Big Time.

Right now, we are living in a moment when we all need a kind word or an act of random kindness. Whether you believe in Jesus as the Son of God or not, his message of inclusiveness, grace and mercy is something each one of us can resonate with. His call to a life of selfless service creates a relational atmosphere that we all want to be a part of.

So, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 4 use wisdom as you interact with the world around you. Be wise in your daily interactions. Be observant with the people you come in contact with each day in order to bring Jesus to them.

I am called to be transformed in Christ. Because I’ve said “yes” to the risen Savior, my life is very different than it was before. I become different than the world around me. But many times I get so focused on the noise around me I neglect the need for my behavior and language to be truly transformed. It’s so easy for me to be consumed with the way others are living that I forget I must be transformed first before I can enter God’s story to help transform others.

So Paul says make the most of every day. Thomas Edison said, “Most people miss their opportunity because it usually wears overalls and looks like work.” If a relationship looks like I will have to put some sweat equity in it, I tend to walk away. I mean, usually we love the spotlight. Those big splash moments when the world can see all we are doing for those around us. But most of the time, serving Jesus happens in quiet moments.

We make a difference for Jesus when we help a neighbor when the power is out or give money to help by school lunches for lower income kids on spring break or inviting a single person over for dinner to let them know they haven’t been forgotten. It’s when we offer to buy groceries for the shut in on our street or calling someone who is working through cancer treatments to remind them they are not alone or inviting that newly divorced person to coffee just to let them know they are known and prayed for.

Every single moment is sacred and redeemable to God. It’s more than just Sunday morning. But we tend to think a 30-minute message will fix what we spend six days breaking.

If COVID taught us anything, it was that we needed to slow down. These past 12 months reminded us that we’ve been running from one appointment to the next and missing opportunities to share Jesus with others. Make every moment count.

Equally, let your conversations be full of grace. Today, we tend to keep our face in our smart phone using our social apps to talk to people. Paul calls us to actually talk to people even when it’s uncomfortable. We have lost the art of conversation and now simply create monologue to file our opinion in public space. We need to listen more and talk less. We need to offer grace to others and extend the benefit of the doubt. We need to be more forgiving and less offended.

See, Jesus called us to be different. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, he says that we are salt and light. What does salt do? It brings flavor to what your cooking. It tenderizes the meat. So we in our lives should bring flavor to the interactions we engage in every single day. We should be tenderhearted toward those with whom we encounter daily. Make the most of every opportunity. Blessings on your journey.

Life is Good.

Have you ever watched any animal planet shows about raccoons? They are nocturnal creatures and very curious by nature. And they love shiny things. To catch a raccoon, put something shiny in a container with an opening just big enough to put their hand through. When they see it, they will reach in and grab hold of the item only now they can’t get their hand out of the hole. They will not let go of the shiny item. The key to their freedom is letting go but they refuse.

As humans, we are the same way. We take hold of pride, self-centeredness, egoism, and a life about “me” and we will not let go of that life. Paul knows that about us and address how we conquer that mindset and live more like Jesus. As he writes the church in Colossae, Paul tells them and us today what we need to do for a more Christ-like life in Colossians 3:12-15.

Paul starts by saying that everyday, we need to wear tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. If we decide everyday to put these five things on before we leave home, we’ll look just like Jesus.

You and I decide what shirt, pants and shoes to wear everyday before we leave the house. And Paul wants us to realize that if we believe Jesus is who he said he was (Colossians 1), and we do what Jesus wants us to do (Colossians 2), then we’ll live like Colossians 3.

I challenge you to post a note with those five things on it on your bathroom mirror or car dash to be reminded of how we are called to live everyday, living for Jesus’ glory and honor.

Paul also reminds us that we have been forgiven of our wrongdoing by God so we too must forgive others. We are currently a very offended people. We live currently in the so called, “Cancel culture”. Everything is changing and being cancelled because we are offended by it.

As a follower of Jesus, we must forgive and not hang on to the things people say and do to us that might make us feel bad. So many of us raise our hands in worship and when we do, God only sees the offense we are holding on to. God can’t put more blessings in your hands when they are full of other things.

Each of us want peace in our life. Paul tells us in verse 15 to let the peace of Christ live in your hearts. Our DNA allows us to be angry and upset. We can be angry about a family in a 3rd world country who doesn’t have money for food, medicines or shelter. They live on less than a dollar a day. That can bring a move on your part to help that change.

Or we can have some righteous indignation over people groups who do not have the Bible in their language. You and I probably have 2-3 Bibles in our home but it’s hard to believe some people have never heard of Jesus. So that can bring us to do something about it.

Anger can visit; it just can’t live in our hearts. Frustration can light a fire but not become our life. Letting the peace of Christ live in our hearts is the only way we will mature, grow up, have restful nights, and blossoming relationships. When we allow Jesus to rule our emotions and thoughts, we will have a better life.

What if you and I made a decision everyday to be people who are full of tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience for others? What if you and I made a decision to let go and forgive those who wrong us? What if we made a decision to be people of peace and change our circles of influence? Everyday is new. Everyday is a possibility for better. Blessings on your journey.

Jesus is Greater.

I know you hear so much of the noise going on in the world around you. You hear the marketplace wanting your time at work. You hear relationships begging to be poured into. You hear the cancel culture. You hear advertising battling for your last dollar. You hear the government prodding and poking you. So many things are telling you they are the hope for your future. But we all know, Jesus is the only hope we can count on.

In Colossians 2, Paul is reminding us, as Jesus-followers, there are some things we can do to stay focused, to stay ready, to stay anchored. He tells us in his fatherly voice, “I don’t want you to be deceived…” Paul is telling us that there are a lot of voices who will tell you they know what’s best, they know the best answer…just listen to them. But Paul wants to remind us how we stay grounded in the avalanche of information we currently experience in our culture.

Take look at Colossians 2:6-7. Paul is telling us how we can overcome the pressure to follow other voices.

Paul calls us into a real relationship with Jesus. You remember the first time you met your best friend? You may have hit it off right away but it wasn’t a real relationship yet. Those take years to develop. You must experience highs and lows together. You have to journey a while together. You build trust and faith in each other over time. Paul is saying, that’s how it is with Jesus. You must make a decision to live a lifetime with Jesus and develop the real relationship. As you journey, the trust you put in Jesus will prove that He is the only one in which you can hope.

Paul also wants us to think about agriculture and construction. “Let your roots grow down into Jesus…and build your life on him.” Paul is reminding us again, it takes time to gain what you hope for. There is a process to building a house and planting 40 acres. It will take months before either come to fruition. So it is with Jesus. And as Kingdom people, Paul is admonishing us to embrace the process.

In the church at Colossae, they had settled for a transactional moment. Paul calls us to live a transformational life. There is no doubt, each of us have a transaction with Jesus. We give him our past mistakes and he gives us grace, mercy, and forgiveness. But after that moment, our lives are continually transformed into one that looks more and more like Jesus’ life. Transformation is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight.

The church at Colossae had also settled for Jesus as an accessory. Paul calls us to make Jesus a priority. Jesus can’t just be part of your life. Jesus must BE your life. So many of us mistakenly listen to the cultural voices around us and choose it as our savior. We move the cross over and take our career and building wealth as the savior. Or we take our relationships with our kids or our marriage as the thing that will make us right. Or we allow our fear and anxiety take over our life. Or we believe a new president will be the answer and savior. But there is only one savior and his name is Jesus.

So Paul reminds us to focus on Jesus. Grow your roots down deeply into the Son of God. Build your life on the foundation of the King of kings. It’s then you will find everything you hoped for in this life and the next. Blessings on your journey.

Cancel the Noise.

We live in a culture with lots of noise. There is always something vying for our attention. We’ve endured the noise created by COVID-19. With this virus, we’ve felt the loss of our heath and some all the way to death. We’ve felt the loss of community whether with our family, friends, or faith group. We’ve felt the loss of our income and any wealth we had stored up.

The noise from the recent tumultuous election cycle has been very loud. We have a new president who is in the process of changing things from the prior administration. And I don’t think the noise from the last administration is gone either. Just yesterday, I saw a large group by the roadside waving Trump flags and it’s March.

The noise from all the recent natural disasters has been prominent. Whether it’s the recent snow-maggedon here in Texas to the number of wildfires out west or the hurricanes to our south to the tornados in the south. We’ve been devastated and wrecked.

As a nation, we’ve lost our moral compass. The noise from the media and social media is overwhelming. For those who follow Christ, gird your loins. It’s time to take a stand for Jesus. I pray for my grandchildren and their children. They are going to have to stand for Jesus like I never had to.

All this noise in our culture is pulling our attention, our eyes, our focus off the one thing that matters and that is Jesus Christ. He is and will always be our only hope for a better tomorrow and having a life to it’s fullest capacity.

Paul wants to reiterate that idea in his letter to the church in Colossae in the New Testament. Paul opens that letter describing an incredible Jesus to a church lost in the noise of their culture some 2000 years ago. They are not too different than we are. The Colossian Church had two groups. One group leaned into the magical and mysterious side of spiritualism. They loved Jesus but said there was also something more. It was an unknown knowledge and if you could tap into it, you’d be closer to God. The other group were legalist who said if you just say the right things, wear the right things, go to the right places, discipline your body a certain way, you’d have a connection to our Heavenly Father.

Paul tells them they are both wrong. The only thing they need to do is fix their eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of their faith. Paul describes Jesus as God and supreme over all things. There is no one and no thing greater than Jesus. He only will connect you to God the Father. He alone is who our focus is. No secret knowledge and no ascetic lifestyle will save you. It’s Jesus.

Paul goes on to tell us Jesus is creator and holds all things together. It’s Jesus creating all things. There is nothing above, on or under the earth that King Jesus has not touched. And because of that, he alone is holding together our fractured nation, our marriages, our kids, our health, our churches. Only Jesus can hold it and make it right again.

Jesus is also undefeated. There is no other things seen or unseen that can proclaim that. Jesus has conquered the grave and death. He’s already won the battles and the war. Because he is an overcomer, those of us found in him are also overcomers. Be conquering all things, Jesus also became our reconciler. It’s through Jesus that we are one with the Father. Jesus came to make things right. It’s at the foot of his cross that we know our brokenness can be healed.

And finally, the age old question, “What’s my purpose?” Jesus is your purpose. You can be awesome at sports, grind out the 9-5, be an wonderful parent but if you aren’t doing life to the glory of God, it’s all a waste. We were made by him and FOR him. My purpose is to lift up the Name of Jesus everyday in my life. Giving him glory in all I do and say.

So, don’t be distracted by our current culture. Don’t let the voices tell you one thing or another. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Let him cancel the noise around you so you focus on his saving, peaceful voice. Blessings on the journey.

Standing Firm.

As I get older I realize that its no good being passive. It's not a Godly attitude or stance to take. Passiveness in the face of evil or the enemy is plain wrong. It’s time we stand firm as followers of Jesus in the example he gave us and how he’s called us to live each day. Don’t let fear quiet you down but live out loud for the cause of Jesus.

We always need to remember that we already have the victory, in all aspects of our lives. God reminds us in His word that the sacrifice on the cross made by Jesus brings us spiritual and physical blessings.

In the Old Testament we have the great section in Isaiah prophesying about the Messiah and what his sacrifice will do for us.

The Prophet Isaiah reminds us in Isaiah 53:5, “But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.”

In case some wish to leave it as simply historical His Word repeats the same in the New Testament in 1 Peter where Peter repeats, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.”

It is simply not possible to deny that Christ has brought us healing in all aspects of our life both spiritual and physical. It is in him that we find wholeness and peace, centeredness and clarity. We have already won the victory in Christ Jesus. We have overcome because He was able to overcome. We need to remember that and to claim it, to command victory into our situations, always! Blessings on your journey!

There's No Place like Home.

I remember taking some graduated high school seniors on a short term mission trip to Jamaica. We had so much fun teaching the village kids with a VBS style agenda all week. But one of our guys got really sick to his stomach and the last night there wanted me to take him to the hospital. We could not go, he wanted his mom and it was a reminder there is no place like home.

Home is our anchor. For many of us in Texas, we endured the brunt of last week’s winter storm in our home. Some of us did without electricity, gas and water but even so, we had the comfort of being in our home with our family. There’s just no place like home.

As believers in Jesus, we must remember that our home is not here on earth. This is a place we are passing through. We have a built in desire to go back home. Each of us has a God-hole in our innermost being that will never be filled until we are reunited with our creator. Paul tells us as much in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.”

When we are finally at our real home with Jesus, we won’t have to worry about COVID or federal taxes or cancer or out-of-stock grocery stories or death or wearing a mask or anything that is defined by our fallen state. Whatever disability you have to work around, in heaven, it will not exist! Why? Because we’ll be home reunited with our Creator whose promised to make everything new (see Revelation 21:1-4)!

How can we have hope? Because of your identity. You belong to God. This idea goes all the back to the exodus account of God freeing his people from their enslavement in Egypt. And God, through his Son Jesus Christ, has freed us from our enslavement to sin as well. He has brought us from darkness to light. See, our identity is not in your job, or your bank account, or your family name, or your relationships…our identity is in Jesus Christ. The minute you reconcile that idea, your life will be transformed.

The transformation you see reveals itself in your life and how you interact with those you see everyday. The world looks at how you respond to what’s going on around you and says, “Wow! This person is so different. How are they able to respond this way?” So because this world is not your home, you respond in a way that brings Jesus glory. When you are cut off in traffic or when the wait staff gets your order wrong or when a coworker lies to you or when a family member takes advantage of you. Your response is offered in the way Jesus has changed you. You don’t answer the way the world would because your citizenship in heaven requires you answer the way Jesus would.

Your time here on earth is short. Eternity is forever. Live in such a way as to positively draw attention to our brother and king, Jesus. Remind those around you that your been changed. Let your actions speak loudly that you recognize your home is not here but in heaven. Blessings on your journey.

You Hit the Jackpot!

1 Peter 2:9–10 (ESV): "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

Understanding your identity before and after faith in Christ is paramount to proclaiming the excellencies of Him who called us.It's a true rags to riches story wrought in the mercy of God. 

The mercy of God is a wonderful thing.He doesn't give us what we deserve. We deserve judgment but God has given us an opportunity through His Son to obtain an inheritance beyond belief.He has called us out of darkness into marvelous light.You are chosen to be His children and if children then heirs (Rom 8:17), a royal priesthood called to be holy for He is holy.As we live in the identity Christ died to give us we become testimonies of His excellence. 

Live out your true identity Christian.Your Father in heaven owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps 50:17).You have been promised all that He has and far more than you even know.Don't live defeated!You have been given a heritage through Christ of honor and valor, live it out.Be fierce with your love and selfless in your service. This is who God made you to be!

So, live as though you know exactly who you are and that you’ve been chosen to be a child of the Most High God. Live with that smile on your face making those you’re around wonder what you are up to and never put your identity in anything that perishes but in the one who calls you his own. Blessings on the journey!

Hope will not be Cancelled.

Have you ever had it rough? I mean, things at the end of the day were just not going your way. I was a small guy in junior high and high school so I got bullied a lot. More days than not it was a difficult day in school. Maybe you’ve had difficult days in your marriage, on your job or just physically worn out due to sickness.

The Apostle Peter knows about difficult days. His letter in the New Testament that we call 1 Peter is a reminder that as a Christian, you will have difficult days. But different than the tough days I already described, Peter reminds us that we’ll have tough days simply because we follow Jesus. Peter is writing followers of Jesus in modern day Northern Turkey. Rome is in power and those that follow Jesus are experiencing very difficult times because of that very thing. Peter’s letter is showing us how to live out our faith despite difficult days.

Peter reminds us that Jesus is the source of our hope. People will let us down. Careers have an ending point. Friends will betray us. But Jesus will walk with us no matter what is going on around us. We may place our hope in athletics, family, friends, the bank, retirement or our intellect but our living hope is found in Jesus Christ.

Peter also reminds us that we have true joy in Jesus Christ. It’s more than tolerating the temporary problems to get to the eternal life promised. It’s about how we live in the face of true adversity and chaos with a smile on our face. Hope isn’t just about the future. It’s about the present as well. As tough as our current culture is, this is a movement for faith to shine brightly and hope to float. Peter reminds us to keep our current situation in perspective against the backdrop of the glory of our risen Savior.

And Peter reminds us that our faith is actually strengthened through adversity and suffering. While we experience difficult moments in our life, remember that Peter is writing to Christians who could be arrested, unemployed, offered no housing or even killed because of their belief in Jesus Christ. While our difficulties exist every day, I doubt any of us are having to experience what those first century Christians experienced for their faith in Jesus.

Just remember, the tough days of this life will not even compare to the brilliant and wonderful years we’ll experience when Jesus comes back for us. When Satan turns up the heat on your life, know that it is building character and a refining faith in you. Smile with joy in knowing that nothing can ever remove you from the hand of God. We are only passing through this life. Our goal is to live eternally with the Living Hope whose name is Jesus. Blessings on your journey.

Forgiveness unlocks the door.

You’ve had those moments. When you did something that really hurt someone you love. Maybe as a kid, you disappointed your parents by taking something that didn’t belong to you. Or maybe you said hurtful words to your parents. Or Maybe you betrayed a trust that a spouse had in you. There are so many different ways we need forgiveness in our life.

Wrong-doing or sin in the spiritual sense is when we miss the mark of how God has called us to live. It’s when we fall short to the expectations Jesus gives us to live a life as his disciple or follower. When we act out in ways that are un-godly or unlike Jesus, we call that sin. And relationally we know there are two realities we cannot deny.

Sin separates us from God so we need forgiveness. There are things we can do that we know we should not and there are things we know to do that we don’t. Either way, when we miss the mark of how God has called us to live, it’s sin. We need forgiveness for our mistakes from our Almighty God.

Forgive means to wipe the slate clean, to pardon and to cancel a debt. And Jesus offers to clean up our mess is we surrender to his Lordship and rule in our life. So when we say “yes” to following Jesus, we are saying “yes” to a repentant life and confess to God, and others, where we have gone wrong.

Now it’s easy to give a generic “I have messed up” but at the heart of forgiveness is acknowledging how it is you have sinned. So naming your sin out loud in your prayer life is so cleansing and a release. You will feel the burden lift from you as you talk to God about the type of person you want to be. We all need Jesus. No one is “good enough” to get to heaven on their own. So we need God’s forgiveness but there is also a second reality.

Sin separates us from others so we need to forgive them for how they have hurt us along the way. Forgiving someone is the act of setting someone free. We all want forgiveness for our poor choices but when it comes to others, we become very particular. We set qualifiers in place: “If they really repent…”, “If they ask me…”, “If enough time passes…", “If they make good on what they owe me…”. There are a number of ways we make excuses of why we can’t forgive someone

In the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus says something interesting. He says, “If you forgive others, God will forgive you. If you don’t forgive others, God will not forgive you.” To the extent you will forgive is the amount you’ll be forgiven. Wow! That is tough.

But forgiveness is a process. Some of you have endured very difficult moments where offering forgiveness is needed from the drunk driver who took away a loved one to slurs about your ethnicity to hurtful words spoken by your parents. Some things definitely take longer to work through than others. What I’m saying though, as a Kingdom person, would you be willing to begin the process? Who will you begin to free today? Who will you release?

The beautiful thing about forgiveness is when you free that someone who hurt you, you become free yourself in the process! You discover that the entire time you held the key to your own prison door.

But too many times, we think revenge instead of forgiveness. But the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 12:17-21 that we leave the score-keeping to God. As followers of Jesus, we look at his example for us and mirror how he lived life. While Jesus hung on the cross, he asked God to forgive those who killed him. Kingdom people have a willingness to forgive.

So, may you find the courage to forgive. May you discover there’s a better way. May you unlock the door to your prison and run free. May the hurt that you’ve endured melt away in the shadow of the cross of Jesus. As Charles Spurgeon once said: “Go to Calvary to learn how you may be forgiven and then linger there to learn how to forgive others.” Blessings on your journey.

Could I have mine now?

I remember going to the store as a kid and often asking if I could have a toy or at least some candy. I asked every. single. time. I was certain those were things that I needed. But in fact, they were things that I wanted. There is a difference in the two but as Americans, I’m not sure we understand that concept.

Jesus is teaching us how to pray in Matthew 6. As Christians, we know prayer is an essential part of our daily life. Since God is our father and we are his children, we have this close, personal relationship with him. He wants to know what’s going on in your life whether good or bad. He wants to hear our requests made to him. So, one of the lines of provision in prayer is found half-way through where Jesus prays, “Give us today what we need today.”

As I think about that line, there are so many things that come to mind. I think about close-to-home moments that we are effected by each day. When we have bills we can’t pay, we need enough of an income to cover those debts. During this economic downturn, we need food for the table and to be able to make it stretch. For that newly divorced parent wondering how they will provide for their children. For the home owner whose repair bills are piling up. For the recent retiree hoping they have enough to last. For those with health concerns and those whose marriage is hanging on by a thread. There seems to be so many different things we need today from our Heavenly Father. It calls us to two types of living as followers of Jesus Christ.

As believers, we must have a commitment to dependence on God. Truly, God owns it all anyway. We are simply managers of the blessings he gives us. We must trust him to provide and have faith that he will not leave us alone to figure it out.

Take the Jews during the Exodus story. They have left Egypt but are not in the Promised Land yet. They are wandering. They began to complain that they had nothing to eat. So God sends bread from heaven. They called it “manna”. They woke up each morning and there is was all over the ground. God told them to pick up just enough to feed their family for one day. If they picked up more, there would be worms in the bread the next morning. It was God reminding them to depend on him for what they needed on a daily basis.

Jesus even goes on in Matthew 6:25-34 challenging us not to worry about tomorrow. It doesn’t add one hour of peace to your life when we worry. Jesus says to focus on today. God has your back. He won’t let you down. We can trust him to give us today what we need.

But we are also called to be committed to be content with our life and what God gives us. The Apostle Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 that we should be content with what God gives and that in itself is a great wealth. When we trust God to provide, it moves us to be satisfied. We end up worrying less and grateful for what we do have in our life.

See, instead of focusing on the Bread of Life, that’s Jesus, we get distracted by the toppings. We want wealth, Instagram popularity, a big title on our office door. We get consumed with our kids and what sporting team we can get them on. We get sidetracked by physical relationships rather than a relationship with our Heavenly Father.

But Jesus reminds us in John 6 that he is the Bread of Life. He will sustain us. He will make sure we are taken care of every day. We are called to put our trust in him for our needs. I’m called to let go of control, to give up my life, and know we serve an incredible God who knows me by name and my story.

The challenge today is to live one day at a time knowing you can fully trust in God to provide for you. He’s got your back. He won’t let you down. Blessings on the journey.