The Lord Is My Shepherd - Psalms 23

Psalms 23
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever."

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Well I am off to Bangalore, India tomorrow (Tuesday) night. I will arrive in Bangalore early Thursday morning after transiting through Frankfurt Germany. I always love visiting India and my team there, but a little part of me is also hesitant to leave my home and travel to the other side of the world. Additionally while I am there, I need to be "on" the entire time as I meet with and present to the 300-person office. For you fellow introverts, you know this is always a somewhat draining experience (mind you we have learned how to do it well, but it is still draining).

But just like the pilots of the planes I will be traveling on, we have a map of how to get to our "final" destination. And not only do we have a map, but unlike the pilots, we have direct access to the map maker to help explain any problems in our interpretation. As I was meditating the other day, Psalms 23 just popped into my head, and when I read it, a real peace came over me. Read the entire passage above again, and just list out all the promises that God has for us if we just put our trust in him. Here's a quick list of what I came up with: guidance, comfort, solace, confidence, protection, healing, abundance, righteousness, goodness, mercy, and best of all - Eternal Life!

As I travel this week and next, I pray I will remember to put my trust in the Lord and allow him to be my shepherd and to guide me where he will have me go. I pray I will find comfort and solace and confidence knowing that I am within his hedge of protection. I would also pray that wherever you will be this week, that you too would put your complete trust in the One who can protect and guide us through anything on this earth.

Please pray for my travels and if you have time, let me know you are praying for me and if the Lord is speaking to you! Thanks for your encouragement!

...and don't forget to love God with all your heart, love others as He does, and use every minute for His will and to His glory!

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Check out the performance below by Cissy Houston (mother of Whitney). If you have never been to an African American church, you need to go just for the music alone - let alone the on-fire preaching and free worship!

The Lord Is My Shepherd - Cissy Houston
http://youtu.be/1iql92NWt30

The Heart of Worship is Surrender - Romans 6:13

Romans 6:13
"Give yourselves to God... Surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes."

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Chapter 10 of the book Purpose Driven Life is called "The Heart of Worship". It simply states that the heart of worship is surrender. What do you think when you hear the word surrender? Do you say "Never Surrender!" like a wartime battle cry? If winning is everything, why would be surrender?

Well God's word says that unless you empty yourself, and fill yourself with Christ, then you are ultimately defeated. And Romans 12:1 calls us to offer ourselves as a "living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer". C.S. Lewis even says that "The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because he made us." So if we are going to truly honor and worship our God and follow his will for our lives, then we need to surrender to that will and that plan.

Sometimes, especially in contemporary services, we make worship all about the music. In fact, we even call the music "worship" sometimes. I am sure many of you are already humming the song "Heart of Worship" by Matt Redman. Well Matt Redman's church was known for great worship music. But his pastor observed that many people were getting too hung up on how the music sounded, rather than what the song and lyrics really meant. So the Pastor banned all music for a period so that the people could focus on Christ and just approach the throne and truly worship him. During this time, Matt wrote this song and you can see from the first lines of the song how it impacted him ("When the music fades...and all has slipped away...and I simply come. Longing just to be...something that's of worth...that will bless Your heart.")

In our worship, we need to simply come to Jesus and pray that we will bless his heart. The next time you are in a service and you are singing a praise song or a hymn, stop singing for a minutes or two. Just listen to the words and repeat those words back to God as a prayer. And remember that worship is all about surrendering to our Jesus. As the song chorus says" It's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus".

...and don't forget to love God with all your heart, love others as He does, and use every minute for His will and to His glory!

"Heart of Worship" video
http://youtu.be/a1X_ev2OILA

"Heart of Worship" lyrics
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mattredman/theheartofworship.html

Greed is NOT Good - I Timothy 6:7-10

I Timothy 6:7-10
"For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
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Many of you may remember the 1980s movie "Wall Street". It was a top grossing movie and one of the most famous lines from the movie was "Greed is good" (http://youtu.be/PF_iorX_MAw). I would bet that almost 30 years later, many Americans would still view greed as a good thing. Webster defines greed as "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (especially money) than is needed. So is greed, in any form, good?

Well, let's see what God's word has to say about greed. Greed is mentioned in our verse today and it draws a direct connection between greed (the love of money), and straying from your faith. It also more pointedly says that the desire to be rich, will cause you to fall into temptation and harmful lusts and lead to destruction. In Luke 11:39, Jesus even exposes the greed of the Pharisees and calls it wicked. Note to reader: You don't ever want to be on the side of the Pharisees in Jesus' parables. ;)

The topic of "your" money is probably one of the sermons topics that many ministers avoid the most (maybe only second to sexual temptation). Since we have already covered sexual temptation and purity in my devotion on Aug 18th, I thought I could jump right into this topic as well! So does the Bible, and Jesus especially, talk about money that much? Well, money is mentioned literally hundreds of times in the Bible (about 1/3 of the parables discuss money, and Jesus talked about money more than heaven and hell combined). If Jesus spent so much time discussing money with his early disciples and followers, don't you think we should give it some of our attention also?

For me, the teachings of Jesus on money come down to this. We need to realize that everything we have on this earth is a blessing from God - it is all His and just on loan to us to steward and use to His Glory! In the Old Testament, the tithe was the standard of giving. But with Jesus, he wants it all! He wants all of our heart and if we have an inflated love of money, then we crowd out the space intended for him to dwell in us. You cannot serve two masters! Who are you going to serve?

At the risk of offending anyone (and we should all be "offensive for Jesus" more often), I ask each of you to honestly evaluate what place money holds in your life. How much of your income are you giving back to God? Are you hung up on whether God wants you to give based on your net income or on your gross income? Do you think that donating your time is a worthy substitute for donating your dollars? Do you keep saying that once you get your finances in order, then you will give more? Do you rationalize lower giving goals because you say the kids or grand-kids need it? Do you think you are too young to give more, or too old? Do you need to save "enough" for retirement first, and then you will give more to God? Do you use the 10% tithe as an ultimate and final goal to give, or do you strive to give even more than the tithe?

Ouch! Some of those questions may have hit home and stung a little for you - I know some did for me! We need to be convicted and stung a bit though sometimes and I know God will use that sore and softened heart to speak directly to you. Study on this topic, meditate on his word, talk to your pastor or spiritual mentor, pray about it. And after fervent prayer, I challenge all of you to step up your giving to your church and other Christian charities. Step out in faith and God will meet you there. I cannot tell you how many times we have increased our giving in faith and he has blessed us both financially and spiritually. So, don't hold back God's blessings, give of yourselves and your money to further his will and his kingdom.

...and don't forget to love God with all your heart, love others as He does, and use every minute for His will and to His glory!

Lord, Help My Unbelief - Mark 9:24

Mark 9:24
"Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!""

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This past weekend, we traveled to Ohio for Faith to tour the University of Akron and to spend time with our families there. It was a great weekend of watching the nephews play football, hanging out with family and also worshiping together on Sunday. Linda asked me to sing at her church and God laid on my heart to sing "Give Me Jesus" by Fernando Ortega. Through our trials this year, God has retaught me that I cannot solve all our problems, and that I need to turn every part of my life over to Jesus. Simply put, Jesus is all we need.

The passage today was one of the scriptures that the Pastor used in his Sermon. His message was on a broader theme, but I as read these verses from Mark again today, I was reminded about how we all struggle with unbelief sometimes. This world we live in bombards us with so much that is against our faith. We are continually told to put our faith and our trust in so many other things. But we know that there is only One that will always come through for us and will always be there for us.

So, why do we let unbelief creep into our lives sometimes? Well first, I don't think we should be too hard on ourselves. The disciples (who literally walked with Jesus) also had unbelief. In Matt 17:14-21 Jesus explains that they could not heal an epileptic boy "because of their unbelief". So, we should not feel less of a Christian if we have bouts of unbelief.  And we should more often share our doubts with other believers and allow God to speak through his body to grow our faith (you can always send me emails or call with any doubts you want to share!).  Ultimately, I do think the primary reason that Satan gets a foothold of unbelief in our lives is because we are not continually hearing God's word and we are not spending enough time in relationship and conversation with Jesus.

So, yes we need to cry out to our Lord and ask for him to help us in our unbelief. But we also need to help ourselves by studying, praying, fasting, fellowshiping with others believers, and communing with our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll close today with a song lyric by Alison Krauss from "A Living Prayer" (full song linked below). In the song, she says "In Your love, I find release, a haven from my unbelief". Remember that Jesus is your haven from anything that will attack you from this world. Seek Him always!

...and don't forget to love God with all your heart, love others as He does, and use every minute for His will and to His glory!

"A Living Prayer" - Alison Krauss
http://youtu.be/5gmVzbjxwl4