Thanksgiving

I know, I know, here comes the question,
Where has Mike been and why has he not put something on his blog.
No lame excuses, but the Lord moved me this morning and I wanted everyone to read this and ask themselves a few questions.

http://blog.faithteam.org/faithnotes.php/2009/11/23/should-we-keep-thanksgiving

1) Am I the one who continues to come back to the Lord with thanksgiving as we let the world takes us away from Him?
2) or will I be one who 'walks with Him and talks with Him' as we go and not let the world take us away?
3) Am I going to make this Thanksgiving one which I and others can recall in the next year and say, it was a glorious day because we allowed Jesus Christ to be the main focus of our thanksgiving.
Amen.

Glorify God (Part 3)

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. In the night sky of this world God appears to most people, if at all, like a pinprick of light in a heaven of darkness. But he created us and called up to make him look like he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. We are meant to image forth in the world what he is really like.
End of Quote

Lord, may we live our lifes to magnify You in everything we do. In how (and what) we eat and drink whether it be physical or spiritual. In how we love our family, friends and even our enemies. In how we work each day at home or in our vocation. In how we spend time alone with You and 'be still' before You.
May we look at the stars in the sky and let them be a reminder of the opportunity to magnify You as the Hubble Space Telescope magnifies the heavens.
You are majestic and worthy of all our praise. Amen.

Glorify God (Part 2)

What does it mean to glorify God? It may get a dangerous twist if we are not careful. Glorify is like the word beautify. But beautify usually means “make something more beautiful than it is,” improve its beauty. That is emphatically not what we mean by glorify in relation to God. God cannot be made more glorious or more beautiful than he is. He cannot be improved, “nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:25). Glorify does not mean add more glory to God.
It is more like the word magnify. But here too we can go wrong. Magnify has two distinct meanings. In relation to God, one is worship and one is wickedness. You can magnify like a telescope or like a microscope. When you magnify like a microscope, you make something tiny look bigger than it is. A dust mite can look like a monster. Pretending to magnify like that is wickedness. But when you magnify like a telescope, you make something unimaginably great look like it really is. With the Hubble Space Telescope, pinprick galaxies in the sky are revealed for the billion-star giants they are. Magnifying God like that is worship.

Final part tomorrow, Grace and Peace

Glorify God

I have started reading and studying the book by John Piper titled, Don’t Waste Your Life.
These words jumped out at me as I was reading it. I do not want to waste my life (one year, one month, one week, one day, one hour, one minute or one second) and want to live it to glorify my Lord and Savior.
Chapter 2 - Breakthrough – The Beauty of Christ, My Joy p. 31

The Crystal-Clear Reason for Living
The Bible is crystal-clear: God created us for his glory. Thus says the Lord, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isaiah 43:6-7). Life is wasted when we do not live for the glory of God. And I mean all of life. It is all for his glory. That is why the Bible gets down into the details of eating and drinking. “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31) We waste our lives when we do not weave God into our eating and drinking and every other part by enjoying and displaying him.

More on this will follow.
Grace and Peace

One by Phil Stacey

On August 29th, Carol and I had the pleasure of attending a CD release party for Phil Stacey’s album (old school wording) Into the Light. It was a wonderful evening and this album has become my favorite listen. It is full of great tunes with uplifting lyrics, but the song which has become the anthem of my life in Christ is ‘One.’
What is the one blessing, one prayer, one hug, one phone call, one e-mail, one $, the Lord wants me to give today, this hour, this minute?

You can hear it on youtube at this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skjPLRNnLPo

One by Phil Stacey/Cindy Morgan/Jeremy Bose

One simple man
One simple plan
Not a blaze, just a spark
No certainties
No guarantees
Just taking steps in the dark
Not for fame or the glory
For the words that add up to the story

One drop in the ocean
One prayer from your heart
One mercy
One struggle
One cup of cold water
One dollar
One promise
Even though it seems small
Sometimes one is the biggest thing of all

Too many words
Too many hurts
‘Til you can’t hear your heart
Too many ways to make mistakes
That you don’t even start
But you can’t change the world
With your one chance to live
Until one day you wake up
Knowing all you must give is
One word
One life
One truth that will shine like the sun
Shine a light on your path
‘Cause the road leads back to . . .

One drop in the ocean
One prayer from your heart
One mercy
One struggle
One cup of cold water
One dollar
One promise
Even though it seems small
Sometimes one is the biggest thing of all
Written by Phil Stacey/Cindy Morgan/Jeremy Bose

Will you persevere? (Part 3/Final)

Then in Joshua 14, Caleb and Joshua fulfilled the opportunity to enter the Good Land. In Joshua 14:6-11 (NIV) it is written, “Now the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kennizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.”

So how does this relate to perseverance? Since Caleb (and Joshua, I believe) ‘followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly’ he was able to persevere for 45 years in the desert. He and Joshua were the only ones alive who had been at the ‘entrance’ to the Good Land the first time. In fact, the Lord provided ‘perseverance’ for Caleb to the point that he could say ‘I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous . . ‘
May we all ‘follow the Lord wholeheartedly’ and be able to be strong and vigorous as we persevere for His Glory and His work. Amen.

And Caleb and Joshua did not have the Holy Spirit residing in them. Hmmm, interesting.

Will you persevere? (Part 2)

In the last post, I asked the following questions about perserverance:
“And how many of us would have quit the first month, the first year, second year or even the third year. What if the ministry, the Lord has provided you, did not show fruit for 3 years. Would we persevere, would we be patient and wait on the Lord?”
My own personal answer to this question (and I believe many Christians' answer) to these questions would be Yes or No.
Yes – if I am walking in the Spirit. If I am letting the mind of Christ through the Spirit provide direction for my life, if I am letting Him have His way with me.
No – if I am walking in my own power. I could persevere for a while in my own power, but even if I did, would the Lord bless the work? No.

A question like this always makes come back to story of Joshua and Caleb in the books of Numbers and Joshua. Most of us know the story (Numbers 13-14) where Moses sent out the men to explore the land of Canaan. All of the men came back afraid except for Joshua and Caleb. In the end, the Israelites did not go into the Good Land. The Lord was upset with them. In 14:20-24 (NIV) it is written, “The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times – not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.” Amen
Stay tuned until tomorrow when I will finish my thoughts.