Happy Wednesday Friends!

We’ve been out of town at an amazing conference… coming home today. I’m planning to describe our beautiful encounter with Reinhart Bonnke tonight at DFC, seven pm! Hey, if you cant make it in person, catch the LIVE webcast. 

It was so nice meeting hundreds of Pastors who are facing obstacles similar to my own… and to see that I am not alone. It was nice realizing how badly this world NEEDS Emily and I to KEEP INSPIRING others no matter how challenging this can be at times.

It was sad to see how many Pastors are so bruised up inside due to the unprecedented attacks they’re undergoing these days. I was smitten with their pain… it overwhelmed me at times. So every time the opportunity arose, Emily and I gave away some hefty encouragement, while receiving a whole lot of the same back from these great people!  

Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth…”

Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world…”

We are beautiful people, even at our worse. Jesus said that we are the SALT OF THE EARTH… we are the LIGHT OF THE WORLD. And far too often, we fall into the habit of BEATING OURSELVES and EACH OTHER UP, when we should be appreciating the SALT AND LIGHT we are bringing to a dark, sick world.

When I was a kid… my parents grounded me for drinking alcohol, vandalizing the community, or getting kicked out of school for fighting in the halls or cussing out a teacher. I was a mess and I needed help… I needed correction… lots and lots of correction! 

Now that Emily and I have an 18 year old and a 16 year old, we find ourselves grounding them for far lesser things. Sometimes, when we are talking to them about their behavior, I feel like we scold them aggressively just because that’s what parents are supposed to do. Since we cant find anything BIG to ground them over, we look until we find SOMETHING… ANYTHING… and we keep the same pressure on them our parents had to keep on us! They are FAR BETTER kids than Emily and I were at their age and yet, they are disciplined just as frequently. 

I think this is what we do to ourselves as well! We forget where we came from and how amazing we have become in Christ… and we keep on grounding ourselves for the littlest things. If we can’t find anything BIG, we just keep on looking until we find something to BEAT OURSELVES UP OVER.

Im not downplaying the humility that drives us to continual repentance and a desire to be more Christlike EVERY SINGLE DAY! I’m just wondering when we are going to APPRECIATE THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD ALREADY BEAMING FROM OUR BORN AGAIN LIVES! 

What if started to celebrate our progress a HUNDRED TIMES MORE than we have been? Would we backslide if we stopped whaling on ourselves five times a day? I don’t think so! In fact, I believe that spending more of our lives in RIGHTEOUSNESS CONSCIOUSNESS rather than SIN CONSCIOUSNESS… we will find ourselves FAR MORE CHRISTLIKE!  

Face it you guys… you needed this encouragement! Face it you guys… you are way too hard on yourselves… and way to non-celebratory over the beautiful work God has already done in your lives! So, think about this today… appreciate your progress… because you are the SALT OF THIS EARTH! 

Leave your comments… see you tonight!