Living Unfiltered for God

It startles me to think of how many Christmas Eves I've experienced in my life. My how the years pass by quickly. There are different kinds of Christmas Eves... Joyous ones, sad ones, those that cause us to be tentative. Our circumstances and situations have a lot to say about our feelings on this night. But one thing never changes - the reason we are celebrating - the birthday of our Savior. Like so much and everything else, circumstances change, our feelings change, our situations may be in constant Flux, but Jesus - He stays the same. Our loving, grace-filled, hope-instilling Savior... He NEVER changes. We can always count on Him to be exactly what He has always been and ever will be. Our Savior. Those two words: But, Jesus. What is on your heart tonight that can be soothed by those two words? "Lord, my finances are a mess." But, Jesus. "Father, I'm worried about my child's salvation and future." But, Jesus. "Lord, my parent is in very ill health...

While reading one of the Advent devotionals through the YouVersion Bible app this morning, I came across this commentary… Luke 2 says that when the angels told the shepherds the Good News about Jesus’ birth, they “hurried off” to find Him. Instead of waiting around and letting doubt creep in, they responded immediately. This took great faith! Certainly, they wanted to meet Jesus, but they also had earthly concerns. What would they do with their flock? Should they tell their families first? Were they dressed appropriately? Were simple shepherds really worthy of meeting the King of Kings? They didn’t let any of the questions we might have asked in the same situation keep them from quickly responding to God. I immediately thought, what a great example of living unfiltered for God! It is this kind of behavior that I have been trying to practice myself and encourage in this space for a while now. How amazing was it that these shepherds heeded the call, no questions asked? It makes ...

Recently, I’ve been watching a series of sermons from Pastor Miles McPherson ( Rock Church in San Diego ) about prophecy. One definition that keeps getting repeated is that prophecy is a word , that becomes a thing , that in turn gets transformed into God’s Glory. Maybe it’s because my wife and I have been talking about this a lot lately, but when I felt the Lord give me a word this morning – out of nowhere, by the way, (and isn’t that often the case?) – I knew I was supposed to share it in this manner. I’ve written in this space often ( here , here and here , for a few ) about the family camp we attend every summer. There have also been posts about the scripture stones that the youth receive on the last day of camp. This is always one of my personal highlights of our camp – to see which scriptures resonate with the kids. As part of this tradition, I ask one of them to choose a stone for me. I can’t begin to tell you (although I attempted to in a previous post ) how much these s...

We often hear the expression, “Be a light!” If you are a Christian, we are taught that we are to shine Christ’s light – to emanate His Light that lives within us to the world around us. Have you ever really thought about what that means, though? Or how to practice this on a day to day basis? He said to them, “ Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open . ( Mark 4:21-22 NIV )   Several weeks ago, I was reading through a devotional with some others that posed a question I had never thought of before. In the “For Reflection” area, it stated the following: “There are different kinds of lights (traffic lights, flashlights, spotlights, florescent lights, candle lights, lighthouse, torches, lamps) - which one best describes you? Why?” This really got me thinking. Like anything else when it comes t...

My wife and I recently completed a “40 Day Prayer Challenge” that we were participating in with some good friends of ours. There were numerous things that happened over that time – many that could be considered miracles – to and through, each and every one of us. There are probably a dozen stories that could be written about. Right now, though, I’d like to spend a couple of minutes sharing about a concept that was mentioned late in the study ( Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson), that we were using as a guide for the challenge. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to lo...

I spent last week at one of my favorite places on the planet. It isn’t really the place itself that makes it so special (although it is beautiful), rather the people that I see there. And the God that I get to spend so much time with while I’m there. We were attending our annual CFO (Camp Farthest Out) family camp at Lake Yale, Florida. For my wife and I, this was our fourteenth consecutive year. Some folks have been going for more than 30 years, and about a quarter of the people attending this year were there for their first time. It’s always an incredible week of learning, worshiping, fellowshipping and soaking. Funny, we say we go there to rest but “rest” is not really what happens. In the Spirit, yes, but in the natural we are typically pretty busy!  Any of you who have read my words in this space before, know that I speak – and write – about this camp a lot. It’s at this camp where God first put it on my heart to begin writing and start this blog. You will be seeing me ...

There’s something about the end of a calendar year that tends to make us very introspective. This day – New Year’s Eve – is traditionally the day I spend the most time thinking about where I’ve been… and where I’m headed. My wife and I enjoy remembering the “highlights” of the year as we prepare to embark on a brand new 12 months! While today marks the height of this process of reflecting, for us it typically starts a week or so before Christmas. Things will pop up that we’d almost forgotten, and it gives us time to digest what it all means and perhaps, what we were supposed to learn from it all. Last night, I had a thought not from 2017, but from 1987. New Year’s Eve 1987, to be exact. I was reminded of something that took place 30 years ago today, which I will share in a minute. Some other thoughts followed – what it might mean and why, that I feel, the Holy Spirit brought to mind. I’m still not entirely sure why. I was just sure that I needed to write it down. If I’m honest, I’...

What is your favorite day of the week? Is it Friday? The end of the work week (for many), time to get ready for the weekend! Or maybe Saturday? You can sleep in perhaps. Spend the day with your family and maybe get some things down around the house. What about Sunday? You get to go to church in the morning and perhaps have a day of rest before the new week starts. Or, if you're a little different, Thursday is your favorite day. The whole weekend is still in front of you. There's a spring in your step on Friday, then Saturday and Sunday have all the benefits and goodness about them that I mentioned above. The best time of the week for me is actually Thursday night. I love looking forward to things so Thursday night puts me right at the precipice of all these good things to come. Given this is Easter weekend, though, I've been thinking a little differently about this. During Holy Week, Thursday night was rough, to say the least. That was when Jesus was betrayed with a ki...

We've been looking at the  Peace Prayer of St. Francis the last couple of days (click here to see the entire text of the prayer). It seems that to really live this out, you have to live almost counter-culturally. Today I'd like to dive into the next couple of lines to see what that might look like. where there is doubt, (sow) faith; where there is despair, hope; These two lines just speak to me of encouragement and the importance of being an encourager to those around you. Faith and hope are also often inextricably linked as we read through scripture. The author if Hebrews even uses one as part of the definition of the other, "Now, faith is confidence in what we hope for..." ( Hebrews 11:1 NIV ). When we lose our hope, we've lost our faith and vice versa.  How often do you get discouraged and start to question things? How often do those doubts start to creep in? " I'm never going to be able to do this " or " This situation is never goi...

Here I am writing... or trying to. It's been a long time. Too long, I know. As with so many things, I seem to always try to wait for the perfect conditions. That's not necessarily a good thing. Even this morning, I stopped at my favorite coffee shop - with the intention of sitting down to write - but I left right away as soon as I saw that it was packed and bustling with activity. "I can't write here!" So I moved on to my second choice. Still not perfect conditions, but I started thinking that the enemy may be trying to stop me from doing this. So here I sit, sipping my coffee, listening to Bethel Music's Synesthesia (drowning out distraction s) and literally putting pen to paper like this for the first time in months. These last few months have been a time of stretching. We had a little illustration in church yesterday that involved rubber bands. "A rubber band is worthless if it's not stretched", our Pastor said. Implication being that fo...

Over the last several years, my wife and I have been using this expression, "Making memories" as an encouragement to each other to live life to the fullest; to take advantage of opportunities to experience things, together and with others, that we might otherwise choose to pass up. Sometimes we get so caught up with our ruts and our routines that we miss chances to share a moment... an hour... a day... or longer with someone, that may turn into a memorable moment for a lifetime. This morning was one of those times when I had to be encouraged to "make the memory".  My alarm went off at 4:50 AM. I had not slept well and had been mostly awake anyway for several hours. The early rising was because this is July 4th - and if you're a runner in Atlanta, that means it's also Peachtree Road Race day! The problem was, it was raining... hard. And according to the radar and the weather forecast, it wasn't going to change much over the next 6-8 hours. Shortly aft...

When do you start listening to Christmas music in your house? That's usually a question that has a definite answer. in our home, it's typically the Friday after Thanksgiving - that's the day that we usually break out the Christmas music and start. I must confess though, this year I started a little earlier. I had a CD or two in my car going before Thanksgiving. For some reason, I was anxious to get an early start! One of the great things about Christmas music, especially if you are Christian, is that singing about Christ becomes "mainstream"! Sure there are lots of Christmas carols that really have nothing to do with Christ, but many of them do. And in regards to those that do, I have a couple a couple of questions for you... Do you really listen to the words? Do you really think about the lyrics that you are singing? Have you thought about the power of what we are proclaiming when we sing some of these songs? One of my favorites is "O Holy Night...