Self Control..............the all too often forgot about Fruit

This is going to be short and sweet this week!

Many times I feel like people focus on the ends and not the means. I want to retire. I want to lose weight. I want a clean house. I want a successful career. I want.....I want....I want..............

But how often are people willing to do what it takes to get to what they want? I mean do you really want to eat less, eat healthier food, have to cook and eat at home more, exercise 4-6 hours a week....do you really want to lose weight?

For me I started thinking about when I was in high school and I had a list of things that I didn't do that defined my "Christianity." I didn't drink, I didn't smoke cigarettes, I didn't cuss (too often), I didn't.................hmm wait a minute, I didn't pray that much, I didn't share Christ's love that much. I didn't do a lot of things. But there was this one thing, this one tiny thing I Kept in my closet, all to myself, and I didn't want anyone else to know. What my girlfriend and I did behind closed doors, that was my best kept secret. No one could find out I was struggling with giving into temptation, they might think I was a bad "Christian."

As an adult I look back and it wasn't about what I did or didn't do with my girlfriend in high school. One could say, well when I get married I can do the same things and then it will be okay so I will be okay. But that's not true. What I was doing in high school was about self-control, not about premarital sex. Self-control? Yeah. Think about it. How do I stay healthy? I have to have self-control to eat less. How do I stay faithful in my marriage? I have to have self-control to not lust. How do I become a good steward of my finances? I have to have self-control in my consumption.

I was fooled into thinking it was about sex. But it wasn't. It was and is about self-control. Getting married didn't give me self-control. Don't lie to yourself and think that it is about what you do and don't do. What it is about is your fruit. Is the way you live your life fruitful? Matthew 12:33...........“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

What kind of fruit do you have hanging from your limbs?

Mustard Seed..............faith indeed

How many of you have ever shared with someone the fact that you had an illness or a difficult circumstance and their response was "I will pray for you?" On Wednesday, of this week, I was inspired to write this week's blog about the subject of praying for healing. On Friday, of this week, I was informed by a dear friend of mine that his mother was diagnosed with Cancer. Coincidence? Possibly, but I doubt it :)

Let me go no farther and be completely transparent with everyone. Up until very recent, (like this year) when I prayed for someone who had an illness my prayer could be summed up like this: "Father God, you are in control, please give the person comfort and understanding and also comfort the family and friends close to this person, your will be done." Meanwhile, I never prayed for a miracle to take place or a healing, I accepted the fact that many people get sick and many people pray and many people are never healed. I never questioned why healing would be absent for some.

Recently I had a conversation with an accountability partner who is also a dear friend, who worships at a different house of God than I do, and the topic of healing came up because I have a family member who is stricken with severe mental disease and I told my friend that I didn't expect this relative to be healed. My friend shared some bible verses and some perspective that motivated me to research this "healing" thing in the bible. I wondered what was different in the 1st Century, compared to this century, that caused so many miracles of sickness-healing to take place. Was it the fact that the son of God was actually amongst us? Was it the fact that people needed lots of evidence of power and divine healing to believe in the son of God? I don't claim to be qualified to know the answer to my questions, but in research I did find some truths to healing.

Here are two truths what we do know about the 1st century healing:
1. People usually had to do something to be healed. (They Moved, took action)
2. These people that were healed had unbelievable faith.

Here are a few examples of healing where the 2 truths are evident.
1. The Centurion says to Jesus "but just say the word and my servant will be healed." (Matt 8:5-13)
2. The woman simply touched Jesus' cloak because she thought "If I just touch his clothes I will be healed." (Mark 5:25-34)

Consistently throughout the gospels Jesus has taught us that it is by our faith that we are healed. (Mark 10:52, Acts 14:9 just to name a few other places)

To culminate the subject of Faith, my Life Group has been going over the book of Matthew and we came to chapter 17 verse 20 and God spoke to me and said "you don't see healing because you don't have faith."

Jesus said: "if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will be moved. Nothing will be impossible for you.

So I am back here to the 21st century and ask myself: "Are we all with such little faith that we are missing the miracles?"

I lied to myself for a long, long time (my entire life) and told myself I had faith. What I have realized is that I had a belief, but lacked faith.

If God heard a guy named Jabez and granted his request then maybe God will answer our requests! (1 Chron 4:10)

Peter walked on water during a moment of faith (he lost his faith and he sunk)
People were healed because of their faith.

But we have responsibility. We shouldn't live carelessly and then ask God to help us out. Why do fat and out of shape men always pray to be free from injury when they are about to play slow pitch softball? Everyone knows that fat and out of shape men pull hamstrings when they try to be something they are not! (18 again!)

I'm not Good Enough............

Many times I have heard people say "I am not good enough." I have also heard people say this in regards to their ability to share Christ with others, or lead a bible study, or do something that has to do with their faith in Christ. They don't feel like they know enough about the bible or know what to say.

Matthew 25:36 says......... I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me

Can any of you do any of these things? It doesn't take an expert to take care of the needy! If being good enough was the qualification for obeying Christ and fulfilling the great commission, not a single person would have ever been told! None of us our good enough! But guess what?! We don't have to be! God sent us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us! To work through us! (Acts 1:8)

Are you available? Are your eyes opened wide enough to see the needy, or do you have tunnel vision because your too busy with life to notice your neighbor has needs? Don't lie to yourself and wait until you are ready, more educated, or good enough to do Christ's work! It's an obedience thing, not an education thing!

It's Been a while.............

Okay, so a lot has happened since my last post. I was on a roll with the once a week posting, and then life happened. I have a lot on my mind and a lot in my heart that I want to share with people. Here is a list of some things that have happened the last 6 weeks.

1. My father spent 9 days in a hospital and my siblings and I have moved him to live with my oldest brother to rehabilitate his health.

2. My wife and I brought Dawson Maddox Michael Reed into the world!

3. I took a 4 day, 3 game, guys only trip across the U.S. watching football.

4. I have realized that I am called by Christ to live every moment of my life doing things that affect the Kingdom of God in a positive way.

I won't get into details about 1-3. There is too much. So I will take advantage of this forum to express what the Spirit of God is putting on my heart.

In today's message Matt T. spoke about how being good at something like a team one must practice to be able to perform at a high level on game day. Every team is only a strong as it's weakest link, ask my friend the chain and see how much it can tow when a link is broken.

I am going to go on a tangent here for a second. Do you know what a major difference between a teaching pastor and a congregant? I have noticed that a lot of teaching pastors out there have notes and an outline, but rarely appear to be reading from them. Why? Because the message of the Holy Spirit is written in their hearts and it is a part of them. They can quote verses and speak messages from their hearts just like you and I can tell a story about our child being born or our first kiss which our significant other.

For me to execute item #4, I must practice! What is my practice? For one, it is to have the word of God in my heart, not on my bookshelf collecting dust. For two, it is to spend time daily communicating with God and listening to his whispers. ( If you didn't know, it seems that God whispers much more than he screams, so if you are looking for a scream from God to hear him, good luck!)

But what does having God's word in my heart have to do with getting ready for the game? Let's remind ourselves what the game is, it is to live every moment impacting the Kingdom in a positive way. So when do we play the game? Every moment of every day. At work? Yes. At home? Yes. Out with the guys on bowling night? Yes.

If someone struggles with lust in their heart, speaking Matt 5:28 can give them strength. Jesus fought temptation by quoting the scriptures. If you think you can be successful at playing the game by opening your bible once a week at church to read along with the message and then another time during a small group and read along, and not put the scripture in your heart (memorizing) and speaking it out in your life, you are fooling yourself. Do you think Michael Phelps or Tiger Woods, the greatest in the world at what they do, only practice a few hours a week by watching other people practice? Of course not! They spend many hours a week with intense training and practice to get ready for their games. They have practiced so much they can do what they do in their sleep!

If you expect to be successful at item #4 without putting the word of God in your heart, you need to wake up. Don't lie to yourself and think you can win the game all alone!

Just when you think........

We all experience ups and downs in life. What separates us apart from each other is not money, social status, skin color, or what neighborhood we live in, what separates us from each other is how we handle the ups and downs in life. One could make a correlation to this thought with sports. It is really easy to be a good teammate and say the right things to the media personnel when the team is winning. But when the team isn't winning, it is more common to hear about the "drama" that is unfolding behind the scenes with a team!

In looking at an individual player I find Peyton Manning to be one of the most successful players in NFL history. What makes Peyton Manning so great is his ability to overcome his mistakes. Going into this season Manning has 333 TD's passing the ball, but what most people don't realize is that he has completed 165 passes in his career to the opposing team!( AKA interceptions) 165 times in his career he had to overcome a mistake. My college baseball coach said you WIN and you LEARN, the only time you LOSE is when you don't learn from a game or a mistake. This is an approach I try to use in my daily life. Learn from my mistakes. Learn from others mistakes. Learn, learn, and learn some more. Many people ask God to make them more wise. What they don't realize is usually before wisdom the experience of a mistake or a troubling time appears and this is what allows us to learn, thus making us more wise. Wisdom isn't like an epiphany where you wake up and say "I am more wise today I think I am going to be a surgeon now." There isn't a book out there, "How to be more wise in 30 days." There isn't a DVD program, "Wisdom90X" that teaches us to teach ourselves how to be wise. Wisdom is learned through experiences, good and bad.

Recently I was at a place in my life to where I thought I was treating someone close to me in a way that was beneficial to them. This person has a history of medical problems and a history of making some poor decisions. I thought my role was to give them tough love and remind them of how their decisions had made things worse. As this person began to show signs of "righting the ship" the unthinkable happened. This person's health turned for the worst and was hospitalized. Meanwhile I thought I was doing my part and helping this person by not helping them. I was waiting for this person to "figure out" how to make better decisions and to get their body healthy. What I have realized is, I needed to play a more active role in their daily life and help them with their problems and concerns and make them my concerns. This is what Christ did. He didnt say to the sick, "Here take some medicine or I heard this stuff works," he gave them clear cut help. He healed them, he said their sins were forgiven. Has anyone ever wondered why he would tell someone he just healed that theirs sins were forgiven? Maybe it is because he knows that our sin causes trouble and we fall into vicious cycles of sin and it ruins are lives and our health. Not just physical health, but spiritual health as well.

For 3 years I have been lying to myself saying that I was helping this person in my life fix their problems, when all I was really doing was avoiding the truth and be a coward. I didn't want to help because it wasn't convenient. I didn't want to help because I dint think I should have to, seeing how this person was more than twice my age. So just when you think you are doing the right thing, stop, and make sure you aren't "lying to yourself" and indeed do the right thing.

29 years later, same speech

Yesterday while watching the coverage of Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy's funeral and his life in general, I realized two things: 1. I had no clue who this man was and what he stood for. 2. Listening to the political talk from the past sounds like it is 2009 and not 1980. (I will get to this in a moment.)

Now let's address the 1st realization. Before this past week if someone would have asked me what I thought of Senator Ted Kennedy I would have said something like this: "From what I know he is a liberal politician from a famous political family that has been in office way too long, got away with a crime possibly at Chappaquiddick, and probably doesn't see eye to eye with my conservative views." Watching the coverage made me curious to get to know more about this man and the life he led. According to the conservative talk shows that I have been exposed to he was not a good man and not a good politician. The fallacy in my opinion of him was that it was based upon what someone else said. The 2nd fallacy of my opinion was that the people who were saying these things clearly had an agenda, they were getting paid to cater to the conservative people and had clear motivation to "spin" the truth or paint an ugly picture of this man.

This 1st realization has given me a piece of humble pie. Because although I don't agree with everything I discovered about this man, there were many things that I discovered about him and his politics and his beliefs that I completely, whole-heartily, 100% agree with. I realized that I need to find things out for my self as oppose to take people's word as fact. Just because Sean Hannity says it, just because you hear on the radio, just because it was typed into an email doesn't make something true or from a credible source. In the end I realized that Ted Kennedy did much more good for this country than harm. He was a man that also kept his family together through tragedy and shame. Trust me, this family has seen more tragedy and shame over the last 4 decades than any one family would want to endure of a 1000 decades. It is up to you to decide what your thoughts are on this man, but think for yourself, don't take the common road and follow the crowd, take the road less traveled, the high road, and educate yourself on this man if you ever plan to have an opinion of him.

Realization #2: Nothing has changed in our society. In 1980 one of the presidential candidates was recorded as speaking about the problems that America faced at the time. High inflation, High unemployment, high energy costs, the need for immigration reform, and the need for health care to be available to all Americans. Why does this sound like 2009? Because the same politicians who have been running our country for decades are talking about the topics that get you thinking passionately. Because you might be directly affected by one of these hot topics, it gets your attention when it is spoke about. But where is the help? Where is the change? Why do Americans wait for their mighty government to help them out? Where is the accountability of self? In fact, when I hear politicians on TV talk about how they want to protect American jobs because Americans are the hardest working people on the Earth, I about fall out of my seat laughing. America listen up. Nothing is going to change in the grand scheme of things if you don't change things at the personal level.

As a whole we are fat, as a whole we are lazy, as a whole we are asking for a handout, as a whole we are waiting for our neighbor to help the other neighbor in need, as a whole we have stopped evangelizing, as a whole we cry, complain, claw, fight, and whine for our nation to remain a "Christian" nation because it was founded on those principals! Yet where is the action to uphold these Christian morals? Where is the action in our lives to make this place a better Earth than we found it? America is in a decline. This decline is real. Don't talk to me about the few who are out there doing good, talk to me about joining the few. If you want change, look in the mirror. America wake up and do something about what is wrong, it starts with you, and don't lie to yourself.

Tell yourself the Truth

In a world where success is defined for some by the possessions we have, one thing that is lacking is self-honesty. Most people ignore the truth or hide it under the rug. How do I know this? I have done it for years, in fact, in some ways I still do this! Even though I weigh 30 Lbs more than I did when I was a college athlete, I still tell myself, "I am not that out of shape!" But the truth is told in the elevated heart rate I have after 16 steps to my 2nd story of my house!

How can we expect to be honest to others when we struggle being honest to ourselves? I bet if a poll was taken about which commandment is the one most often broken, the results would show that lying wins in a landslide. Lying is so easy! Kids start to lie as soon as they can conjugate sentences. We all think we are smarter than those that are leading us!

Hebrews 6:18 Says it is "impossible for God to lie." Now let's look at a few truths God has told throughout the ages. He told the truth when he talked about how corrupt humankind was when he decided to destroy the Earth before the great flood. He told the truth when he was angered that the Israelites had quickly broken their covenant with him and wanted to destroy them. (Exodus 32) He told the truth when he said "This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3)

Truth #1. God does not lie.
Truth #2. God sent his son Jesus.
Truth #3. Jesus lived a sinless life and was doomed to a cross to atone for our sins.
Truth #4. Jesus offers freedom from the bondage of sin and death.
Truth #5. We all sin.
Truth #6. We are all born with what hollyweird calls "Primal Fear." (The fear of death!)
Truth #7. We all need Jesus to be free from Sin and Death.
Truth #8. There is no fun in Sin.
Truth #9. Being honest with yourself is liberating.

Try something new. Give yourself a spiritual exam. Look inward and tell yourself what you see. When you come across the things you don't like, write them down one by one and find a way to resolve each one, one at a time! Find someone whom you respect and look up to and have them hold you accountable to the things you are resolving.

Maybe you need to lose weight. Maybe you need to stop a bad habit. Maybe you need to listen more. Maybe you need to be home more. Maybe you need help finding a way to "tell yourself the truth."