Saturday, July 28, 2012

Stop Hiding

1 Samuel 3:17
“’What was it [the Lord] said to you?’ Eli asked. ‘Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely if you hide from me anything he told you.’”

God has spoken things to you. Don’t hide them. Speak.

God has spoken words over your life. Don’t try to hide from them. Live in them.

John 6:63
“…The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”

God’s Word is life. Stop hiding it. Stop hiding from it. Speak and live.



Thursday, July 26, 2012

Stand Still

1 Samuel 12:16
“Now then, stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before you.”

Maybe you feel like God isn’t doing anything with you. Maybe it seems like nothing is happening in your life, other than the mundane routine of school or work.

This is my thought for you today:

Maybe you’re just too busy to see the great things the Lord is doing right in front of you. Your full schedule leaves no space for God. You doing everything leaves no room for God to do anything.

Stop. Stand still. And you will see this great thing the Lord is about to do before you.


Spoiler Alert

I like knowing what is going to happen before it even does. I hate being surprised by a twist in the tale. And for this reason, Google and Wikipedia are my best friends. I’ll read up on a movie before I see it or even while I’m watching it just so I know what the end will be. And the funny thing is, even in knowing I still get engrossed in the story, cry and laugh, and enjoy the movie.

I haven’t been able to watch any movies this past week, but I did watch so much tennis I almost feel like I could now win Wimbledon myself. But I’m a bit behind in the tennis world and there are so many new players (mostly with long Russian surnames). So I spent a whole lot of time Googling and finding out about these people (thank you, Jesus for Blackberries and free internet. Ha!!). Often they show the matches delayed, so in my Googling I would stumble upon the end result of the game I was watching. Bummer!

It really changes things, knowing what is going to happen. If I found out the player I was supporting (usually the underdog) was going to lose, I lost interest in the match and generally ended up on facebook and twitter. No one likes to support a losing cause. But if I saw that my player was going to win, I felt myself rooting for them even more. Suddenly them losing a point, a game or even a set or two seemed less significant, because I knew they would win the match in the end. I knew that no matter what happened in the sets ahead, they were going to win. I could confidently support them and know I’d feel joy in the end.

Just like Google and Wikipedia tell the stories of movies and tennis and pretty much everything else, there is a book where the story of the universe, which includes my life and yours, is told. This book, the Bible, tells the beginning and the end. Wanna know how it will end?

**SPOILER ALERT**

JESUS WINS! #BOOM

Proverbs 21:31
Victory belongs to the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 15:57
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 John 5:4 
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

Like the tennis scores I found out, I have found out that Jesus wins. If he was going to lose, I’d probably give myself to facebook and twitter and boys and sport and just about everything else. But Jesus is not going to lose. He will win! So I give everything I am to support his cause. And I know that he is playing for me. When the tough times come and I start losing points and games and sets, I hold on to the promise that Jesus wins.

And like the movie synopsis that I read, the Bible doesn’t give me the detail of all that will happen in the story of my life. But it does tell me that in the end I will live happily ever after in heaven with all those who love Jesus. It tells me that we’re going to party and praise Jesus in freedom and love forevermore. So when the twists in the tale come and the soundtrack of my life sounds ominous, I hold onto the promise of eternity with Jesus.

By dying on the cross and being raised to life, Jesus has overcome sin and death. He did it for you. Let Jesus’ victory be the foundation you build your life on. Let it be the lighthouse in the midst of the storm. Let it change the way you play and the way you live. Let it be your confidence and your hope.

JESUS WINS.


Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Last God Standing

1 Samuel 5:1-4
1“After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
2Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon.
 3When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place.
4But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained.”

The ark, the very presence of God, was placed before the false god, Dagon. Before such holiness, glory and power he could not stand. Despite his worshippers’ best efforts to keep him standing, Dagon was completely broken down before the Lord.

 In a similar way, when you invite Jesus into your heart, the fullness of his presence enters your being. And God, in all his glory and holiness, will NOT allow any ‘idol’ of your heart to stay standing in his presence for very long.

The first commandment: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-3). 
And right after that: “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…” (Exodus 20:4-5).

You may think, “Well, I don’t have any statues or figurines lying around my house, so I’m good.” But those ‘other gods’ and ‘idols’ are pretty much anything in heaven or on earth apart from the One True God that you bow down to and worship with your time and resources. If you put a person, a dream, a career, a car, a cat, ANYTHING before God, it becomes an ‘other god’, an ‘idol’.

God wants, and entirely deserves, the number one position in your life. He is the One who saved you and set you free. He is the One who paid your ransom, and he is now living in you. God will ensure that he is the last God standing in your life. If you do not willingly lay down these other things, God will lay them down for you; and they’ll probably smash like Dagon in the process.

If your best friend becomes more important to you than Jesus, the Best Friend ever (John 15:13) and the One who gifted you with the friend in the first place (James 1:17), God will most likely cause that person to draw away, or allow them to disappoint you. If your grades become more important to you than the One who gave you your brains (Psalm 139:13), despite your best efforts, you may fail. God will break down all else you place your trust in, right in front of you, until he is the last God standing.

Lay everything down before the One who deserves it all.


Focus, Dude!

Our eyes are amazing things. They are made to focus on one point, with all points around it fading. We weren't made to see one hundred things all at the same time. Photos where the subject is in focus and both the back and foreground are blurry look so cool and seem so real, because we were made to focus on one thing at a time.

A photo in which the main subject, the most important thing, is not in focus gets deleted. It is of no use. But a photo in which the main subject is crisp and clear will be kept and that memory will last forever, almost like a legacy.

The truth is, the parts of your life that aren't focused on Jesus will one day count for nothing, as if they were deleted. Anything outside of Jesus: the good, the bad, the great, the ugly; it will all be a waste, rubbish, thrown in the dump. 

But where Jesus is the focus of your life there is eternal value and worth. The dreams that are focused on Jesus and through Jesus.. those won't be forgotten in the morning, they'll last forever. Those life photos are the type of photos that are kept forever.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)
“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

Hebrews 12:2
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.”

If your life was a photo album, what would the subject of all the photos be? 

What would people see if they paged through the album?

What are your life and your dreams focusing on?