6 Times Harder?

God spoke to Joshua and told him to circle the city one time each day for 6 days and on the 7th day circle it 7 times.  I'm sure Joshua was excited as this was something that seemed more than achievable. "One time for 6 days? No sweat?" This was not only possible but doable as Joshua rallied the army to circle for 6 days. I wonder after circling for 6 days once a day did Joshua ever think to himself that the 7th day would be 6 times harder, six times the effort, and six times more strenuous?

It's crazy when the thing that you've circled in prayer for many days actually presents itself as a possibility today. You start to get excited as what seemed impossible now looks doable, what was far away is now closer, and what were once tears of pain transform into tears of joy. Then  it happens. You realize that there's one more day and this day seems six times harder than rest.

 When I woke up this morning my mind was flooded with the words "Keep Circling"! You see, there are some things that I have been praying for and up to this point the once a day circle hasn't required much from me. It's as if for the last six days when I prayed I slammed a 5 hour energy of hope and expectation. 

However this morning when I heard the words "Keep Circling", although I'm much closer to the promise, I got this  feeling that 7th day was going to be 6 times harder, six times the effort, and six times more strenuous. If I’m honest it would be easy to concede.

Many of us have the tendency to give up because the end seems harder than the beginning, where we end up fading when our faith should focused. I want to encourage you that although the 7th day seems 6 times harder, that's really not the case. The 7th day is like God hitting the fast forward button on the heavenly remote.  It takes the energy, effort and strain of what took 6 days and packs it all into one day; one moment. 

I believe that this moment in your life is like the 7th day that Joshua and his army faced. This was there moment and just as the walls fell at the end of a day of extreme circling the walls will fall in your life as you continue to circle! As you get closer to what you have been praying for, don't stop, don't fade, and whatever you do, don't give up. "Keep Circling"! Don't waste the last 6 days of circling because the 7th day seems 6 times harder. The last 6 days wasn’t practice, it was preparation for today. So go ahead and circle in prayer one more day! This is your moment!

The walls will come down!

As Mark Batterson says: "Pray like it depends on God but work like it depends on you!"

Lessons I'm Still Learning

Just thought I'd share a couple of lessons that my dad taught me growing up. This is stuff that I'm thinking about more than ever these days. I found that these never get old. I thought I'd share with you stuff that I'm working on so that we could grow together...

Things dad would say:

"Never allow people to draw their own conclusion of you!" 

This meant say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't live and unfinished sentence.  My dad would tell me not live life incomplete. I took from this that he meant, "don't give people a reason to try to figure you out". Don't live a question mark where you have people guessing. Complete their thought by living an exclamation. This one is tough but I'm doing the best that I can. Being open and honest with people is the key to this one.

"Be a man of your word!"

He'd say, "If your gonna start something, then finish it". Sometimes I tend to over promise and under deliver. I want to help people out but sometimes it would probably be better if I never promised anything in the first place. Sometimes my heart is bigger than my than my ability or time to come through. So I'm learning these days how to under sell and over deliver. I think it's best if we focus in on being great with a few rather than being average with many!

"Be a man that your son respects!"

WOW! This one is huge. I never really understood this one until my son started noticing everything. "Daddy, why were you and mommy arguing"? From that moment I realized that my son was not only watching and listening but he was forming. I realized that day that my son was my carbon copy! I guess one of the worst things that a dad could do is to blow his reputation with his son, or have his son copying things that he wish he could erase himself. Lately I have been having some great talks with my boy!

"Don't be afraid to admit when you are wrong!"

Being honest, this has been one of the hardest things for me to get over thoughout the years. I'm better at it now, As my wife told me today. "I'm proud of you honey"! I knew excatly what she was saying.

As I look back on why it was so hard, it had to do with things like; insecurities, fear, pride, and anger. I don't have time to go into all of those but I will say that these days it's way easier to admit when your wrong when you realize that you don't know everything in the first place. I guess what I'm saying is when you approach life from a place of humility you realize that when you get knocked down you don't have very far to fall. However when you put yourself on a pedestal, when you fall or when your wrong the fall hurts pretty bad. I like this new approach. It's not that I think less of myself, I just think of myself less.

Hope these inspire to evaluate your own life. Remember, we're all in this together.

Let's change us before we change the world!

Need A Mulligan?

About 15 years ago, I was introduced to the game of golf, and if you have not played this awesome game, you will never understand why other people do. I enjoy spending time with people who are just as passionate about the game as I am.

Shortly after my introduction to the game, I played a defining round of golf with some friends from college.  If you have never experienced the first tee, you really can’t understand what true pressure is. I stood on the first tee and watched 3 of my friends rip the ball 250 yards right down the middle of the fairway, each with a perfect drive; I got more and more nervous as my turn approached. My turn finally came and I stepped up to the tee box, teed up my ball, gripped my driver and swung as hard as I could.

As I looked down the fairway to see how far my ball had gone, my telescopic focus was broken by the laughter of my friends. Then one of them said, “Man, you really got a hold of that one!” Only then did I notice that I had hit the dirt further than I had hit the ball. The ball had moved a whole two feet! With my face flushed with embarrassment, frustration, and insecurity from the mishap, one of my friends yelled out something that instantly changed not just the game, but, my life! He yelled out, “Mulligan!”

Now back then I didn’t know what a mulligan was, but what my buddy meant was that I re-tee it and try again, as if the first one never happened. You see a mulligan is a do-over; it’s a freebee. It’s another chance without the consequences of a penalty. Ultimately, a mulligan is not a part of the final tally. It doesn’t make it to the scorecard.

Now I understand today that mulligans really aren’t apart of the game of golf, but wouldn’t it be great if you had a mulligan in real life? I don’t know about you, but I think that would be pretty cool. Just imagine getting pulled over for speeding, and you roll down your window and tell the cop, “Mulligan!” Or showing up late to a big meeting because you didn’t set your alarm, walking into the conference room, clearing your throat and saying ”Mulligan!” Or something more serious, say you get the chance to do over some of the mistakes in your past by just whispering “Mulligan”.

We are all used to the guilt, shame, embarrassment, heartache and anguish we feel when we mess up, and how quickly those turn into regret. This regret eats away at our insides and handicaps many of us; and we walk though life paralyzed, always looking in the rear view mirror stuck in the mindset of Should’ve, Could’ve, Would’ve.

You see, a mulligan may not be real in the game of golf, but I have come to find that you can experience them in life. A mulligan is like forgiveness and grace. It is a characteristic of the love we receive from God. I have some good news for you, you can actually live your life in full throttle ahead because God’s grace erases your mistakes; His love covers your wrong. And more importantly, He works your good, bad and ugly in a fine mesh of awesomeness and purpose. He connects the dots in your life!

Who says you can’t have a mulligan? With God’s grace you can have as much as you need because He is in the business of do-overs!

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

Need a mulligan? Enjoy God’s grace and live a life with no regrets!

Romans 8:28 (NLT)

Fan Or Follower - Rewind

What an incredible weekend we had at Living Waters. We baptized, we worshiped, we took a deep a look at our relationships with Christ, and to top it all off we dedicated babies at the end of second service. I would say we had “church” wouldn’t you? 

It’s crazy to believe that with everything that we did on Sunday that Christ still desires more. He wants us not to just go  “church”, and have great services, but to be the church, and have great IMpact.

With everything that we did on Sunday it blows my mind that Jesus could possibly still look at me and say, “I never knew you”! Wow! I don’t know about you but I must get busy being about what Jesus was about.

We gotta feed the hungry, visit the sick and imprisoned, and touch the world. It’s simply not an option. Are we fans or followers?

This week as you evaluate your relationship with God, ponder on this scripture in Matt 7. The message version kinda puts it all in perspective.

  ^21-23"Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance— isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.

Fan or Follower? Only you can decide!

See Sunday, It doesn’t get any easier this week. lol

Is This That? (Part 1)

Growing up in church to what has seem to be my entire life, I have heard so many preachers talk about revival. I have heard the "proclamation" of revival, we have sung and prayed about revival, but I've always wondered what is revival? I had a hard time understanding why we need to pray for something that we should already be experiencing. I would think to myself, “this" should already be "that!" I would ask myself questions like, “If we are praying to be revived, are we admitting that we’ve been spiritually asleep?” I never understood why we were praying for something that we already should be experiencing. How can a man who's sleeping wake up anybody? Why are we praying for "that", when "this" should already be "that". If I’m honest over the many years of being in church, I’ve grown tired of hearing the word “revival." I know that might sound bad, but this is what I’ve been thinking. I cannot wake up anyone if I'm admitting that I'm asleep myself.

In Acts 2 Peter stands up an addressed the crowd by saying that in the last days that God was going to pour out His spirit on all kinds of people. That in these days that young people would prophesy and see visions, and that the former generation would dream dreams. When Peter made this proclamation he said in a loud voice, "this is that" that was spoken by the profit Joel.

Peter was saying “This Is That!” This is what Joel was talking about when he proclaimed what God was going to do. Peter not only recognized that God was moving he was telling the people that this it. This is what we have been waiting for. Peter didn’t want anyone to miss God moving. “This Is That”!

You see, God doesn’t want us to miss when He moves. We’ve sang so much about revival, we’ve prayed so long for revival, I wonder have we missed something that God was trying to say to us personally?  I think we’ve had a few things out of sorts about this revival thing. I think that many of us have waited for the big thing or the big event to happen that we have failed to notice what God really wants to accomplish in us. I have seen so many Christians praying for something to happen in our services, when really God deires for something to happen in our hearts.

You see over the last couple of years I have been on this search. Searching to see what I have missed. Have I missed "that" by not dealing with "this"? Have I missed that because my attention was to focused on "this" problem, on this mindset, on these ways. Has "that" been unnoticed because "this" is not the way I thought it would be or dreamed it to be. Has "this" church missed "that" move of God because of our issue of "this" or "that"?

You see if we want to recognize "that" than we must deal with "this" in “Me”!