Just Some Thoughts

Galatians 5:22-23 22  But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23  gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! I pray every day for the Lord to show me my heart, the things He wants to change and mold in me. I pray for a pure heart and pure motives in all I do.  I want His will in me, not my own.  Well when you start asking the Lord to show you things, be advised, He will. He started dealing with me about the kind of leader I am and the kind of leader he wants me to be. Galatians 5:22-23 came immediately to my mind and my heart.  To be the leader God wants me to be I HAVE to produce good fruit! The fruits of the Holy Spirit!  I had to take a hard look at the fruit I have been bearing, well so often, it hasn't been all of them.  Then realizing that maybe I have been depending on myself too much.   It's kinda like learning ...

Do you ever feel like life is getting by you, it’s out of control, things are happening left and right that YOU don’t know what to do? The last several months I feel like God has been drilling into that “Hey, I got this!   I’m in control.”   There have been a lot of questions as to 1. God where do you want us, where are we supposed to be and what are we supposed to do.   2. Then we bought a house…Lord are we supposed to buy this house. 3.   Adoption…answering questions, the right child, etc.   Lord just WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME??? What am I supposed to do??? How can I fix this? For a moment, I think my ears had closed to what God was saying and I was listening to my own thoughts. Let’s talk about who is driving our lives.   In Matthew 4 Jesus came across two fishermen Peter and Andrew.   Jesus told them to “come follow me, I will make you fishers of men”. Then he came across James and John.   He said come on..come follow me.   Wit...

I actually started doing some study on what the bible says about reading the word.  I know why it's important to read the word.  However trying to impress that on baby Christians and young people is sometimes challenging.  Sometimes that is just because of our human thoughts toward reading in general.  I hear a lot "Well I just don't like to read" " I don't understand it", and a multitude of other reasons as to why people DON'T read the Word of God regularly. The Bible is so much more than a book!  It IS the VERY WORD OF GOD!  That statement alone should make us want to read it from cover to cover as often as we can.   John 1:1 King James Version (KJV) 1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word WAS GOD!  Why wouldn't you want to know God?? Knowing His Word IS knowing HIM! Hebrews 4:12 New Living Translation (NLT) 12  For the word of God is alive and powerful...

I was reading in 1 Samuel about Hannah and how she dedicated Samuel to the Lord and left him at the temple with Eli. Now Hannah didn't have lots of children at the time.  As a matter of fact she prayed and cried out to the Lord for a son when she was finally blessed with Samuel.  Her only son that she loved so much.  She gave him completely to the Lord. 1 Samuel 2:20-21 New Living Translation (NLT) 20 Before they returned home, Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, “May the Lord give you other children to take the place of this one she gave to the Lord.[e]” 21 And the Lord gave Hannah three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. She gave up to the Lord what He had given her!  How many of us are willing to give up the things most precious to us?  To give back and dedicate to the Lord what HE gave us?  Today when we dedicate our children to the Lord we promise to raise them up in the ways of the Lord....

Noah was so passionate in his faith and belief in the Lord that when the Lord commanded him to build and ark and prepare for a flood (mind you at this point it had never rained) he was obedient. Genesis 6. Abraham was so passionately devoted in his love for God, he trusted God when He told him to sacrifice his son.  Trusting God to fulfill his promise that he would have descendants as many as the stars in the sky. Genesis 15 and 22 Moses was so passionate in his devotion to God that time and time again he went before Pharaoh (even after he begged God to send someone else) as the Lord instructed him and demanded "Let my people go"! Exodus 4. Ruth was so passionate in her love and conviction for her mother in law that she followed her out of her own lands, away from her own people.  She married Boaz and bore Obed, the father, of Jesse, who was the father of King David, whom our wonderful Savior is a direct descendant! Ruth 4 David was so passionate for the Lord when the...

I was asked to teach a CRAM (Christ's Redeemed And Mentored) class this next Sunday.  It's our college leadership training class that our youth pastor has started.  It's awesome.  I started praying about what the Lord wanted me to teach on and almost immediately in prayer I felt like He wanted me to teach on having confidence through the Lord.  Not just confidence in what the Lord can do, but what the Lord can do in us and with us. I hear all the time things like "Man, I can't get up in front of people. I freeze" or "I freak out and shut down in front of lots of people" or "I don't know where to begin or even how to do that".  Most of us probably feel the same way to some degree.  However, I feel with strong conviction that when the Lord asks you to do something, it's not up to us to question it, just do it ! Nike had it right with that one didn't they? con·fi·dence    /ˈkänfidəns/ Noun The feeling or belief that o...