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Fellowship
After you read the Bible, pray, and then serve—you might end up having fellowship with like-minded individuals such as yourself. Meaning, you might become friends with other Christian’s that can help keep you on-track and on-point—so we don’t misrepresent who Jesus is. That’s what it means when Iron sharpens Iron. Proverbs 27:17
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House of Refuge—Lesson 2 (of 2) God Addict
We need an EGG, Enemy—Identify who this is. You can make an enemy of God or you can make an enemy of the devil. Whoever your enemy is, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.” Proverbs 24:17 Glorify—You can glorify yourself or you can glorify God. It’s your decision. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1 God— We need a god in our life. We can be gods over our own lives, or we can have…
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House of Refuge—Lesson 1 (of 2) Identity
I use the word NEST to illustrate that the nest that we build for ourselves in our lives will always be built around our identity. NEST means: Nature—Live with a sin nature or saved nature? Eternity—Are we eternally saved or damned? Servant—Do we serve God or Satan? Trust—Do we trust in the world or do we trust in the Creator?
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Jonesing for Jesus [VIDEO]
God is the only addiction that we should have. That's right. ... He is faithful. He gives back to us better than anything that we've surrendered to him. He ... he multiplies the blessings that he gives to us because he's got a good plan for our lives. His will for our lives is better. His will and his plan is better than our own. He's a good God. Just surrender to him, trust in him and life will be good. The thing that I run into in Celebrate Recovery is that's a huge leap of faith. People don't understand that they're already worshiping little "g" gods. They're already worshiping…
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What does recovery look like? And why do we celebrate it?
A gentleman by the name of Geoff Brown interviewed me for his podcast Kingdom Culture Conversations and the topic of discussion for Part One & Part Two was about Celebrate Recovery. I listened to both of the 2-part episodes after it was released and thought to myself, “How many people are wondering why I gave a testimony—a deeply personal testimony—for all to hear? I mean, really, I was supposed to be promoting a Christ-focused recovery group, but instead I shared more about myself.” If you haven’t heard it, or have no clue what I’m talking about, give it a listen below. I wrote a post called You Don’t Know Me.…
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You Don’t Know Me
How often have you heard—or even said yourself—these words: “You don’t know me! You don’t understand me! You don’t know how it is or know what it’s like to be me!” Whether a fleeting thought of inward defiance or spoken openly for all to hear, the desire to be known is strong inside each of us, especially people who are hurting (and let’s be real, we’re all hurting in one way or another). But in today’s fast-paced world where everyone wants everything quickly, with instantaneous information at our fingertips, and most people not even getting out of their car to grab a bite to eat—it is hard for anyone to…
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Fruit bombs, secondhand kindness, and the fruitcake of the Spirit
Have you ever seen a healthy apple tree or lemon tree or an orange tree produce so much more fruit than its branches can handle? I’m talking about a tree that will actually stunt its own growth by unintentionally harming itself simply because its own branches will break under the sheer weight of all the fruit it is producing. If a person doesn’t come in there and harvest the fruit, then that’s exactly what will happen. At least eventually. “The fruit tree with no one to eat from its branches becomes the image of a dying tree” That’s also what can happen to any Christian who is deep in the…
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The Box: A perspective on life and prayer
If you were in a cell—a box—whether it was for cause or no cause….because we all know you didn’t do it, and jails and prisons are full of innocent people—there would be nothing for you to do. Literally. There’s nothing to do. You can pee in the toilet since it’s right next to you. You could lay on the bunk that’s right next to the toilet. If you’re in general detention, there would be a lot of people you could talk to. It would help pass the time. It just might be a small cell with a door instead of the bars seen in movies. The bars are usually in…
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Who would abandon a baby on the side of the road?
Alcoholics Anonymous (aka, Al-Anon or AA) recognizes that having a mentor is integral to success in their program. Al-Anon mentors are called sponsors—who are typically people that have successfully abstained from alcohol for an extended amount of time. They come alongside new members to advise and help them navigate through the challenges of being sober and the struggles encountered during recovery. What does this look like in practice? Sponsors will make themselves available or get someone who can be when desires for alcohol come up. They should also be an inspiration so that others would want to be more like them. Finally, they should be a pillar of strength for…
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Fellowship can take a hike
I went hiking with a friend and it came up while we talked that God wasn’t answering his prayers. I felt that was a bad time to tell my friend that “no” was an answer. Instead, I told him that God always has a better plan than us because he can see everything that we can’t. He knows things that we’ll never know. My friend didn’t look satisfied with that response. As we continued to hike, the terrain became so rocky and jagged that the trail we were on became very hard to see. We stopped and took our bearings. We had no idea where to go next. We could…
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Prayer is fellowship with God
What if God’s plan unfolds and we don’t have the strength to endure? What if, instead of praying for someone to be delivered from their hardships, we instead pray for them to have the strength to endure? For example, can you imagine someone saying they will not pray for you to be delivered from your hardships? Stick with me on this. I know it sounds harsh, but much of the growth I’ve had in my life directly resulted from endurance of hardships. It needs to be communicated with tactfulness and gentleness, or not said at all. The point being made from the pray-“er” to the pray-“ee” is that the prayer…
