Song of the Week #131

Pray for McKenna

McKenna is a 10-year old girl that was diagnosed with leukemia in September 2012.  She is from my hometown of Russellville, KY, and goes to the church I grew up at.  Please agree with me in prayer for God to completely heal and restore her.  I've seen many miracles with my own eyes, including people being healed of various cancers.  I'm believing in the Name of Jesus that God will do it again for McKenna.  AMEN!!! 

Please pray and believe with me.  Thank you so much.

In Jesus Christ's Love,

Adam

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Song of the Week #130

Do Both

We are in the middle of a 40-day fast at our church.  We’ve got all kinds of different people doing all kinds of different fasts.  You don’t have to be well-versed in fasting to know the basics of what is going on—you give something up (usually food), and focus more on God.  In essence, you’re saying, “I’m giving this certain thing up and showing that You, God, are more important, and that You are worth it to me.”

Fasting is a spiritual discipline.  That means we should do it regularly.  Don’t believe me?  Check out Matthew Chapter 6.  In it, Jesus speaks about giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting.  Each time he begins speaking about the above topics, he says the word when:

”So when you give to the needy…” (Verse 2)

“And when you pray…” (Verse 5)

“When you fast…” (Verse 16)

By saying “when”, Jesus is making the assumption that his audience already does these things.  It does not say “if you fast”, but “when you fast”.  We should fast.  Enough said.

These past few weeks my mind has been rolling around another related thought:  there’s a verse in the Old Testament that says “obedience is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22).  My fasting definitely involves sacrifice.  So if obedience is greater than this, does it mean I should just become more obedient and do away with fasting?  Let’s look at another Jesus quote to gain some insight:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin.  But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” (Matthew 23:23)

In the above verse Jesus addresses the fact that some of the religious leaders of the day were doing part of the law (giving a tenth of their increase—tithing), but not doing other parts (administering justice, showing mercy, and being faithful).  How does this tie together with what we’re talking about today?  Look at the last sentence of Matthew 23:23 again:  “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”  Jesus admonishes them to do both—the greater and lesser things.

I think there’s a parallel to be drawn here.  Just because obedience is greater than sacrifice does not mean that I should neglect the one to do the other—I should do both.  This is the revelation!  Sacrifice does matter, and fasting should involve sacrifice on our part.  And while it’s true that God does desire our obedience more than sacrifice, He wants our sacrifice as well!  That’s good stuff right there!!!

*     *     *     *     *

Take a minute and examine yourself…are you neglecting part of God’s Word and making it ok in your mind by doing other parts of His Word well?  I know I am.  But the good news is that God gives us grace to do better!  Pray this prayer right now if you want the Lord to help you practice the greater things while not neglecting the lesser:

Lord God, help me to identity where I need help, and give me what I need to carry out the change.  I love You, God, and I thank You for Your kindness, mercy, and love.  In Jesus Christ’s Mighty Name, Amen.

Song of the Week #129

Planning to Fail

Check out this good post from Travis Hewuse. Are you planning to fail?

Engaged!!

That's right!  Ya boy's engaged.  haha!!

At approximately 10:15pm on December 31st, 2012, Ms. Chelsey Nicholson said yes.  It was one of those moments that is indescribable.  Perfect.

Chelsey and I have known for a while now that marriage was on the way.  We've been talking about it for months, and she's even been planning some things early--gathering addresses for invitations, buying a dress, deciding her bridesmaids' attire, etc.  We are way ahead of the game!

So with the wedding so certain (and the tentative date closing in quickly), it was tough keeping the proposal a surprise.  Chelsey was starting to get a little antsy about the whole thing and actually asked me the day before I proposed I if I at least knew when I was gonna do it.  She was so happy when I told her I knew you would've thought I proposed to her right then!

So anyways, I had my whole thing prepped and ready to go.  I was gonna pop the question in the exact spot that I first met her.  For us, that first meeting happened at Promiseland Metro Church.  And since I'm the worship pastor there, I have keys :)  Thus, no problem getting in the building when nobody else is around.  Success!

On New Year's Eve, she had no clue it was coming.  We had just eaten dinner with some friends and were on the way back to my house to prep for some people coming over later.  The church is on the way home, so I said I needed to drop some stuff off real quick so that I wouldn't have to worry about it on January 1st.  I get there all ready to go, and I had forgotten my keys.  Are you kidding me?!  Mind racing, I told her I would just have to drop the stuff off tomorrow when I had my keys on me.  So we left, her none-the-wiser.

We get to my house and I'm fervently thinking of some way to make this work tonight as I had planned.  If you know Chelsey, you know that Chelsey loves coffee.  "Aha," I thought, "I will use this for trickery!"

"You want to go to the Creme?" I asked.  "Oh, I think it's closed," she says.  It was.  "Well you said you wanted some coffee...how about Starbucks?" I came back.  Of course she got all happy and said "sure"...she will take any offers for coffee (I usually don't make these offers).

We get the $5+ coffee from the monster that is Starbucks and then head towards the church again.  I really wanna get this stuff dropped off, ya know.

When we get there I ask her to come inside with me and then I give her some work to do to distract her.  While she is working on things, I'm in the sanctuary setting up my scene:  dimly lit, guitar set up, Bible opened, and a folder of dreams/visions/words ready for reading.  Now I'm ready.

I go get her after she finishes up her job.  We begin to exit through the sanctuary and I say something like, "I've got something else for you before we go."  She sees the setup...............and STILL doesn't know what's going on.  Of course, I didn't know this until afterwards, but wow--she must've really thought that I wasn't proposing any time soon :)

I take her coat and ask her to sit in the exact place we first met.  My Bible is open to Song of Solomon chapter 4.  I read her some lines out of there that we both really like, and then I grab my folder.  I read her the word-for-word prophecy I received about her about a year before I met her on 12/11/11.  Then, I grab my guitar as I'm telling her about a song that I started writing for her before we even met.  I sing the song to her for the first time.  She is starting to realize what is going on.

I turn from her for just a moment to retrieve the box from it's hiding place.  I get on one knee in front of her and tell her about how blessed I am to have met her and how I intend to love her, about how I thank God for her and how I intend to be a husband to her.  Finally, I ask her if she would do me the honor of marrying me.  And she said yes.

*     *     *     *     *

We are still just starting, but our whole relationship is a fairy-tale.  Too good to be true many would say.  I beg to differ.  Your reality is different when you live from a different world.  We've got a King who is not confined to the usual.  We've got a King that made love, and we've chosen to honor Him as first in our relationship.  We are not perfect and cannot even pretend to be, but one thing we are is honoring of what we feel God has laid out as boundaries for our relationship.  To honor these boundaries is to bring life--more love, more hope, more goodness.  All these flow as we obey the Father's commands.

I cannot wait to see what the future holds.  I am sure I cannot fathom the blessings that lie ahead for the both of us, but I know it will be good...and I know this because God is faithful.  He is always good and He is always pleased to give good gifts to His children.  I'm so incredibly grateful that He ran Chelsey and I into each other and let this love story start.  Our story is a showcase of God's faithfulness.  He is always good and always faithful, and He will be the same towards you as well.  Love and obey--it's the way to go.

Not Too Late for First Things

The fervency of the new year coming is now on the wane, and I'm betting a lot of diets have already been broken :) However, it's not too late for you to make some commitments this year to what should be priorities in your life. Putting first things first will make your life much more awesome, I guarantee it. As long as your list starts like this, you're getting off the mark right:

1. Relationship with Jesus Christ
2. Family

So if you want to get things going right this year, let's do it!

Here's what I want you to do first: make a list of everything you are thankful for that happened in 2012. Everything. If you had a bad year, find the good and write it down. If your list is real short, then go back further than 2012 and write it out.  You need to be thankful and grateful for what the Lord has done in your life and thank Him for it.  The Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father.  Amen.

Now after you have done that, start your list of first things.  These are things that are going to take precedence in your life in 2013.  You know what's important; now it's time to write it out and hold yourself accountable.  (Sidenote:  get somebody else you trust to hold you accountable as well.)

You are writing this list out so that when things come up throughout this year, you can refer back to your list and see how they measure up.  You are also writing out your list because statistic after statistic proves that writing down goals results in much, much higher achievement rates.  Get to writing!!

As long as your list starts with the 2 things above, you will be starting well.  Take some time and make sure the rest of your list makes sense, too.  Where does work go?  Is it more important than time with friends?  How much does money matter to you?  How do you balance work, people, hobbies, etc.?  How much time do you spend on Facebook, and does it amount to anything?  Is fitness a priority?  How about learning new things?  Answering questions like these will help you get your list right.

So write out the good things God has done; give Him thanks; pray about how you spend your time, asking God to lead you where you can do better; examine your heart; write out your first things list for 2013; hold yourself accountable; get somebody you trust to hold you accountable to your list (and critique it if needbe).  You can make 2013 great.  Start right now!

Song of the Week #128

Everybody's Hungry

When you’re hungry, everything starts to look good.  Things that you otherwise overlook begin to grab your attention.  I’ve caught myself thinking about how good bread would be with Mt. Dew on one such occasion…even the cans of soup that are pushed waaaaaay to the back of the cabinet start sounding good.

What is true of the body holds true in other parts of life.  If someone is hungry for love and does not get it from the right places, then they will satisfy their hunger elsewhere.  (Little girls giving themselves away to boys at a young age.)  If someone is hungry for attention and does not get it from the right places, then they will satisfy their hunger elsewhere.  (Kids bullying others to feel like they matter.)  If someone is hungry for identity and does not get it from the right places, then they will satisfy their hunger elsewhere.  (People falling into corrupt groups of friends, gangs, etc.)  You know all of this.  I don’t need to spell it out for you.

We know the problems and would probably agree on a lot of the root causes.  Undoubtedly THE root cause to these, and every problem, is people being void of a relationship with God. Many of you would call me crazy, or too simple-minded for thinking that, but that’s ok.  I’m not actually here to debate that today.

I want to look at one specific issue:  truth.  Just like anything else, people hunger for this.  Even if it is only on an unconscious level, every person alive in some way values truth and wants to reap the benefits thereof.  Let’s look at it from the other side:  if you say you don’t really care about truth, then that means you don’t care if you get ripped off at the supermarket, if the government does as it says it will, if the water company decides to not give you water, if serial murderers are allowed to walk the streets, if 2 + 2 = 4.  Underlying all of these things are principles of truth.  Without something being counted on as true, then all of the things built upon them crumble…food prices can outrageously shift overnight, the government does as it pleases, your water can cut off at any time, a serial murdered goes on killing people at will, mathematics and anything remotely involving numbers falls apart.

If any of these sound familiar it’s because underlying truths are being deteriorated.  At some point, at some level, truths started being exchanged for lies.  We may not agree on where it started, but we can agree this is the reality.

So let’s examine the exchange of truth for lies in one specific area:  spiritual truth.  Again, whether people explicitly express a hunger for this or not, they want it at some level.  People want things to make sense.  People want the comfort of knowing there is something underlying everyday life that is more important and bigger than what they may be experiencing.

Now, just like everything else, if people are hungry for spiritual truth and do not get it from the right places, then they will satisfy their hunger with whatever is presented to them.  Think again about your physical body.  Those things that don’t look appetizing at all, that may even repulse you, start to look good once you get hungry enough.  The same holds for spiritual truth.  When there is a lack of good stuff, people will take anything!!!

We Christians wonder why, or how, people could be led into thinking things that are so unconscionable to us.  Let me tell you:  because we are not presenting the truth.  When presented with the real truth, and presented with a shadow of the truth, real truth prevails!  Truth is heavy.  When you weigh truth alongside lies, truth wins.  Lies, perversions, manipulative teaching…they are all left wanting.

A major part of why so much of the world is disillusioned right now and has been tricked into thinking all sorts of lies is because The Church (i.e. the people) hasn’t been boldly and faithfully telling others about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I’m not only referring to the story of Jesus, but also to the healing that is in His Name, the love that He has for us, the mercy that is there for us, the hope that we have found in Him, the peace that is ours for the taking.  We have been mediocre at doing what should come naturally:  telling people about what is good in our lives.  When we tell people the real truth of Jesus Christ, the relationship that we have with Him, and what He has done specifically for us, through us, and in us, then the Gospel is genuinely spread and things change!

All we can do is present the real truth.  If people reject it, then we pray for them and try again.  But I am convinced that nothing compares to the love of God through Christ Jesus.  All imposters, all fakes, and all lies cannot stand next to the absolute truth and be victorious—they will all be found wanting.

So let us no longer wonder why people are going after so many things that are impure shadows of the truth.  They are only doing what is natural to satisfy their cravings for spiritual truth.  If they know the Gospel and have rejected it, then we pray for their hearts to turn; however, if they have not been presented the truth, the REAL truth that is Jesus Christ, we must endeavor to serve up something that not only looks appealing to the eye, but satisfies once they taste it.  And, my friend, I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good!  Amen!!!

Song of the Week #127

Cry Out for the Youth

I read this and it rings true in my heart; I feel the Holy Spirit confirm it. Let's pray for revival on all fronts. But let us pray specifically for an awakening in the youth. A Word for 2013: Cry Out for a Youth Awakening