Fearful of God's Path or Plan

Have you ever known God's plan for you but have been scared to do what you know He is wanting you to do?

I have. In fact, I am in that place right now. I hope to be able to share more about the details of this plan in the near future. For now I think it will be best for everyone to say that God has been dealing with me on my own sermon from last Sunday. I have some people that I need to reconcile with. It is my hope that these issues will be resolved no later than the end of this coming week.

I am not sure I have ever been in a place like this. I have been nervous about doing something but I have never been this scared. I am not sure what the fear is about. I know in my head that it is Satan trying to prevent me from following God's path. Have you ever been in this kind of place? If so I would love to hear about it.

Division and Unity in the Church

I was wanting to put an outline of my sermon here but since I never made one and God changed things as I was preaching, I cannot put one here. However, you can listen to sermon here.

The Power of a Man of God

Do you realize the incredible power that a man or woman of God posses?

If you have accepted Christ as your Savior do you realize that the Holy Spirit lives within you? Do you understand what that means?

Do others around you see the power of God in your life?

In 2 Kings 1 we see what can happen when Christians truly live as though the have the power of God flowing through their veins. In this opening chapter of 2 Kings we read about how fire came down and consumed the enemies (the 2 captains) of Elijah the prophet. The King had sent these 2 captains to summon Elijah down from the Hill. These two men essentially attempted to order Elijah of of the hill. When the 3rd captain arrived he had learned from the mistakes of the first 2. He had a much different attitude when he approached the prophet. He humbled himself before Elijah and acknowledged that he was a "Man of God" and that because of this he had great power. Because of this change in attitude this captain's life and the lives of the 50 men with him were spared (unlike the 1st two groups).

So do people see the power of God in your life? If not, why not?

Is it because you are not living like the Holy Spirit lives in you or is it because the Holy Spirit does not live in you?

It is something to ponder on! :)

World War II and God

Some of you who read this know that my father was a WW II veteran. He served with the 82nd Airborne Division and made all of their combat jumps. He was incredible man and soldier. Sadly he died when I was 15 years old so I never got to hear some of those stories from war because I was always too young to know to ask. One of the stories I do know deals with the Battle of the Bulge.

If you have never heard of the Battle of the Bulge then you can read about it here. The entire battled lasted about a month. The US causalities during this month were 23,554 captured, 47,493 wounded and 19, 276 killed for a total of nearly 90,000 US casualties. This mean gave their lives in a valiant effort to win the bloodiest wars of all time. This war caused the death of over 50 million people. The blood that was spilled on these days would have a profound impact on the rest of the war. This was Germany's last great offensive and was truly the decisive victory on the Western Front.

While the sacrifices of these 19,000 men was great, it is nothing in comparison to the sacrifice of one man who died on a horrible and bloody cross nearly 2,000 years ago. The power of Christ blood and sacrifice is beyond anything that we can imagine. It has the power to transform lives. It has the power to rescue you and me from the pain and suffering of Hell.

If you have questions about this power, do not hesitate. There is no time like the present. If you have accepted this sacrifice in the past but do not feel as though His power in your life, then I would love to help you move in that direction. I look forward to hearing some of your comments.
:)

Walking in the way of....

Have you ever consider in whose ways your walk in? Are you walking in the ways of your mom? your dad? David? Jeroboam? Jesus? God? Satan? Your lovable but slightly off center student minister?

If you have never read 1 Kings I would encourage to do so. I have learned a great deal about what it means to follow in the footsteps of others and how important it is to chose wisely whom we follow. Of course, all Christians are supposed to follow in Christ footsteps but for many of us that is a hard concept to wrap our minds around so we seek out fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to emulate. I think this can be a good practice so long as we always remember that no person is perfect and that we must always look at Scripture to see if our actions and thoughts are correct.

I believe God places people in our lives that we can look up to. People that we can look at and say I want to be where they are at some day. I also believe that while He gives us those people He also uses as like that in the lives of others. So who is it that is looking up to you? Who are those people who are looking at you and saying I want to be like them when I get older (or more mature)? Is your life really worth imitating? What needs to be removed to make it better? I do not know what this all means for you but I would love to hear about it.

Taking Responsibility-1 King 14

God gives each us opportunities to follow after Him. It makes no difference what your family background or history is. Many times we use these as excuses for the things we do wrong. We talk about how my parents did this so it really isn't my fault if I do the same thing. The fact of the matter is that we are responsible for our own choices and actions. There is a price to be paid for those things we do wrong no matter the reason.

The ultimate punishment for the things we do wrong (sin) is Hell. We deserve this death. Thankful Christ sacrificial death allows us to avoid this punishment. His blood protects us from this but only if we accept the gift. He died for us all but only those who accept this fact and confess Him as Lord are afford the protection. Beyond this there is punishment for sin. When we stray from the path that God has for us we suffer and sadly people around us will suffer. David sinned with his affair with Bathsheba. The result of this sin was intense suffering on both of their parts and the death of an innocent man. There are consequences to our actions yet we know that God does forgive us and that we can be fully restored if we follow His path for us.

God has many great things in store for each us. He wants to bless us. He wants to use you and me in awesome and incredible ways. Do you seem Him doing this in your life? If not you need to be asking why not and be completely ready for whatever answer may come from Him.

Getting an Answer You Don't Like

Today was one of those days when I got an answer to prayer that I did not like. It is not like the answer was bad it was just not one that I wanted. I know that God knows what He is doing and He always knows best but that does not mean I am always going to like what He says to me.

Basically, I have been begging God to give some answers to 2 major prayers. Today He showed me the answered to one. In that answer it was, "You are going to have to wait and be patient, just trust Me and keep doing what you are doing. Keep coming after Me and I will take care of it!" I wanted to hear "I have heard your prayer and I am going to change this right now!" This was hard to accept at first. I knew the answer was from him but it took me a little while to accept its truth. Now, I am still not happy but I am at peace about the situation.

God is so much bigger and beyond us that we can scarcely understand Him and His plans. I am not exactly sure where He is going with the ministries here at UBC but I know He is leading them to a better place. I desire to be on His plan for all of it. I desire to be a part of the great and mighty things He will be doing through this church.

So is God looking to use you some how? Is there something He wants you to do? Is there something more He wants from you? Do you need to ask His forgiveness of sin in your life? Do you need to be humbled by Him? Do you want to know Him more? What do you want from God? What do want to hear from Him? If you want to hear from God simply ask and be ready to hear what He says no matter what it is.