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Forgive me

March 7, 2011 in Church Life, Spiritual Thought with 9 Comments

I am sorry I did not give more details this past weekend about our 40 days of prayer and fasting. Please do not allow sparse details to support any thoughts concerning a lack of importance. We must fast and pray! We must seek God’s face! We must make Him the center of our attention and focus! We must fast from food to feast on God!

Our elder team was absolutely unanimous and very passionate about calling our church to this season of prayer and fasting. I get it – I am for it – I embrace the discipline and I will charge the way. But in my own time of prayer and thought today I believe I need to give far greater focus to this clarion call. Why? I don’t want anyone to miss the blessing, I don’t want our faith family to be short changed, and I don’t want to leave God’s hands tied on our behalf.

Our elder team feels led by God’s Spirit to call us to fast and pray regarding 3 matters:

  1. We must praise God for His abundant blessings that He is unleashing on our church family. We will praise Him for His extravagance on our community of faith!
  2. We must petition God for those who have yet to experience life change in our city. We will pray for His empowerment as we press against the lostness of Palm Coast.
  3. We must pray for God’s sovereign rule in the life of Dr. Randy Poyner. Randy has said, “Thy will be done”. Randy has recovered from cancer multiple times and this seems to be the most serious stage of all. I visited with Randy yesterday for about 1 hour. Once again our time was sweet.  He is still in ICU. He was sitting up and able to communicate just like his old self. There is still much recovery to take place from his recent surgery. His hopes are to get into rehab and once able, to then move to FT. Myers to live with his daughter, Susan. Susan will care well for him and he will be with family who love him dearly.

In addition to these 3 areas in which we are calling our church to prayer, I ask you to PLEASE add at least 1 personal item to the list – some area where you need God to break through for you personally.

One of the foremost authors and authorities in our generation on prayer and fasting is Dr. Ronnie Floyd. Below I will post a few links to some of his writings/blog posts.

Post 1

Post 2

Article Be sure to click on and view the link at the bottom of Floyd’s article – the link is entiled, “Practical Guide to Fasting”

Let me please remind you that if you cannot fast from food for medical reasons, that you then consider fasting from something else in your life, ie. sweets, sodas, tv, technology, etc.

Sometimes I feel like there is only so much time to communicate in a worship service and this weekend I was trying to figure out how in the world to do justice to Matt 13:44 in the time I had allotted. Hence, I did not cover our call to prayer and fasting as I now wish I would have. Once again, I am sorry. I hope that the above article helps propel us forward.

Speaking Up

November 30, 2010 in Leadership, Spiritual Thought with 1 Comment

As a follow-up to this past weekend’s message, I wanted to share some thoughts on what it means to identify ourselves with Christ. Following are some ways to make Christ a natural part of your communication:

  • When talking with someone about what they did for the weekend, talk about how a highlight of your weekend was going to church. Whenever you talk about the weekend make sure you talk about other things but it is a prime opportunity to occassionally talk about church.
  • “God has been so good”. That is it – just a passing tribute to God’s goodness in your life.
  • Pray before you eat. Don’t act like you are wiping your brow. Bow your head and pray!
  • Pray for an opportunity to speak of Christ. Beware – God will give you an opportunity!
  • Share what your life was like before following Christ.
  • Share the difference Christ has made in your life.
  • When there is an appropriate opportunity share a biblical principle without neccesarily giving a Scripture reference.
  • Invite them to a back door event. (ie. Trunk or Treat, Living Nativity, July 4th Freedom Festival)
  • Our evangelism strategy at Parkview is Invest & Invite. Invest in the relationship and then invite them to church.
  • Walk the talk. Don’t say you are a Christian and at the same time act like the devil. Once you identify with Christ you are now under a microscope!

What other ways do you use to try to speak up and share Jesus?

How Slow Can You Go?

November 16, 2010 in Spiritual Thought with 2 Comments

I prefer speed. In fact, I prefer speed in most every area of my life. But this morning I was reminded by a very wise man that there is one area of my life that I must embrace slowness (I think I just made up a word).

Proverbs 16:32, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his own spirit than he who takes a city.”

According to God’s Word, being slow to anger is a very good thing! That principle then got me thinking about the areas of my life where I tend to get angry – then in those areas I need to actively work on slowing it down. Here are some things that tend to anger me:

  • slow cars in the left lane
  • people’s apathy towards the things of God
  • Christ followers with a major lack of commitment
  • Disobedience by my son
  • stupid comments that just shouldn’t have been made (most often by me)
  • The far lefts agenda

I know the verse about be angry and sin not and I realize that can apply to some of the above, but at the same time I need to recognize that I often need to SLOW IT DOWN! “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty”.  What angers you and how do you slow it down?

Here are some ways that I think can help me slow my anger down:

  • recognize God’s patience (slowness) with me
  • appreciate God’s unconditional forgiveness
  • obey God’s command Eph 4:32
  • acknowledge my own sin
  • focus on the positive
  • pray

Let’s try to see how slow we can go this week!

October 5, 2010 in Church Life, Leadership, Spiritual Thought with 0 Comments

Did you know that you and I are responsible to help other believers and we are to look for ways to keep them encouraged? Hebrews 10:25 says, “exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” We are commanded to challenge and build up others and to be more earnest as we see the return of Christ nearing. With this in mind I think we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.

  • How are we challenging others in their faith with our words?
  • How are we challenging others in their faith with our actions?
  • Do we hang out with other Christians and yet never verbally encourage them to move towards Christ?
  • Are we purposeful in stewarding our influence with others?
  • When we see someone going backwards do we have the guts to speak into their life?
  • When someone goes sporatic on God’s House do we act like nothing is happening?
  • When someone’s attitude goes south do we call it out?

Paul demonstrated his passion for people to live out their purpose when we read in Acts 20:31,” So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” Paul was not careless about what he saw. He stepped up and called it out and called others up to higher plain living.

There are people you have influence with that our staff and elders do not – will you speak the truth in love if someone gets derailed?

Whatever you do, I encourage you not to abdicate your responsibility. God has given us our influence and we must use it for His glory!

Wise Up

September 13, 2010 in Spiritual Thought with 2 Comments

For a number of weeks I have continued to feel pressed toward the need for more wisdom. As a result of this heart longing, I began to read through Proverbs. Proverbs was written by Solomon, the wisest man to have ever lived. Below are a few of the things about wisdom that have stood out to me so far this month:

  • A wise man will hear and increase learning
  • fools despise wisdom and instruction
  • When wisdom enters your heart, And knowledge is pleasant to your soul. Discretion will preserve you;  understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things.
  • Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil.
  • Happy is the man who finds wisdom
  • The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools.
  • Wisdom is the principal thing;  therefore get wisdom.
  • For wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.
  • For whoever finds me (wisdom) finds life, and obtains favor from the LORD
  • Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.
  • Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
  • A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother
  • In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise.
  • When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.
  • He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.
  • In the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise will preserve them.

Throw it in park!

August 31, 2010 in Church Life, Leadership, Spiritual Thought with 3 Comments

Years and years ago, when I couldn’t have been but about 10 or 12 years old, I had a very interesting driving experience. There was a littel snow and ice on the ground in Deleware and I was out with my aunt. All I really  remember is being in a neighborhood and us being stuck on a little patch of ice. Somehow I ended up in the driver’s seat of her little white Sunbird and she and perhaps a good samaritan pushed us to an “unstuck”position. Never having driven in my entire life, I wasn’t wuite sure what to do with the fact that I was now driving in the snow. I am not sure if it was her yelling, or my own panic, but rather than hit the brake I just slammed the car in park. While it didn’t sound to good, it did accomplish the purpose, the car came to an abrupt stop.

While at our recent staff and elder retreat the speaker used the phrase, “park your heart before the Lord”. Life can get so busy…blah, blah, blah…. you could finish that paragraph yourself. Let me just jump to the point – make sure you are taking the time to recalibrate and be certain to park your heart before the Lord.

I want to lead us to be a church that has this as a part of our DNA, but it will never rise past the culture of our individual leaders. As a leader, what has your time with God looked like over the last 2 weeks?

Links for Living

August 25, 2010 in Church Life, Spiritual Thought with 0 Comments

I have an appointment today where I want this verse to be true of me.

This is a cool verse about giving.

Everyone has experienced this verse at some point in their life.

I pray that this verse is not true of my life.

Watch this and then do this!!!!

What is in your heart

August 17, 2010 in Spiritual Thought with 0 Comments

Last week as our elder team was gathered we had a brief talk around the notion of envy. One shared that where there is true spiritual maturity there will not be any envy. He then shared I Corinthians 13:4 – love does not envy. Just yesterday I was reading Proverbs 14:30 – envy is rottenness to the bones. Now that is a word picture!

Webster’s defines envy as, “a feeling of discontent or ill will because of another’s advantages, possessions, etc.; resentful dislike of another who has something that one desires”. I also looked up the antonyms of envy and found comfortable, content and pleased. Based on that discovery, I thought of Pauls words in I Timothy 6:6, “…godliness with contentment is great gain”.

If there is any envy in your heart about anything at all, my prayer is that today you will discover contentment.

I need more depth

June 8, 2010 in Church Life, Miscellaneous, Spiritual Thought with 2 Comments

A rather common statement made by Christians is that they “want more depth”. While that statement can mean different things to different people, I think we need to be careful when we make that statement. I am all for growing deeper and expanding knowledge as long as it is not for knowledge sake alone. “Knowledge puffs up” if we are not careful.

Recently I made the statement in a sermon that “we are educated way beyond our obedience”. I was commenting to someone today about how I will discover a “new or deeper” truth, teach that truth, be totally excited from several different angles about the deeper truth and in a few weeks I can’t even remember what I sudied, discovered, prepared and taught. Perhaps that is a statement about my preaching but I think it is more about my memory. It also serves as just another reminder that I need to be concerned about doing what I know and not worry about the deeper truth that I have forgotten. If I never learned another biblical truth, I would still  not be able to obey all that I already know.

Pastor Steven Furtick had a recent post where he touched on a similar topic. He said, “The greatest problem of American Christians when it comes to the Bible is not that we are not deep in God’s Word. The problem is that we are not active in God’s Word. We have a lot more revelation than our current level of active application. And revelation without application leads to stagnation”. You can read his entire post by clicking here.

Ready to Preach

May 26, 2010 in Church Life, Spiritual Thought with 2 Comments

In Romans 1:15, Paul said, “So much as is in me, I am now ready to preach the gospel to you…”.

One obvious responsibility that I have is to preach God’s Word to our church family.  Not only is it one of my main responsibilities but it is also one that I enjoy the most. Paul statement was a real challenge though – I need to be ready to preach. So I began to think about what is required in order for me to be really ready to preach. I came up with the following:

  • I must have invested in my own inner world, by spending time with God in prayer and His Word
  • I must do all I can to go into the pulpit refreshed and not weary
  • I must have qantity and quality study time
  • I must seek to live a Holy life
  • I must have the prayers of God’s people
  • I must seek to improve my communication skills
  • I must have the annointing of God’s Spirit

I love preaching His Word and particularly, I love preaching at Parkview! One main way that you can help me to be ready to preach is for you to pray for me. If you are not already doing so, would you please begin petitioning God on my behalf. I do not ask you to pray for my own personal benefit but for the furtherance of the Gospel and for people to come to Christ as their Savior. I will try to do my part, would you be willing to do yours?

Romans 1:15 challenges me and then Romans 1:16 fires me up!!!

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