Blog Archives

Romans 10

2/29/2016

Romans 10:11-12
“As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in Him will never be disgraced.” Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on Him."

As I was reading this today I was led to write and share. When we see the incredible love God has for us it is amazing to see that Pauls shares "He gives generously to all who call on Him." When we call on Him, not when we just wait for Him, when we call on Him we will know Him and we can shine like Christ because calling on Him will prepare us for life. Verse 13 goes on to say, “For Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” We can't make it hard, but we need to understand that we need to call on Jesus. We all have a job to do and that job is to keep sharing Christ with everyone and living the way He would so people can see Him in us.

Really look at this next verse and see how our action is what God is using to make a difference in this world for the Kingdom of God. Romans 10:14 “But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?” We need to study Him and believe what we are studying so we can opening share the Good News to the world. We need to remember it is not our job to force people to accept Jesus, it is our job to plant seeds and water the seed so we can't get down or try and force people to this point, we can only show them love and the example by our actions. Verse 16 says, “But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, “ LORD, who has believed our message?” So keep sharing and keep shining because it is important for the Good News to be heard always because look what it says in verse 17, “So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” We need to remember that the free gift of salvation through the Christ is for everyone and we have a purpose to help people get that gift and it will take continual growth so we can keep reaching new people. Amen

0 Comments

Romans 1

2/24/2016

0 Comments

Romans 1:25 “They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator Himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.”

We so easily want to think so highly of the things God created when in fact without God there would be nothing. This part of the book of Romans always makes me think and pray because it reminds me of how easy it is for me to get caught up in the world and what seems good to me. When we get caught up in our own desires God is not going to force us to repent and turn to Him, He will show us things always but will not force our hand to choose what is right. He will let us fall on our faces and keep us learning, so we can grow, but His desires is for us to seek all that He has for us so that we are steadfast and true with our love for Him. Anyone can love when things are going perfect and there are no problems, but can we love when the going gets tough? That's why God doesn't force us to know His Son.

When you read the next verses pray about what it says and don't get caught up in what the world wants you to believe. Romans chapter 1 verses 26-29, “That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.” As soon as we put our eyes on the physical and let's our passion for things take over it trickles down in all aspect of our lives. We start to struggle when God's word challenges us to live the right way because we have let what we want to be right control us. As we try and control our lives by our feelings we get caught up in the created instead of the creator and we get mad when we read the truth in His word or someone try's to hold us accountable for a way we are living. We look at what the word says about our sin and forget that it can open the door for many fleshly desires. It is our minds that have to be renewed daily so we don't get caught in the trap of seeking out only the things we want from God's word.

When we feel we are doing something right, we close our mind to what is true, and if we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior then we should believe that all the word is 100 percent true. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” Our way of thinking, because of what God has created, is where we loose focus and how we bring in our desires as our truth. Remember what it said in Romans chapter 1 verse 29 “Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.” It might not just stop at one, we start to turn off sound advice and we start to get mad at what we know is truth. This is why Romans chapter 12 verse 2 is something we should say over and over and never let it leave our thinking. “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Let the creator, who is perfect, be where our focus is and remember that the created wouldn't be here if it weren't for God. Amen

0 Comments

2 Peter 1

2/16/2016

0 Comments

2 Peter 1:5
“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,”

I love the fact that when God shows us something it is always to help in our growth. Jesus perfects our faith so we need to know Him to be able to be like Him. Now we see that along with our faith we need to have morals, but that is not it, they should be morals with excellence. Then as we develop our excellent morals we need to get knowledge, we can't think that after we accept Jesus we are done learning. We are told in Matthew to ask, seek, and knock, this is a process that will continue until we pass to our real home. After knowledge we are not done, we are told in verse 6, “and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness,” after we learn we need to have self-control. Wow, that means we should be developing a way to say "no" or "not my will" this is what sets us apart and helps us shine His light.

Self-control is important for us to understand because when we have it we surrender and when we surrender we open ourselves to grow. This growth helps us continue with patient endurance, which is tough because we are a nation that wants results right away. When we are purposeful in developing this way, each step is beneficial to the next and God who is perfect set it up so we can be successful and mature into who we need to be.

Patient endurance when developed leads to godliness, which helps us think of other better than ourselves and keeps us shining even when we don't think we have the strength. Verse 7 goes on to say, “and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.” We see that after we develop godliness we start to have brotherly affection and as that grows we can love because God is love. These things will always be things we work on because we will always have different things going on in our lives that will challenge us. When we wake up and remember what we need to do we are led by the Spirit, we are not trying to lead Him. This will take constant effort on our part, verse 8 is clear and tells us exactly what will happen when we do these things. “The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Let's be productive and useful working on reaching the lost that might not know who Jesus is as well as reminding the believers that still are growing each day. Amen

0 Comments

Acts 6

2/8/2016

0 Comments

Acts 6:15 “At this point everyone in the high council stared at Stephen, because his face became as bright as an angel’s.”

This is one of my favorite things that happened in His word. Look at what it says, "...everyone in the high council stared at Stephen, because his face became as bright as an angel's." He shined so much that they saw a difference and couldn't help but to stare. Their attention was on him because he was going to let God use Him for His glory. They lied about him and it didn't change what he knew to be true, he just surrendered to God and let God speak. He knew so well all that had ever taken place (read chapter 7 verses 1-50) his boldness lead him to challenge them by saying this in verse 51, “You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!” We have the Holy Spirit living in us, are we listening and learning so we can follow Him?

I love what Stephen does next in verse 55, “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.” He gazed steadily, and his focus was on the glory of God. Our prayer should be that nothing distracts us from seeing the glory of God in our lifetime here on earth. Ronnie Doss spoke about being normal this past weekend and he shared, "The world wants us to be normal so they can use us." And "Normal is a mind set they put in you so you conform." Stephen was not normal because he didn't care about being normal, he wanted to be and do what the Holy Spirit was showing him. He was committed to do only that and he was not afraid of anything that would come from it. Look at the last two verses in chapter 7, verses 59-60 which say, “As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.”

We can all let go and let God so that the world sees us not as condemning believers but loving fully devoted followers of Jesus. I want to finish with one last quote from Ronnie Doss, "You don't get what you want you get what you are committed to." Amen

0 Comments

Acts 2

2/5/2016

0 Comments

Acts 2:24
As I started reading in the book of Acts today I wanted to slow down and really see what it was saying. In chapter 2 verse 24 we get the beginning of Peter's sermon, “But God released Him from the horrors of death and raised Him back to life, for death could not keep Him in its grip.” We need to see how incredible this was, Jesus was raised from the dead back to life so He could finish His leadership training with the team that would spread His word.

The next two verses are amazing to realize and remember as we step out in faith and live boldly for the Lord shining His light. Verses 25-26 say, “King David said this about Him: ‘I see that the LORD is always with me. I will not be shaken, for He is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts His praises! My body rests in hope.” When we realize that He is with us and we have His strength always the hope in us becomes what drives us. A friend and leadership coach, Ronnie Doss shared this, "let's not focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, let's be the light at the beginning of the tunnel." When we realize that He is with us we can shine in all situations or circumstances. Then when we're asked about our faith we can share about Jesus' life, death, burial and resurrection which is the reason we have eternal life.

Look how we can make sure we have the Holy Spirit in us; in verse 38 it says, “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." This gift is for all of us that open our hearts and ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. To repent is to show surrender and to show surrender is the start of obedience. When we live out what we learn and apply it to our lives we become committed to it and when we are committed to something we desire to see it through in our lives. We need to let all this grow in us so we understand all that God wants us to do, then as we grow and are faithful, God will give us more understanding. We can't try and get this understanding on our own, God is perfect and He will give us what we need as we keep saying, not my will be done but yours. Are we ready for this? We can be by opening His word and asking Him in prayer to open our hearts, then living it out daily. Amen

0 Comments

John 18

2/3/2016

1 Comment

I want you to really look at what is going on as Judas and his regiment of solders and guards come to find Jesus. It says in the word that they had weapons and their purpose wasn't friendly, it was to bring back Jesus. In life just think how you would react if you were being hunted. It is easy to hind and make them find you, trying to avoid it at all cost. We would go into survival mode and our instincts would kick in because different feelings would be flying around in our mind. I love how John shares what Jesus does when they finally get to where he and His disciple are. John chapter 18 verse 4 says, “Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to Him, so He stepped forward to meet them. “Who are you looking for?” He asked.”

He knew why they were looking for Him and He already prayed to the Father and was set on doing the Fathers will so He steps out and says who are you looking for. He meets these guys head on, no fear, just showing glory to the Father. How many times do we shrink back when Jesus is telling us to step forward? Pray in the spirit and know that God is with us always. Then we can be bold and confident as we take our circumstances head on. Look at the next two verses 5-6, “Jesus the Nazarene,” they replied. “ I AM He,” Jesus said. (Judas, who betrayed Him, was standing with them.) As Jesus said “ I AM He,” they all drew back and fell to the ground!” The song "there is power in the name of Jesus" keeps ringing in my ear as I read these verses because they didn't really believe in who He was yet when He stepped out and spoke they fell to the ground.

See how easy Jesus could have got out of that situation, yet He was not thinking of Himself but of why God sent Him in the first place. When we read understanding that God's word is truth and life we should start being bold and taking our problems on with His power because He will never abandon us to walk it alone. Look what Paul shares in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 7-10 "We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies." As we live our day to day lives we must continue to understand how God is trying to use us and when we step out even when don't think it is favorable, we see past what is going on and we get fixed on Jesus. At our Wednesday night service Pastor Kelly shared this and it is important for us to remember. "If Jesus calls us to do it, it is the safest place to be." Amen

1 Comment

Romans 10

Romans 1

2 Peter 1

Acts 6

Acts 2

John 18

Archives

Categories

Books to Read: