Confetti

“It’s beautiful/what a mess!”  Seems like every major event, whether it sports, politics or game shows, have a love affair with shooting off confetti at the end of the event. It’s always in celebration of the winner of the event and really looks awesome as it rains down on the players and fans below. But what a mess it is for the people that end up having to clean it up once everyone leaves.

I don’t believe I have ever seen where the winning team or the victorious politician or the brand new game show millionaire have to come back out later and clean up all the small pieces of paper that were used to celebrate them. No, it’s some group of people standing in the background watching it all come down and knowing they are going to spend hours getting it all up so the place looks immaculate once again.

Sin is a lot like confetti. It’s exciting when it’s happening and internally we may be celebrating but it doesn’t last long and we realize what a mess we have made. Sin of our own doing tends to also have to be cleaned up by the sinner. But many times it’s the others in the background, family and friends, that end up having to do most of the cleaning up. Our sins have a ripple effect on the ones we love and are never really contained to just us.

The Bible says that those things that are done in the dark (sin), will at some point be brought into the light. Things we think will be kept secret from others will always be known by God. We may get away with our sin for a while without anyone finding out, but most often it’s only a matter of time before it is exposed. We end up having to continue in sin to hide the sins we are trying to keep hidden.

The Apostle Paul told Timothy to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”  Take every opportunity to flee from sin and you and others will never get caught having to clean up the confetti of your own sins.

Have a great day and God bless.

The Devil Made Me Do It

“The devil made me do it!”  Some of you may recognize that line,and the picture, as one of the favorite sayings of Geraldine Jones from the early 70’s. (Some of you might have even went back and said that line again in your best Geraldine voice). She was a character of comedian Flip Wilson and many of her sayings became part of our culture still used today. We like to use that line, “the devil made me do it” as an escape for being accountable for our own actions.

To be completely frank, there are a whole lot of people way more important than you and I that the devil is working on. He’s not worried about us, his concentration is on those in power in higher office that have a lot more influence than we do. He will use his demons to work on us if we may be advancing God’s kingdom too well, but normally we are our own worst enemy.

The Apostle John, in his first epistle, wrote about all of us seeking after “the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life”.  These are all worldly things that advertise itself as things we need to be successful. This world system,and our own fleshly desires, are usually what get us in trouble, not the devil. It’s hard to admit that because we want to seek someone or something else to blame for the sin that besets us. We automatically look for a scapegoat to blame so we don’t have to be accountable.

This flesh of ours has a need to find pleasure. Our eyes are the windows to our souls and what we let into them has an impact on our thought life. And the pride of being successful or rich or popular  in life drives us to do things that do not glorify God. That’s why we have to take the example of the Apostle Paul and beat our bodies into obedience to God (not literally).

Which one are you struggling with, or maybe it’s all three of them?  Whatever the situation, understand that “the devil didn’t make you do it”, it’s your own flesh, your own eyes, or your pride that made you do it. Repent and turn back to God.

Have a great day and God bless.

Easily Distracted

Look!  Squirrel!  We get easily distracted don’t we. We have so many things wanting our attention nowadays days that it gets harder and harder to keep our focus on the task. I think it’s harder for the younger generation than it is for the older one. They have grown up with the constant stimulation of technology and research shows that the average person’s attention span today is significantly shorter than it was thirty years ago.

My post isn’t about technology, it’s about being distracted from the things of God.  Those things that God has specifically appointed us to do. Not that someone else couldn’t do them, but it may be a task specifically assigned to us. That thing in our hearts that we know that God has called us and anointed us to do.

It reminded me of the story of Nehemiah and his call to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem after they had been torn down after the exile. He goes back to Jerusalem and starts rebuilding the walls as moved by God to do and some of the religious elite weren’t too happy with it. They devise a plan to get Nehemiah to come away from his work and meet them so that they could kill him.

I love Nehemiah’s response to their multiple attempts to distract him from his task; “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?" His task was considered a great work to him because it was something God had placed on his heart to accomplish. He saw no value it stopping his great work to meet with the opposition and he told them so.

What is it that God has placed on your heart to accomplish for Him?  Who or what is working to distract you from completing that great work?  Don’t let other tasks, other well-meaning people or opposition distract you from completing God’s purpose for your life. I don’t know what that may be in your life, but I’m sure you do!

Have a great day and God bless.

Broken Ankle

That was definitely a broken ankle. Watching the football game last night and the poor receiver for the Dallas Cowboys suffered a serious injury and you could tell his ankle was broken right away. He was in some excruciating pain and it was definitely sickening to watch when it happened. I felt sorry for him, as he played all season to get to the playoffs and now his season is over even though his team won the game.

The good thing for him is that he will be under great medical care by the team physicians and the surgery will probably allow him to heal back to full strength and he will be out on the field at some point next season. That is the great thing amount physical injuries like that. But what about emotional and spiritual injuries?  They don’t quite heal as fast as physical injuries do.

I’m sure we have all suffered from emotional pain and maybe even some of us are going through that right now. I know some of my friends on here have suffered loss recently because of death. How do you heal from things like that?  Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers to those types of pains but I know the One who does. We serve a God who draws close to the broken-hearted.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.  - Psalm 34:18

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  - Psalm 147:3

All we can do is pray for those who are going through difficult times. We can be a shoulder to cry on. And we can be an ear for those that just need someone to listen. We don’t always need to have the answers to all the questions of life, but it helps to have a relationship with the God of the broken-hearted. I would love to pray for you if you have a need.

Have a great day and God bless.

Rain, Rain and More Rain

Rain, rain and more rain. I read somewhere that this part of North Carolina had a record setting amount of rain for 2018. I believe it with the remnants of two hurricanes coming through this fall and over a foot of snow in December. The roads show all the effects of the water too with potholes showing up everywhere.

It got me thinking about the story of Noah and the flood found in the book of Genesis. It must have been odd for Noah to hear that God was going to flood the earth because of the wickedness of man with an eventual rain. It had never rained before, so Noah had no understanding of what that meant, he just obeyed God and started building an ark.

It took Noah about 100 years to complete the construction of the ark to the specifications given by God. He endured ridicule from everyone for building such a massive ark while he warned them of the impending storm. His faith in the promises of God helped him to continue on even though no one believed him.

Noah had one of the least impactful ministries of all the people in the Bible. One hundred years of warning others that God’s judgement would come and only his family listened. Seven other people besides himself were saved from the flood. I think of how hard it must have been for Noah to preach to others for a hundred years and have no one listen to him besides his wife, his three sons and their wives. How did he deal with rejection like that as people probably banged on the doors of the ark after it was too late?

We have the same message as that of Noah; impending doom is coming. We read about the events of the upcoming devastation in the book of Revelation. However, we are to preach the message of Jesus Christ and His salvation through faith in Him and whether people listen and believe or not is not our responsibility; it’s theirs. We are just instructed to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Don’t feel rejected because others don’t listen, just be faithful to following God’s plan. Salvation is of the Lord, not us. We are just messengers.

Have a great day and God bless.

Follow Me

Follow me!  Those are usually words we only want to hear when someone is bringing us to our table at a restaurant. By nature, we would rather lead than follow. We would rather blaze the trail and get the accolades than just be part of the team coming behind the leader. We want to be the pitcher, the point guard, or the quarterback if we use sports terms. We tell our kids to be leaders and not followers.

We can’t truly be leaders until we first become followers. But we also need to be careful who we chose to follow as well as who we chose to lead. When Jesus first called his disciples, his first words to them were “follow me”. He didn’t ask them to lead Him, He asked them to follow Him. He would ultimately make them fishers of men (leaders), because they would first learn to fish (follow).

It takes a humble spirit to follow someone else and learn the ropes. It takes an even more humble spirit to lead others and teach them the ropes. I’ve been on both sides of the fence; I’ve had to be a follower and I’ve been a leader. In all honesty, I would say a humble spirit is not the words I would use to describe how I followed or how I have lead, but I’m learning.

I believe we have to be both a follower and a leader at the same time. There should be someone in our lives that we are leading as a mentor and someone we are following as they mentor us. The Apostle Paul even followed this example. When he started his ministry he had a mentor on his first journey by the name of Barnabas who vouched for Paul before the church Antioch. By the end of his ministry he was a mentor to Timothy, showing him the way as Timothy lead the church in Ephesus.

Who do you look to at this point in your life as a mentor to help guide you in the right direction as you follow after God?  Who are you mentoring to help someone new in the faith along the right path through discipleship?  Both are important to your growth.

Have a great day and God bless.

Riches to Rags Story

Riches to rags. No, you didn’t read that wrong, I wrote “riches to rags”. We are used to seeing it the other way around, “rags to riches” right?  We celebrate those that go from nothing to being on top of the world. Those that pull themselves up by the bootstraps and make something of themselves. But what about the stories of those that have everything and lose it all because of their mistakes or give it all up for something better.

The first riches to rags story we come across in the Bible is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They had access to all of God’s creation and even access to God Himself in a personal face-to-face way. There was nothing God held back from them in the Garden yet they wanted more, they wanted to be “like” God because of the temptation of Satan. Due to their sin of disobedience, they were kicked out of paradise to live among the thorns and the thistle, having to produce by the sweat of their brows and the work of their hands. The original riches to rags story.

However, the greatest riches to rags story, not associated with being disciplined because of sin, was that of Jesus Christ. He voluntarily left the glory of heaven and the presence of God to be born and take on the form of the creation. The Apostle Paul said it best in his letter to the Philippians, “who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

We celebrate those who make a name for themselves be going from rags to riches, but the Bible teaches the opposite is to be celebrated. Paul continues with the next verse saying, “Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  That is what should be celebrated; the fact that Jesus humbled Himself for our salvation.  Do we live with a humble spirit or do we look to exalt ourselves?  Be humble and let God exalt you in His time.

Have a great day and God bless.