Hammer on Anvil '

We all like things that are built to last.  I am currently shopping for a new car.  My wife went off-roading amongst trees in the median of the highway a couple weeks ago.  She walked away without a scratch, but the car was not so fortunate.

So, now, the search begins.  We always are looking for bigger, better things.  We always look for something that will last.  

I am challenged this week by 1 Peter 1:24-25.  
All flesh is like grass and all it's glory like the flower of grass.  The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

A wise man told me you can only take two things with you after this life:  God's Word & Friends.  

Let's be intentional today to love God's word and love those around us.

Many times, I get asked questions about why I do what I do.

There is a saying in the south that goes: "If you ever see a turtle on a fencepost, you know one thing for sure... he didn't get there by himself."

Psalm 40 is one of the most engaging Psalms for me.

I want to share a blog that I follow today.

I think Jonathan makes has some good thoughts.  He has also written a lot of good stuff on youth culture.
We must build our girls up to have value in who they are as God's daughters.  We are in a battle with the culture.
Have a look:

Sporting fans everywhere have been up in arms about the recent holdout of the NFL referees.  Fans as well as the general public have become increasingly aware of this labor dispute, as the replacement refs have been put under a microscope.

I find it somewhat amusing, yet somewhat disturbing as many people have come unglued about this topic.  Just bring up the replacement refs with about anyone and you will surely get some opinion about it.

I enjoy sports as much as the next guy, but come on... it is still a game, right?

I love making spiritual analogies.

In the story of creation, God creates and it is good.  The bible is a love story between God and man.  We messed up and created separation between us and God.  The only way to approach Him is to be perfect.  We needed a replacement.  Watch this - Romans 5:6 - At just the right time, when we were hopeless and powerless, Christ came and died for the ungodly!

We got a replacement, who is perfect!
Walk in that truth today!

Psalm 23 is one of the most beautiful psalms.

I want to share a few verses out of Psalm 19 today.

God’s glory is on tour in the skies...The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. ...God’s Word is better than a diamond, better than a diamond set between emeralds.  You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring,better than red, ripe strawberries. ... Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!   Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work."

What incredible words by the psalmist here.  

Live today, watching for his glory - it is all around you!  

One of my most memorable experiences as a child was learning to ride a bike.  I remember the day that my dad took me to Western Auto to pick out my bike.  I knew which one I wanted - the bright yellow one with a black banana seat!  It was a great gift.  I was very excited to learn how to ride it and could not wait to get home, for my dad had promised to teach me to ride that very day!

His process for teaching me to ride was to take me to the top of our yard...  Side note:  our yard slanted down toward the road then across from the road was a fence which protected kids from a creek below.  He said, "Son, here is how you learn, hop on."  With no further instruction, I hopped on trusting he would teach me all the ins and outs of riding a bike....  He proceeded to let the bike go.  I probably set a world record for the longest first bike ride... I hit the fence.  After I was done crying and had my wounds bandaged up, I wanted back on.  This time I had questions:  How do you stop? How do you turn? How do you pedal?  How do you balance?  How do you not hit the fence.

Life is a lot like that.  We fall, we miss the mark, we get off course.  The question becomes, how do we bounce back?  I am convinced that successful people are not those without failure, but those who bounce back.  We should not be defined by our failure, but by how we come back from it.  This is the opposite of how many followers of Jesus live - we fail and then we beat ourselves up for failing.  We condemn and hate ourselves.  It's time to get back on the bike my friends.  Be defined not by your failure, but by how you bound back.

At times I the smallest things stick out to me in the Word.

I was reading in Galatians 4 this morning.
I am challenged by a phrase in verses 8-9.  I will paraphrase it like this:  In the past you when you did not know God, you were enslaved by all sorts of things that are make a very poor God. But now you have come to know God, or rather be known by God... how can you turn your back on Him and chase after those poor substitutes?

The phrase is "known by God."  What is the difference in knowing and being known?
I mean, I think often about knowing God.  There are many situations in the day where we consider who we know.  In times of temptation, times of doubt, times of joy, times of struggle... we think of who we know - in fact we lean and rely on God during such times.

How much more would we stay connected to God if we recognized and applied those few words?  The fact that you are known by God.  What does the weight of being known do for you?  How might that affect your tendency to sin?

Walk today knowing you are known!

Jesus - despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, he knew grief, one from whom men hide their faces, despised, we did not regard him highly.

I was with some friends the other night.  The adults stood around talking while the kids chalked the windows of one of one of the cars.  My friend thought it would be funny to hit the alarm button on his key chain.  He said "watch this!"  To his dismay, the kids were not even phased by the alarm.

I remember being around when car alarms first came out.  Not many cars had them installed.  When you heard one, everyone stood around and looked at that car.  I remember being in a mall parking lot one time and there must have been 20 people standing around staring at the car to see what was happening.

Now we are numb to it.  How much is our spiritual life like that car alarm.  Do you know that God continually seeks you?  Do you know that the whole earth is full of His Glory?  Do you know that the Holy Spirit still convicts of sin?

We have made Jesus a car alarm with skin on it.
How do we allow ourselves to become numb to the power of the cross?
  A better question is WHY do we allow ourselves to become numb?

Never get over Him.
Never get over the power of God.

I met an older man recently.   I would guess him in his late 60's or early 70's.  I met him because he was having computer issues.  When I asked him what was going on with his computer, he said "I have been on some dirty sites I probably shouldn't be on and got a virus."

As I dwelt on this reality, it brought home some real truth... If I don't make better choices and break some bad habits now, I could end up an old man who is struggling with the same sin that I have struggled with since I was a kid.

Sin is so enticing.  It draws us in, it also holds us there.  Sin always takes us farther than we want to go and keeps us longer than we want to stay.  Sin is hard to break.  BUT - the truth is ... that it will never be easier than TODAY to break the sin or the bad habit that holds you down. 

What is the sin that you need to break today?
What do you need to give up for the glory of God? 

One of the characteristics of the Christian life is the ability to turn away from certain appetites that do not glorify God and that are not beneficial for the soul.
That is beautiful truth.  The reality is:  What have you turned away from recently?

Drop it like it's hot... it will never be easier than today!

I have been working my way slowly through the book of Ephesians.  To say the least it has been really good.  


The signature verses of the book come in chapter 2:  " For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."  
These are beautiful words, and really a beautiful description of the gospel and grace.


But I want to dwell on the next verse for a minute.  "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
We are his workmanship, his handiwork, I love this!  You are His poema, His poem... God is writing this poem and it is you - You are his poem!  
We are created for good works.  The cool part is that God prepared them in advance.  The challenge for me is to not miss one of those opportunities to be part of God's poem in someone else's life.


Be encouraged today!  Hold your head high because He chose you and has a plan for you! 

Every single day we make many choices.
Some of them are good ones, some are bad ones, and some seemingly fall in the middle.  

I want to contend that there are no small choices.  The choices that we make today determine who we will be tomorrow.
I was playing yesterday at the park with my 5 year old daughter.  We were on the swings and she wanted an underdog... but she didn't want to swing too high.  I instructed her that the concept of the underdog is to swing her so high that I could run under her.  She declined... moments later, she jumped off the swing and headed away.  I stopped her and asked why she didn't want to swing anymore.  She says, "I just want to go slide, and I can do whatever I want."  Every day we make choices.  I grabbed her and corrected her.  We talked as best as you can with a preschooler about how the proper terminology is that she can do whatever God wants.  Every single day we make choices, do those choices reflect what God wants you to do?

In 1 Timothy 6:11, Paul urges his young disciple to flee the junk in life that can bog him down... and to pursue godliness, righteousness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.  We can make choices that glorify God.  We can pursue Him.

Are you making choices today that fit into the list above?
Are you making choices that lead to life or death?

We have a new place to eat in town.

It is kind of a place... but kind of a food cart on Main St.  Every single day, people line up to get a dog of some sorts cooked right there on the side of the road.

I joined that line last weekend.  I took my youngest daughter with me... well the truth is that she took me to the hot dog stand.  We place our order - 2 brats, chips and a root beer!  The hot dog chef made hers and she added mustard and then some cheese that had been sitting in the sun for a while.  Then he made mine and asked if i wanted sour kraut.  I love toppings on my brat, so I said "Yes, lavish some kraut on that dog!"   I proceeded to lavish some jalapenos and onions as well as other toppings.  In fact, a friend who had slipped in line behind us said... "Do you like a little dog with your toppings?"

We do not use the word "lavish" much anymore.  Maybe because I am studying through Ephesians, or maybe because I am just such a wordsmith, but I like that word.

Ephesians tells of how God lavished us with the riches His grace.  What a great picture of God's grace!  I like to lose my dog, lavished in a pile of toppings!  I also like the look that my sins have been lost, lavished in a pile of grace.  God, who came at just the right time, when I was helpless and could do nothing... He came and died for the ungodly.  He became our sin - we got His righteousness.

Lavish yourself in His grace today.

It is a skill that we must acquire.

We have been looking at the topic of perfection with our students.
I will attempt to summarize hours of teaching, study and discussion here...
    Nobody's Perfect...
    God is the only one ever to be perfect and each of His attributes are perfect.
    God calls us to be perfect.  On our best days, we can attain perfection for say... 30 minutes...
    God came to earth and took our whipping so we could get His perfection.
I want to dwell for a minute on the fact that on our best days, we cannot attain what God requires.

It is so easy to not even try to live holy, to just give up and fall into sin simply because that is what we are - sinners.  As a side note, I don't see in the word where we are to embrace the sinner tag as our primary attribute.  I see continually that followers of Jesus are called saints... people of the way.  We fall, but our identity is not in the fall, our identity needs to be in how we get up after the fall.

I was at a hip-hop show a year ago.  The rapper's name is Pro.  There were maybe 150 people at the show, and a pastor sat Pro down and interviewed him.  The question was asked:  "What can you share with these people about the struggle with sin?"

His response was very profound.  I will not quote him as it was a while ago, but the essence of his words have stuck.  The struggle with sin is unique to the Christian.  As a Christian there should be a struggle with sin.  If there is no struggle, we have to check and see if we really belong to Him.

I am reminded of Paul in Romans 7.  He struggled with sin.  It was a daily battle with Him.
Are you struggling with sin?  Do you just sin without a struggle?

Sorry for missing my post last week.  I spent the day at the K with my kids enjoying a mediocre baseball team play an even less glorius game.  As a hilight, I was able to witness one of the parachuters get taken by the wind and land in the first row of seats.  (He walked away and was fine, so it's okay to enjoy it.)  Anyway, on to the post.

Introducing the newest acronym you will find annoying, you will love to hate... YOLO.  Surely you have heard it or seen it behind some hashtag.  That's right as if "TGIF", "LOL", "IDK", or "I'm just sayin'" aren't enough....... we have YOLO. 
So as a public service announcement, I will explain.  The rapper Drake has a song with the following lyrics:  "You only live once, that's the motto (expletive) YOLO".  It means You Only Live Once.  It is the new Carpe Diem of sorts for some of the older readers. 

What I have observed is that the phrase has given some sort of credence to risky behavior or as an excuse to play mean pranks.  For example a quick search of twitter renders the following:
  - "switching seats while the car is going 100+ #yolo"
  - "risking my chance of going to jail for 60 days #yolo"
  - "driving around in a police car and arresting people #yolo"

YOLO is reality.  We only live once.  We have to make the most of it.  Jesus said that the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy... but He came to give us life, life to the full - abundant life! 

You Only Live Once - it should not be an excuse to live reclessly, but should be motivation to live life in the power of the resurrection.

  
God has given each one of us a unique platform with unique circles of influence.  What I like about these guys is that they understand that above all else they follow Jesus.  


Are you giving God glory in what you do?  Are you making much of Jesus in your life?  Are you taking every opportunity to give Him glory?  

Today is National Day of Prayer.

I was up early and at a breakfast where we ate, drank coffee and spent time in prayer.

What a privilege to be around people who pray.
I am challenged to grow in my prayer life because of being with people in our community who are dependent on prayer.

I wanted to remind you of a great method to use in prayer.
The ACTS Method.
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

Whatever you do and however you are motivated... just pray.