Encouraged by God's Word

Archive for July, 2009

Hello Friends,

This has been a challenging week for me. I’ve had the privilege of spending the majority of the week on a college campus with approximately 50 high school students. I’m talking about 24 hours a day with teenagers who think they’re grown but act like little children! Teenagers! Teenage boys and teenage girls. TEENAGERS!

This week was tough on some of my staff also. Some of my staff are just out of high school themselves and it’s hard for them at times to understand that they are on staff and in a position of authority and can’t fraternize with the participants. They’re learning that they need to develop a relationship with the participants but they can’t cross the line and be their friend.

For those who have crossed that line it’s going to be difficult to come back to being in a position of authority because the participants now see them as part of the gang and they won’t respect the staff if they try to give them instruction.

It’s like that for Christians too. We follow God, do well and have the respect of our peers and then we cross the line and do as the world does and when we try to go back to our righteous living, our worldly friends don’t respect us and nor what we believe in.

Do people respect you for who you are and what you believe in and stand for?

Galatians 2:5 says to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.My young staffers needed to understand that they could not yield to being friends with the participants not even for an hour. And in the same note, we believers need to understand that we can not yield to the world not even for an hour.

As believers we must continue to hold fast to the truth of the gospel and live our lives for Jesus AT ALL TIMES. It’s impossible to take a break and waddle in the sins of the world with others and then expect to be respected while we still have the stench of the world on us.

We all make mistakes but we must not put ourselves in positions where we’re crossing the line of Christianity and worldly living. We must always guard ourselves by watching what we say and do and not worry about being accepted by others.

Stay on the righteous side of the line and don’t ever cross it. This is the side where Jesus reigns supreme.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!

Hello Friends,

Can I get something off my chest? I hate “Know It Alls”! These “KIA’s” are the kind of folks I really don’t like being around. They’re always spewing out facts about everything in the world as if they know everything. They’re always trying to impress people with their broad range of knowledge even though some of them don’t know what they’re talking about most of the time.

Some are as dumb as bricks and don’t even know it but there are some that are very intelligent and because they know they’re smart, they want everyone else to know it and they become annoying. Can’t they stop talking sometimes and listen and take in information without ALWAYS dishing it out? It’s like they’re a human information highway?

I used to work for a “KIA” and it use to amaze me at how some of my colleagues would listen to and believe every single word he said. It made me wonder if they really believed everything he said or did they act that way to get on his good side.

Let me ask you, what do you know? Do you know who God is?

Psalms 46:10 says Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!

“KIA’s” seem to be always moving from person to person, place to place, trying to impress people but the word commands us to do two things: be still and know.

When I think of someone who is still, I think of someone who is confident and not shaken by their surroundings and I believe that if you know God, He will give you that confidence. You don’t have to feel insecure and try to impress anyone. Your confidence can come from knowing who God is and what He can do, not how many facts you can quote.

God is not concerned with you showing everybody how big your mental database is. He’s concerned about you telling the nations what you know about Him.

He wants you to brag about Him and exalt Him in the earth.

So if you’re one of those “KIA’s” who has to show off your knowledge, accept Jesus and get to know Him thoroughly and spread His good news. God will certainly give you an audience to talk to.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!

Hello Friends,

Did you have a good start this morning? Was your day filled with energy and enthusiasm of what God had in store for you? Did you have a positive mentality? Did you look forward to doing something wonderful today?

Or did your day start off all wrong? Was your morning filled with drama? Did you feel like gett ing back

in the bed soon after you got up?

Here’s a better question for you. What was the first thing on your mind when you woke up?

I would guess that if you took some quiet time to pray, meditate and get your mind right, first thing in the morning before you did anything, you probably had a good start in the morning, which lead to a productive day.

But if you had a bunch of worries on your mind when you first woke up, you probably had a rough morning and your day probably didn’t get any better.

Mark 9:23 says Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

When my oldest daughter Alexandra was little and she had a good time doing something she really enjoyed, she would reply, “Today was the best day of my life!” She believed that whatever she was doing at the moment was going to be fun and because she had that belief, she took something that was normal to most people and made it the most exciting thing in the world for her.

When you start your day off you should be renewed and refreshed because it’s a new day and a new beginning. It is an opportunity to start over and your mind should be fixed on that. You should have a belief that today is going to be the greatest day of your life.

The beginning of your day should dictate how the rest of your day should go. And if you do have some rough times during the day, reflect on the morning when it was peaceful and you were full of optimism and encouragement and use that to get you through.

So tomorrow morning when you wake up and before you get your mind fixed on anything, believe that that day is going to be the best day of your life.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!

Hello Friends,

For a number of months now I’ve been on the social media website Facebook and I really enjoy it.

I’ve found some college and high school friends and even some folks I grew up with. I’m talking about kindergarten classmates at Carmody Hills Elementary School!

And two days ago I reunited with a cousin I hadn’t seen in thirty years. Yes, we found each other on Facebook.

Recently I was listening to a radio show and the DJ was taking questions about another social media website he had considered joining. He was asking callers to call in and comment on how they were using the site to promote the kingdom of God. Most of the responses were similar but there was this one lady who called and said that NO ONE should use the site.

She talked about some of the bad things that would be discussed on the site and how people’s personal business would be out there and how time would be wasted if anyone participated on this site. And guess what? To a certain point I had to agree with her.

Even though most others had valuable points of how this site could bring people to Christ, some of what this lady said was right.

And she was right because her information was based on the fact that people had bad intentions while using the site. She wasn’t thinking about those who wanted to do right.

Proverbs 21:8 says The way of a guilty man is perverse but as for the pure, his work is right.

Social media sites, as well as most other things, are not good or evil in themselves. It is the intention of the individual using them which makes them good or evil.

Whatever the guilty man is involved in is perverse. He’s involved in things that aren’t right. But the pure, those who are free from moral fault or guilt, are doing right things. They are not perverted in their intentions.

If your intentions were to get on this site and waste time and do stupid things and get involved in dim-witted conversations then that’s what’s going to happen. BUT, if you use this site to bring glory to God, then that’s what’s going to happen.

It’s the same for anything else such as the Internet. You can surf the net all day for celebrity gossip, chat with people to see if you can make a love connection, send ridiculous chain emails, or look at pornography. Or on the other hand you can use the Internet as a tool to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, do your bible research, or share a scripture with family and friends.

It’s all a matter of how you use it.

So the next time you get involved in anything, make sure your intentions are pure so that the work you do will be righteous.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!

P.S. If you enjoyed this message leave me a comment and please share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Hello Friends,

There have been countless times when I had to speak to the youth I work with about the way they handle certain situations.

A lot of times when they get upset their first reaction is to attack. They don’t think about the consequences of their actions. They just think about expressing themselves to the person that wronged them.

I always tell them that although they may have been done wrong or disrespected, the solution is not to go off on people. And while they may have been mistreated or insulted, they still need to keep their cool and not explode.

Sometimes you have to be careful of what you say because it’s not always appropriate to “express” yourself. You may have a legitimate reason to be upset or someone may have done you wrong but it’s not always wise to go all out and vent.

How many of you like to give people a piece of your mind when you’re mad? How many of you like to tell people off? How many of you like to vent all the time?

Proverbs 29:11 says A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back.

If you want to look foolish, express all of your feelings at the wrong time. That’s right, go ahead and go all out and run your mouth and tell people off. That’s what fools do. They get caught up in their feelings.

Feelings deal with emotions and not the spirit. Your emotions change on a regular basis. Some days you’re feeling up and other times you’re down. Some days you’re happy and other times you’re sad. Your emotions change just as much as the direction of the wind because your emotions are based on your external circumstances.

But if you have God’s Holy Spirit living in you, it will consistently lead you in the right direction each and every time. You will be able to show some wisdom and hold back your feelings and not let them get you in trouble.

The Holy Spirit is a helper (John 14:26) and allows you to show some wisdom in how you deal with your emotions.

So the next time you want to vent, don’t get caught up in trying to tell everybody how you feel. Sometimes it’s just best to keep your emotions to yourself until you get control of them.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!