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Building A Dream Life

Things Have a Way of Changing Quickly

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In Times of Change it is Important to Keep Your Focus

If you had told someone a few weeks ago that there wouldn’t be any toilet paper in the stores…schools would be closed…all sporting events would be canceled…people would be staying at home…they wouldn’t have believed you. We definitely are experiencing some change.

This change has happened quickly, but that’s nothing new.

When Jesus came into Jerusalem on Psalm Sunday, He was viewed by many as a hero that was going to lead the people to a new kingdom. Then in a matter of a few days, He was dead. Things changed quickly from celebration to sorrow. Then in a few more days there was another change. He was raised from death to life.

There are positive changes coming in our future.

Some people didn’t like Jesus’ message. Some people don’t like our message. Just like Jesus, not everyone is going to understand or like our message. It can be hard to continue sharing our message when it feels like no one is listening. We need to focus on the message we’ve been given and never stop sharing it.

Jesus was a small country boy who started speaking to a small following. He kept sharing His message He never quit or gave up. He shared it with a few people who then shared it with a few people who shared with a few more. Look at how many people have heard it now. Proof that networking can work to build a community of followers.

The right message shared with the right people at the right time will have a major impact.

It’s not our job to know who the right people are or when the right time is. Our job is to focus on the message. To share, share again and share some more.

KEEP ON SHARING – NEVER QUIT!

God Uses Bad News to Share “The Good News”

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We Are an Integral Part of the Story Being Told

Life is full of suffering and pain. We are currently experiencing widespread struggles with the corona virus situation. People were suffering before this and will suffer after.

In John 9:1-17, as Jesus’ followers walked past a blind man, they asked Jesus whose sin caused the man to be blind, his or his parents? Jesus answered, “It’s not this man’s or his parents’ sin… This man was born blind so that God’s power could be shown in him.” This man’s blindness was not the result of anything he or anyone else had done.

We’ve all heard of stories of people being miraculously healed. There are also stories of people that did miraculous things regardless of their imperfect situation. When things aren’t going well, too often we ask why.

The question we should ask is how, how can I use this for good?

In 1997, Christian author/singer Shelia Walsh shared her struggle with depression in her autobiography, Honestly. It appeared to people on the outside that she had it all together, but as her book reveals…not so much.

We all want to appear that we have everything under control when on the inside we’re constantly battling with our own self-doubt. We falsely think that showing our weakness and mistakes makes us failures. Working through these things with courage shows God’s strength in us.

I have seen, heard and witnessed amazing things happening around the world that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the corona virus. People slowing down and focusing on family, reconnecting with people through social media, helping others who need help, showing kindness and thinking outside the box actions.

God is glorified through our weakness, perseverance, and attitude.

Ask God for a solution and He will give you a story. Share your story with others.

Have Faith, God is Bigger Than This

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It Doesn’t Matter What “This” Is

Life can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. Being scared or not is a choice. Nobody said it would be easy.

Choosing not to be scared is bigger than we are.

Not being scared is about having faith in God and knowing that He has our back if we’re doing things He approves of. I’m constantly reminding myself of this. It’s easy for me to get scared when attempting to do something I’m uncomfortable with. Things that are outside my comfort zone are what God is calling me to do. These are the things that make us better.

Just like Matthew 14:25-33, when the disciples were afraid in the boat during a storm. They saw Jesus walking toward them on the water, Peter said to Jesus, “if it really is You, then command me to come to You on the water.” Jesus’ answer was, “Come”. Peter left the boat and walked on the water to Jesus. When Peter’s focus left Jesus and he started thinking about the wind and the waves, he became frightened and began to sink. Peter shouted, “Lord save me!” Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. Jesus told Peter, “Your faith is small. Why did you doubt?” We are so much like Peter.

Peter let his faith be overcome by fear.

This doesn’t mean we should do crazy dangerous things. Before Peter stepped out on faith, he asked Jesus and got His approval. He did fine until he took his eyes off Jesus and got scared. We are so much like Peter.

Having faith doesn’t mean everything is going to go wonderfully. It means that the outcome will be. The troubles along the way make us stronger and prepare us for the future problems. In Romans 5:1-11 we’re told to enjoy our troubles, because troubles produce patience, character and hope. And hope will never disappoint us.

We are not supposed to be afraid.

God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, 2 Timothy 1:7. Don’t worry or be afraid, because God is with you, Isaiah 41:10. Where God’s love is there is no fear, 1 John 4:18.

When fighting a war, the losing side is either defeated or surrenders. If we’re fighting on God’s side, we’re going to win. There’s nothing out there that God can’t defeat. He’s bigger than everything.

The more we focus on Jesus the less we’ll be scared.

It Is the Bible in A Nutshell

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John 3:16 is the Summation of the Whole Thing

John 3:16 may be the shortest Cliffs Notes ever. This verse is the whole Bible in one sentence. God loved us so much that he gave His Son to pay for our mistakes with his life. In return, our love for God is believing this to be true. Everything in the book points to this one thing and this one thing covers every other thing.

Real love is simple but hard.

Love is treating others the way God would treat them. We don’t do this very well. He’s had millions of reasons to condemn the world, but He hasn’t. The number of times we have given Him reasons to erase this whole thing and start over from scratch are too many to count.

“God is love. Those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them.” 1 John 4:7-21 Love comes from God. We are given opportunities to exhibit this love, but it doesn’t work if we don’t “do” it. We must choose to be different, to do different.

Rene Denfeld experienced a difficult childhood. She lived on the streets to stay clear of her registered sex offender stepfather and the long line of pedophiles that came in and out of her life. She grew to become a Chief Investigator for the public defender’s office, an author and an adoptive parent of three children from foster care.

She wrote about her kids in a New York Times essay “Four Castaway’s Make a Family”. “I had come to believe that the most important therapy is permanence. Children can sense when they are in a temporary home. All my children grew rapidly once settled, going from below the fifth percentile in height and weight to close to average. More important, they grew emotionally.”

“It is love that feeds the soul, allows us all to flourish.”

Love is serving. God loved us first and His never ends. We have been given talents and abilities that are specific to us. If we love God and love others, we’ll use them to make other’s lives better. In 1 Corinthians 13 it says that if we use these “without love, we are nothing”.

Our human nature is to be selfish. Loving others is about placing their needs above our wants.

John R. Fox sacrificed his life in World War II when he called for an artillery strike on the very position where he and his men were located. Fox was behind enemy lines and was surrounded by German soldiers. When he called for a strike right where he was, the soldier who got the message knew it. Fox was informed and he said, “Fire it.” After some further questions by the artillery operator Fox confirmed his coordinates and stated, “There’s more of them than there is of us.” His actions led to a halt in the German offensive.

The instructions given to us in John 3:16 are simple. We’ve heard this scripture used so much, we often take it for granted and don’t give it the significance it’s due. Most of the time we try to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Don’t over complicate this simple thing.

God loves you; I love you; go out and share that love.

I Say That I Believe…But Do I Really?

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It’s Easy to Say, But Hard to Do

What does it mean to believe? The words believe, trust, and faith are thrown around a lot. They’re used in all forms of motivational situations. You may have seen the Geico commercial in which Pinocchio is portrayed as a bad motivational speaker. (use a picture from the commercial)

In the commercial Pinocchio’s nose begins to grow when he tells people that they have potential. This commercial shows us the real problem with believing…we don’t. It presumes that Pinocchio is lying when he tells people that they have potential. The lie is in what Pinocchio is telling himself. He doesn’t believe that he or anyone has potential.

Every one of us has potential!

The words, believe, trust, and faith are often used synonymously but have subtle differences. Faith is a noun only. Trust is both a noun and verb. Believe is only a verb. We know from English class that a noun is a person, place or thing. A verb is used to describe an action.

We use these words as nouns. As a treasure that is out there for us to find. The problem is that two of the three are verbs, and we should be taking action. This means that we need to do something.

If I believe that I’m doing what God wants me to do…why doesn’t it appear to be working?

A few days ago, as part of my morning Scripture reading, I read Mark 11:20-24. In this message Peter asks Jesus about a fig tree that the day before Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And now, “it is dry and dead.” Jesus replied to Peter, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, fall into the sea.’ And if you have no doubts in your mind and believe that what you say will happen, God will do it for you. So, I tell you to believe that you have received the things you ask for in prayer, and God will give them to you.”

As I contemplated this Scripture as it related to my question, I realized a few things.

When the scripture says, “…say to this mountain, ‘Go fall into the sea.’ And if you have no doubts…it will happen”. That sounds great, but really, do I think the mountain is going to just move. Think of the chaos that would ensue if we all did this. I would move the mountain over there and somebody else would move it somewhere else. Maybe my believing is about doing. I could move the mountain with a bucket, by developing a machine, by designing a system, or by employing a team. The scripture isn’t about magic, it’s about believing that I can do it.

“God will do it for you.” I don’t doubt for a minute that if He chooses to move a mountain from here to there in one big piece He can. But more likely, His way of doing it for me is through ideas, plans, methods, help, etc. We are made in His image…we’re not Him.

As I pointed out earlier, believe is a verb. This means that if I believe, then I will need to do something. I can’t just say that I believe and wait for the miracles. I need to do my part. My belief needs to be accompanied by action.

I can say I believe, but if I don’t act then I don’t really believe.

My problem is that I’m looking forward to the mountain being moved and getting distracted by the enormity of it. I need to trust that God will show me what each next step is. Pastor Lee shared about Bill Irwin, (use picture from this link) a blind man that in 1990 hiked the Appalachian Trail alone. God didn’t magically take Bill from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in north central Maine. Instead Bill walked 2,168 miles over nine months without maps or GPS or assistance one step at a time.

Bill believed and with God’s help, moved his mountain. It’s up to us to believe and move ours.

Knowing the End of One Story in the Beginning Is A Good Thing

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How You Read Other Stories Is A Personal Preference

There are two differing opinions of how to read a book. Some people start by reading the last chapter first to see how the story ends. Others will start at the beginning and not read the end until…well the end. Whichever way you want to read is fine except for one specific story.

There is one story that you should know how it ends when it begins.

Knowing how the story in the Bible ends is critical to our own story and how it will end. We are all living our own stories surrounded by other stories in the middle of a bigger story. These stories are being written continuously every minute of every day.

We can write our story however we want, it’s up to us.

The important thing to remember is the importance of choosing to write it rather than letting someone else write it for us. Pastor Lee referred to two different stories in his message Sunday.

The first you are probably familiar with; it’s the story of Rip Van Winkle. In this story, written by Washington Irving and published in 1819, Rip Van Winkle falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains. When he wakes up 20 years later, he has slept through the American Revolution.

After he goes back to town everything has changed. His wife is dead, his kids are grown, the country now has a President rather than a King. Nothing is as it was when he went to sleep.

Too much of the time we sleep through life and let it happen to us.

The other story that he told was less popular. It’s a story about a Mexican priest, Sergio Gutierrez Benitez, who supported an orphanage for 23 years as the masked professional wrestler, “Friar Storm”. The La Casa Hogar orphanage became home to 270 children. Father Benitez chose to write his story, taking an active role and changing other people’s stories at the same time.

We can let life happen to us, or we can choose the life we want to happen.

Too often when we choose to write our own story, we forget to check with the Author of all stories to see if we are following His outline. Too often we don’t listen before we think or speak. We assume we have everything figured out and just start blabbering. This isn’t the best way to write a story.

Just like Peter, in Matthew 17:1-5 when he was on the mountain with Jesus. While he, James, and John were standing there Jesus became white as light and Moses and Elijah appeared. Then Peter began talking and making suggestions to Jesus without listening. While he was talking, God spoke and said, “This is my Son…Listen to Him!”

We need to be quiet and listen.

We have control over how our story is going to be written. Listen to God, study your life’s outline and right a good story.

The Internal Battle Between Right and Wrong

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Are You Conscious of Your Conscience?

Each of us has an ongoing internal battle of right and wrong. To make this internal conflict even more difficult, we’re bombarded by external forces pulling us in different directions.

How do we determine who’s going to win this battle?

What makes one thing right and another wrong? How do we know which is which? Ultimately, it comes down to what you use to measure right and wrong.

This battle is difficult, but no one said it was going to be easy.

As a Christian, I use the Scripture, the whole Scripture, for this. If I’m going to base my rights and wrongs in the Bible, I need to be careful to not pick and choose only small pieces but use the whole thing.

Just like a blueprint for building, if I don’t use the whole plan the building won’t be what it was designed to be.

The Bible is the blueprint for building my life.

We also have a built in right and wrong meter called a conscience. This meter is a sense of moral goodness for one’s own conduct, intentions or character together with a feeling of right or good. We can choose to listen to it or not.

Someone was asked if they knew the difference between conscience and conscious. They answered, CONSCIENCE is being aware of what’s right and wrong, CONSCIOUS is wishing you didn’t.

The battle of right and wrong doesn’t begin where we think it does…IT BEGINS WHERE WE THINK.

If decisions are choices…and our thinking determines our decisions, then we do what we do because of our thinking. It’s up to us to make the choices wisely. I would recommend following the blueprint.

Salt Makes Things Better and Light Shows the Way

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We’re All Called to be Saltshakers and Flashlights

We’ve been put here to fulfill a purpose that is specific to us. Some figure out what that purpose is quicker than others. Often people aren’t even aware they have a specific purpose that is exclusive to them and them alone.

Everyone of us is different and the same.

There are different kinds of salt. All of which make things better, whether it’s flavoring food, melting ice, cleaning stains, soothing insect bites or stopping a grease fire. The salt is different and the same. The important thing to remember is that, regardless of its purpose, there is nothing gained if it’s not used. We all have skills and talents that when used make things better.

We all have different skills and talents, but we won’t make things better if we don’t use them. We’re like the salt.

Just like the salt, there are different forms of light. There is electric light, candles, lanterns and flashlights to name a few. All of them allow us to see in the dark. It’s amazing how much light a single candle puts out. The light is different and the same. Light doesn’t do anyone any good if it’s kept hidden. No matter how small, we all have a light that needs to be used to help light the way.

We need to let our light shine and help others to see to find their way through the dark. We’re like the light.

In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and the light to the world. If we don’t use our salt (skills and talents) it will become good for nothing. If we don’t shine our light it leaves both us and those around us lost in the dark.

No matter what our unique purpose is, we make things better and brighter when we share.

Go out and spread some salt and shine your light.

We All Want to be Members of Exclusive Clubs

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The word "Exclusive" in a starburst

 

 

What is it That Draws Us to be a Part of These Groups?

 

Exclusive makes us feel special. We want to be somebody, to be valuable, to stand out from the crowd. We think exclusive clubs will do this for us. If there’s only room for a few and I get in, then I’m important.

 


Collins dictionary defines exclusive as, something that is used or owned by only one person or group, not shared and limited to people with a lot of money or who are privileged. The world is full of exclusive clubs that require some very expensive and/or bizarre requirements to even be considered.


This is how the world perceives special.


There’s a story of a boy whose older brother had started a “club” with some of his friends. The younger brother wanted to join so bad that he was willing to do anything, including jumping from the top of the stairs, which resulted in a broken ankle. The cost to joining clubs can be painful.

 

There’s a different kind of club out there called the Kingdom Club. It’s inclusive and easy to join. All that’s required is accepting the invitation and willingness to follow a few simple rules.

 

  • Recognize your spiritual needs
  • Share in grief
  • Be humble
  • Desire to do right
  • Show mercy to others
  • Desire pure thoughts
  • Work for peace
  • Willingness to suffer for doing what’s right


These rules are explained in the Kingdom Club handbook, Matthew 5:1-12. Just go to the clubhouse door, knock and it will open, Matthew 7:7-8, Luke 11:9-10.


Joining the Kingdom Club is so easy that most people think it’s too good to be true. Or, they’re afraid that it’s so easy that they will be lost in the crowd. That’s one of the best things about this club, joining it allows our “special” to radiate.


The Kingdom Club is full of nothing but special people.

 

This is a good club to be in!

 

The World Is Full of Opportunities

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Uplifed hands full of twinkling lights

 

 

 

It’s Our Responsibility to Make the Most of Them

 

 

In our humanness we all feel inadequate. We don’t think we have what it takes to do that thing…whatever that thing for us is.


One of Rev. James Moore’s seminary responsibilities was a weekly visit to a hospital. One week he was asked to speak to Mrs. Davis who was scheduled for brain surgery the next morning. She didn’t want to be bothered, but in her condition and with the risky surgery the hospital felt that he should visit her anyway.

 


In his young, inexperienced, inadequate state, he didn’t think he could do it.


The hospital staff continued to push him until he finally went to pray with her. Things didn’t go so well; he opened the door too hard and it banged the wall, he kicked her bed as he walked around it and then when he started to pray with her…he didn’t know what to say. He stammered around as he prayed and finally after feeling like a complete failure, he left.


He went directly to his professor and told him that he wasn’t cut out for this work, he had just made a mess of things at the hospital and wanted to drop out. The professor said that he was too busy right then, to come back next week and they would talk.


When Rev. Moore went back for his regular scheduled time at the hospital, he was expecting bad news…but he found that Mrs. Davis was doing well. When he went to see her, she explained that last week before he came to her, she had given up. His visit had gone so poorly that she felt sorry for him and this compassion for him, had given her the will to live.


Rev. Moore went on to become a minister, author and leader who impacted thousands of lives.


We don’t have to be perfect; we don’t have to be good; we just have to be willing.

 


Faith is being willing to get up and go when God gives us opportunities. He doesn’t ask us to do things with talents that we don’t have. Believe in yourself and trust in God.

 


Who knows how many we can help if we will move forward in faith.