March 28th 2012

Part of living a life of humility is living a life of gratitude. Are we truly grateful for the things that God has given us or do we take for granted the gifts we have received?

Read Luke 17:11-19 and journal your thoughts

This is one of those verses that could be misinterpreted if we don’t really understand what’s going on. After a quick reading, it could seem like Jesus just wants credit for what happened. What we have to understand is in their culture the people practiced this act of blessing God for His provisions. For a very devout rabbi, it was not uncommon to bless God over a hundred times a day for the blessings he’s given them. For example, when they woke up they would bless God for allowing their soul to return to their body. When they got dressed they blessed God for providing clothes for the naked. Basically gratitude was deeply woven into their culture. So here, Jesus is not looking for gratitude for himself, but for God (verse 17).

What’s interesting about today’s text is that Jesus heals 10 people, and the only one of them who comes back to offer their gratitude to God is a Samaritan who from a 1st century Jewish perspective was like the lowest of the low. Yet he is the one who gets it, not the other nine. To be fair, the text does not say the other nine are Jewish, but it’s safe to assume that some of them were.

So the question for us is are we thankful for the things God has given us? We live in a culture where it’s hard to show gratitude when someone else always has something better. In fact, part of what fuels are economy is that marketing is driven by our own covetness. We want what others have, plain and simple and Apple keeps putting out new ipads and iphones. Ford puts out newer cars with cool new gadgets. So at what point are we content? At what point can we just be thankful for the blessings God has given us? When was the last time you thanked God for allowing your spirit to return to your body in the morning?

Today take some time to mediate and thank God for all of the little blessings He has given you.

March 27th 2012

How big is your vision for what God wants to do with you?

One of the most amazing aspects of the story of Abraham is where his story begins; as an old man. It is almost like the Disney movie “Up”, where Carl Fredricksen has lived this incredible life with his wife. After taking you through the story of their life, Disney embraces their time honored tradition of killing the female lead (I’m looking at you Bambi, Nemo, and others). Carl then embraces this calling on his life that for one reason or another he has put off. In a similar way, Abraham begins his adventure at a later age and look at what God promises him.

Read Genesis 13:14-16 and journal your thoughts

You would have to think that when Abraham and Sarah (Take that Disney) left, they were not expecting a promise like this. God’s promise would seem extravagant to just about anyone let alone a couple in their retirement years. So often the vision God has for our lives is so much bigger than we could ever imagine. At times this is what makes it so hard to follow God’s calling on our lives; because often it doesn’t seem to make sense. God called Abraham to leave everything he’d ever known at the age of 75.

What does God’s call on your life look like? What is God’s vision for your life? Could it be that even with all the choices you’ve made, and the circumstances of your life, God has some incredible vision for your life?

Today pray that God would show you His vision for your life

March 26th 2012

Maybe you have been journaling about the future, but when you look at what going on today it’s hard for you to see anything good in your future.

Read Jeremiah 29:11 and journal your thoughts

How many times have you read that verse? Let me guess, usually when you are going through a rough time. It’s one of those verses that we tend to use when we are down and need hope, we need to be inspired. But the question we need to ask ourselves is; do you believe that?

As you read this verse you need to remember that it’s being written to a nation in exile. Essentially they were slaves, not a very hopeful way of living. In fact you might say it couldn’t get any worse. And yet God took them at their lowest and gave them exactly what He promised; hope and a future.

Go ahead and journal what sort of things are keeping you from seeing hope in your future right now?

Now read Romans 8:28 and journal your thoughts

God is using all things for the good of those who love Him. Basically God may not like the bad things happening to us, but we can be sure God is going to use those bad things to do something amazing later on in our lives. Remember Daniel had to go into the lion’s den before he could experience the goodness that God had planned for him.

Today pray that God would give you the strength to get through whatever you’re going through, and to remind you of the future He has planned for you.

March 25th 2012

Are you one of those people who always have to be in control of something? Maybe it’s something big? Maybe it’s just some little thing, but it’s your little thing. What’s it like to give up that control? It’s hard, isn’t it? Almost like free falling, you’re letting go of something that made you feel stable and secure. Take some time and journal some of the things that you have control issues with. Could be something big, or maybe something as small as setting the thermostat.

Read Proverbs 27:1 and journal your thoughts

Some may be wondering what this has to do about control, but ask yourself; how can you brag about tomorrow if you’re not in control of tomorrow? As we talk about the future there comes a point where we have to admit that we are not in control. Seriously, we’re not. As much as we want to be, as much as we feel like we are in control of our own destiny, the fact is we’re not. Let’s have psychiatrist moment and ask ourselves; how does that make you feel?

We don’t like to not be in control, we like to have a plan so that we can know what tomorrow is going to bring. But trusting God is about not having control and trusting the One who is in control. Sometimes it’s so easy for us to be so scheduled, so committed to things that it’s easy for us to ignore God’s call for us to do something else. It’s easy to tell God that we don’t have time to help because I’ve got this or that to do. But sometimes God puts people in our paths so that our tomorrow looks nothing like we planned. It looks better.

Today pray that God would help us to give up control of our schedules and to be open to what He is calling us to do.

March 24th 2012

Have you ever found it hard to trust God? I’m not just talking about trusting Him by choosing to follow Him, but to really follow Him with your everyday decisions. I think if we’re honest with ourselves when it comes to applying a lot of what God tells us we should do we start with denial. I mean all that stuff was back then, God doesn’t understand how bills work. They didn’t even have to deal with bills back then, right…?

Read Isaiah 46:10 and write down your initial thoughts

What’s interesting about this verse is the context. Yahweh, the God of Israel is being compared to all the other gods of the nations. Yahweh’s people have chosen to follow other gods along with Him, and that’s just not going to cut it. You see, they served their gods because to them, that was how the world worked. If you want a good harvest you offer a sacrifice to the fertility god, usually Ba’al. Notice in Isaiah 46:1 two gods are mentioned, the first is Bel also called Ba’al. The second is Nebo who is the god of your destiny. . It’s easy for us to look back and wonder how they could follow different gods along with Yahweh, and yet we miss the different gods of our time. They’re the gods who whisper in our ears, “but God doesn’t understand how this works….” Take some time and write down some of the “gods” in our lives who tend to dictate over God what choices we should make.

As you begin to discover your future, may you discover how to trust God in the things that don’t necessarily make sense?

Today pray that God would reveal those gods in your life that are keeping your from abundant life

March 23rd 2012

It is easy to humanize God, to take the things that we do all the time and apply them to God because it seems normal. This isn’t uncommon; all throughout the Scriptures people have taken their understanding of what it means to be human and applied it to God. Even the ancient cultures did the same thing with their understanding of the gods. What are some ways that you’ve humanized God in your life?

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone where you blew it? I mean you totally did something wrong to them, you pushed them too far and their love for you seemed to run out? Or maybe it’s the other way around, you had this friend who kept hurting you, and hurting you, until you just couldn’t take it anymore, and your love for them just seemed to evaporate?

Read Romans 8:38-39 and write down your thoughts

When we examine our past, it is easy to humanize God and worry that eventually He’ll give up on us, just like I did to so-and-so. But God’s nature is not our nature. You see, the Love of God goes beyond anything we can understand. Paul lists off a whole bunch of things that won’t be able to separate us from God’s love, and I’m pretty sure he just ran out of things to say. Basically Paul is saying that there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less. Nothing.

May you begin to see that God doesn’t see you for what you’ve done, but who you are becoming.

March 22nd 2012

“I believe there has never been an ordinary child born on this planet ever.” – Erwin McManus

Read 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and journal your thoughts

Have you ever just felt ordinary? Just like you’re another part of the crowd, just like everyone else? Or perhaps you feel like a number or a statistic? We ask ourselves, who are we? Or maybe a better question to ask is; Who are we becoming? The problem is when we look at the world we see a lot of people both in the church and out, who live and die very ordinary lives. If we’re not careful, after seeing enough people live ordinary lives, we can fall into the trap of accepting the ordinary as well.

We need to be reminded that while many extraordinary people die ordinary, that is not our standard of life. God has created each one of us to be extraordinary, to do amazing things. He has created us with different gifts and passions. On the surface some of these gifts may even seem ordinary, but when we combine them with the movement of God in our world then amazing things begin to happen.

Today may you see that your gifts and abilities when paired with the work of God become extraordinary