8/30/2012 Take Back Your TestimonyScriptures: Revelation 12:7-12, Hebrews 11:31
The greatest witness to the world is a changed life! Why do our daily changing lives make such an impact? Because change is verbal and visual. We become a tangible sign that there is a living God. We face a great danger: we lack the self confidence to speak. We are afraid that we aren't worthy to speak, but we must remember that big messes can turn into great messages. When we speak our testimony we release power. First our testimony has kinetic power, which is motion and energy. We are actively releasing the life changing power of God's Word. We release it into our lives and on the lives of others. Second our testimony has potential power: it expresses the possibility of what God can do and the capability of developing into something greater. It encourages us to remember what can be! Let's look at an example: a battery. An idle battery in a flashlight has potential energy, it has the ability to create energy. Once the button is pressed the battery has kinetic energy and causes light. It changes its environment and makes an impact on the world around it, even the smallest flashlight changes the darkness in the room. We must remember that faith is not passive! Hebrews 11 speaks of the heroes of faith, and we want to look at one person mentioned: Rahab. Rahab was a harlot, but she spoke and revealed her faith in God. God remembered her not for her profession, but for her faith! Faith turns us around and helps us do the right things. Its time to take back our testimonies and overcome Satan. We have the blood of the lamb on our lives and when we speak our testimony we release the power of the blood! We need to speak our victories and leave our failures behind. 8/23/2012 Take Back Your LifeScriptures: Psalm 46: 1- 11
Ask yourself the question: am I letting stress ruin my life? Psychology uses barometers called LCU's, life changing units, to measure the total stress we face in a year's time and its effects on our bodies. Psychologists look at events, like a divorce or the death of a family member, and quantify the level of stress it will give a person. High stress comes from events surronding loss, separation and great pain. In this life we will place these situations, but we cannot let them overwhelm us: to deal with stress we must turn to the Word of God. Through the power of His Word we can take back our lives! To take back our lives we must decide to: not let fear overwhelm us. The stress in our lives get magnified by our fear. A small stress can seem so huge when we allow ourselves to be fearful of it, but God's Word tells us that He is our refuge and strength. God is ever present in our times of trouble. We must remember that: "God is always near and is always available." Always! Fear wants us to forget everything that God has done for us, but faith serves to remind us of God's miracles and deliverance. Second, we must decide that we will not be moved in the wrong direction. Stress can guide us in the wrong direction: making us want to go back to old things. But when we make a wrong decision we are only adding more stress to our lives! We need to take time each day to sense God's presence and let Him lead us. We must at times be slow to respond: sometimes the best move we can make it making our opponent wait! Think of a chess game: the key to the game is keeping your opponent guessing and waiting. We need to take time to seek God before quickly reacting to what the world and evil is trying to deter us with. Finally, we have to decided that stress will not control us. We must remember that church is where our spiritual rest and rejuvenation occurs. We need times of corporate prayer, corporate worship and we need preaching into our lives. Ask yourself another question: are you spending your life hurrying, worrying and scurrying? God said: "Be still and know that I am God." Find relief from stress in God's presence, David wrote that He is our fortress, let Him protect you. Take back your life: take your stress to God and His word. 8/20/2012 Stolen ShieldsScriptures: 1 Kings 10:14-17 and I Kings 14:25-28
In these verses we read about Rehoboam who as the new king inherited gold shields from his father Solomon. The shields were passed down from his father, and since they were not his he did not value them. The shields were hung on the walls and one day the enemy came and stole them from him. We can liken these shields to our faith; there comes a point in our lives when we must develop our own faith. There are many people whose faith is dependent upon their parents or tradition; there are those who get their faith from others. They have what someone gave them and they do not seem to value it. They hang it up for others to see, but never use it or find out its true value. The enemy of our soul wants to steal our faith by having us not value how imperative it is! Rehoboam never used the shields, when the enemy showed up they were hanging on the walls doing nothing. A battle was raging and the shields were only being used as decoration. We cannot let our faith and relationship with God merely become a decoration in our lives: we must doing something with what we believe. When we disobey or refuse to apply God's Word in our lives we are asking for our faith to be stolen. Once his father's shields had been stolen Rehoboam replaced the gold shields with bronze shields. He replaced something so precious and costly with something cheap and of little value. The temptation we face everyday is to replace our faith with something else, something cheaper. We cannot replace what really matters: our faith in God with a fake substitute the world offers us. The Bible tells us that we must carry our shield of faith, which is more precious than any gold. Its our covering aganist the attack and our beacon to show our alliance. Do not the enemy steal your shield! 8/18/2012 Total Package: CreativityScriptures: Matthew 25:14-30
Being creative means doing our best work with what God has given us. It involves developing ideas and talents, putting our imagination to work and being original and expressive. Jesus wants to make the best of our potential, opportunities, surroundings and talents. In these verses we read the parable of the talents and paraphrased it went something like this: a man was traveling to a far country and he entrusted his servants with all his belongings until his return. One servant received 5 talents. One servant received 2 talents and finally one servant received 1 talent. He distributed to each one according to their ability. The owner expected the servants to invest those talents and yield a profit. He expected them to be productive. One of the servants was not productive: he was fearful and did not invest what he had. He made a poor decision and was unwilling to take a risk. He had a negative attitude and the result of his doing nothing was no expression of himself. Living creatively involves people, things and ideas. It expands our knowledge by learning new things. When we live creatively we devote ourselves to projects that will outlive us. We reach outside ourselves to help someone else. God desires that we use all the talents he has instilled into us to reach the world for Him. He created us all unique so that we could work together to change the world. Are you using the talents God has given you for His kingdom |
Archives
April 2020
Categories |