There are Google Maps and Apps, Pandora and Place, Yipes and You-Tube, Facebook and Four Square.  All things that their developers would tell you are designed to improve your life.   read

Luke chapter 14  contains a verse telling us that as disciples of,  followers of Christ, we should “hate” those who would otherwise be the closest to us.  Mother, father, sister brother, children and . . . you get the point.  Or do you?   read

Being a follower of Christ is so much more than praying a prayer, walking down an isle or getting baptized.  Being a follower of Christ is not a decision made once but instead is a decision made over and over and over with each day.  read

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?  That would sure set a lot of people on their ear!

This is the subtitle of “Sacred Marriage” by Gary Thomas.  Great book if you are really wanting to understand marriage God’s way.  But my favorite part is the subtitle.

I am sitting in a restaurant in Orlando, Florida on a break from the general sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention and as I look around the room I see people from all walks of life, of various races and ethnicity and…… read

As I was driving down the street tonight I noticed a new church had opened its doors in our community.  The name of the church included “Holiness” and it made me begin to think about God’s expectations of His church.  Was He looking for corporate holiness or personal holiness?  Was He hoping to have large groups of people generally seen as holy or was he wanting individual people to become holy before Him?  Certainly, the expectation is that holiness is an individual thing and we are challenged to become individually and personally holy. Her is what it says in Romans 12:

” I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

Nothing about the collective there.  So perhaps that new church is going to focus on personal holiness.  Individuals working to be “acceptable to God” by following His ways at every possible decision point.

You know what, if that is their intent, I welcome them to our community.

The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32 is one of the better known and often preached passages of the New Testament.  Pastors talk about the attitude of the father and the prodigal’s brother who demonstrated a contrast in forgiveness/unforgiveness.  They talk about the pride of the prodigal that led to his departure and his fall into the pit of despair.

But what about the journey back?  What must it have been like as the prodigal turned from his place among the swine, lifted himself to his feet, cleaned up just a little and headed home?  What did he notice on the road home that looked a little different as he traveled back that route toward his awaiting father?  Were there memories of gratefulness that he had forgotten as he walked away sometime before?  What was the along the road, both in his thoughts and in reality, that was different as he traveled back?  I wonder if he realized the fool he appeared to be when he was going out?  I wonder if he noticed how truly blessed he had been.  Was he like a blind man who could suddenly see or a deaf man who could suddenly hear?  Did he realize that what he had rejected on the way out was oh so wonderful coming back home?

The journey back home did not happen in an instant.  He was not supernaturally transported from the pig pen to his father’s house.  He had to journey back.  He had to have time to reflect on what he had done in going out.  I wonder if he ever thought about stopping halfway back – it certainly was better than the pig pen?  But no, the Bible tells us he came all the way home.  He refused to stop half-way.

What do we teach folks who in their own life are prodigals?  Do we teach them to come all the way home or is it ok just to turn and head home?  Certainly half way back is a lot better than the pig pen, but where do they really need to be?  Is it right for us to just get comfortable being part way back or should we be all the way home?  How about you,  have you come all the way back to God or are you comfortable enough to be half-way home?

When trials and troubles of all kinds begin to surround you, when challenges and disappointments seem to form a steady line to your doorstep, when the “prosperity” of knowing God seems to always be with others are you ever tempted to ask, “Where is God when you need Him?”

Truthfully, there He is in the midst of each trial, trouble, challenge and disappointment.  There He is to point the way through.  There He is to encourage pressing forward in what is right to do.  There He is having blazed a trail before you.

This life is not established for us to be comfortable and without burdens.  Our time on earth is not established for us to gain honor and fame for ourselves.  We are born into this world and called as believers in Christ in order that in each and every thing that occurs we can find the opportunity to bring glory and honor to the God of the Universe, the God who has prepared a place that will be without trials and troubles, challenges and disappointments.  A place that is for those who call upon His name and receive Him as Lord in the midst of whatever we face before we get there.  Prov. 6:5-6

Football season has officially begun in our household. The first set of 2-a-day practices began today for our sophomore boys. Drills, conditioning, discipline in solid repetition will be the routine for the week. This routine gets me to thinking. Is it really necessary to drill, condition, discipline so precisely? What would it be like if all eleven players on the field just did what they felt like doing? Or maybe if they all just did 50, 70 or even 95% of what they were supposed to do? What would that be like? It would probably result in a “cellar dweller” team.

What the coach is going for in this 2-a-day routine is a rooting out of those who will really follow the plan. Find the true aspirants who desire the very best and will lay it all on the line to achieve it. The coach is expecting a lot. And from the devoted he will get it.

What does our followship of Christ cost? Are there drills, conditioning and discipline required in order to end up with the kind of life God is asking His followers to live? Devoted followship brings honor to the cause. Without the devotion, there is very little if anything honorable accomplished.

Devote yourself to following the Savior. And that not at 50, 70 or even 95%, but whole heartedly as it says in 1 Kings 8:60-61.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines INTEGRITY as:
“Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code”
Should the church be the world’s example of integrity? I think so. First, steadfastness is a character quality of God. No person, power or force is as steadfast as the Almight God. Second, strictness relates to the unchanging, unwavering position of a matter. Third, morality and ethics relate to the rightness of action and closeness of an action to that which God would exhibit Himself. Finally, code relates to the “knowability” of of all these things.

We can know right vs wrong because it has been given to us in the Word of God and is confirmed in us by the Holy Spirit if we are saved. We can be strict and steadfast in our following of our Lord if we will obey His commandment.

And the church, the body of believers, has no greater job than to show integrity to the world because good integrity shows the character of God.

Do you see it?