seemingly filter out all of the bad. In today's economy someone could make a fortune on something like this, everyone would want a pair.
Well, what about God glasses? What if we could put on a pair of glasses and see what God wants us to see, like x ray vision? We would see the heart, the mind and the thoughts and intentions. There would be no short or tall, blonde or brunette, muscular or out of shape, or even skin color, simply a beating heart and a working mind together creating intentions and motives.
If this were so people would be able to tell why we are at church, why we are at work, why we are really saying the things we say. This would change us completely if people could see our real motives behind the things we do and say.
1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
There you have it, when seeking a leader God was teaching Samuel not to look at the size, looks, or the outward appearance at all. God doesn't even consider that, He looks straight into the heart. In today's society we have lost this, we have blurred vision when it comes to looking at the heart. In churches we are looking for great orators, or great and powerful leaders, or college degrees and references. What if we could see straight to the heart the way God does, what would we see then? Who would be our next hire? How many great church leaders are overlooked because of credentials and pieces of paper rather than heart and soul?
Look at the heart when picking your leader, that's God formula and the last time I checked GOd's ways are perfect!
Thanks for reading and have a great day.

seeking His will

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Anyone who has known me as for any amount of time knows that this is my absolute favorite passage in all of scripture. It's important that we seek God, and delight in Him because He is our maker. It is important that we allow Him to make our desires His desires because after all He would know what we will best accomplish because again, He put us together.
My father is a mechanic and his garage is full of all sorts of tools. I will start working on one of our vehicles or something at the house and need a tool. I will go over and find the tool most suited to what I am working on. It's the right size, the right type so I tackle whatever it is I am working on. Then, when I am almost finished my dad realizes someone has broken into his garage and comes to see what teh perpetrator is up to. He'll show up without fail as I am finishing up and tell me he had a tool that would have made it much easier. Sometimes he will even carry that tool over to me while I am working and sure enough it makes the job much simpler. Why? Because he is a mechanic and he has a million times the experience that I do with working on cars and with tools. After all those are his tools and he would have the best shot at knowing what ones work best for certain jobs.
Psalm 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
THere is another example of the Psalmist giving us basically a "DUH" moment. Pointing out that God made us from absolute scratch, knit us together and designed us for His glory. Only when we are seeking Him will we be able to figure out why we are here and what our purpose should be. So many people use the word purpose so loosely, and sadly enough they seek to find their "purpose" in life without seeking their creator's advice.
If you want to find purpose in life, seek God with all you have, and all the purpose you will ever need will be revealed to you. Sometimes overwhelmingly all at once, other times a little day by day. Regardless you will never know your potential until you find your purpose, your God given God made purpose on this earth.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

A new you

A lot of times I wake up in the middle of the night thinking or sometimes I just can't go back to sleep. Regardless the reason I find myself flipping through the channels and for anyone who doesn't know already there isn't much on television at 3 or 4 am. THe television is bombarded with infomercials during this time. They sell things to cook with, things to wash your car with, clean up spills with, mop, vacuum, whatever you do there is something to "seemingly" make your life easier and the job a sinch. Infomercial after infomercial blasts out for only 19.95 you too can experience this blah, blah, blah, etc.....
My favorites are the ones that promise a brand new you. Especially around New Years they know the resolutions and what they will be, so they focus on those things. Try this workout machine, this workout video, or this diet and discover a whole new you!!! After all that is what new years is about, about discovering a whole new you. It's a fresh start on life, even though our bills don't change, our jobs don't change and our lifestyles probably didn't change at all we feel this false sense of being renewed. It's a fresh new start, to the same old life. Same job same routine.
In reality there is only one fresh start and that is discussed in this passage of scripture.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
So Paul tells us if we are in Christ we are a new creation. That is the only way to be reborn, and discover a whole new you. If you have fallen or backslid in the recent past then you may not feel so new. You may feel a lot like the old creation, and that is your fault.
I must confess I spend the majority of the year dieting. I watch what I eat and my intake all year until Thanksgiving and I take off from Thanksgiving to New Years(this year I only made it to Christmas before I had to get back on the diet, hehe) but I diet the other 11 months of the year. Each year it seems I put on more weight than the Christmas season before. It's scary that way, but I get back on the diet and feel like I am back at square one. Well, our relatonship with Christ is exactly the same. We fall off, we slack off on reading our Bibles and prayer, thereby making it more difficult to get back into it. Our new creation fades and we have to renew that passion for Christ. In my case it isn't the diet's fault that I put on about 8 pounds in one month, and by the same token it isn't Christ's fault that our relationships aren't what they should be.
Get that new you back to a good start this year, tackle the problems in your life and rebuild that personal relatinship with Christ and don't let it go!
Thanks for reading and have a great day!