Get the Soil Good!

May is a month of miracles!  Believe it.  God is moving and doing things.  This summer is going be full of the supernatural!  I can't wait.

I encourage you to get ready before the blessings come...so that way you'll be able to steward what the Lord pours out.  Go read my blog entitled "How's Your Soil?" for a more in-depth look at what I'm talking about.  Here's the gist:  you can control how your heart is, and how you receive what God gives you.  If your heart (the soil) isn't ready to fully receive and nurture what is deposited, then it probably won't grow to full fruition.  Therefore, GET YOUR SOIL READY NOW!!!

If you are ready with good soil, then trials/persecutions/trouble/heat won't steal the word that has been deposited into your heart; nor will they steal your joy!  Instead, your faith will rise up and God will move to honor His word.  It's the truth.  Let's all get ourselves ready.

Father God, reveal to us the things we need to change and get rid of.  Help us by the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to put away those things that need to go, and get rid of the things that separate us from You.  You are better than anything and Your love is more valuable to us than anything else.  We love You and praise You, and we thank You for loving us in spite of our sin.  Thank You for sending Your One and Only Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place for our transgressions.  And thank You for new life in You through Your Son.  In Jesus Christ of Nazareth's Mighty and Magnificent and Holy Name, Amen!!!

If you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, ask Him into your heart today.  Here is a prayer you can pray to God, and give the meaning to it as you pray it.  God will hear you, and you will be forgiven of your sins:

God in Heaven, in Jesus Christ's Name, I pray to You.  I confess I'm a sinner in need of a Savior.  I ask you to forgive me for all of my sins.  I am truly sorry for my sins and turn away from them and walk towards You; I will seek after You now.  Jesus, I ask You to please come into my heart and be the lord of my life.  I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  I confess Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.  I believe that He died for me and took my sins upon Himself.  I believe that He was buried and then came back to life--He conquered death!  Therefore, I have eternal life through Him!  Thank you for saving me, Jesus.  I love You, and thank You for loving me.  In Jesus Christ's Name, Amen.

You just made the best decision you've ever made!  You are literally a new creation!  Now go and let this prayer be the first step in your new life.  Find a Bible and start reading it.  Find a Bible-believing church and start going.  Pray to God everyday and ask Him to come into your heart more and more.  I'm so glad to now call you a brother, or a sister :)  May God bless you as you start your journey towards knowing Him more.

Love in Christ,

Adam

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!!!

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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.

I'm Having Isaacs

One of the hardest things I have to do is not push so hard that I end up messing things up. When I want something to happen I want it to be done as quickly as possible and in the most excellent way possible. When I know something should happen, I see no point in waiting. Anybody else?

Well the hard part is this: it seems that some things take time. And I hate that. I see all this time transpire between a dream and reality, between a desire and fulfillment, between a promise and the manifestation of the promise…and I can’t help but to think that a lot of that time is wasted. All of that time sitting around and waiting could be used to pursue other dreams if the initial one would hurry up and happen. If you know me at all, you know I hate wasting time.

One thing I can’t push though is God’s timing. I don’t understand why I feel urgency with a promise He has given me and it seems as though that urgency isn’t shared by Him. I have no clue why sometimes a promise will come in an instant and sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize. The very fact that I don’t understand it makes it all the more frustrating!

There’s a million different ways to possibly explain why things take a long time…maybe God is waiting on me to do ‘x’, or maybe my character can’t handle this yet, or maybe He wants to see if I believe Him, etc, etc, etc. Whatever the reason may be, the bottom line is this: the thing I am hoping for is not happening yet.

So I’m left waiting and hoping and trusting and believing in God’s promise…which I’m SO ready to watch happen, but for some reason it is taking longer than I think it should. It is in these times where I try to remind myself not to push so hard. I can’t make the promise of God happen in my life. I can, however, make imposters of that promise if I’m not careful. Let me explain using Abram from the Bible.

Abram had a promise from God that he would be made “into a great nation” (Genesis 12:2), that he would have offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5), and that the promise would come to fulfillment through his own son (Genesis 15:4). Abram tried to have children with his wife, Sarai, but was having no success. Sarai comes to the conclusion that the Lord is keeping her from having children, and suggests that Abram sleep with her maidservant, Hagar, so that they could build the family through her. So Abram married Hagar as well, and she became pregnant.

This is where they messed up. God had already ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:19-24). In their efforts to find a way to make the word of God come to pass, they violated the marriage covenant. They reasoned that the word of God was true, but since it was taking too long to happen then they should try something else.

The error here is not in trying. Partnering with God in seeing His word culminate is usually a good thing. A large amount of the time, God’s promise coming to pass in your life will require effort and movement on your end. And if something isn’t working after a while, then it only makes sense to seek out other possible ways of going about things. However, the error happens when our reasoning trumps the word of God. “How did their reasoning trump God’s word?” you ask. This is how: they overstepped a boundary previously established in attempting to make the word happen. They let their own ideas supersede their faith in seeing the word come to pass. They regressed into only seeing the word come to pass in ways they could understand. When getting pregnant didn’t work for them within the confines of what God had laid out, they decided that they could conceive via another woman. Their faith only went as far as their understanding and reasoning could take them.

To make a long story short, Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, gave birth to Ishmael. After Ishmael was a teenager, God again told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4), and this time the Lord specifically indicated that his wife, Sarah, would conceive even though she was very old and beyond the age of child bearing (Genesis 17:15-16). Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Isaac. When Isaac was still very young, Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away. Abraham obliged after the Lord assured Abraham that it was through Isaac that his “offspring will be reckoned” (Genesis 21:12). Thus, the Lord honored his word and opened the barren womb of Sarah in her old age…blowing the minds and the reasoning of everyone.

If we aren’t careful, we can push past God’s timing. Though we may make something happen it may turn out to be a copy of the promise, not the real thing. We can definitely try different things in partnering with God to see His promise come to pass, but let us be very mindful to stay within the confines of what He has laid out. Also, may we all (especially me) embrace the fact that we don’t understand everything about how God’s promise plays out…that our reasoning is not big enough to grasp the ways of our Creator. As much as I hate waiting, I much rather wait on God’s timing than end up with duplicates. I’m having Isaacs.

RELEASE

My blog today is just gonna be a simple word I got during our service earlier tonight:

How many times does God have to tell you something before you listen?

Somebody tonight released some things they were holding onto...things that got in the way of their relationship with the Lord. "Release" was what I was feeling in my spirit that needed to happen for somebody. Maybe it's for you, too.

If it is you, then you know that this word is for you, too. Go ahead and get rid of whatever it is that is getting in the way of your relationship with your Creator right now. Release it. Give it to the Lord. Be done with it right now. And watch what wonderful things He does with your heart and life when it's fully surrendered to Him. It's gonna be great!! Amen!!!! Love yall.

In Jesus Christ's Amazing and Never-Ending Love,

adam

Be More Faithful

Don’t you hate it when people tell you they will do something and then don’t follow through? Or they commit to doing something, but then they back out? Or how about when they say they’ll be there at 7pm, only to show up around 8 or 9…how mad does that make you?

I know that kind of stuff kills me. When people continually break promises, back out, and show up late it makes it very, very hard for me to place any kind of confidence in them. Not only that, but it also makes me wonder if they value my time at all. I’ve heard it said before by people much wiser than me that if someone is habitually late then they consider their own time more valuable than everyone else’s; that is, whether that person realizes it or not (doing it intentionally, or unintentionally), they place a higher premium on their own time than they do yours. Ever known a person like that?

Ok, next question: how often are you that person? How often do you break your commitments? Back out? Reschedule? Show up late? Are you the one that is making a habit of placing your own time above other people’s time?? If the answer is yes, then it is time for you to change!!

As Christians, we should constantly be pursuing after the character of God. That means we should seek to emulate His ways and His characteristics so that we will be more like Him. It seems that we focus on certain characteristics like love, patience, and kindness—which are all wonderful—but neglect other parts of His character. Is God not also faithful?! Does He not remain true to His Word?! Why should we work on ourselves in all these other areas but not strive to be more like Our Father in this area?

Let me be blunt with you today. If you are a Christian, you should be faithful. When you give your word to do something, you should follow through. When you say you’ll help with something, you should show up to do it. When you say “7pm”, you should be there at, or before, 7pm. It is very simple really: your “yes” should be yes, and your “no” should be no.

As humans, we will screw up, and we will let people down. Only God is 100% faithful, 100% of the time. But we can be more like Him in this respect. I’ll leave you with 3 simple tips today that can help you be more faithful:

1. Consider before committing. Before you say “yes”, make sure that you are up to the task. Check your schedule, check your bank account, check your personal commitment level to this particular thing.

2. Learn to say “no”. If you foresee potential conflicts, don’t bind yourself. Although it may be hard to say “no” on the spot to someone, it will be much more beneficial to you both than if you cancel later.

3. Leave early. If you really want to get better at being on time, leave at least 15 minutes earlier than you normally would. It is human nature to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do something…we don’t take into account little things like the time it takes to gather our stuff before we head out the door, unforeseen traffic, parking, time it takes to walk from the parking lot to the destination, etc. If you arrive early, then great! You are showing the other person that their time is valuable to you.

May we all be more like Him every day. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Provision

A few months ago, I had 2 dreams that I didn’t understand. So I took them to my friend, and my most reliable dream interpreter, Stephanie (shoutoutcafe.com). Sparing you the details of the dreams, the overriding theme of them both was that finances would not be an issue in my life. That’s good news to hear! Especially when you’re a worship leader!

For the next few days, I was really happy thinking about the dreams I’d been given. I was telling some of my friends how awesome it was, and just thanking God for the reassurance. However, a few weeks passed and I found myself worrying about money again. I was in the process of moving and facing the prospect of more bills and purchasing new things, and I was trying to make sure all the numbers would be right.

Well, I don’t remember the specific day it was, but it hit me that I had kind of lost hold of the promise the Lord had given me. I realized that I was trying to do things in my own power instead of just relying on Him. So I made up my mind to wholeheartedly trust in Him…even when I don’t understand anything about how something is going to work. I decided to take Him at his word, and believe exactly what He had said to me.

Wouldn’t you know that things are going just fine :) God is taking care of my needs and then some. Needs have been met by people seemingly coming out of the woodwork. I’ve actually had to turn down some people’s offers of generosity because I have no physical room for it! Praise the Lord!

I don’t want you to hear me wrong today. I’m not suggesting that we serve some “cosmic lotto god” that we just ask for material things we want on a whim and see them appear before our eyes; I’m betting that if you ask God for a Ferrari it will not magically manifest in your driveway. Nor am I suggesting that we should neglect our finances or fail to intelligently plan for the future. No. What I am saying is that if you put your hope, faith, and trust in the God of Israel you will always be taken care of.

God will make a way for you. If you are a born-again believer and follower of Jesus Christ, then you have nothing to worry about when it comes to having your needs met—spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially, mentally, etc. The promise of provision covers everything.

I’m not the only one that shouldn’t be worrying about making things work, making ends meet, making sure needs are met. You shouldn’t either. Yes, I had a dream that was reassurance from the Lord, but all Christians have promises of provision from God in the Bible. For example, 2nd Corinthians 9:8 says, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” Here are a few other verses that address this topic specifically: Matthew 6:31-33; Matthew 7:11; Luke 12:28; Psalm 37:25; Psalm 84:11.

God provides, my friend. Take it, bank on it, believe it, and stand on it. Amen.