Category Archives: Walking with God

The Joys of Being A Dad – For My Children

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Today’s post is a little different from things I normally write about.  As some of you may know we have a lot of things going on with our kids.  My oldest is involved in and outdoor adventures crew and the DECA organization at his high school where he is officer.  My middle son is a high school freshman and has a lifelong passion for baseball with dreams of playing professional one day. My daughter is an awesome singer, singing with chorus, and a highly competitive softball player.  My wife, Amber and I are so proud of these three for the young men and women they are, the things they do, and how humble they are in all they do.  Whether they excel or not, they stay humble through it all, which is so cool to watch.  So here, I’m going to brag a little about each of them in things they’ve accomplished just this year.  Amber and I don’t do this much.  We’ve always taken the stance that we let their actions speak for them.  Seeing how they’ve grown through it all is amazing.

So starting with Shawn.  He is my oldest and will be a high school senior next year.  So crazy how time has flown since we brought him home from the hospital.  A very reserved and quiet young man, we’ve seen him grow up in so many way this year.  First, spiritually, he has such a growing heart for God.  You can see him light up and the way he is eager to learn about God and grow spiritually in his faith.  From his involvement with FCA and Bible studies at school to small groups at our church, I love seeing him grow.  In addition, this year, we’ve seen him breakout of the shell as he got involved in an outdoors adventure crew where he gets to go out camping, hiking, and then this summer will take a 250 mile bike ride across Maryland into DC.  So cool.  In school, he is high involved as an officer in the marketing and business club DECA.  Competing in competitions, he took 1st in the region, 3rd in state, and for the 2nd year earned  trip to the international competition held in Orlando this year.  Now as he moves into his senior year he’s planning college to study wildlife management and eventually would love to do outdoors ministry.  So excited to see where God takes him.

On to Brandon.  He is my second and going to be a sophomore in high school this fall.  Like Shawn, Brandon has grown to have such an awesome heart for God.  Seeing him light up in worship and in his learning about God and then watching him get into worship music when we’re home and in the car is awesome.  You can see God working on his heart as well. In addition, Brandon is very involved as baseball player.  He has dreams of playing professionally one day.  He has played competitive travel baseball for several years and as a freshman split time with JV as a starting catcher and Varsity as the bullpen catcher.  What’s been cool to watch is his growth and humility in his role on the Varsity squad.  While not on the field, he plays a valuable role in the bullpen and earning his way through the system.  He’s been an intricate part of that squad.  What’s also cool, is that tomorrow his team competes for the state baseball title for the first time in school history and him getting to be a part of that run with such a hardworking and humble group of young men has been an awesome growing experience for him.  Can’t wait to see where the Lord takes him.

Now to my baby girl, Ashley, Sweetface.  Such a precious, sweet, and beautiful young lady.  Ashley will be going into the 8th grade this fall, which again just floors me.  You want to talk a bout a little girl that had me wrapped around her finger from day one.  Watching her grow and mature, just like her brothers, she has such a beautiful heart for God.  It reflects in her worship and also in her quest to learn more about God in our conversations.  She has had to deal with some drama with friends as many teenagers do, and seeing how she loves her friends through their troubles even when friends say they lost faith, the love of God just shines through her as she continues to love on them and them know God loves them.  In addition, Ashley is a chorus singer at school.  An amazing singer and she loves to entertain.  In addition, she is an awesome writer.  I think she takes after me in her love for writing and unlike me, she has a real knack for story telling.  Ashley is also a very competitive softball player.  Playing travel softball and with her school team as a catcher and 3rd baseman like her brother.  She has dreams of playing college softball one day as well.  I’m so  excited about her future and where God will lead her.

God truly blessed Amber and me with some awesome kids.  As our home has grown spiritually it’s awesome to see it reflect in their lives.  Through all their accomplishments, through all their hard work, they stay so humble.  They have a love for God and know that He is going to lead them.  They’ve grown to understand that things aren’t always easy, they know God will love them and lead then through it all.  As Jesus teaches in Luke 14, “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” I believe my children reflect this.  They delight in their accomplishments, but they don’t let it define them as they know that comes from God first, not their own doing.  Once again, I’m so excited to see where God leads them as they grown in Him into adulthood.  I can only take them so far as their Dad, but we share a Father in God who will take them the rest of the way. I can only hope that I do what I can to continue leading them to Him and to seek Him everyday.

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Feeling Overwhelmed

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One week in.  It’s been quite a ride already as I get used to being back in school and learning the ropes of the classes and figuring out the best way to balance everything to ensure I don’t neglect family and work, but also to maximize the learning experience.  I’ve been down this road before, but it certainly takes getting used to once you’ve been established in routines.  It’s disruptive to the norm.  Many people are scared of disruption and what it does to their organization and routines.  I used to hate disruption.  I was a man of routine and like the way things role.  Now I welcome the disruption.  It gives me opportunity to reassess priorities and take stock of where I am and where I am going.  It gives me an opportunity to talk to God and see what he’s up to in my life.

As I ended the first week of classes yesterday and finalized the first week’s assignments, I found myself almost stressed.  I got a little frustrated with a quiz I working on even though this was the first week, I felt a little bit overwhelmed for a bit.  After the quiz, I picked up one of my books and started reading a bit more to recap some of the week. This is the book, “Competent Christian Counseling” by Dr. Tim Clinton (no relation) and Dr. George Ohlschlager.  A great introductory book into the field of Christian Counseling.  The first page I turned to was amazing as with the frustration that I just felt, these were the first words I read.  “The information is overwhelming; the challenge is daunting. However, when you come to believe that God is able – that He will shape and guide you and will walk with you through your growth and development as a Christian counselor – you will learn to relax.”  I tell you what, seeing those words in front of me right at that point exactly what I needed.    I knew God was telling me to just relax son.  As He has told me before, just trust in Him.  I know He is able.  I know He will guide me and walk with me.  I know it will seem overwhelming at times throughout the process. There’s a great deal involved with becoming a professional counselor.  It’s a process that necessary and if I put my trust in God, He will lead me through it all.

I have thought about those words many times since yesterday.  With all of my schooling, I’ve never thought in that sense.  I’ve never thought to allow God to guide and Father me through the process of where I was going.  I was very self-reliant and self-driven in the goals I was laying out before me.  It’s a very different feeling when I step out of myself, having shed the old man in me and let God take all of that.  Leave my fears and anxieties nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ and let the restoration that Christ has given me shine through knowing that I can go wherever God leads and be willing to take that risk and follow.

I read daily reading bits from Ransomed Heart Ministries that come across tablet through their app.  Their daily excerpts from one of their many books.  In another twist of how God was talking to me yesterday, that days bit came from the book “Fathered by God.”  This book was almost the next step up from Wild at Heart.  A very good read if you haven’t picked it up.  The title was “We Need a Guide.”  As part of our initiation in the masculine journey for men, “we need a process, a journey, an epic story of many experience woven together, building upon one another in a progression. We need initiation. And, we need a guide.”  A guide is exactly what God is on our journey.  This true for the masculine for me and the feminine journey for women.  We all need a guide on our journey and God wants to be that guide if we will let Him.  He is laying out the path for us to initiate us bring us into closer connection with Him.  We have to be willing to let go, not let the things in our small story keep us down.  Understand the larger epic story of God and let Him lead us through it.  Trust in Him.

This is where we need to be on our journey.  Walk with God and let Him come into our lives and lead us.  God is able and our faith Him means that through Him we are able to do whatever He says we can.  We just have to get out of our own way.  Don’t let the world or the enemy tell us we can’t either.  Trust in Him where nothing is impossible.

Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust Him, and He will help you. – Psalm 37:5

Today Is The Day!

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I have been counting down to this day for the last few months.  Hard to believe it’s already here, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to be starting my work to on my Masters in Professional Counseling.  It’s a journey into the unknown that I never thought I would have the courage to do.  I knew, however, that once I was fully surrendered to the Lord, and knew where He was calling me, there was absolutely no way I was going to turn away not do it.  It’s a wild feeling.  I am excited about the possibilities, yet at the same time, as I write this, I am literally shaking on the inside as the nerves about the unknown set in.

It’s all a risk.  I could be perfectly content spending the next 25 years finishing my career in the corporate world.  I could just enjoy the salary and benefits of that world and live out there.  I could spend my life under the radar and just cruise along going with the flow.  But now that I am all in, there is no way I can do that now.  God has been calling me in my writing for the last several years.  I just didn’t listen enough until now.  So now, I am making a leap of complete faith and Trusting to where my God is leading me.

It’s all about trust and faith.  God told me something back in January and has told me this a few times since then when I have questioned what I’m doing.  He has said to trust Him and to just let go.  That’s what I have to do now.  I have to trust fully in the Lord.  I have to let go of my own self-reliance and self-centered ways and allow Him to work in my life.  Trust is the key to it all.  Do we trust in the works of God and the finished works of Jesus Christ?  Do we believe in His unfailing love and unending pursuit of our hearts and our lives?  Do we trust in Him with our lives?

I used to often doubt myself.  I would just go along thinking that it was easier to just get along with the world and not rock the boat.  To hide all my junk, all my sin, all my wounds, and the emptiness in my life to just let the world dictate my decisions.  When I would get a little courage to step forward, something would pull me back or I would doubt myself again and life would return to what it was.  I would sometimes here the enemy putting in my heart that those were just silly ideas.  That I needed to just get along.  Live a secure life with steady and secure income and all that.  Don’t rock the boat.  Don’t venture off the smooth path.  What was it old school preachers used to say, the smooth and wide, gold filled path of the devil.  Never understood that until recently.

I look to Scripture also when thinking about trusting in the Lord.  Romans 10:11 says, “Anyone who trusts in Him will never be disgraced.”  That gives me great confidence in knowing that if I just my full trust in where He is leading, that I can’t go wrong.  How can any of us go wrong if we are trusting Him.  It doesn’t mean the way will always be easy, because it won’t.  There will be difficulties.  There will be times where we are pushed to our limits and I know I will be in this too.  But disgrace will never fall if I trust in Him.

Look to the Psalms too.  David said in Psalm 31:14, “I am trusting you, O Lord, saying, You are my God! My future is in your hands.”  I am praying for the same level of trust with my life and that I just let God take control fully and trust my future to His hands.  That’s what we all need to do.  Trust in the Lord with all that we are.  Love Him, Trust Him, and Worship Him.

George McDonald said, “Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.”  That tells me that if there is nothing in the world that can be more satisfying that having God’s presence in my life and trusting Him with my life.  How could I possibly let anything else steer me away from that.  Augustine said, “Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence.”  Now that I have dealt with my past junk and surrendered that to the Cross of Jesus Christ, I can let God love me in the present now where I trust in Him and then allow His will to unfold in my life.

It’s going to an exciting journey.  Going to be busy and I know there will be days where I won’t want to write a single thing.  But I will keep updates rolling on my progress as the journey to be a Christian Counselor begins to unfold.  I definite seek prayers in this journey as well.

Living Out Romans 1:16

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There is a major problem we have in our society today.  It has to do with our willingness to live out and boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and tell the world the Good News of Christ.  There are many that are out there day after day being bold in proclaiming the Word, but the problem that we have that are far too many of us, and I have been in this camp as well, that don’t live out what we believe and don’t share or talk about the Good News of Jesus with others.  The problem comes because many are too afraid of what people will think or are afraid of being looked down upon, ridiculed, or being trash talked and accused of “shoving their religion down someones throat.”

Since my rebirth, it has been astounding to many, since God opened my eyes to see this phenomenon.  We get so afraid of what others say and therefore, even though we believed, freeze when the chance to share that faith or our testimony comes around.  Like I said, I had this issue for a long time.  I’m still not always the best at going out and just striking up conversations about it, but definitely working on and will defend my faith fiercely if ever challenged.

Saturday night, I was up late with my family watching the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.  I have been a Manny Pacquiao fan for a few years.  For one years, he is Philipino, which I am half Philipino.  Seeing where he came from and knowing where family has come from makes me a fan.  But something more hit me recently and that was Manny’s born again faith in Jesus Christ.  He is a man that readily admitted all the junk he had in his life, violently repented, and surrendered his life to Jesus.  He lives it out everyday.  I’ve watched many interviews where he talks about this and he makes that such a profound part of life and his driving force.  No matter the outcome he had trying to box a runner, he already won, because his life is now all in for the Lord.

Manny does something with his fame that is so huge.  He lives out Romans 1:16 where Paul states, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”  Manny is not ashamed at all and you can see it in how he speaks, his whole demeanor, and the way he conducts himself now despite his success.  Remains humble and no matter what anyone may say he is bold about his faith and is not ashamed.

This many seem like a nobrainer for many, but the reality is that we are all called to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This comes down just looking past what others may say.  Not caring about the secular opinions or those pick and choose what they like from the Word to advance their post modern ways of thinking and try to demonize the Truth when it does not agree with their agenda, which we see everyday now in our society.

As 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” We as believers are all called to advance the Good News and God has gifted each of us with unique talents and abilities to be used to proclaim who He is and His love for all of us.

I have been so on fire for God and I can proudly say that I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is something we all need.  Not just to pay lip service to our faith, but to seriously live out our faith and proclaim it to the world.  “You also are the called of Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6).  The call belongs to us all.  Brothers and sisters, lets stand and be bold.  Don’t be ashamed of who we are as God’s sons and daughters.  Jesus has made us new and lets all burn hotter and brighter with passion for God.

“The world needs to see Christians burning, not with self-righteous fury at the sliding morals in our country, but with passion for God.” – Kevin DeYoung

The Call of the Bible

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I absolutely love reading the Bible.  I began reading it daily about 4 years ago and it has been a great part of my spiritual growth as I have learned from God’s Word and read through the stories of history that laid out in the Word and the teachings from Old and New Testaments.  I firmly believe that The Bible is the infallible Word of God.  There is nothing on earth greater than the 66 books He has given us.  It’s amazing that each time I read it, that I learn something new.  I gain new insight or God reveals a new idea or peace of wisdom to me and often times it comes at opportune times.  That’s pretty cool when I read through something and then sometimes that same day something comes about that brings that whole message right back again.

With all of that said, in my reading and in some continued studies, I was given a realization about what it that God is really offering through His Word.  There are many that say the Bible is the source of God talking to us and they keep Him at at distance.  However, I firmly believe that what the Bible offers is an intimate relationship with God. He is calling us, through His Word to walk with Him and talk with Him, and yes, as I’ve said before, He talks back.  Not just in the words in the Bible, but to us, in our hearts.  Yes, God talks directly to us.  The thing is, do we listen.

For some this sounds crazy.  I used to often hear of people talk about God talking to them. God putting things on their heart.  When I would hear this, it made me feel like an infant spiritually.  I would wonder why God never had those conversations with me.  This goes right up to last year.  It never occurred to me the things He would put on my heart through different situations or that He even spoke back to me.  For one, my prayer life was not the greatest, so I didn’t understand this at all.  I know I’m not the only one who has had this or is still dealing with this issue.

I’ve learned a great deal about this though in recent months and I learn more each day.  The first time I ever remember hearing God speaking to me and really recognizing it was Him was while I was in Colorado.  I was out walking and reflecting on questions from a session we just finished.  I was first sitting and reflecting on myself.  Just doing a complete gut check on who I felt I had been as a man.  Then I got up and started walking.  While walking, I felt and heard God’s voice speaking to me.  He told me that in my life I had never allowed myself to venture off the path the world had laid out.  I had never fully trusted in His path nor been willing to take any real risk.  He said, “Don’t let fear lead you.  That’s the enemy.”  He said, “Let me lead you.  Trust me.”  

At this point, I was just blown away.  Completely blown away.  Here I was, by myself, unplugged and I heard God.  This was not the first instance that weekend either.  It came again and again.  When I was in my journal, words would just flow and I knew it was not just me.  Then the ultimate was when He told me, “Your are a son…You are My son!” It was an experience like nothing I had ever felt and I knew for certain that God does speak back to us.  Prayer is not just about a one way conversation as I mentioned last week.  God wants that to be both ways.  He wants to build a real relationship with us.

This is what is spelled out in the Bible.  Relationship.  God’s infallible Word tells gives us example after example of what having that relationship with Him like and how real and intimate it is and the life that is available in that relationship.  There’s also example after example of people who turned away from that relationship and from loving God and the consequences of that choice.  The Bible is not a cosmic rule book.  It is God’s revealing to us that He does love us and wants to walk close with us throughout our lives.

Now, since I’ve been home, there have been times where I feel like I just can’t lock in and hear God.  Sometimes I felt like I just was not committed enough to the relationship. Then I realized that in this the crazy of our everyday life and when we are under daily pressures, it can be difficult to lock in.  We get so busy and so cluttered that we can’t filter out the junk without work.  This takes time and work to get to where we can.  Where we can get to our quiet moments to just have those conversations with Him and build on that relationship.  It takes work and I know it will take time for me to get better at this.  Thomas A Kempis said, “Be humble and be quiet and Jesus will be with thee.”

So just remember that God wants relationship with all of us.  He desires this.  He wants to converse and walk with us in our daily lives.  He wants to converse with us and teach us to hear Him.  Isaiah 50:4 says, “He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.”  Psalm 95:7-8 says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”  This is the other critical point, we have to allow ourselves to be open to hearing His voice and not ignore what He is telling us.  Let our hearts be open to the fact that He speaks to us and be willing to hear His voice.  Allow your hearts to also hear Him when He uses situations and others to speak to you as well.  We don’t perfect this overnight and I learn more about this everyday and in how God speaks to me.  The important start is to now be tuned to Him and be willing to hear and see all He wants to reveal in your heart.

 

Do We Dare Stand Naked

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Everyone of us have had a poser side.  A fig leaf that we’ve hid behind for fear of allowing the world to see all of the hidden junk we may have in our lives.  It may not seem like it on the surface, but we go through motions each day putting on that facade that everything in our world is okay.  Sunday mornings at church can often times be poser city, when everyone puts on that happy face for those couple of hours before getting back to life as normal.  They may have troubles at home or doubts about life, but they don’t let that out.  In our jobs, we often hide.  Just take a ride on the elevator.  What do most people do, including me?  We stare at the floor counter, the ceiling, straight ahead.  We are afraid to be seen.  We hide ourselves from the world.  There are issues we all have in our lives that we can work on through many avenues.  Through prayer, counseling, fellowship, and more.

Even when we’ve repented of our sins and begin to work on those issues in our lives, there’s still something we hide.  As John Eldredge shares in Waking the Dead, we hide our own glory.  That’s the glory we receive from God when we are made new in our relationship with Christ.  There’s something fearful here and that is the fact that when we decide to live from this glory and the holiness that Christ offers, we stand fully exposed to the world.  For many, this still seems so risky, because it puts us out there fully.  As the book says, “It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling theirs.”

When I was reading this, this completely stuck out to me.  There is a great deal of truth to this thought.  The world has become a post-modern mess where the idea of living out the Truth of who we are in Christ can gain a lot of down the nose looks.  Many will often turn their nose up at people who are just out there and confident in who they are in Christ and aren’t ashamed to let it be seen.  It’s exposing and for many and yes for sometime even me, it can be a scary.  So what do we do?  We go back to posing.  We are around our friends, families, and acquaintances and we go back to hiding.  We either bring back the poser or just shy away from our glory.

Reading this gave me a lot of food for thought.  As I wrote the other day, Jesus said ““Everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father.” (Matthew 10:32-33).  We are called to boldly proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.  We are called to publicly acknowledge Christ to the world.  If we do, we will be acknowledged before the Father.  So the answer to this is simple.  We need to live from our glory and from our true self.  We need to be bold about who we are in Christ and no longer hide from this fact.

Eldredge says, “To admit we do have a new heart and a glory from God, to being to let it be unveiled and embrace it as true – that means the next thing God will do is ask us to live from it.  Come out of the boat. Take the throne. Be what he meant us to be. And that feels risky…really risky. But it is also exciting. It is coming fully alive.” 

We can now stand naked to the world.  It does not matter how the world looks at us if we are living in the glory of God and from that.  We are made new in Christ.  Romans 2:29 says, “A person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people.”  We need to learn to live our lives seeking Gods praise and living for his glory alone.  “Put on your new nature, created to be like God…” (Ephesians 4:24:).  “Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ” (Ephesians 5:2).

This is boldness that is needed for all followers of Christ.  I pray each day to grow in this way to stand not just on what I write, but in the way I live and in my actions. I have worked to continually get out from behind the fig leaf.  I tell you what, since I started to come out, God has had me on fire.  It takes work each day because of the world we live in, but it’s worth the risk to stand bold and naked in our glory for the world to see.  Jesus felt it was worth the risk to hang on that cross for us for all the world to see.  It is worth the risk to stand bold and naked to the world in the God’s glory as well.  Do we dare to stand naked?

The Power of Choice

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Currently, I am reading through the Gospel of Matthew.  It has been a great study so far as I take time to really dive in and see how Jesus teaches about the Kingdom that we can inherit.  That God offers for each of us as His children.  I’ve thought about this before, but something struck me today as I was reading through Matthew 10.  In verses 32-33, Jesus says, “Everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father.” In verse 37 he says, “If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worth of being mine…”

I was reading through this and something struck me again that I just had to share.  It all boils down to a choice.  We either choose to accept and receive Jesus Christ and all His works or we don’t.  We either choose to believe in God as our Father, or we choose not to.  We either love God and love each other or we choose not to.  Either we choose to accept the life and restoration that is offered in Christ or we choose to not.  It all boils down to a choice and the choice belongs to nobody accept ourselves.

God gave us something pretty miraculous when He created us.  He gave us free will.  He gave us choice.  It’s really a beautiful thing when you think about it.  God loves us that much to allow us to choose to love Him as well.  Simply being, He wants us to want to love Him and not be forced into loving Him.  The choice has always been ours.  Adam chose Eve first over God and the result brought evil into the world and man fell and Satan was given dominion over the earth.  The authority now belongs to Jesus now as He took it back.

Ponder this for a minute as well.  God had a choice too.  He made us in His image, so we bear that same choice.  What if God chose to not spare Noah and his family?  What if God didn’t promise Abraham that his descendants would number like that stars?  What if David didn’t kill Goliath?  What if God didn’t launch the biggest raid and rescue through the womb of young virgin raiding into enemy territory to rescue and restore the human race?  What if Paul remained the Pharisee he was?

All of these questions are very relevant to us, because they all hinge on choice.  Choices were made all through Scripture and today we have choices to make as well.  The same holds true in life today.  Looking at my own for instance.  What if I decided not to go to Wild At Heart in January, where I strongly feel that God was calling me too?  Sure, I may be going about my life, but I certainly would not be locked in the way I am now.  It all comes down to choice.

Dwight Eisenhower stated, “The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!” That goes for all of history.  None of it is by chance.  We have come where we because of the choices that have been made.  Our freedom in Christ is found because God made the choice to always pursue us, put on a robe of flesh, suffered and died for our sins, was raised to life to give us new life, and ascended to God’s right hand to take all authority and give us our freedom in Him.  God could have let this world go long ago, but He chose to love us.

I may sound repetitive, but I think this is a critical thing that we must remember.  God doesn’t want to lose any of us.  He will pursue our hearts as long as He can, but He knows we won’t all choose Him.  Hell was never intended for the human race, but for Satan and his demons, but if you don’t choose God, then as much as He won’t want to, we will denied to.  Think about it.  Why would you accept someone that continued to deny you as much as you try to pursue them?

So the choice is simple and it’s very powerful.  As Andy Dufresne says in Shawshank Redemption, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really; get busy living or get busy dying.” When we make that choice to live in Christ, the offer is life and life abundantly.  Life to the full.  If we choose to deny Christ, the consequence is being denied ourselves and death.  The choice is powerful and the choice is really simple.  What do you choose?  

Two-Way Conversation

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There are many people across the Christian faith that have talked about hearing God.  About God putting something on their heart and being able to hear that still, soft voice in their heart.  There are many that look at this as crazy, even in the Christian faith.  They either don’t believe converses with His children directly or only speaks through those in clergy positions.  I used to not be able to make heads or tails of this.  For most of my life, I either did not hear God, although I believe He did communicate, or I just was unwilling to listen.  I often wondered what it would be like to have God speak to me.  Low and behold, I realize, there are many instances I have experienced where I now know He was there, but I didn’t realize it until I was more willing to surrender and go all in, allowing Jesus to dive deep into my heart.

Did you know that this two-way conversation was the way God always intended things to be?  Dallas Willard points out this ongoing conversation with the examples of God’s visit to Adam and Eve in the Garden, Enoch’s walks with God, and Moses in his face-to-face conversations with God.  These are just ordinary situations.  Willard explains, “They are examples of the normal human life God intended for us: God’s indwelling His people through personal presences and fellowship.”  This is the way it was always meant to be.  We are meant to live in this ongoing conversation.

For many this sounds just too far fetched.  They see God as that distant cosmic sheriff in the sky and can’t bring themselves to accept the idea of God talking to them directly.  It just seems to far fetched.  Quite frankly, I blame the religious establishment for this. They have spent all this time trying to re-create the Holy of Holies even though God tore that curtain with His own hands.  They have put a barrier up between us and God that makes God seem more and more distant.  God ripped that curtain, however and for good.

Evan as I write this, I find the enemy on my heart trying to tell me that people won’t accept this.  I know there are many of you out there that won’t for one reason or the other.  The only thing I can offer, however, is my own personal experience with this.  Like I said, I never fully felt God speak to me directly.  I have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in different times, but never took the time to listen what I was being told.

When I was in Colorado, God opened me up.  When I was fully away from the world I know, my heart was fully open.  God gave me, I believe, just as Solomon prayed for, a hearing heart.  He enabled me to be fully locked into what He was telling me.  I would ask questions and the answers about myself, my wounds, my identity to Him, and so much more just began to flow.  It was the most amazing experience I have ever felt and I know it was God.  It came with gentle authority and were things I never thought about before.

I at first felt I would have a hard time discerning what was really God or other things.  When it came, however, it was unmistakable to me.  One way I found to know the difference is that God is not going to put things on your heart that will cause conflict.  It comes in that still soft voice with a gentle authority, not antagonizing and not conflicting.

It’s been amazing to learn this in the last many months.  I’ve learned to find different ways God speaks to me through different circumstances and through conversations I’ve had with people.  It’s truly a two-way conversation, not just us sitting here talking.  He truly does talk back to us in many ways and I can definitely testify to this.  Now that I have learned to discern this more in my own life, I look forward hearing from God more and more.  I’m accepting of this fact and know that I can hear Him if I can cut out the noise of the world and just focus on Him.

Don’t Let Worry and Fear Run Your Life

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Every one of us has worry in our life.  Worry about bills, worry about our jobs or finding a job, worry about money, worry about family and friends, and many, many other things.  A part of our nature causes us to worry about things.  We know, whether we accept it our not, that our world is fallen and full of trials that bring heart ache into our lives.  Sometimes, it can come from the craziest or most minute things.  For example, if my wife is out somewhere, and maybe I had not heard from her for a bit, I start to get worries about what may have happened, even wondering if she was in a bad accident or something.  Crazy things that I know the enemy and his cronies are flooding my mind with to try to get me to panic in fear.  The problem is, that no matter how hard we try, because of our nature, because of our experiences in life, we are going to have those worries.  Maybe we are not sure if we’ll have enough money to feed our family or keep a roof over our heads.  These things come with life.

This past week, the Lord prompted me to begin a deeper dive into the Gospel of Matthew.  In part to really get a deeper understanding of Jesus’s teaching on God’s Kingdom and our place in His Kingdom.  It has been cool so far to read through the book at a slower pace and meditate on Jesus’s teachings.  Right now I am in the Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches about worry and anxiety starting in versus 25.  Here is what Jesus says…

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? and who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drive?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

Bottom line here from Jesus, is do not live a life of worry, but seek the Father first.  We have a serious struggle with this in our lives.  I know I have and my wife has struggles with this as well.  She comes from a long line of what we call ‘worry warts’ in her family.  But isn’t this teaching so simple.  Don’t worry, but seek God first.  Seek His kingdom and righteousness.  That’ the bottom line for anything in our lives.  If we learn to truly, and I mean truly seek God, what is there to worry about?  As the song we sang in worship Sunday morning said, ‘There is no one higher than our God.’  This rings out so true, if we just learn to remember it and live our lives in this way.

 I know I write this and it all sounds so easy, but the reality of it all is for us is that it’s not that easy for us.  Because of our fallen states and who we are and because we are in constant war with the enemy, worry and fears just seem to overtake us constantly.  For some the worry become so great that it’s crippling.  It literally enslaves them and overtakes their lives to the point where it’s all they think about.  It then leads to worrying about the next thing and then the next.

Seek His kingdom and His righteousness.  This something that becomes difficult for so many because we get gripped in doubts and fear.  The enemy finds those fears and then establishes a foothold where he can then camp and continue to pull at you.  It is however, something that we all can do, if we are willing.  We can choose to seek God’s kingdom.  Seek Him in all we do.  Learn to walk with Him.  Learn to talk and converse with God.  Not just where you are praying to Him, but where you are filtering out the noise and listening to Him as well.

Hebrews 13:5 says, “Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.'”  This is in reference to Deuteronomy 31 where Moses was telling Joshua to be strong and courageous, “For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you” (verse 6). God is with us through every aspect of our lives.

We can’t let worry and fear run our lives.  My challenge here is to seek God everyday just has Jesus tells us.  Don’t worry about the petty things and don’t let us get so caught up in worry that it runs our lives.  God will never fail us or abandon us.  I believe this with my whole heart.  Dallas Willard says in his book ‘Hearing God,’ “God is able to penetrate and intertwine himself with the fibers of the human self in such a way that those who are enveloped in His loving companionship will never be alone.” We must choose to surrender though and let Him in.  If we choose to do so, there’s nothing, and I mean nothing in this world that we need to worry about.  Jesus took on more than we can ever imagine and He did it for us because the Father loves us enough to take all of that away, if we will choose to surrender and put our faith and trust in him fully.

God wants to help us through the struggles of our lives and does not want us to worry.  He knows we will have them in this life.  Jesus told us this in John 16:33.  But we have to choose to surrender and so that we can overcome through Him.  As Watchman Nee said,“He can only keep those who have handed themselves over to Him.”

When you feel yourself beginning to worry, try to stop and seek God.  When you start your day, seek God first.  This will definitely help set the pace for the day and help you cover yourself with the Armor of God to take on all the enemy has in store.  Let God lead you.  Let His will envelop your heart in a way to where the fear and worry gets overshadowed by His mere presence.  There is no one higher and nothing greater than our God.

Seeking Real Holiness with Jesus

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I just finished another John Eldredge book this past weekend, ‘Free to Live: The Utter Relief of Holiness.’  I took my time with this book as I really wanted to let it sink in as I read through it, reading and meditating on little bits at at a time.  It’s been another big part of my study and growth as I grow in my walk with God.  I look forward to the next book I’ll be starting by Dallas Willard ‘Hearing God’.  I’ll get into that later as I read through it.

In reading through Free to Live, God really opened my heart to something new, that I never really thought about.  The idea of living Holy and the joy that comes with being able to live a life filled with the Holiness.  Now what do you think about with the word Holy?  Do you think of a state of being that is out of our reach here in this life?  We often think of the greatness of God and how good he is and being in his presence in the Kingdom.  Put it this way, John Eldredge changed the name of this book from just “The Utter Relief of Holiness,” and added ‘Free to Live.’  A big reason would be that the original title, alone seemed a bit of turn off to some.  Holiness is looked at as he states, as “hard, perhaps; boring….a level of spirituality we might attain one day. But a relief?”

There is a relief I’ve come to learn through holiness and what walking with God and seeking Jesus each day can bring.  Henry Emerson Fosdick stated, “The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.”  Jesus is Holy and choosing to receive the renewed and restored life that He offers leads to holiness in ourselves and being more like Him.  I’ve mention this verse before, but Paul states in Ephesians 4:24, “Put on your new nature, created to like God – truly righteous and holy.” Putting off the old man and being reborn in Christ and seeking Christ each day leads to holiness.  That’s pretty serious and very profound.  It’s something that we can choose to live in each day.  Will we always get it right?  No, of course not, but through Christ, we can choose to seek it out each day.

This leads to thinking of what the nature of holiness is for us.  What does it mean to seek holiness, shedding our old and sinful nature each day and choosing to walk with God.  First, because of our sinful nature that we are born into, we can’t do it on our own.  With the fall of man, everything that was given to us when created as taken away.  This world no longer belonged to us.  But because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, because of his death on the cross, which we remember today, Good Friday, because of his resurrection, which we remember and celebrate on Sunday, and because of his ascension, which put all authority in heaven and earth under him.  Because of that, we now have God’s undeserved and unmerited grace.  Augustine tells us, “Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without grace.”

So now what? We live under God’s grace, what is that we can do in order to live a life filled with holiness.  For this, we have to look at the life of Jesus.  In Free to Live, John points to Jesus’s baptism and then His trials during his 40 day sin the wilderness when Satan tested and tempted Him.  What happens after this, Jesus, whose life is completely surrendered to the will of the Father begins to change the world in ways never seen before and never seen since, from His healings and miracles during His ministry, His direct confrontation of the religious establishment that was out for its own glory, not God’s, and then his full works through the cross and his death, his resurrection, and ascension.  His life was in full surrender to God’s will.  He walked with God every single day and followed where He was led.

For us to live in holiness, requires the same kind of living.  Living a life of surrender to God and walking in close intimacy with Him every single day, just as Christ did.  Now I know what many of you are thinking, this is just so hard to do.  For many of us this is true.  We are so locked into this world, into our sinful nature, into our wounds, that many just can’t find a way to do do this.  Dallas Willard points out, “I fear that many people seek to hear God solely as a device for obtaining their own safety, comfort, and sense of being righteous.” He then quoted Frederick B. Meyer who wrote, “So long as there is some thought of personal advantage, some idea of acquiring praise and commendation of men, some aim of self-aggrandizement, it will simply be impossible to find out God’s purpose concerning us.” We have to shed our own worldly selfishness and self-reliance.  Shed the old man, our old and sinful nature, and we have to do this every single day.  As John points out, this is not easy thing and it will often lead to a higher degree of loneliness as people shy away from this kind of living or want it.  You’ll experience the loneliness that Jesus lived with.  But He felt is was worth it. 

Do you feel it would be difficult to live a life fully surrendered to God.  For us, is our fallen state, it certainly is.  However, Jesus walked among us.  He endured trials and struggles to a degree we can’t fathom, yet, He was fully locked on God.  He was was after His heart and lived this way.  He did not compromise His faith in anyway.  While this can be challenging, just think of life that can come from seeking holiness everyday.  Seeking God’s heart and will and letting Him fill our hearts each day.  Giving ourselves entirely over to God.  As John states, “One life totally given over to God is far more powerful than a hundred with gifting and expertise. Look at whom Jesus choose to change the world: fisherman, tax collectors, prostitutes.” Many areas of the church is about expertise, training, principles, etc.  Living a life totally given over to God sets in us freedom like we’ve never seen.  Freedom to live for God and walk with Him the way we were meant to.  Freedom to love God every part of our being and the freedom to love others (the greatest commandments).

This is not an overnight fix, but it is something that we can choose within ourselves to begin to more toward.  God knows our hearts and he wants to use each of us for his Glory, but we first have to choose to let Him into our hearts and begin that transformation.  Transformation takes a great deal of prayer, repentance, forgiveness, and healing.  It takes being awake to the the fact the spiritual warfare and facing it just as Jesus did, when God calls us to.  Seeking God.  Surrendering to His will and choosing to live in His grace.  Holiness is within our reach.  It is something I am learning more each day and seeking to live in and seek everyday of my life from hear on.  We won’t always get it right, but it’s an offer God has for us and freely available through God’s grace given through Jesus Christ.