"For You and You alone, awake my soul, awake my soul and sing. For the world You love, Your will be done, let Your will be done in me!"-Chris Tomlin: Awakening
I've been listening to this song quite often the past few days. I believe it's one of those songs that will never get old to me. I also feel like there is incredible power in a prayer like that. For You and You alone. Do we really understand that statement? There are hundreds and hundreds of things throughout the day that can draw our attention and stir our affection. Is the main one Jesus? In Luke chapter 6 Jesus is giving His sermon on the Beatitudes and comes to a point where He begins to talk about how "every tree is known by its fruit..." What kind of fruit are you producing? At the end of this section in verse 45 Jesus says, "...For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." What are we speaking? Are we speaking the things of God, or are we speaking something else? For a long time I struggled with positive speak. Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the power of life and death are in the tongue. Do we really believe that? If we do, are we practicing speaking life, or death? Just speaking in faith the words, "For You and You alone, awake my soul" can have tremendous impact in your life. So that brings me back to my original point. There are many things in this world that are trying to steal our attention and stir our hearts. I believe that the problem lies initially in our noggins. We don't understand that we have the mind of Christ; 1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us that.
I believe that satan's biggest place of attack is in mind sets and in thoughts. When we think of something we automatically believe that those thoughts belong to us. What if that thought was planted there by the devil and he is just trying to get you to continue thinking about it until you act upon it? If we are saved, set apart, sanctified, blood bought, and forgiven sons and daughters of God I firmly believe that vulgar, profane, perverted thoughts are not brought on by the mind that Christ gave us. If they were, then He wouldn't be a very good God would He? I believe that the way one thinks and the way one believes is more important than the way one acts. If you can get someone believing right then their actions will follow. Satan wants to fill our minds with clutter. His objective is to get you to think of yourself as a sinner, and to eventually get yourself professing that you are indeed a sinner. Friends, I am here to tell you, you are an over comer! You are worth much more than the world gives you credit for. It's time that we exchange the old mindset and the old way of thinking for the new mind of Christ!
My prayer every day is that God would renew my mind. It says in Romans that we are not to conform to the ways of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds! I feel like many times we are content with living our lives blending in with our surroundings. We are spiritual chameleons. Whoever we are with, that's who we act like. For years I fought that fight. I was whoever I was with. Then I realized how absolutely BORING that life is! There's no adventure to living a life as a copyist. My pastor has started a year long initiative and vision to live life as a risk taker. In order to live as a risk taker we must THINK like risk takers. In order to think like a risk taker we have to allow Christ to come in and do an overhaul. A wise man once said, "Sow a thought, reap a word. Sow a word, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a life style. Sow a life style, reap a destiny." Your destiny will be shaped by the things you think!
I'm so tired of seeing "Christians" live life in the shadows and take the back seat to the world and flow along with the current. We are hypnotized by the rhythm of pop-culture and its schemes. It's time for some risk takers to stand up and decide that THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH! Take a chance! "For You and You alone, awake my soul!"
It's my prayer that God would alter your mind set. It's my desire to see Christians truly pursuing the lover of their souls the way He pursues them! Jesus let there be a spiritual awakening in our lives. Let us see what You see, and let us take a stand. Let us be foolish for You. Let us refuse to follow the crowd. Don't let us be content with coexisting with our enemy the devil. Give us our candle, let us run into the darkness. For You and You alone.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Who Am I That He Is Mindful Of Me?
I think that King David said it best when he wrote this is the Psalms. Who is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that you care for him?-Psalm 8:4 You see we are created beings that have the opportunity to live in community with the one who created us. Do we ever just take time to think about the fact that God is mindful of us? God...the creator of the universe. The one who stepped into nothing, from nowhere, with nothing, that took nothing out of nothing, hung it on nothing, and told it to stay there...and it did. That God...He wants to have a relationship with you and with me. His words created everything that we see, and His words are sustaining us right now. He thinks about us. He cares about us. He is interested in us. If that doesn't excite you, then I don't know what will!
I'm at the Christ for the Nations Resonate worship conference this week. We were about to have our 11:00AM session yesterday in which Glenn Packiam was going to speak. If you've never heard him speak, find the next time you can go hear him and take advantage of it. I had the privilege of meeting him after the talk and buying a few of his books. He's a really down to earth dude and he definitely hasn't allowed his platform to get to his head. If you want to read any of his blogs then click here. Anyway, the worship before this session was just an acoustic set led by Chris Martin. I believe that he is still a student and CFNI. He's a gifted song writer and musician and if you ever get the chance to be led by him in worship I would suggest you take that opportunity. If you want to see some of his videos and hear some of his acoustic songs you can go here. When Chris was talking before worship he talked about how at these worship conferences he got the opportunity to meet some of the people that he really looks up to and that he really respects. The thing that is amazing though, is that these people are extremely gifted. They are extremely talented and anointed, but we make a bigger deal about meeting with them than we do about our relationship with God.
We as people are bred and made to believe that meeting the creation is much more important than meeting the creator. In our Western culture we have been force fed from the beginning of our lives that there are people that are so important that if we meet them it can be one of those "bucket list" things to cross off as an accomplishment in our lives. I believe that these concepts and ideas are terribly wrong. There are students in my youth group that are so caught up in a particular actor/actress/musician that if they ever met them they would probably say something like, "I can die happy now". Does anyone else see a problem with this? Last time I checked Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber never died for anyone. Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez never absolved anyone of their sins. Neither did Jon Egan, Joel Houston, Billy Graham, or Jack Hayford. I'm not discrediting the fact that these people are gifted and talented and God has blessed them with extraordinary talents, but they are still just people. Like you and me. They are part of the human race that was created by God to rule and reign on this earth, but that became so consumed in themselves that they decided they wanted to be God.
So yes, I met a guy that I hold in high regard yesterday. I'm a huge fan of Glenn Packiam and his work. He's a gifted and anointed speaker and song writer, but he is still a person just like me. I want to get to a point where nothing in life is more exciting to me than spending time alone with my Savior. Who am I that you are thinking of me? The God of the universe has requested that we be friends with Him. He isn't a distant and far off entity that shows no love to us, but the bible says that He IS love! I don't want to fall into the trap of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. God has put into our DNA the ability and the desire to worship. It's our decision and our choice what we give that worth to. Satan wants to steal your heart and turn the affection that should go to God away from Him and towards someone He made. God is so good at creating people that we start worshiping the thing that He made instead of the hands that formed it.
When's the last time that you just sat in awe of God and His beauty? When's the last time that you allowed yourself some time to just spend some alone time with God? I think that maybe if we can start taking time out of our busy days and out of our busy lives to do these things, then we will realize that God is the only One who deserves our worship and our praise. You might also just find out that God is madly in love with you, and He wants only good things for your life. He doesn't care what you've done or who you've been...He is still madly in love with you and he has a purpose and a plan for your life!
I'm at the Christ for the Nations Resonate worship conference this week. We were about to have our 11:00AM session yesterday in which Glenn Packiam was going to speak. If you've never heard him speak, find the next time you can go hear him and take advantage of it. I had the privilege of meeting him after the talk and buying a few of his books. He's a really down to earth dude and he definitely hasn't allowed his platform to get to his head. If you want to read any of his blogs then click here. Anyway, the worship before this session was just an acoustic set led by Chris Martin. I believe that he is still a student and CFNI. He's a gifted song writer and musician and if you ever get the chance to be led by him in worship I would suggest you take that opportunity. If you want to see some of his videos and hear some of his acoustic songs you can go here. When Chris was talking before worship he talked about how at these worship conferences he got the opportunity to meet some of the people that he really looks up to and that he really respects. The thing that is amazing though, is that these people are extremely gifted. They are extremely talented and anointed, but we make a bigger deal about meeting with them than we do about our relationship with God.
We as people are bred and made to believe that meeting the creation is much more important than meeting the creator. In our Western culture we have been force fed from the beginning of our lives that there are people that are so important that if we meet them it can be one of those "bucket list" things to cross off as an accomplishment in our lives. I believe that these concepts and ideas are terribly wrong. There are students in my youth group that are so caught up in a particular actor/actress/musician that if they ever met them they would probably say something like, "I can die happy now". Does anyone else see a problem with this? Last time I checked Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber never died for anyone. Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez never absolved anyone of their sins. Neither did Jon Egan, Joel Houston, Billy Graham, or Jack Hayford. I'm not discrediting the fact that these people are gifted and talented and God has blessed them with extraordinary talents, but they are still just people. Like you and me. They are part of the human race that was created by God to rule and reign on this earth, but that became so consumed in themselves that they decided they wanted to be God.
So yes, I met a guy that I hold in high regard yesterday. I'm a huge fan of Glenn Packiam and his work. He's a gifted and anointed speaker and song writer, but he is still a person just like me. I want to get to a point where nothing in life is more exciting to me than spending time alone with my Savior. Who am I that you are thinking of me? The God of the universe has requested that we be friends with Him. He isn't a distant and far off entity that shows no love to us, but the bible says that He IS love! I don't want to fall into the trap of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. God has put into our DNA the ability and the desire to worship. It's our decision and our choice what we give that worth to. Satan wants to steal your heart and turn the affection that should go to God away from Him and towards someone He made. God is so good at creating people that we start worshiping the thing that He made instead of the hands that formed it.
When's the last time that you just sat in awe of God and His beauty? When's the last time that you allowed yourself some time to just spend some alone time with God? I think that maybe if we can start taking time out of our busy days and out of our busy lives to do these things, then we will realize that God is the only One who deserves our worship and our praise. You might also just find out that God is madly in love with you, and He wants only good things for your life. He doesn't care what you've done or who you've been...He is still madly in love with you and he has a purpose and a plan for your life!
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