Happy Good Friday!

Such a holy moment. I’ve been preparing to teach on blood covenant today at the 12 noon-1pm Good Friday service at Destiny Family Center… such a holy moment this has become for me.

All I’m doing for this blog, is listing a few very powerful videos about the blood of Jesus and his passion. Please make some time to appreciate what Jesus did for mankind… what he went through to cover the ransom payment for your sins and mine. If you’re looking for something deeper, check out my blog: Paralleling Festivals: Passover & Easter

1 Corinthians 1:18-19 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ”I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Psalm 49:6-8 They trust in their wealth and boast of great riches. Yet they cannot redeem themselves from death by paying a ransom to God. Redemption does not come so easily, for no one can ever pay enough.

1 Peter 1:18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AndayVYS2IQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXArllNBuXY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAMbEPZfWCY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayJusJ_jvco

Dream Big, Live Bold, and Make the Difference!

Chuck

The Donate Link, Facebook, Twitter, Make me a Legend, Destiny Family Center, You Tube

Watch this video AGAIN!

Happy Tuesday!

I bet you’re wonder why I got lazy this morning and reposted yesterdays video instead of making a new video for today!

Here is why I’m asking you to RE-WATCH yesterdays video and RE-READ yesterdays written blog: because it’s too GOOD and too MUCH for any one of us to effectively process in ONE DAY!

Really, when I powered up my computer this morning, that video was still on the screen, staring me down! So I figured, what the heck I’ll watch it again… and WHAM, I realized THAT VIDEO was BETTER TODAY than it was yesterday!

Try it and you’ll see! Watch it ONE MORE TIME! This time, actually intend to follow its suggestions!

For the past two weeks, I’ve been attempting to lead this tribe towards a life of FAITH instead of FEELINGS.

On Sunday, I said the following to the people of Destiny Family Center:

“If you’re looking for another year of hard toil and little results… than BE EMOTIONAL… and keep fighting your own battles, with your two fists and your big fat brain! If you want to try one more year in your own human strength… and you’re not yet sick from all the tossing about… then keep on striving and negotiating!”

I said we have become:

• Far more spiritually engaged in our circumstances!
• Far less dominated by our shifting feelings!
• Far more forward propelled, by learning how to LIVE BY FAITH!

I started to explain HOW a person can actually live by faith on a practical level.

• By SEARCHING for specific verses concerning your unique circumstances!
• By MEDITATING on the word of God until these specific verses become a tangible part of your lives!
• By STANDING on the substance of scripture, despite how you might initially FEEL!
• By GENERATING emotions out of your spiritual position… to FEEL as you believe, rather than to FEEL as things appear to be going!
• By HAMMERING through your obstacles with FAITH, and biblically inspired actions… until circumstances shift in your favor!

Yesterdays 7 Step Best Week Plan was a practical follow up to that teaching. It’s a simple 7 step formula for getting into a position of FAITH.

This morning, I wrote the following Facebook status update… and received a very powerful reply from Jamee Rae Pineda! Check it out!

Jamee Rae Pineda

“That’s the challenge … practical application of the principles. We are allowed our feelings and initial reactions, but our responses must be aligned with Biblical teachings. It’s not always easy, but it’s how Christians are to live.”

Great reply Jamee!

Let’s pray that more and more people benefit from this teaching!

Dear reader, has your life been positively affected by these recent blogs? Are you SPECIFICALLY putting some of this into action? Please comment with your stories, if you get a chance… I love hearing from you all!

Dream Big, Live Bold, and Make the Difference!

Chuck

The Donate Link, Facebook, Twitter, Make me a Legend, Destiny Family Center, You Tube

Todays VIDEO!

Happy Friday!

What a schedule I have today! Really, this could be the busiest day, and then the busiest weekend of my life… the busiest of 2010 FO SHO! I woke feeling very stressed this morning… hmmmm, I better pray until this emotional slump recedes…

Did I tell you guys, tomorrow is our annual Washington DC Feed the Homeless Outreach? We’ve done this EVERY YEAR for something like the past 17 years… one of my favorite things to do in this life! Here’s a photo of some of the packages we’re taking on the tomorrows outreach!

gerald & phyllis mayhan

I thank God for Evangelists Gerald & Phyllis Mayhan… that they keep on leading our teams every year. There is not another man in all the earth more adequately equipped for such an outreach!

Gerald was a point man in Vietnam, two purple hearts… lived 18 years addicted to heroin and cocaine, living on the streets of Washington DC… and his wife waited for him and PRAYED for him until GOD reached down and pulled Gerald out of the lowest gutter.

Gerald is one of my very best friends and the greatest evangelist I have EVER MET! Check out his ministry website when you get a chance!

If you would like to make a donation to Gerald Mayhan’s Ministry, you can give today, here on this website by clicking the donate button… and we will bring Gerald a check tomorrow! There is no greater cause I can think of!

inspirational stories from last year!

Here’s a clip from last years homeless outreach blog… you can check out the entire blog and all the comments with photos by following this link: From the Streets of Washington DC

This year (2009), even more than previous years… I really experienced the enormity of what took place! There are so many hurting, lonely people in our earth. And while so many well to do humans point the finger down at these bleeding ones, God compels us to come to their aid!

God cares about each one of them… not desiring to lecture them about the series of wrong turns they made that led them down into the gutter… He possesses us with his compassion and sends us to kneel down beside them… He gives us a message to speak… He asks us to read them a love letter… And we go with his love and his tears. He embraces them with MY ARMS… and I can feel HIM IN ME making his appeal through MY HEART.

This year, we took a team of 35+ into the frigid streets of our nation’s capitol. All day long, we gave HOPE to the HOPELESS. Even more than the message we gave them was the message we asked them to tell us. We gave them our ears… we listened to them like they mattered… and they FELT OUR LOVE FOR THEM! Their tears and ours flowed like rivers all day long.

• One man, “Alfrado”, explained how he came to America from Elsalvador… it took him 3 months to get here, dreaming that this would be a place of new life for him. And there he was sleeping on park benches and eating food from the trash containers. Alfrado said that some nights, it’s so cold he is scared to fall asleep… that he may freeze to death and not wake up.
• Another lady, “Pricilla”, said that she just got released from prison a year ago after being stabbed in her spine during a prison brawl. She grabbed me and made a puddle on my shoulder as she wept about how scary it is living on the streets at night! She talked about being raped and beaten over and over… and told me that she is not built for this kind of life!
• Then there was “HANK”… the happiest homeless man on the face of the earth. We all left Hank wondering if we had met an angel! Just like Hank, so many of these destitute men and women gave us back so much more that we gave to them!

Throughout this day, we distributed hundreds of sandwiches, care packages, sweaters, sweatshirts, blankets, and everything else we could get into their hands. More than these… we gave them Jesus… and they took him happily into their hearts!

Every single person on our team stepped out with a fearless kind of faith… they shared their personal life stories, prayed like seasoned ministers, and gave LOVE as if God himself was right there in physical manifestation!

Please pray for this same level of success at tomorrows outreach! That it’ll be like Jesus himself is walking through the blistery winter streets of Washington DC. God bless you all with a most triumphant Friday… thanks for being here… please leave a comment and help us expand this tribe in every creative way you can dream up! Love you all…

Dream Big, Live Bold, and Make the Difference!

Chuck

The Donate Link, Facebook, Twitter, Make me a Legend, Destiny Family Center, You Tube

Todays Video Blog!

Happy Thursday!

I got so carried away with yesterdays message, that I forgot to tell you guys something VERY important! Yesterday was a HUGE DAY for Emily and I! February 17 ring a bell? Come on you guys… some Chuck and Emily trivia!!

Ok, I’ll just go ahead and tell you. On February 17, 1991 @ 10:45pm, Emily and I invited Jesus into our marriage, our home, and every single small and big part of our lives! This happened 19 years ago, yesterday… so happy SPIRITUAL birthday to us!

Instead of me trying to tell the story from memory, let me give you a FUN clip from my coming book, Make Me A Legend! It’s taken from the middle of chapter 8, Get a Dream!

Eventually, those high winds of passion and romance would blow over us young and restless kids one more time! Just after my High School graduation, Emily came begging for me to take her back! (ha ha-hey, this is MY book Emily! If you want to tell your version, write your own book! lol) Really, the sparks of attraction were flying… and we were sweltering for each other!

Time had been cruel and we both carried way too much emotional baggage back into this tender, rekindled, volatile fling! We did some things unmarried people are not supposed to do and ‘somehow’ Emily became pregnant! She was only seventeen, and I was just turning nineteen… and we were having a baby!

So we were married in my Grandparents back yard, standing on top of an old creek bridge on August 11, 1990… and we lived happily ever after! Well, not exactly… because neither of us had been to rock bottom yet. And little did we know just how close from disaster we really were! It wouldn’t be long now; we were falling out of love and into hate… sliding into the divorce of no return at breakneck speeds!

With Emily having to move from Richmond to finish out her senior year (with child)… in a new town, while going to hair school at nights and working as an apprentice hairstylist, and making time for all the doctors appointments, and cooking dinner and everything else that goes with having your own home… and then me having to find ‘jobs’ paying enough money to support my new family… the pressure was unbelievable!

So the honeymoon didn’t last long… and just before our first Christmas, tears were falling, love was lost, and we were looking for the fastest way out! Emily got an attorney and we were going our separate ways. Neither of us really wanted to be apart, we just couldn’t find a way to end the fighting.

During those days, I remember watching Little House on the Prairie and thinking, “If we could just get a little religion in our home, maybe we could work things out.” Looking back now, I know it was God who planted these thoughts. He was reaching out to both us in so many ways… and we were just about to reach back!

There were three primary forces impacting us positively at that time. First was a group of kind and loving volunteers at the local Pregnancy Help Center. After the free pregnancy test, a girl named Amy gave Emily a free Bible and started sending handwritten letters of encouragements to both of us.

Then there was our bold redneck neighbor Dale… the guy who smothered us with his great big Jesus smile every time our paths intersected. Dales niceness was so profound, I actually wondered if the guy was on feminine hormone pills!

Besides Amy and Dale, there was one old high school buddy of mine… he really made the difference! Just as soon as my heart started opening up, Kevin is the first person I thought to call! I had not forgotten that unexpected September day when Kevin first came into school claiming he “found Jesus” at a summer youth camp. None of Kevin’s friends were happy about his apparent experience. I’m betting I was the unhappiest! In fact, I did everything I could to lure Kevin off that straight line he walked so well.

Here I was just two years later, pitifully humbled… and on the phone begging for Kevin to show me the way! Thank God he stood his ground in high school and did not weaken in the face of all that peer pressure. Thank God for people like Kevin, who willingly forfeit friends and reputation and everything else-to live their faith right out in the open for all of us to see. It was about one month into my near divorce experience, while on the telephone with Kevin that Emily and I welcomed Jesus into our hearts! It was the night of February 17, 1991. 10:45pm EST to be exact!

We we’re so excited that night! Emily was on one phone and I was on the other, both sporting our puffy wet cheeks. I remember when we got off the phone, she ran from the bedroom and I met her from the living room… and we hugged for what seemed like hours, crying in each other’s arms!

Our experience was the real thing! At last, when it seemed as if there was no help for us, God dived headfirst into our blazing inferno, scooped us up in his loving arms, and blasted us out the other side of rock bottom. What new confidence had that night, knowing that our lives had finally taken a turn in the right direction!

That’s a small piece of our amazing story…

Here’s a video that best expresses my heart at this moment! Love you all!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7pdoljCKwQ

Dream Big, Live Bold, and Make the Difference!

Chuck

The Donate Link, Facebook, Twitter, Make me a Legend, Destiny Family Center, You Tube

Todays Video Blog!

Happy Wednesday!

Ever been BURNT OUT before?

I hit a BRICK WALL with my WRITING yesterday afternoon… it was so painful, felt like vessels were popping in my brain! I almost buried my computer in a snow drift and walked away from this mission, just a few weeks from the finish line! Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it was the worse writing DAY ever, following the best writing WEEK ever.

I suppose this creates the perfect opportunity to blog about BALANCE!

burnout

You see, riding on the heels of 30 days back and forth to Richmond while my wife went through the process of losing her dad… and working to implement a new year for Destiny Family Center… and fighting off the pressure created by the most challenging financial year of our lives… and after working 7 days a week, 18 hours a day for a few weeks, even through the recent snow storms… with VERY LITTLE REST… yesterday was INEVITABLE!

imbalance

I reasoned that I could throw my life out of balance for ONE MONTH, so I could finish my book… then I would REST. After all, I’ve done this before… and very successfully. My family was fully supporting the plan… they were cheering me on… everything was working perfectly… until my mind SHUT DOWN yesterday morning!

rest

So I took the evening off, picked Emily up from work at 3:30, exercised with her at the house to Jillian’s Biggest Looser Last Workout Video. Watched Amelia… boring moving in my opinion. Ordered pizza, watched the winter Olympics… fell asleep, well rested. A perfect diversion… we’ll see how much it helped as I move into my demanding day!

Oh and I forgot to mention that enjoyable phone call with Kim Zahren! What a friend he’s been over the years! In his 40s, Kim has been accepted into LAW SCHOOL! Something I’ve always dreamed of doing… and MAY do after I receive my doctorate this year! I’m so INSPIRED by his ENERGY!

Kim’s family is offering us their Grand Cayman paradise for as long as we desire to stay… all we need is air fare and food money. Maybe after the book is turned over to a publisher and things are a little different for us… check out the video and pray we will be able to go before their property is sold.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x74-E0Gr0Dw

the high cost of imbalance

The cost of getting out of balance is not always immediately recognizable! Sometimes, neglected people suffer in silence. Sometimes, we achieve a desired goal at a cost far higher than the value of that goal! WOW, thats a quote CHUCK!

Sometimes, we achieve a desired goal at a cost far higher than the value of that goal! -Chuck Balsamo

In other words, we have to keep moving each of our nine life equities FORWARD with proportionate dedication!

other great quotes on balance

• “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” -Monk Thomas Merton
• “There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves” -Frank Herbert

your life is a song

I think that just as with any great song… there are times when ONE instrument plays more than all the others… there are times when specific life equities have their SOLO moments in the song of our lives… but we have to pay attention to the balance, order, rhythm, and harmony… we have to FEEL THE WAVES!

Here’s another quote… the perfect ending to a very powerful message:

• “Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.” -Brian Tracy

So my assignment for everyone today is this…

tune your orchestra

1. Get out your 2010-9 equities life management plan and speed read it!
2. Water ski across the SURFACE of your life… see the whole thing at a GLANCE.
3. Listen to the SONG of your life!
4. Ask yourself, “Is my song a beautiful song… a song with perfect balance, order, rhythm, and harmony?”
5. Ask yourself, “Can I FEEL the waves?”
6. If something is out of balance, it should be OBVIOUS at this point.
7. So, take a few minutes and TUNE YOUR ORCHESTRA! Make the necessary adjustments TODAY! Trust me, you’ll be gad you did!

Thats my blog… I hope it adds tremendous value to your amazing lives! Love you all… just finished praying for you! Have a most triumphant day!

Dream Big, Live Bold, and Make the Difference!

Chuck

The Donate Link, Facebook, Twitter, Make me a Legend, Destiny Family Center, You Tube