Renaming the Reality of Your Life

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It had been 45 years since Caleb had been in the area, but he could not forget what he had seen – a land flowing with milk and honey. He and Joshua had realized the potential, but the other 10 spies could not see past the present reality.

That present reality was a giant named Arba and his family of gigantic men. These men towered over other men and presented a formidable and seeming insurmountable obstacle to the conquest of the land. So pervasive and intimidating was Arba’s presence that the city was named after him – Kiriath-Arba. He defined the region. These giants were bad news. You can read the story in Joshua 14:6-15.

Joshua and Caleb may have battled physical giants, but today our giants take on different forms – health issues, financial difficulties, relationship ills, job stress, family crises, and many others. While our giants may not be physical they are just as intimidating. Just as Arba’s presence defined a city, so also our giants attempt to define our reality. We cannot seem to see beyond our giant.

Some 45 years after first seeing these giants, Caleb asked Joshua to give him the hill country and he would drive the giants out of the region. Eventually he did, and the Bible refers to the city “Hebron…formerly named Kiriath-Arba. The giant was a mere memory and no longer defined the reality of the region.

Truths that Define Our Reality?

Giants do NOT have to define our reality. The same motivations that allowed Caleb to succeed in removing the descendants of Arba also can help us move past our giants. What were (and are) those motivations?

1. The purpose of God.

Caleb spends the first part of his appeal to Joshua reminding him of the plan God presented them 45 years earlier when Moses sent them to spy out the land. They knew the giants were there and God knew the giants were there, but the mission was clear: God intended to move the giants out and move His people in.

God will use whatever circumstances come your way to work in your life for His purposes (Romans 8:28; Philippians 2:13). His purposes are (a) to bring glory to Himself, (b) to remake us to be more like Jesus, and (3) to work through us to reach others. Our giants are nothing more than tools that God can use to accomplish His purposes. Don’t let them intimidate you, let God grow you.

2. The presence of God.

Caleb was convinced of his success because he knew “God will be with me.”

You do not face your giants alone. While it may seem God has abandoned you, He is in front of you, behind you, beside you. He is right in the middle of your circumstances and you can be assured of His presence.

3. The promise of God.

Caleb reminded Joshua of a truth they both knew: God promised them that land, every place that their feet had trod. God did not promise that it WOULD BE theirs but that as far as He was concerned it ALREADY WAS theirs. He concluded his appeal to Joshua with the reminder, “just as the Lord said.”

The Bible promises us that with God for us, nothing can be against us; nothing separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and that we ARE (not could be or will be) MORE than conquerors. (Romans 8:31-39) Hang on and let God finish His work through your circumstances. It may take years. Even though Caleb drove the giants away, it would be years later when Judah finally destroyed them for good (Judges 1:10). Give God time. He WILL bring you victory if you look to Him.

Do not let your giants define you and your reality. Let God rename your reality to match what HE IS DOING in your life.

Where Does a Sermon Go After It’s Preached

sermon recycle

Have you ever wondered what happens to a sermon after the preacher preaches it?  Most pastors I know, myself included, invest a lot of prayer, time, thought, and heart into preparing a message.  Most of us preach ourselves out physically, emotionally, and spiritually delivering the sermon.

Each week, many pastors stand at the front door of the church and listen to a variety of comments attenders make about the sermon, almost always positive.  ALMOST always.  I’ve heard some “doosies” in my days.  Here are a few of the more entertaining ones.

“Preacher, I can tell you spent a lot of time on that sermon today.” (Like I don’t every week?)

“Everything you said today was important.” (What? Unlike every other week?)

“You sure told ‘em today, preacher.” (Said by the man I had in mind during the sermon.)

“You must get your sermons from Charles Stanley.  I heard him preach it once.” (No, but we DO use the same source book.)

In all fairness, most of the comments – 99.9% at least – come from genuine people who encourage  me and express appreciation for the message.  Occasionally, someone will even mention something specific from the sermon that addressed a particular need in their life.  Nothing makes a preacher feel more satisfied than specifics.

I also like to listen to people’s side conversations, and those can reveal a lot about a sermon’s effect.  One night after preaching my guts out in a service at a friend’s church, we stood at the front door. The first person to speak to my friend was a deacon who went into a tirade about the church’s thermostat.  I think we all know what effect the sermon had on him.  Zero. 

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Where Is Jesus in Your Storm?

storm

As you read this today, Hurricane Hermine is making her way across the lower third of the state of Georgia.  Hopefully she will bring an abundance of much needed rain to Central Georgia.  I made a previously planned trip to the grocery store last night and saw plenty of available bread and milk.  We are not accustomed to a storm like this in our area, so we might over-prepare just a bit.

We may not experience a weather phenomenon like this very often, but we all experience with storms of circumstances.  Storms of circumstances come in many forms including but not limited to health challenges, relationship troubles, job issues, financial difficulty. These life storms can seem devastating.  Where is Jesus when circumstances blow up a powerful storm in our lives?

[Tweet “Storms of circumstances come in many forms…These life storms can seem devastating.”]

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When Life Is a Bungee Jump

bungee jumpI have absolutely no desire to bungee jump.  If that’s your gig, then more power to you, but if any of you ever hear tell of me doing it, you will then know for certain what you expect even now – I have finally and totally flipped my lid!

The more I think about it, however, the more I realize how closely real life can resemble a bungee jump.  Life consists of a series of ups and downs, bouncing between extremes of good and bad circumstances.  How can we prepare for the extreme bungee jump of life?

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4 Reasons Young Families Need Church


Besides my family, one of God’s greatest blessings of my formative years, was attending a Bible-believing and teaching church.  God used Pine Forest Baptist Church to shape me into the man I am today.  I’ve learned much since my younger days in church, but the lessons I learn today build on their foundation. Because of my experience, I am convinced families need church.

families need churchChurch taught me much about God’s Word, and how to live in community with other believers.  Thankfully, I sat under the preaching of some gifted pastors, and loving staff members modeled ministry skills for me.  Lay leaders and teachers provided learning opportunities that helped me prepared for God’s calling on my life.

Recently, both the church I currently pastor and my home church have experienced the grief of losing long-standing members.  I have reflected much over the last couple of weeks on the blessings so many people have been in my life. Yet today, my generation of parents and those just younger than me seem to miss the importance of family involvement in church.

[Tweet “Because of my experience, I am convinced families need church.”]

The church today faces increased competition of the time, attention, and resources of young families.  School, sports, and a multitude of other options provide distractions from the important role church plays in child development.  With that in mind, I offer a plea to young families to get involved in a Bible-teaching church.

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Passion In the Right Direction

passionOur culture is not lacking passion these days, but passion is often misplaced.  We are passionate about our sports teams, our families, our jobs, and even about our hobbies.  We are passionate about politics and current events.  Yet, when it comes to things of God, we replace passion with either a robotic ritualism or general apathy.

How can we direct our passion toward God and living for him? Consider as a role model a King we read about in the Old Testament.  Here’s how the Bible summarizes his life, his epitaph, so to speak.

[he did] “what was what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God.” – 2 Chronicles 31:20

His name was Hezekiah, and he excelled above the other kings of Judah. If you study his life, you find a man with a passion for God. Why did the Bible say that he did what was good, right, and faithful? How could he accomplish this on a daily basis?

[Tweet “Our culture is not lacking passion these days, but passion is often misplaced. “]

Passion Properly Directed

“In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.” – 2 Chronicles 31:21

I believe Hezekiah demonstrates four truths that will help us focus passion in the right direction.

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Gold Medal Living

The 2016 edition of the Summer Olympics drew to a close Sunday.  For me, these games were some of the most entertaining in memory.  The accomplishments of Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky in the pool, Simone Biles on the mat, and Usain Bolt on the track amazed us.  The U.S. Men’s and Women’s basketball team not surprisingly dominated their competitions.  At the end of the games, the U.S. led all countries in gold medal and total medal count.  Unfortunately the games also provided some unnecessary and embarrassing off-site moments, but the accomplishments far outweigh the ridiculous.

gold medal living

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

The Olympic athletes did not just show up and compete; they trained for years preparing for these 16 days.  They deprived themselves, pushed themselves, and extended themselves in trying to prove themselves best in the world.  Each one had a goal of winning a gold medal in their field of competition. 

Conversely, what would happen if we applied the same effort to our Christian life?  How different would our lives look if we worked at our faith likes these athletes worked at their sport?  Is it possible for us to “win” a gold medal in the Christian life? I think the Bible indicates we can.  Look with me at 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.

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Preparing to Stay Awake During Sunday’s Sermon

sermonOut of respect, I’ll not name him.  But when I was a kid growing up in church, one of the men in our church fell asleep during the sermon almost every Sunday. He was so obvious because he sat in the back row of the choir, the highest point in the church.  He fell asleep with his head tilted all the way back and mouth wide open.

Now that I am a pastor and preach every Sunday, I know how our pastor felt about sleepers.  I take preaching very seriously, though I try to have fun with it. I want my sermon to be moving, educational, inspirational, motivational, challenging, encouraging, and yes, to some degree even entertaining. I understand my preaching style is not everyone’s cup of tea, and I am OK with that. That doesn’t stop me from working towards the goal of being the best that God wants me to be.

As preachers, we bear the responsibility to prepare and deliver sermons prayerfully under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We are SO dependent on HIM for everything that we do. The moment we begin to believe that we have anything of ourselves that makes us good preachers, we are DOOMED.

However, listeners also have a responsibility. I have heard too many people say (about my preaching as well as others’), “I just don’t get anything out of it.” Granted, we preachers are apt to have a “bad day” from time to time, and some who stand to preach do so consistently unprepared and under-prayed. Yet often the fault of a boring sermon may fall upon a listener who is not prepared to hear what God is saying.

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I Am Pronouncing Myself DOA

My sister works for the local Coroner’s office.  Hers is not a job just anyone can do, and I am proud of her for doing the job so well.   She often receives calls in the middle of the night to go to a scene where a body lies dead.  The first thing the Coroner’s office has to do is to confirm the body is in fact dead.  Sometimes they make that call at the hospital after an ambulance delivers a victim of an accident.  When that victim dies before arriving at the hospital, the Coroner applies the term Dead on Arrival, DOA for short.

Spiritual DOA

From a spiritual perspective, God calls us to pronounce ourselves dead while at the same time living for Him.  This death, of course, is symbolic but vital if we want to grow in our faith. To truly live the life God desires us to live, we have to surrender control of life to God. Paul stated it well in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

How Do I Declare Myself Spiritually DOA?

Scripture teaches us at least three areas to which we need to consider ourselves dead.  I begin each new day reminding myself that I am DOA – Dead on Awakening – to these three areas of life.

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Living Sacrifice and The Walking Dead

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One of the more popular television programs these days is The Walking Dead.  The series, based on a comic book series by the same title, depicts life in a post-zombie apocalypse.  Survivors struggle to rescue society from “Walkers” (zombies) who threaten their existence. Though the zombies seem somewhat alive, they are actually dead and are merely shells of former human bodies.

living sacrificeWhile the show is purely science fiction, there is a sense in which following Jesus calls for us to be alive and dead at the same time.  Jesus calls us to be a “living sacrifice.”

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. – Romans 12:1

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