What I Am Thankful For In 09
Just a few things I am thankful for this year.
1) I am thankful for the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ my Lord. That He chose me from my mother’s womb to lavishly pour out His grace and Mercy while I was yet a sinner.
2) I am thankful for a wonderful wife and great children. I am truly blessed to be married to my best friend and such a beautiful friend indeed! :) I am also thankful for children who constantly keep me grounded and remind me of what is most important in my life.
3) I am thankful for my church family who has in most cases been closer to me than my own blood. They are a constant source of encouragement and love in my life. I am so glad to be on this journey of life with them. I never laughed so much or felt so loved than I have with those that God has brought into my life.
4) I am thankful for my source group that has helped me draw closer to God than I have been in a very looooong time. I am always encouraged to see the growth in everyone’s lives and I can’t wait to see what God is going to do in and through them. I have seen those who needed encouragement turn into sources of encouragement and those who needed teaching and leadership become teachers and leaders. Just awesome!
5) I am thankful for the eldership candidacy process I have been in for almost a year now. It has been very tough and challenging for me. I appreciate the accountability and the covering that the eldership of Journey has been in my family’s life. I look forward to the day that I will join the eldership team of Journey.
6) I am thankful for my pastor. Pastor Michael has been incredible leader to serve under. I have learned so much about what a leader is and what it is not. It is awesome to serve with someone who is passionate about the equipping of the saints and not in exalting himself. I am thankful for the time we have spent together on the trail just enjoying life and having fun.
7) I am thankful for my friends. I have a few guys that I can call my friends. I have gone a long time where I could not say that. I am extremely thankful for having these guys in my life to talk to, watch UFC with, and just hang out and joke and have fun.
8) I am thankful for my job. Not everyone can say they have one of those today. I am thankful for favor with my employers. No job is perfect and we work with imperfect people, but I am glad to have them in my life to help me to grow in leadership, patience, knowledge, and wisdom.
9) I am thankful for each day I get to wake up with my wife and breath in another breath in my lungs and feel the beating of my heart in my chest.
10) I am thankful for the security of knowing one day I will see my God face to face and will never know another moment of sadness or stress and I will see my mother again.
Thank you God and thank you to all of you who are a blessing in my life. Way too many to list.
I am also thankful to you who read these posts. They come straight from my heart and you honor me by your readership.
Thankfully Yours Til He Returns
Kevin
Transaction-Based Giving
I was sitting in with the youth of our church last Wednesday, and listened to a great teaching about giving from John our youth director. Great job! John made an extraordinary point about how we have wrongly looked at giving.
Our society is a transaction based society. Say I go to the store to get milk. I have to give the cashier money in order to have that milk. If I want to have electricity, I have to pay my electric bill. There is a transaction that must take place. An exchange takes place for services and goods. Unfortunately, this is what giving has come to for most people. “If I want to be in right standing with God and the church, I have to give” (I am obligated). Or, you may be on the “If I give, God has to bless me” side that makes God the obligator to bless because I gave my offering (God is obligated). Both of these schools of thoughts have some truth in them, but both have wrong heart motives.
There is a side that people miss in both of these schools of thought. In the “I am obligated” camp. You have many of the most consistant givers in the church. They give every Sunday or every other Sunday like clockwork. The problem is that is all they will do. No more, no less. They are not moved by the suffering of others. They see a need and will refer to the check they gave last Sunday. These folks say when a need is presented in the church ” what are they doing with my check?” These people miss the whole point of what giving is all about. You can be consistant and still have a selfish, dirty, uncompassionate heart. Consistancy in this believer’s life only means they are disciplined with thier giving. It doesn’t take a giving heart to give. Religion is the God of this believer, cause the Jesus of the bible was moved with compassion for the lost, the poor, and the needy. If you only give to maintain a right standing in church or with God, then you are not in right standing cause this the heart that God is looking for:
Isaiah 58:6-7
6)“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7)Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
The “God is obligated” camp is equally jacked up. To throw your money in the offering plate and expect God to give you money back is like throwing your money in the stock market and because you invested it, you think you are obligated to make money. This is definitely not the case. I am not saying that God cannot bless us on this Earth. He wants to bless us, but most of His blessings come in ways we can’t describe or won’t be fully understood till we see Him face to face. This inaccuracy of scripture being taught only feeds our self-centered nature, which needs no help, waging war against what God wants us to do. God is not a vending machine! God is moved by a heart that says whether God does anything more for me than what He has already done, I will glorify Him with everything that He has blessed me with. That is the kind of heart that God will bless, not the one who thinks that God is obligated. God doesn’t owe you any more than what He has already done.
God help us destroy these mindsets! Let us have a heart to help others without a thought for ourselves and glorify You alone!
Kevin
Do You Stink?
Florida in the summer can be the next hottest place to hell itself. If you are outside for a minute, you will sweat. That’s just the way it is. On Sundays, Journey Church has an incredible team of volunteers that no matter what the weather conditions are, they are out serving with an incredible attitude! When our outside volunteers come in, you can sometimes visibly tell they have been outside. I am glad to say that I have never actually smelled any of our volunteers after serving outside. It must be something supernatural, praise God! It’s not a glamourous job at times, but God is glorified by their smiling faces and warm welcome.
It is easy to tell that our Guest Services folks are out doing something. What I want to know: “Is it evident that you are working hard to glorify God and advance His kingdom?” “Do you stink?” Check out this scripture:
Jeremiah 48:10-11
10) “Cursed is he who does the work of the LORD with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed.
11)“Moab has been at ease from his youth
and has settled on his dregs;
he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel,
nor has he gone into exile;
so his taste remains in him,
and his scent is not changed.
Let’s break these scriptures down for a sec. This is an exerpt of a prophesy that God gave the nation of Moab to Jeremiah. If you go back to the book of Joshua, God gave the Israelites a mandate to go into the land of Canaan and wipe out every man, woman, and child. At the end of the book of Joshua, we see that Israel did not obey God and wipe out all the nations that they were ordered to, and God told Israel that these nations would be a constant source of problems for them. That was certainly the case. One thing that really stands out from scripture is that Moab never did anything without help. They were weak. When other nations would come into the land they would quickly make treaties, become slaves, whatever they had to do so they would not be led away into captivity. They would rarely fight. They even hired a Babylonian witchdoctor to curse Israel cause they didn’t want to do it themselves! They were a crafty people . God was speaking to Moab because they were cowards and slackers, so much so, that they didn’t even break a sweat to do anything!
Are you one of those people that will do the things that will get you the most attention, but when it comes to doing something “behind the scenes” it’s “below you?” You will preach, but you won’t serve coffee? You will teach a class, but won’t visit a brother or sister in the hospital? Then you have the “Moab mindset”. You don’t have the heart of Christ, who washed His disciple’s feet. The heart of the one who said “if you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”
Or are you the slacker? Do you serve God half-hearted? Do you depend on someone else to come to church fired up on Sunday to help get you kick-started? Do you need to be constantly “encouraged” to do the things you are supposed to? Do you have faith the size of a mustard seed? Can you stand on your own two feet or does every storm that comes against you beat you down?
It’s time to roll up the sleeves and get dirty, bloody, and yes, smelly. It’s time to fight, bite, scratch, love, serve, encourage for His glory and His kingdom. If Christ isn’t worth it, then you need to repent and ask Jesus to come into your heart and reveal Himself to you. Let’s do whatever needs to be done to make His name great! Let’s repent of our apathy and ask God to wake up and revive our sleeping spirits, that we may be known as His in word and deed!!
Kevin
Complaining
We live in tough times. For a lot of folks, that would be an understatement. With all the things going on today in the world and economy, it’s easy to focus on the things that are not going right. Lack is a huge enemy that most face these days. Not enough money to do this or buy that, or pay this bill, or take care of this or that need.
I think if we were all honest, we have all complained about not having enough, or wished we had something someone else has had. This is wrong. You wonder why God hasn’t given you the things you so desperately have asked for. When you covet what someone else has, you are sinning. God has given you everything you need. He did not promise you a BMW, but He did promise that He will supply your needs according to His riches and glory. He didn’t promise that He would give you the money to go to Disney, but He did say that if He takes care of the ravens, that He would take care of you!
When we complain about what God has given us, we close the door to God’s blessing in our lives. When we can’t take care of what He has given, we can’t expect more. Complaining is proclaiming that God is not who He said He was and He is a fraud, a sham. Just cause you don’t come out and say it, doesn’t change what you are saying out of the abundance of your heart.
We who are in America are so spoiled and have such an entitlement mentality. We need to shut our mouths and start praising Him for His many blessings. Most, if not all of the people reading this post currently have a roof over their head. Most of you have a job to make money, even if it doesn’t get you what you want and just what you need. God doesn’t deserve to hear a bunch of snivelling, whiny, children complaining like the children of Israel in the wilderness. Thier complaining cost them 40 years of wandering in the desert. What is your complaining costing you spiritually?
Next time you want to complain. Think before you open your mouth. It’ s not worth it. Lift your voice in praise to the God who is more than enough! Let thankfulness fill your heart and break these wicked mindsets that are holding you back. He is good, no matter what you think you are “entitled” to. Let our gratefulness be the thing that stands out like a light in a dark, dark, world.
Kevin
Loved by God II
As I began to read His Word and ask Him to reveal Himself to me, He began to reveal to me His purpose for why we were here. I realized according to the scriptures, that God’s plan was not some cosmic chaotic mess that it seemed. God is the master planner. His will cannot be denied. He is All Soveriegn and All-Powerful! For God to be these things, He would have to have a plan so detailed it could not be comprehended totally by our natural understanding! Jesus tried to reveal some of that plan to Nicodemus:
John 3
3)Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4)Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5)Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. 7) Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8) The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Verse 8 really stands out here (not just because I underlined it). Jesus compares the process that God chooses those to whom He has decided to the moving of the wind. I like to take this scripture and transpose “the Spirit of God” into where you see “the wind” cause He is describing the Spirit of God as “the wind”.
Just as the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of the deep in Genesis 1, even today, He moves across this world drawing those to Himself that He has chosen before the foundations of the Earth were laid!
Ephesians 1
3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4) even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5) he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6) to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7) In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8)which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9) making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10)as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
There are so many more scriptures I could share about this, but back to my story.
I began to realize that God’s love was not determined upon whether or not I did certain things, but was given freely because I was chosen by God. I was taught for a long time that salvation was based on my actions (not that we have a free license to go out and do whatever we want with no consequence). I had to a pray a prayer to get saved, had to not drink or smoke, read my bible, pray regularly, give my tithe, and I was good to go. I did good on the smoking and drinking stuff cause I had no desire to do either, but I struggled with prayer,reading, and still have some attitudes and things I have to work on. Many well intentioned men would use condemnation to get me back in line which only really worked for short periods of time.
What I have come to learn is that I am free and you are free to seek Him! There is no long list of prerequisites to be saved or be in right standing with Him! Jesus already did everything that was required and we have an opportunity to experience the love of the God of the universe with no restrictions, no bounderies, no limits! Is that not incredible?! The burden of your salvation was carried on that cross and we are free!! Free to love Him and be loved with no strings attached! It’s this love that moves me to read so we can know Him better. It’s this love that should move us to spend time in prayer, fellowship, and worship!
Hebrews 10:21-23
21)and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22)let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23) Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
We are so loved by Him! I hope you get a revelation of what He has done for you!. Thanks for reading.
Kevin
