Christmas Isn’t Christmas Till It Happens In Your Heart

Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart
Somewhere, deep inside you, is where Christmas really starts
So, give your heart to Jesus, you’ll discover when you do
That it’s Christmas, really Christmas for you.

Jesus brings warmth like a winter fire, a light like a candles glow
He’s waiting now to come inside, like He did so long ago
Jesus brings gifts of truth and life and makes them bloom and grow
So welcome Him with a song of joy, and when He comes you’ll know

That Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart
Somewhere, deep inside you, is where Christmas really starts
So, give your heart to Jesus, you’ll discover when you do
That it’s Christmas, really Christmas

Christmas, really Christmas
Christmas, really Christmas for you

A Christmas Spirit

It’s Christmas Eve. Christmas is almost here. The tree is up, the lights are lit. Silent Night is playing on the radio. Presents are under the tree. I’ll be surrounded by smiling family in just a few hours. It seems that my heart should be overflowing with Christmas Spirit. But, it’s not.

“Why?” You may ask. “You seem to have all the ingredients of a warm and cuddly Christmas.” Well, if life were a Christmas special, I would say, “Yes, I do seem to. I must just be a helpless state of patheticness.” If life were a Charlie Brown Christmas special, I would say “Well, I think the extensive amount of commercialism surrounding the celebration of Christ’s birth is bringing me down.” But life is neither, and neither of those answers are true for me this year.

Truth is, the things that Christmas brings such as a tree and music and presents, normally lighten my spirit, and the commercialism doesn’t bring me down or keep me from celebrating the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Christ. This year, there’s something else bothering me, there’s something else keeping me from having a Christmas Spirit and I fear that I can blame it on no one, but myself.

Have you noticed that we, as people, want a lot of things, and we want them a lot. But, once we receive what we’ve been pining for, it quickly becomes unimportant. It doesn’t satisfy us. We obviously would no longer feel desire for something we have already gained, but we should be feeling gratefulness at gaining something we wanted so badly, but instead we turn our unsatisfied hearts towards a new desire for something “new and better”, something that we hope will bring us happiness. This concept is illustrated well by a child during the Christmas season. Let’s say a child has been begging and begging for a MEGATRON 2THOUSAND! with lights and bells and whistles and the whole shebang. He wants that toy so bad, he pleads his parents to purchase it for him for months before Christmas and when Christmas morning finally arrives, he gets it! The squeals of joy coming from this child can be heard for blocks as he opens up his present, but a few short days, or even just hours later he’s no longer playing with it. He’s not excited. He’s not grateful and, by January 1st he wants the new MEGATRON 3THOUSAND!!!!!!! Even though most of us would tend to stray from identifying ourselves with that stereotypical child of Christmas, I must say that I can clearly see myself. I don’t desire a Megatron anythousand and my cycle of “Want. Get. Discard. Want. Etc…” may not be as evident, but it’s still there, and there in-lies my problem.

I, like the child, want things with feelings of incessant longing and desire. I strive to achieve satisfaction by acquiring things I think I want, things that I want to believe will make me happy. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don’t. But even when I do, the satisfaction doesn’t last long and soon once again, I’m back to striving and longing for some other thing that I hope will bring my fulfillment.

Back to having a Christmas Spirit, A Christmas Spirit is a spirit, a human soul that is celebrating and is grateful for the gift God sent in his son and the salvation and forgiveness that he brought to us through his death and resurrection. It’s a soul that is worshiping through mouth, deed, and heart. It’s a soul that is given to God in appreciation for His gift and hence it’s a soul filled and satisfied with God’s joy.

Wait, stop. Did we just find something satisfying?
I think we did.
God’s joy is satisfying. And it’s free. God offered it to us when Jesus came to earth as our Savior. But just like any gift, it’s not yours until you accept it. To have God’s satisfying joy for yourself, you have to accept it. You have to accept His salvation from our sins. And when you accept His salvation and allow Him to guard your soul, He’ll make your winter spirit into a Christmas Spirit.

Here’s where my problem comes in, I have accepted God’s gift of salvation, I have been given God’s joy, but I have allowed myself to become distracted. Instead of embracing God’s joy, I’ve become distracted by my own selfishness. I’ve become distracted by things I want and desire. I’ve been pulled into a Christmas Oblivion of selfish ambitions and self-satisfaction. Like the child in the illustration became ungrateful for his present, I’ve become ungrateful for God’s amazing gift as I’ve allowed myself to become obsessed with wanting other things. My joy has become tarnished with the sin of my selfishness. My situation is expressed well my Paul’s words in Galatians 4:8-9

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?"

My Christmas Spirit might be in pretty bad shape right now, but it can be salvaged. Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas, like I’ve mentioned, is all about Christ and the gifts of forgiveness God gave us through Christ’s sacrifice. And God will forgive me and polish my joy up again, if I choose to give Him my soul once more instead of allowing my soul to be enslaved and controlled by my selfish wants and desires. A chapter later in Galatians 5:16 Paul speaks of how to beat the slavery he spoke of in chapter 4,

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Well, that seems like a tidy little solution to my problem, but what does it mean to walk by the spirit? It means: To live a life of daily surrender. To daily come before God and surrender your soul, your life, your love to Him. To live a life of gratefulness for the gift God has given you and to be satisfied with His joy. To have a relationship with and walk with God.

So, today, Christmas Eve, I’m coming before God, laying down my soul, my life, my heart, and my selfish desires and asking Him to replace my cold winter spirit with a joyful Christmas Spirit. The gift of the baby King who lay in a manager has changed my life and given me true forgiveness for my sins. For that I am truly grateful. And that precious gift is truly all I need. So, that’s where I’ve found my Christmas Spirit.

Where are you finding yours?

Battle Of The Heart

Lately, I’ve been feeling pretty crummy.
I seem to have no passion for life. I have no passion for following God or His commands. I have no love. Life has become colorless. The lone passion of my heart that is still driving me forward in this life is a passion and a love for myself.

This past summer, I was very blessed with opportunities to be away from my normal life and focus on God. I was able to put my own selfish desires aside and strive to follow Him and his righteousness in my life. I was able to put my focus on God and live for Him and my life was full of passion and joy, pure, uncontainable joy.

But in the last few months, my joy has left me, my focus as has become fuzzy and with that, my vision has become cloudy.
I’ve watched as my focus has shifted from God, to myself. Slowly, as I’ve gone about my everyday life I have allowed myself to strive to live for myself, to bring glory to myself and to deny God in the moments of my life. I have in a way, turned my back on Him. I’ve chosen to ignore Him and His leading. And without God’s presence in my life, without Him validating me with His love, I have had to validate myself. And with that new task I have become prideful. I have become self-seeking. I have tried to elevate myself to make me feel better about myself. I have been seeking for approval, not from God, but from people and in the process I have only become insecure, lustful, hate-filled and bitter.
I am trying to control my own life and I am failing miserably.

As I’ve tried to control my ever-moving life, I’ve found that I can’t do it alone, so I’ve allowed sin to come in to “help” and now, my sin has its claws in my heart. It has darkened my heart and taken my joy and putting an unquenchable longing inside me and even though the pain of that thirst is agonizing I am holding onto the sin, clutching for dear life. I can’t let go, because I love my sin. And I hate that fact.

How can this be? How can I love what I hate and hate what I love?
Deep inside me, God still lives. There is still a small flicker of Light beneath the darkness that now surrounds my heart. There is deep desire and passion to follow God coming from my faith and the gift of salvation I accepted as a young girl and that’s where the battlefield for the conflict of my heart is taking place. There is a battle waging inside me for my heart. I love the thing that I hate. I hate what it does to me, but I still love the thing that is tearing me to shreds.

The one consolation in all of this is that I am not alone in this feeling.
The apostle Paul wrote these words in Romans 7.

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!”

“So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.”

“Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

I am a prisoner of war to the sin that is enslaving my body: mind, soul and heart, but there is an escape. God wants to deliver me. Because God still loves me. God wants my heart. Even in the wretched state I am in. Even though I am covered in my own waste and sin, God still loves me and wants me. Because when God looks at me, He does not see a little girl covered in muck and grime holding a dirty heart filled with her sin; He sees a beautiful child, with the clean heart of his perfect Son, Jesus, who took my sins upon Himself and died so that I might be free of them.

I don’t understand why God loves me. I don’t understand why He constantly gives me chance after chance after chance after chance even when I blatantly defy Him and His commands. I don’t understand His unconditional grace for me. Sometimes, it even angers me. Even when I disobey, He always forgives me. It seems unjust to me that I am able to “get away” with my sin like that, but I’m finding that even though I am forgiven and given another chance, there is punishment for my sin, in how it enslaves me. And although odd, I find comfort in that fact, but what’s even more odd is that, I don’t find strong motivation to follow God because of that fact.

I think that it is impossible to follow God out of fear. You might be able to initially, but eventually fear alone will not be enough. As humans we were created to love and be loved. Love is the biggest motivation we have. My strong love for myself is what motivates me to hold on to my sin so tightly. My love for myself is stronger than my fear. Love is stronger than all else and love is the only thing that will motivate us and give us the strength to follow God. But in order to love God, we must deny our first love, the love we are born with due to our sin nature, our love for ourselves.

“Then he (Jesus) said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23-24

This sort of self-denial is the single-most hardest thing to do in life, because our love for ourselves and our sin is so strong, but God’s love for us is stronger. And out of His great love for us, the same love that caused God to become man and die for us, He will empower us to love Him the same way he loves us if we ask Him and we seek to follow him in our lives. For I know, that life lived for yourself is overwhelming and painful. It is purposeless and a slavery to sin, but a life, given freely to God, out of love and obedience is filled with freedom from slavery, joy, passion and purpose.

So tonight, I am coming to God with a broken heart, torn apart by sin. I am giving it to Him once again. Because even though I am dirty and torn God wants my heart. He wants to free me from the claws of my sin that are enslaving me. He wants to heal my heart and make it clean. He wants to wrap me in His arms. He wants to fill my heart with His love. Why does He love me? I don’t know. I’m not worth it. But even so, He does love me and because of that, I will once again come before Him and deny myself. I will give Him my heart and give myself fully to the work of the Lord, because I know that labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58), but has a life full of passion, of joy, of purpose, of understanding, of holiness, of righteousness and of love.

“Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57

Are You Ready? In memoriam of the 9/11 victims and my grandfather.

As some of you know, my grandpa died this past February.
I recently saw a binder of his on my grandma's kitchen table entitled Devotional Life and asked her if I could borrow it. Upon reading it I felt a little bit like I was seeing my grandpa's heart. He had prayer lists, verses, hymns, writings, prayers and journalings typed out to look at everyday to remind him to follow God whole-heartedly. It stuck out to me that he REALLY loved his family and that he REALLY loved and God and that his life was completely centered around his Savior, and although I have seen where my grandpa's faults lay, mostly I see a man who truly loved and wanted to serve God with his life.

Anyways, here's a writing I found that particularly stood out to me

Are you ready? By Douglas G. Beason

"And the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air
and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess 4:16, 17

If you knew,
for a fact, that Christ would return tomorrow, what would we do tonight?
First of all, we would probably check ourselves to be sure all was well.
• Those harsh words - we must apologize.
• The brief time in the Word -
vs. eternity!
• Our mechanical Grace?
• Really prayer?
What does He think?

All these "little" things must surely be cared for before Christ returns, and HE IS Coming!
May come Tonight?
Are You Ready?

On Dec 7, 1941, an enemy bombed our fleet of ships in Pearl Harbor. This in spite
of the fact that the Army Chief of Staff was at his quarters at Fort Myer, Virginia undisturbed by a message.
In Hawaii, a top admiral and an army general dined with other intelligence chiefs, and were given reports of special import but passed them off.
In Washington, President Roosevelt received a message from Japan, "This means war!" He decided not to contact his chiefs.
This illustrates how we can become busy with routine items, pleasures, and relaxation while the curtain of the greatest war drama in American history was about to rise.

What are our reasons for our unpreparedness for our Lord's return?

A clipping from the GR Press, May 25, 1980:
"It was such a nice day, such a sunny Sunday, who could resist a close-up peek at the mountain which has teased them for so long?
At 8:32 Pacific Daylight time, last Sunday morning (May 18) the mountain which so many came to see, unleashed a fury that the president of the US said made the moon look like a golf course.
It was the suddenness which took everyone by surprise. Ever since March 27,
the volcano rumbling and stewing stem, threatening to go. Scientists kept
saying that the end might be near, but they couldn't say when. It blew
suddenly, scorching blasts of air and gas which devastated more than 150 square
miles in moments.

"We tried to let people know that the hazards were and
nobody listened, the people went over, under, through and around every attempt
we made to keep them out. The bottom line is, nobody would listen to us."
32 reported missing.

Terrorists flew into the Twin Towers Sept. 11th 2001.
Thousand were killed, unsuspectingly.
Many met Jesus;
Many were unsaved. All were surprised!
What a surprise for the terrorists.
They though they would be in Heaven with 7 virgins.
Instead - they were facing God.

The Event Happened.
It need not have happened
But it did.
It should not have happened
It happened at a non suspecting moment.

Glad for those who turned off their alarm
Glad for those who were late in arriving
Glad for the lady who was fired from her job
Glad for those who were sick, etc.

But the Rapture is a SURE THING!
It WILL happen! It is Predicted, Promised, and Pictured in Scripture.
We are told, taught, commanded to watch,
Encouraged to prepare
Heaven's prepared for a prepared People

Will you be ready? Saved?

Will you be happy to meet Him?
Surely!!!
Will you be ashamed?

I am satisfied with Jesus
He has done so much for me

I am satisfied, I am satisfied
I am satisfied with Jesus
But the question comes to me
As I think of Calvary
Is my Savior satisfied with me?

In spite of the truth of this fact, we find ourselves working, planning and buying as though we were to be here for all eternity.
We have settled the Salvation question, so we know we are ready.
But say, if Christ should come to your house today – would you REALLY be ready?"

So, today September 11th 2010, I ask you to do two things.

1) Remember and honor those who's lives were given and taken so abruptly 9 years ago today in the name of American liberty and freedom

and

2) Remember and honor the One who gave His life 2000 years ago on a cross, so you could be forgiven and live with him forever.

At my grandfather's funeral we used this verse to describe his life.

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also
to all who have longed for his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:7-8

As it struck me several times throughout the days after his death that my grandfather was truly a great and godly man, that his life had an eternal effect on a great many people and that this verse described him almost perfectly, it also struck me that if I were to die tomorrow, I don't think I would live up to this verse, especially that first part. That bothered me. And I resolved to live my life in a way that is worthy of that crown that is waiting for me. Now, I admit that I’ve failed a whole bunch since then, but I’m not giving up.

I challenge you today, to examine yourself and ask yourself are you living a life that brings HONOR to God? And make today the day that you start to ready yourself for when Christ comes again or calls you home.

Blooming Morning Mercies

For my birthday, I was given some gladioli. They’re beautiful, tall flowers, with many buds. The most beautiful part about them though is that only a couple buds blossom at a time. Now, that might seem like a downside. It would seem that a flower with so many buds would be more beautiful if all the buds blossomed at once, but that’s not true of this flower. This flower has around eight to ten buds. The first one is seated about halfway up the long stem and one by one they assemble up to the top of the stem.
Now, here’s where the exciting part comes in. When the plant first blossoms, only the flower on the very bottom comes out from the bud, it lasts for one glorious day. Then the next day it wilts and you must pluck it off.
BUT!
That is not the end for our beautiful flower! While the bud from the first day wilts, the next bud, the one directly above it is blossoming! This continues until all the buds have blossomed!

I’ve been greatly enjoying waking up each morning to see a new little beauty that has come out of its bud and I’ve even enjoyed picking off the dead blooms and throwing them away. And as I’ve been doing all this it struck me that these flowers are much like how our Christian lives should look.

In Ephesians 4:22-24 it says,

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Just like the gladiolus, everyday in our lives we are to take off the old and put on the new.
Everyday as we allow God to work in our lives, as we spend time in His Word, as we spend time talking and listening to Him, and following Him, He molds us to be more like Him. He reveals our sinfulness, and forgives us, so that we can purge ourselves of our old nature, and He shows us how to follow Him and how to be made new and holy.

But that’s not the only way the gladioli are like our Christian life.
In Lamentations 3:22-23 it says,

“Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His mercy never fails. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness”

When we wake up every morning God has new mercies for us.
Isn’t that amazing! Just like when I wake up each morning a new flower has bloomed!
God never runs out of mercy and grace for us. We can never mess up too big for Him to forgive. He always loves us and always be there with a new morning full of new mercies!
Mercy that allows us to have salvation, Mercy that allows us to have a relationship with Christ, Mercy that allows us to be free from sin, Mercy that allows us to have God’s Word and read it, Mercy that allows us to live a joy-filled life no matter the circumstance.

So, tomorrow when you wake up, or even right now, remember God’s great mercy and take time to be with Him, thank Him, and let Him show you how you can daily take off the old and put on the new. Just like the beautiful blossoms on my gladiolus.

2 Corinthians 5:17

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Something I Don't Deserve.

This is something i wrote around Easter before i started this blog. I thought I'd share it here =)



Do you ever feel like you're not getting what you deserve?
Or how about, do you ever feel like you're getting something you don't deserve?

I feel like that a lot.
Most of the time it's that second feeling and I really don't want what I’m getting.
It's pretty annoying to take the blame for something you don't deserve. It's very frustrating and it usually makes me pretty mad. Then I waste a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, getting angry, and complaining.

But sometimes when you get something you don't deserve, it's a fun thing. Sometimes you deserve something horrible, something you really don't want. Then suddenly, that horrible thing you were dreading is gone. Without warning, you're given something you don't deserve, something good. Something you actually want.
That is pretty awesome when it happens. But even then, I usually spend much more time and thought thinking about the bad things that happen rather then the good things.

The other day was one of those times. I had just gotten something bad that I didn't think I deserved. I was angry and upset and I was letting it severely affect my attitude and my ability to show love.

Then something happened.

A thought suddenly came into my head.

"Jesus didn't get what He deserved"

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Jesus didn't get what He deserved"

Jesus was whipped, He didn't deserve it. Jesus hung on a cross, He didn't deserve it.
Jesus was spit on, hated, bruised, beaten, mocked.
Jesus died for MY SINS. MINE. He didn't deserve that, I did.
Jesus took what I deserved.
Jesus paid my debt and then GAVE me something I didn't deserve.
Instead of getting what I deserved, I was given a gift of a new life, forgiveness, eternal life in heaven and a relationship with GOD.

Here I was, being a total brat because I felt that I was being treated unjustly, while forgetting that Jesus truly HAD been treated unjustly, for me. What right did I have to complain and cry and hate?

Jesus had suffered and died, but he still loved the criminals hanging beside Him. He still loved the men who had whipped him and nailed spikes through His hands. He still loved the people who spit and jeered at Him. He still loved me. Me, a wretch. Me, who was being a complete brat. Me, who thought I had a right to be angry because life was being fair to me. Me. He still loved me.

Jesus had been treated with the greatest injustice of all so I could have grace, and I wasn't willing to show grace to those around me. Jesus loves those who despised Him and I couldn't love those who love me.

When Jesus was hanging on that cross, taking my punishment, he said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"
Jesus had forgiven me. He forgave me for being a brat. He forgave me and he loved me, even when I was unlovable. Furthermore, He was willing to help me do the same with those around me. What a gift!

Easter is in three days. In three days we will celebrate the fact Jesus took something He didn’t deserve so he could give us something we don’t deserve.
This Easter this fact is especially evident to me and I hope that this Easter I will be truly grateful for that, and that I will be able to take the love and grace God has shown me and give it to those around me.

Jesus did many things here on earth so that we would have someone to look to, so that we would have someone to imitate. Taking things we don't deserve and giving love and grace to those who don't deserve it is one thing Jesus did and it’s one way we can imitate Christ.
How will you imitate Him this Easter?

Ephesians 5:1
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and
live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

What's Your Focus?

Hold your finger about 12 inches away from your face. 1) Focus on it. 2) Now, focus on whatever is behind it. (I’m guessing it’s your computer screen ;)
How’d does God look to you right now? View 1 or View 2? What are you focused on?

What exactly does it mean to be focused on God?

Does it mean to read your Bible everyday?
or
To pray for hours or …even all the time?
or
To walk around giving out tracts?
or
To tell all your friends, “God bless you!”?
or
To never watch any TV or to never get on FB or to never read any secular books or to never listen to any secular music or to never go anywhere besides church and the grocery store (and only then when absolutely necessary)?

Well, maybe… but I kinda doubt it.
I mean, most of those things are great and all (and a bit exaggerated ;), but…

To be focused on God is different than that I think.
Many people might think that in order to focus on God they have to withdraw from everything else… and I’m not saying that’s not good to do every once in awhile, but I think that we are called to live lives that are focused on God, IN THE WORLD, (I know, scary, right?)

It’s hard to focus on God when there are things all around that can distract us. I should know, I’m very, very, VERY easily distracted. I mean, you put a mirror in the same room as me and I’m a goner!
Jkjk!
But seriously, it’s hard to stay focused on God and not let the focus shift to ourselves and what we want.

Try looking at your finger again. Focus on it.

Notice anything about the things around your finger when you’re focused on it?

They become blurry.

That’s how our lives are supposed to work. We’re supposed to become so focused on God that everything else in life, ourselves included, become a blur to us. They don’t matter, nothing else matters besides following God and bringing glory to Him. I repeat, bringing glory to Him. That, right there, is our purpose, our focus in life.

Do you remember what happened at the beginning, when I had you do number 2?
Try it again. Hold up you finger, but focus on whatever’s behind it.
What happened?

Your finger should have become blurry and hard to distinguish.

This is what happens to our view of God in our lives and our understanding of His will when we focus on things besides bringing glory to Him with our lives. It especially happens when we focus on bringing glory to ourselves with our lives.

In John 9 it says this,

“1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me.”

God does his work to bring glory to Himself through the bad things in life.
We are also to do His work to bring glory to Him, through our lives and through our weaknesses as long as there are days.

So, what does it mean to have your life focused on God?
Well, in my humble opinion, it is this:
To live our lives in a way that we concentrate on doing everything to bring glory to God.


So, let me ask you a question.

Where’s your focus?


Which view do you have?
1 or 2?


1) Can you clearly see God in your life? Or is He made blurry by other things?

2) How can you bring your life’s focus to God?

3) How can you glorify God with your life?

4) How are you not glorifying God and instead bringing glory to yourself with your life?



These are questions you need to answer for yourself, but I’m gonna share my answers with you.



1) No, not really. He’s slowly becoming clearer and clearer, but I often let other things, my own selfish desires, guys, media, friends, sinful thoughts, etc… become my focus and cloud my mind and view of God’s working.

2) Read my Bible consistently. Take time separated from things that distract me from Him to talk to Him and to just think… to just be still. To daily surrender my life to Him and His will.

3) Respect and love my family. Be a good steward. Do everything without complaining. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Put others ahead of myself. Share Christ’s light with others. Revel in God’s joy and hope.

4) By being selfish. By drawing undue attention to myself. By allowing my sinful desires to control my actions. By using my mouth in negative ways.



They’re not easy questions to answer are they?
And the answers aren’t usually easy things to deal with and change. But I strongly encourage you to answer the questions for yourself and then, go to God with them. He’ll help you. He’ll take your heart in what ever condition it’s in and mold it, if you are truly willing to surrender it to Him and His glory.

So. Here’s the big Q. Are you ready to Focus?

The River of Life

This past week I went white-water rafting.
I found the movements of the water to be very fascinating and spent a good part of the time on the river watching the different currents.
It was very interesting to see how the water moved in many different directions, the main current always moving downstream, but often there were other currents that reversed direction and fought against the movement of the river.

Often we would come upon a place in the river where the water was still and mirror –like. I’ve always loved watching ripples and I found it amusing to use my paddle to create ripples on the water’s smooth surface.
But the quiet times would only last so long and soon a raging rapid would be in front of us and the fun time of making ripples would be gone and I’d have to use my paddle to actually paddle!

As my raft went along the river and I watched the waters move around us it struck me that life often resembles the currents of the river.
As we travel down the river of life there are many currents. The main current pulls us safely through life. But there are many other currents that pull at us, drawing us away from the main current and pushing us around in different directions. Without a Guide in your raft it’s easy to be caught in a contradictory current and pulled away from the path of the river, which almost always leads to danger. Without a Guide it’s easy to be pulled towards rocks and other hazards of the river.

I noticed that the contradictory movements of the river are like sin in our lives. It’s a battle where we’re caught between the pull of sin and the pull of righteousness. God wants to lead us in righteousness - safely down the river, but sin wants to pull us into destruction. Often in life we are torn between these two pulls, because sin is pleasurable, if only for a season, it still is very attractive and desirable for that reason.

You generally can’t see the hazards of the river before you reach them. Often the waters look smooth and safe and it’s not until the danger is upon you that you can clearly see it, and by then, it’s too late. You’re sucked it and you’re struggling to break free. It's the same with sin.

But if you have a Guide in your boat, who knows the river and is aware of the dangers before they arrive, He can lead you away from them and keep you in the safe current.

But here in lies another problem, while I was rafting I sat in the front/left seat. This seat is important, because all the other people in the raft take their cues from this person. Everyone in the raft is supposed to watch and copy this person’s strokes so that everyone stays together and that the raft will travel strong and smoothly. If this person isn’t paying attention it could throw the whole raft off.
The problem comes in because this person is in the front and the Guide, who is yelling directions, is in the back.

Now, while the raft is in smooth water it often simply floats. It’s quiet and it’s easy to hear the Guide from the front of the boat.
It’s also easy to stop paying attention and just let your mind drift, like when I use my paddle to make ripples, stirring up the water just for the sake of having fun, until suddenly you’re caught unaware and unprepared and the raft is heading towards a rapids. Unexpectedly, the quietness is replaced with the roaring sounds of water splashing and smashing against itself and the raft and you can't hear the Guide.
You’re surrounded by movement and noise. You have no idea what to do. You can’t hear the Guide shouting directions from the back of the raft, there are too many distractions and without proper directions from the Guide you could easily lead the entire raft into destruction.

The currents and waves are pulling at you and now, it’s not good enough to simply listen, now, you have to listen intently and actively in order to hear.
You have to push past all the distractions and seek out the voice coming from the back. You have to be still and listen. And then, when that voice is finally heard you have to follow. You have to make your hands take the paddle and do exactly what the guide says, even if it seems crazy.

Now, that right there seems like life to me.
When times are good, we become comfortable, distracted and sometimes even bored enough to stir up trouble and we stop listening to our Guide - God, but then suddenly, seemingly out-of-the-blue, life gets complicated. It gets noisy and hard and confusing. We don’t know what to do. We can’t hear, because the sin that we’ve been disregarding is now bombarding us, it’s blocking out God’s voice. In these moments we can’t hear God, because we are too caught up listening to the sin that is pulling us away from God. In these moments, often the only way to hear God is by doing what it says in Psalms 37 “Be still and know that I am God”.
When sin is overwhelming us and about to overcome us, we must stop listening to the waves of sin and distractions, be still and listen ONLY for God’s voice.

Just like the raft guide knows the next turn of the river before we get there and how to maneuver it, God knows the next turn of your life before you get there and He knows how to get you through it.
So, when we’re traveling through life, the hard times and the easy times:
We must always listen intently for God’s voice, because you can only hear it in Stillness,
And you must pick up your paddle and obey His directions and let Him guide you through the right current.

Two Verses, Two Men, One Choice

Pilate was not happy. He had been awakened from his sleep. He had heard about this Jesus fellow, and had known that the Jewish leaders didn’t like him, but he didn’t think he was a bad man. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong. The Jews were upset, but then, they seemed to get upset pretty easily. Why did they have to get him involved in their little problems? Why did they have to bring Jesus to him? Oh yes, because he was the only one with the power to put men to death. That’s what they wanted. He knew that. Power was an interesting thing. He loved it and hated it at the same time. He knew he didn’t want to give it up. He enjoyed his power. It made him feel strong. On the downside though, he was constantly under pressure from Caesar to keep the peace over here in the land of the Jews. Yeah, ‘cause that’s an easy job. The Jews put pressure on him too, always wanting something. He needed to keep everyone happy, but all they do is complain. Why didn’t people realize how hard his job is?
And now, he had a bunch of angry people standing in his courtyard that wanted him to put an innocent man to death.
It was crazy. The man had done nothing wrong. The Jewish leaders we’re just jealous of the influence Jesus had. He was smarter than they were and they knew it. He had more power then they did and they knew it. And they wanted him to fix their problem.
Psch. He had a decision to make. And it wasn’t gonna be easy.

Many people do not view Pontius Pilate in a very kind light.
He’s viewed as a man without a backbone. A wimp. Someone who gave into peer-pressure. Some say he wasn’t worthy of the position he held. Some may pity him for the guilt he had to carry around. He tried to shirk responsibility.
I was reading in Luke 23 the other day, where Jesus is brought before Pilate. I was trying to understand what was going through Pilate’s head. I was doing a pretty bad job until I reached verse 25.

“So Pilate decided to grant their demand…and surrendered Jesus to their will”

Suddenly it all fell into place, as a sobering reality came upon me.

I could relate to this man. In this man, a man who has been looked down upon for years, I saw myself.

How many times just in the last few days had I surrendered Jesus?
How many times had I given into sinful desires?
How many times had I pushed Jesus to the side, and ignored doing what was right to please others?
How many times had I been selfish enough to SURRENDER Jesus?

Every time I’m selfish, every time I put what I want before God, every time I do something to please others and not God I am surrendering Jesus. I am giving Him up for something that I view as better. You’d never hear me say that a friend’s approval is better than God’s, but actions speak louder than words, do they not?
That’s pretty chilling.
I continued to read and was once again, caught by surprise, just one verse down, in verse 26,

“As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from
the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus”

Here, in complete contrast to Pilate, is a man who sacrificed himself.
Who gave up selfish desires to carry the cross of Jesus: A man who was sentenced to death. I'll bet that did not do much good for his image. We know that people jeered and spit at Christ while he walked. I’ll bet that many did the same to Simon.
This man sacrificed himself, his image, his comfort, to follow Jesus and carry His cross.

I was struck by the immensity of these two verses.

In two small verses Luke had outlined who I am and who I want to be.
A selfish leader who put his own insecurities and desires before doing what was right and a humble countryman who stopped what he was doing, and put following Christ before himself, sacrificing his image, his health, and his time, everything for Jesus.

Pilate had a dish of water bought to him and tried to wash his hands of the deed he’d done, but just as water from the well could not stop the thirst of the Women at the Well (John 4), water could not wash the guilt from Pilate’s hands.

Every time I surrender Jesus, I am just as guilty as Pilate. Every time I put myself ahead of Christ, I am hammering nails through my Savior’s hands and the only thing that can cleanse me and that could cleanse Pilate and the Woman at the Well, is the precious blood of Jesus.

Because of that cleansing blood, because of the forgiveness and grace I have been given by the sacrifice his blood represents, I can now have the freedom to lay down my pride, pick up my cross and follow God. Because of God’s grace and His gift of salvation I am cleansed and able to be molded by God into a better person, a person that never surrenders Christ to the world, but sacrifices themselves to following Christ.

Romans 12:1 “ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your
spiritual act of worship.”

So, in whom do you recognize yourself?
Do you see yourself as a Pilate? Or a Simon?
Will sacrifice yourself to carry the cross today?

The Value of a Child's Prayer

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord, my soul to take.
Amen”

There was this doll at the Christian bookstore when I was a child that would recite this prayer when you’d press her palms together. I wanted that doll so very badly. But my mother would never buy her for me.
As a child I was never encouraged by my parents to recite prayers or pray written prayers.
I was always taught to “pray my own prayers”, what was on my heart at that moment.
Because of this up-bringing this is what I’ve always done.

I’ve always believed that God wants to hear what we have to say. He wants us to tell Him what’s going on in our lives. He wants us to be honest and not simply recite words simply to say we’ve prayed. Not to say that written prayers are bad, just often misused.
God wants to be our friend. He wants to be in a relationship with us. And as most would agree, a good relationship requires good communication.
So, in order to have a good relationship with God, we need to speck our hearts to Him and of course listen to Him speak His to us, for good communication requires both.

I truly appreciate what my parents taught me about prayer. It has made a huge difference in my life to be able to tell God my heart, but every once in awhile I think about that doll and its simple prayer.

The prayer above is often described as a child’s simple prayer. It’s quickly recited and not given much thought as we quickly skim over the words.
But recently a line from this prayer entered my mind as I was saying goodbye to a friend the other night. “I pray the Lord your soul to keep”.

Suddenly I realized that this prayer has a beautiful meaning.

This prayer IS a child’s simply prayer and THAT’S what makes it beautiful.
A child possesses a very simple and straightforward view of the world. In the Bible Christ says that to enter the Kingdom of God you must become like a child (Matthew 18). Oftentimes we, as people who are no longer children, let so many things cloud our vision and complicate our lives and our prayers. Sometimes maybe, we just need to take a step back and simplify.

“Now, I lay me down to sleep”

Don’t you remember how much you hated to go to sleep as a child? Hated for the day to be over? But it was something we all had to accept eventually.
Now, sleep is often valued more than being awake to live life. What would happen if we all started valuing our days as much as we did as when we were children?

“I pray the Lord my soul to keep”

Wow.
Do you hear that?
In one simple phrase, a child gives God control.
Isn’t this the thing that we, as “adults” struggle with?
I know that, I personally fight with this. I have a really hard time letting God control my life and not trying to control it myself. (It kinda makes you wonder why we struggle with this so much, because from what I’ve seen none of us are very good at controlling our lives.)
We live in denial. We don’t wanna accept that our lives are out of our control.
But a child views things simply and as they are. A child realizes that they have no control over their own lives and decides to let God have control.
A simple faith. Beautiful, is it not?

“And if I die before I wake”

Again, that whole “I DON”T WANNA GO TO BED!!! mentality” enters the prayer. Children don’t give up easily.
What a wonderful trait, Persistency.
Most of us would view this particular child-hood trait as stubborn, but maybe we should take a lesson from this.
Have you ever heard the parable Jesus told of The Widow and The Judge? (Luke 18).
The judge wouldn’t listen to the widow’s plea, but the widow wouldn’t give up. She was persistent. She wouldn’t stop asking until the judge gave her an answer.
Isn’t this the way we are to follow God? Isn’t this the way we are to pray, without ceasing?
Add some patience to a child-like persistence and you’ll have passion.

“I pray the Lord my soul to take”

This final line of the prayer exhibits another trait that often seems to come easily to children.
Trust.
Everyone seems to fear death, children and adults alike. Neither of us has power over the time of our death, but a child puts their trust in God to take care of them, while we put our trust in health foods, exercise and diet.
Why do we lose our ability to trust as we get older?
Many would say it’s because we start to see the world for what it is, and maybe that’s true.
But I think that it’s because we start to lose our view for seeing God for who he truly is.
He loves us. He wants to take care of us. He knows what’s best for us.
As we get older we see evils all around us and we stop believing that there is any good in the world. We allow the evil to overpower us and block out the goodness that is God.
A child can easily believe and trust in God because they haven’t been hurt by the battle wounds of life. They haven’t experienced the evil of the world.
Can we become child-like once more? Believe that there is good? Allow God to heal our wounded hearts and trust Him to hold them once me?

“Amen”