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Seasons: Spring to the Rescue! :) :) :)

Friday, March 6th, 2009 By 3 Comments

Good Morning Friends!

Yesterday’s blog was HOT! The stats were off the charts… thanks for caring about things that matter! It’s a real tribute to my friends when blog topics like yesterday are so active! The love was felt… it was FUN for all of us! Thank you!

It’s Friday… and warm weather is HERE… 70 degrees tomorrow! Hope you guys and gals have a fun weekend planned… I will be running 12 miles with my lovely fitness trainer and wife! Then, yard work! I’m getting pretty excited about SPRING and SUMMER! They are such HAPPY seasons… it’s real easy to be VIBRANT and HOPEFUL when the sun is shining, the air is warm, grass is green, flowers are blooming, and birds are singing!

My short inspirational thought for today: Take spiritual and emotional advantage of the natural shifting of seasons.

Here’s what I’m talking about… WINTER is almost over! Spring is only two weeks away! Winter represents deadness… spring represents newness. I’m gonna talk more about this in the weeks to come… for now, just START SMILING as you LOOK AHEAD to a NEW SEASON! 

No matter how COLD and DEAD this current wintry season has been for you… SPRING IS COMING! Our lives work just the same way… and if we can ENDURE the cold seasons… we WILL MOST CERTAINLY LIVE AGAIN as the season shifts in our favor again.

Winter is a very necessary season… it has a way of purging the atmosphere! Whether we know it or not, all of us have things that build up over time that need to be PURGED from our lives. Winter kind of represents the pruning season… that season of loss… a time of humiliation… a time of desperation. When we go through WINTERS… especially LONG winters… we LONG FOR SPRING!

Even though this has been a mild winter and I personally LOVE the snow… I am YEARNING FOR THIS SPRING! I feel like more than ever, what’s happening in the natural is also happening in the SPIRITUAL! It feels like something WARM is COMMING TO ME! I sense NEWNESS… and I wanna jump up and SHOUT ABOUT IT! Hurry up spring… I can’t handle another COLD day… not until next year!

I hope this blog gets you guys excited… I pray it creates ANTICIPATION! Don’t give up now… help is in the air! Have a super day… leave your comments… make plans to be at Destiny Family Center this Sunday @ 10am! Chat with you later on…

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When Your Faith Remains Strong…

Saturday, February 21st, 2009 By 5 Comments

Good Saturday Morning Friends!

A few days ago, I posted a blog: Stop Flipping Out… Relax! Today, I want to respond to a bloggers comment as my teaching point.

In the referenced blog, I talked about turning our mountain making fears into mountain moving faith. I made a very transparent statement about how I respond to my own challenges at times, and I talked about the importance of growing up in FAITH. Here’s a quote from that blog:

“So often, I turn little problems into HUGE ones as I refuse to let God work them out. In panic, my judgment becomes clouded… I fret and fear… I allow the small problem to take my entire mind captive. Before long, I’m unable to see the good things happening in my world… I become trapped in a realm of hopelessness… I grow weary, I breakdown, and burn out.”

Blogger Des, known for his own blog as christianranter.worpress.com wrote the following reply to my above referenced post:

“Now since you said that you and your wife are opposites; is she the one who does more of the faith thing and you’re the fretter? I know that’s the case in my house and it drives me nuts as she always ends up being right about stuff I worry about.”

Ok, here is my reply to Des’ question…  

Des, I used to be so much stronger in the faith realm… I was fearless in the face of opposition… and over the past few years, I’ve weakened in my mountain moving skills. This is one BIG thing I am working on for this season of my life.

Emily has one of the most UNSHAKABLE FAITHS I’ve ever encountered! Emily lives everyday like a bulldog on a juicy stake! She NEVER waivers from a promise of God… she believes that EVERYTHING will work out… and she HELPS to keep me doing the same!

It really is amazing how God puts people together for synergistic purposes! The two of us equal far more than the sum total of our two individual components! As for me, I am aiming to REBUILD my FAITH and get back to WALKING IN THE MIRACULOUS once again.

Through the relentless pounding of the crashing waves of this stormy half decade, I have become far too circumstance oriented… been tossed around way more than I should have allowed. Instead of CALMING my storms and COMMANDING my mountains to MOVE, I have spent far too many days crying, “Why me?”

Just realizing this sets me on a new path of opportunity! I celebrate ENDURANCE and I praise God for keeping me alive in the fiery furnace! I’ve learned so many priceless lessons… and I am coming forth as GOLD REFINED IN THE FIRE!

1 Peter 1:7 says this, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold-though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”

Wooohoooo!! This is a mighty ENCOURAGING BLOG TODAY! Hope you love it… pray that it ADDS great value to your amazing lives! See you tomorrow in person @ 10am- Destiny Family Center… tomorrow is SUNDAY!!

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Stop Flipping Out… Relax!

Thursday, February 19th, 2009 By 5 Comments

calm-downGood Morning Bloggers!

Last night… a bunch of church friends gave Emily a beautiful birthday party!! It was a blast… the birthday cheer was amazing… the cake was AMAZING! I prayed earlier that God would do something really nice today for every party guest! So brace yourselves… its coming!

I woke this morning… in the same vein of revelation I was in all day yesterday. For some reason, I’m inspired to talk again about turning our problems over to God. This is such a challenge for most of us… it is for me. So often, I turn little problems into HUGE ones as I refuse to let God work them out. In panic, my judgment becomes clouded… I fret and fear… I allow the small problem to take my entire mind captive. Before long, I’m unable to see the good things happening in my world… I become trapped in a realm of hopelessness… I grow weary, I breakdown, and burn out.

If we want to experience more peace, and more happy outcomes in our lives… we’re going to have to change the way we RESPOND to stressful situations. As soon as we notice ourselves heading down this destructive path, we should seize control of our emotional state… and STAND UP IN A SPIRIT OF FAITH.

This is not easy at first… but well worth the effort. The only option is to live the rest of our lives tossed to and fro with every wind and wave that comes our way! To live in fear is to live in the slavery of what MIGHT go wrong. And the more we submit to fear, the better we become at pointing out destructive possibilities. We have been training ourselves to find every possible opportunity for failure… we welcome destruction because it’s what we think about most of the time. Whatever we focus on and monitor often GROWS VERY BIG!

So today… we must stop doing this to ourselves! We must RISE IN FAITH… RISE IN LOVE… RISE IN THE BOND OF RELATIONSHIP we have with our Heavenly Father. We must train our minds to point out the possibilities for success… in EVERY SITUATION! When problems arise… call them opportunities for PROGRESS! Refuse to come under the darkness of FEAR. Be confident, not in your human strength or your clever alliances… but in the fact that you belong to God Almighty!

Psalm 33:13-22

 13 The Lord looks down from heaven
      and sees the whole human race.
 14 From his throne he observes
      all who live on the earth.
 15 He made their hearts,
      so he understands everything they do.
 16 The best-equipped army cannot save a king,
      nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.
 17 Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory—
      for all its strength, it cannot save you.

 18 But the Lord watches over those who fear him,
      those who rely on his unfailing love.
 19 He rescues them from death
      and keeps them alive in times of famine. 

 20 We put our hope in the Lord.
      He is our help and our shield.
 21 In him our hearts rejoice,
      for we trust in his holy name.
 22 Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,
      for our hope is in you alone.

Ok… that’s it for today… hope this blog adds great value to your amazing lives! Chat later…

 

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Stories From The Streets Of Washington DC…

Monday, January 26th, 2009 By 3 Comments

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Good Monday Everyone!

I’m in my family room listing to a Kent Henry Worship Instrumental… feeling pretty overwhelmed with God’s love right now. How can I explain moments like these in human language? Every once in a while, the reality of God sweeps through my heart and mind… my eyes water, a tear slowly make its way down my cheek, chills pop all over my body… and I sit in that moment wishing it would last forever!

Like the alignment of sun, moon, and earth that brings us the rarity of an eclipse… these spiritual moments occur through the rare alignment of certain spiritual occurrences. And when they all come together at one special moment… their rarity is felt and appreciated for some time!

I suppose for me today… the components of my experience are very obvious! It begins with the Washington DC Outreach. This year, 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.

On 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!

Special thanks to Evangelist Gerald & Phyllis Mayhan for being our homeless outreach GUIDES… for their passion, their humor, and their love!

Beyond the DC Outreach, God is warming my heart today with the nearness I feel with my wife and kids, the accuracy I feel in the message I have been preaching at DFC, and the awesomeness of Gods Word stored up in my heart after reading the bible cover to cover in 66 days! All of these things have come together this morning to BLESS ME with a very SPIRITUAL MOMENT. To God be the glory for all of this… and for filling my life with his amazing love! I pray that he will work in all of us more and more… and more and more! That we will RISE AND SHINE in 2009… that we will love living the life of a beautiful people in a CITY ON A HILL… SHINING for the entire world to see!

Check out the DFC webcast archive from yesterday morning to watch more on the DC Outreach… and to catch the rest of that amazing service! Chat with you guys later on…

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Long Live God Almighty :)

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 By 9 Comments

one-world-religionHappy Wednesday Friends!

I watched and prayed through the Inauguration of President Barak Obama yesterday. The event was beautiful… his speech was very good. I really appreciated many of President Obama’s words… I saw HOPE in him yesterday. It is my prayer that God will reach him and steer his heart AWAY from the far left liberal agenda he has promised America.

I personally agree with a tiny portion of the liberal argument. I do believe that some politicians and national leaders in the conservative camp are standing in the way of progress. This is because of their lack of adventure and inovation, not their commitment to ancient morals or their religious fortitude. So I pray for conservatives to have an open mind… to be far more creative and far more flexible where new ideas do not violate Gods commands.

Far left America cannot and should not blame God or our commitment to Gods ancient truths for the lack of creativity within our camp. Our bold commitment to God has never and will never, hold us back from great progress. For some time now, this has been the argument. That in order for America to go forward, we need a metamorphosis in our traditional religious basis. There is overwhelming pressure on the conservative camp to move our ancient border stakes… to adjust our moral position and tone down our relationship with God… to tolerate and accommodate a changing world.

Religious and moral tolerance is not the solution. The standard must endure and modern civilizations must remain committed to the timeless biblical truths of all real freedom. God’s holy word and Jesus Christ, savior of the world… this is the standard that made us… it is the standard that gave America the freedom we promote throughout the earth. True freedom is not found in being controlled by nothing… it is found in being committed to unchanging truths and an Almighty God. In the shifting tides of these modern eras, He is a rock of fortitude… the very same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the magnetic north of our moral compass!  

Yesterday, I recognized a call for a merging of religions… the harmony of multiple gods under one roof. While I agree that we must seek to live PEACFULLY with people of other religions, we must never mix their gods with our God and make try to make one common God we can all agree upon. If he is God… then we humans should never seek to alter him. And we Americans should never become ashamed to call upon THE ONE GOD that we claimed during the era we were forged. If he was good enough for us then… then we must not abandon him now.

So long live GOD ALMIGHTY here in the United States of America! In God we have trusted… and IN GOD we must always trust.

Hope you guys have another AMAZING day… you’re all beautiful people!! Chat with you later… :)

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