Greater Than Ourselves

The other night I was up late watching the Olympics. The network started showing clips of Michael Phelps previous races and were talking about how he just did not have it this year. They were saying how he was not the same and questioning his desire to win. I started thinking about Tiger Woods and how people have criticized his play lately. If Tiger or Michael don’t when every event they enter they must have lost their touch. This is such bologna! Did anyone ever think that because of their greatness they made everyone else in the sport try and train that much harder. I don’t feel that either one of those guys lost that much but everyone else is that much better.

I believe this is what we as leaders should strive to become. We should want others around us to become greater than ourselves. This should always be the trend in leadership and can you imagine what type of chain reaction that would birth. The next wave of leaders always become greater than the last , the upward trend would be astronomical. What ever it is that you do would always continue to grow and thrive.

Let’s not criticize leaders when it looks like they have leveled off, it maybe that they have raised up another leader to take some of the burden of themselves

Top 10 Sports Movies

I was thinking about different sports movies the other day and figured why not make my own top 10. So here we go!

1. RUDY
2. HOOSIERS
3. RAGING BULL
4. THE NATURAL
5. THE LONGEST YARD(the original)
6. FIELD OF DREAMS
7. ROCKY
8. TIN CUP
9. THE BLINDSIDE
10. MAJOR LEAGUE

This is my top 10, tell me what you think. What movie or movies do you think I left out?

Look Good and Lose

I recently watched a movie called White Men Can’t Jump. In the movie one of the actors says a line ” You would rather look good and lose than to look bad and win.” This got me to thinking about the church. Do we too often care more about looking like the “perfect” church and not getting the win? Maybe the church should care more about looking for the win than about looking “perfect”.

Who your daddy?

I was reading over the birth of Christ in the the Bible. As I kept reading something struck me as odd. Was it just a little weird that Jesus’s earthly father was a carpenter. I started pondering how cool it was that God chose Joesph. Think about it, by choosing Joesph this ment that young Jesus would learn his fathers trade. He would learn how to mend, repair, and restore many different things. Why is this cool? Well as a youngster, Jesus learned how to restore wood, just a little training before he started restoring broken souls.

MISTAKES

Do know what is cool? Is that God can take our mistakes and turn them into something that we would never expect. I was reading in 1Kings about how David was praying and seeking Gods wisdom in who he should choose to inherit the throne of Israel. Now we all know the story about David and Bathsheeba and how David lusted after her and sinned against God. Now you ask what does this have to do with turning our mistakes into great things. Well if you read further you will see that Bathsheeba had a son with David and he was named Solomon. In 1Kings we see where God tells David to send Solomon with a priest and have him anointed as the new king. We know this to be uncommon because most of the time the eldest son will have the rights to the throne. But God had something different in mind here. He saw the chance to show that He could take what most would consider a reminder of a mistake that David made and turn it into a great triumph.

I had never really studied this story before now. It was truly eye opening for me. We all make mistakes in our lives. And sometimes we wish that we could take them back and never mention them again. In this story God shows us how our mistakes can still come to his glory. We are not perfect and we will sin and fall short but it is how we choose to view our short comings. We must seek God and ask Him to show us how to find His glory in our time of sin. Speaking of mistakes one thing I want to say is that if parents call their children mistakes they should be ashamed. The last time I checked God doesn’t make mistakes and children are a gift from God. Sorry, I had to say that cause that annoys me to hear people say those things.

I just thought how cool it was that God could take my mistakes and find away to have His glory shine through what I thought was so disastrous. It also makes me look at things a little different now. Now I don’t get so down when I screw up. Now I seek His wisdom and try to figure out how He could get some form of glory from it. It has been a life changing process to seek His wisdom even when I make a mistake

Expect the Unexpected

       Expect the Unexpected: You never know what God has planned

Now this may see pretty simple for most people to understand, but for some of us we never seem to get past the fact that God will keep us on our toes. Every time we start thinking we have Him figured out…boom He throws us a curve ball. Now the question is what do we do with the pitch. Do we pull our heads out to quick and swing and miss the ball? Or do we keep our head in and swing and the pitch out of the park? When you are thrown a curve ball just remember to keep your eye on the ball and the outcome will be ok. God, I believe throws these at us to help strengthen our walk and give us another life experience to help someone else along their walk with God. I am a baseball fan like you wouldn’t believe, so using baseball terms to learn or teach about His will in our life is just awesome. Just remember to keep swinging for the fences.

Restoration

Wow! It has some time since I have written anything. No, I am not dead. I just been battling some issues the devil has thrown at me and my family. I am here to say that God is still in control. No matter what the devil threw at us, God still gave us victory. So I have been doing a lot of praying and worshipping to God and just thanking Him so much for just being a restoring God.

When I was little and even still today I love to watch guys restore old cars and even old houses. It has always fascinated me how they could take something so broken down and bring back to life. It took them some time and hard work. But all the hard work and time paid off in long run.

I know one thing those guys couldn’t shake a stick at the restoring power of our God. I know from first hand experience of this power. The devil tried really hard to tear apart my life, but God took control and everything is getting better day after day. I have to admit that the devil did do a pretty good job of trying to tear apart my family. I kept trying to remind myself of times in the Bible where God restored something. I came to find out that there are a lot of those times in there.

I will not take the time to list all of them, maybe just a few that helped me threw this time of need. The first would have to be the story of Jesus raising Lazurus from the dead. I just felt if He could raise the dead then my problem doesn’t look that big. Another would be the story of Noah. I mean really how can I not have faith that God could restore my family when He restored the world through one man and his family.

I just want everyone to know that God can restore what is broken in your life. Just let Him into your life and seek His will for your life. If you still do not believe in His restoring power, feel free to ask me about it. I am here to tell you no matter the problem God can restore your life and you will never be the same after experiencing His unbelievable power.

In the beginning

Wow what a week it has been. The Lord never ceases to amaze me. He is an unbelievable God. I am so fascinated by how no matter how many times you read a scripture He always lets you get something new out of it. This proves the point that word of God is alive, because only living things can change as much as the scripture does. I also believe God is looking into your heart and knows what you are in need of and He allows you to find the answer you are seeking. God will give you an answer if you just seek it in His holy word.

Today I was reading in the book of Genesis today. The very first lines of the Bible pretty much some up the whole word. It states “In the beginning God…”. Wow there is some awesome power in those words. Think about it so many scientist say that everything has a origin of life. This scripture says it all. The fact that in the beginning there was God and that is all that should be said on the matter. That fact is what some do not want to realize to be the truth. Just think a bit on the statement that all life begins with God. Praise God!

The fact that life begins with God is truly just an awe inspiring thought for me. Did you know that God gave life twice to us. When we decided to give our hearts to Him, He gave us new life. Oh! Glory to God. I have to say that if God gives us life twice in our lives that to me is factual proof that God is the origin of all. The simple fact that He loves us enough to do this is reason enough to praise Him forever.

God being the source of two different lives, means that He can also be the origin of the birth of a community that is 100% enthralled with Him. We must do our part to help the movement along. We must step out on faith and believe God for a new beginning. He did it two times for us already. Why not one more for the entire community. I am truly loving what I am seeing right now. I see a community on the verge of one of the greatest revivals it has ever seen. The Holy Spirit is moving in hearts that used to be so cold. Those hearts are being transformed into Christ follows with a passion to see the start of a rebirth of a community. Glory to God for what he is doing in my life but in the lives of others wanting a change.

No Fear

I have been thinking back on when I was a young child and was terrified of thunderstorms. I know that there are numerous kids out there that were afraid of thunderstorms. My fear was some what justified. When I was seven or eight years old a tropical storm was hitting South Carolina pretty hard. I was leaving my trailer in Bowman and was walking next door. I was heading to my uncles house to show him my new gamecock outfit. When I opened the door a tree beside our porch fell over into the glass screen door. It was so close to hitting me that all I could do was cry in terror. Since this happened to me at an early age, I went through a number of years absolutely horrified of storms. As I got older the fear began to slip away. I was worrying over nothing. I came to realize that if I was inside and took proper precautions nothing was to fear.

I began to think about what am I scared of now. The fear I feel now is much deeper than just a storm. Well I guess they could be considered storms of life. Today I am fearful of failure, a success marriage, and fulfilling my life. These fears can bring a person down so fast. We are all going to come up short from time to time but that doesn’t mean that you are a failure. It just means you need to push a little harder to obtain the goals you seek for your life. I know some people will completely give up after just one little set back. This is the devil telling you that you are not worthy of the successes that God has laid out for you. That lie is still tearing down relationships and whole communities to this day. I see people everyday blame the town they live in for their failures. Yet they do nothing to change the community to make it better. This is because the spirit of failure as told them it will not matter what they do people in this town will never succeed in anything. We must break down the spirit of failure and stand up for the life changing power of the Holy Spirit.

What can you do to break this spirit? Well the first is pretty obvious…pray. Pray that God will remove this spirit and replace it with His spirit. Then try and take some action, help in community efforts that will bring people together and not keep them separated. Maybe if start working together with one another instead of bickering over issues that are not even relevant any more. Help reach out to people with hurts, habits, and hang ups. If we as Christ followers reach out the hand of hope to the hopeless we will be able to break down the walls that the devil has built and kept up for a while.

I know that doing some of the thing I have stated will bring up some fears. Some of you will be scared to talk to someone different. Some of you will be scared to reach out your hand in fear of what people will say about us. Because you know we let others thoughts about us dictate our actions. We will be so afraid that so called friends will say a nasty word about us then we do about the soul that is dying and going to hell. We need to stop being so afraid of what others say about us and start wondering what God is thinking of us. Does He like that we still have racial issues, even in our churches. I don’t think so. What is so wrong with letting go of the fears of the past and welcoming the future. Are future that I feel is going to bring an unbelievable revival to this place. A revival that will truly change our little community and will spill over into other small communities as well.

I know I talk a lot about changing the face of our community. But have you ever heard what people from other places say about us. It is not pretty. But the main subject I want you take from this is do not fear. God has a purpose and a plan for you. If follow his will there is nothing to fear. The bible says not to fear three hundred and sixty five times. That is one time for everyday of the year. I honestly don’t think that is just sheer happen stance.

Do you need any change?

Well here we go again another restless night. So why not write something that may make people think a little bit. I was actually thinking all day about change. I guess the reason I was thinking about this is cause I really didn’t want to be at work today. It was a pretty day out and I was wishing I was off so I could enjoy it a bit. So I thought if I change jobs maybe I could enjoy weekends off. Something else that made me think about change was that I am wanting to lose weight and the only way to do so is to change the way I eat and start to work out. That one I am not to sure about, it scares me. Which bring me to the other change that was on my mind. The change that needs to happen in us as people and us as a church. I know that asking a church to change is a bit harsh. Well you know what it shouldn’t be hard. We as a church should want to change out of the rut that we so often fall into. The real reason we don’t want to change is that we are too scared.

Then why I am I writing about change you ask? Well I guess I am not scared to change when it comes to changing the mentality of our community. People in our little community are still to this day hanging on to the hurts of yesteryear. Why? That is a question that baffles me. I can’t seem to realize why we can’t just move on. Oh! Yeah, I remember now its because we rehash the problem everyday. What is sad is that churches are still rehashing the issues that keep this community down. It is time that we start caring about the hearts and souls of the people of this community or we may see it continue lose the battle to the devil.

We as a church need to open the doors to all who want to come. The last time I checked we are supposed love everyone. We are not here to open the doors to the already saved or the ones who’s family’s have run the church since it’s start. We need to start to look at how we outreach to every family in the community. I can only imagine the revival that would occur if we ministered to all and the outpouring of God’s love filled the hearts of all the community. Man that would be awesome. Every church in the area would be packed. How cool would that be, to thousands of people praising God together with no indifference between them. It sounds exactly like heaven to me.

Where does this type of movement start? It starts with one person Jesus. Without Him there would be no reason for a change. A change that so many are scared to undertake is giving their whole life to Him. I can’t understand the reason they don’t. Since I let Him into my heart and gave Him full control it has been truly life changing. Things all around me began to change for the better. I am not saying you won’t have troubles in your life and I am not saying you will be perfect. What I am saying is that even though I have troubles and sin, knowing that God is in full control makes it a little easier to make it. Open your heart to God a see the life changing power He has to offer. God doesn’t care what you have done. He will forgive you if you ask him. That is one the greatest change to make in your life. The changing of a lost sinner to Christ follower.

I want to see this community changed and the people that live here changed. So my prayer is that everyone will open their eyes to change. I know I have written on change before but I just felt led to readdress it. This is such a huge deal. I believe with all my heart that the coming of the Lord is near. I don’t want to see people not know God and die or have to live through the tribulation. This is why we must help push forward the attempt to reach everyone we can. I love this community and want to see the power of God poured out upon it and I pray all of you feel the same.