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Reader’s Survey and Free Gift
Please help me serve you better with jimduggan.org. Click the link below and take a few moments to complete my readers’ survey. This will help me make the blog more valuable to you. Thanks.
The struggle is real, indeed! As believers, we have a very real enemy and he doesn’t play nice. Over the past two-weeks, I have encountered intense spiritual warfare raging in my mind and heart, and believe me, this was not my first rodeo with the devil.
One of the biggest mistakes believers make is to at best minimize the devil’s influence and at worst to disbelieve in him or his work to distract, demoralize, and derail your joy and service for God. I am saddened that there are people who do not believe in God, and I pray that their eyes would be opened to the truth, but the saddest of all to me is the one who does not believe in the existence of the devil.
The devil’s main arena is our minds. Therefore, He likes to mess up our thinking and confuse us with his lies. Deception is the name of his game. At the very first encounter a human being had with the devil, he tried to confuse her thinking and understanding of God’s truth. Genesis 3:1-7 recounts the very first sin committed, and the bait the devil dangled in front of Eve was in the question of verse 2, “Did God really say…?” (emphasis added)
The devil is not very entrepreneurial. He has been creating confusion and doubt in the minds of the creatures about the Creator’s explicit truth forever. God’s Word is VITAL (I cannot overstate this notion) to our spiritual effectiveness. The Word is both an offensive weapon, the sword of the Lord in Ephesians 6:17, and a defensive tool, the word hidden that we might not sin according to Psalm 119:9,11.
This is why I challenge you so often to be intentional with your Bible reading and study. If we fill our minds with God’s truth, we are more equipped to fend off the devil’s attempts to confuse and delude us. For the believer, spiritual victory begins and ends in the mind. Read, study, memorize God’s Word so you will be armed and defended against our very real enemy’s attacks.
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. – John 8:32
I want to help prepare you to memorize Bible verses for when you don’t have a Bible handy. Below is a link where you can download for free my A to Z Bible Memory sheet. The sheet provides you with 26 Bible verses each beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet. You can memorize and have them ready when the devil tries to deceive you.
Articles and Blogs
Seven Ways Church Members Should Prepare for a Sermon – Thom Rainer
The Meaning of Manhood – Phillip Holmes
The Pastor’s Personal Holiness – Kevin DeYoung
Beyond the Quiet Time – Jared C. Wilson
“Who’s Watching You?” Asks Braves Legend, Sid Bream – Scott Barkley
Worth Repeating
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison
Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. – Mark Twain
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of determination. – Vince Lombardi
It always seems impossible until it’s done. – Nelson Mandela
Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength. – Theodore Roosevelt
Another Look
Most pastors I know work very hard at the most important thing we do – teaching and preaching God’s Word. I am sure there are a few who take short cuts and preach sermons already prepared in a book or online, but most that I know spend a good amount of time and pour a lot of spiritual energy into each sermon. Many of us prepare three sermons a week.
More than 20 years ago, God led me to Colossians 1:28-29, and that passage has since been the Biblical motivation for me as I prepare and preach. I see it as God’s commission to me as a preacher and because I take the verse and commission seriously, I prepare as fastidiously as possible.
Him [Jesus] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me. – Colossians 1:28-29
I’ve heard some preachers confess that they spend as much as 12-20 hours on the Sunday morning sermon alone. Thirty years of preparing sermons week after week has taught me how to research and compile material more quickly than I did at first. Digital tools and resources (which I have amassed over the last several years at the cost of a small fortune) have made the process more streamlined for me and saved me some time as well.
I wondered what would happen if listeners prepared themselves to hear as diligently as preachers prepare themselves to preach. I certainly wouldn’t expect it to be an equal amount of time, but my fear is that most hearers sit down in church to hear a sermon having given little to no thought or prayer to prepare themselves for what God wants to say to them.
Yesterday, Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources posted an article on his blog that gave some practical steps we can take to prepare ourselves to hear God speak through the sermon. I am including a link to the article below, and I want to challenge you to read it and take some time this week (and every week from this point on) preparing yourself to hear what God wants to say directly to YOU on Sunday.
I believe your preparation will make you a better hearer and certainly make your preacher a better preacher.
Use the comment section below to share ways you prepare yourself to hear God’s Word.
Seven Ways Church Members Should Prepare for a Sermon by Thom Rainer
How we think, in large part, determines how we get along in life. Are you intentional with your thoughts? Today’s vlog challenges us to be intentional with our thoughts. Watch below.
I am 51 years old. Occasionally I forget that and think I am 25. Age-amnesia can get me in trouble sometimes. I have to learn that at 51, I can still do everything I did at 25, only now I have to do it only in my head.
I have to face the facts, I am not as strong as I used to be, but hopefully I am smarter. Where once I could tackle many issues with vigor now I must use prudence. For all of us, YOUNG or OLD, that truth applies to temptation. We allow make ourselves way too vulnerable to temptation – more vulnerable than we are actually able to stand. We are not nearly as strong as we think we are, and the secret to withstanding temptation lies in being wise and prudent.
Let me encourage you to consider your proximity to sin and take the most prudent of three options.
Let me remind you also that the battle against temptation is more easily fought before ever facing the temptation. Be prepared. Have you heart clean and your mind clear. Meditate and memorize God’s Word so you will have a weapon to wield against temptation. Set your heart on heavenly things, nurture your spirit through daily Bible reading and prayer, and you will be more prepared to avoid, run, or resist.
Like most of us, you’ve probably asked the question before: why am I here? For thousands of years, people have been trying to discover the true meaning of life. We search for meaning, value, and purpose. Today, we will let the cat out of the bag and reveal the great mystery of the ages.
The Mystery of Life…Solved
Colossians 1:24-29
Recap: The Secret to a great life is letting Christ live in and through me.
q The presence of Christ is appropriated by faith
q The presence of Christ can be a moment-changer
q “Hope” in the Biblical sense is not iffy or subjective, but is sure and
grounded in God’s reliability
q “Glory” refers to anything good or praiseworthy
q Christ in us assures us that things will occur in our life that are
meaningful and purposeful.
q God’s purpose for your life is to make you like Jesus – Romans 8:29
q The WORD of God is the INSTRUMENT of God to accomplish the PURPOSE of God in the PEOPLE of God.
q So many times we fail to unlock the true secret to a meaningful life
` because we use the wrong keys.
q When we conform to God purpose for our lives, His power comes to
bear to accomplish His purpose.
Articles and Blogs
11 Traits of Churches that Will Impact the Future – Carey Nieuwhof
Setting the Moral Parameter – Bill Eliff
10 Ways to Start the Day Well for God – Chuck Lawless
Worth Repeating
“The day your memories are greater than your dreams you are dead in the water.” – Ike Reighard
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey
“Our working is not added to God’s working. Our working is God’s working” – John Piper
Another Look
Have you ever noticed that when things seem to be going well that the prospect of something bad happening still looms over you? The old saying is that “every rose has its thorns.”
That experience seems to be present in our spiritual walk as well. Whether in a personal Bible study, moving worship service, or through some daily encounter, God intervenes in your life and you experience something of a spiritual breakthrough. You are prepared to serve God more diligently and walk with Him more intimately. Then… the devil gets wind of it and shows up throwing every possible obstacle in your path.
You are not alone. Even one as godly as the Apostle Paul experienced a similar experience during his time in the city of Ephesus. God used him there in a tremendous way to turn the hearts of many to Jesus. Opportunities for the Kingdom abounded. So did the obstacles. He spoke of the situation when writing to the church in Corinth.
“…for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.”
– 1 Corinthians 16:9
Granted, when we are not obedient to God, we will experience His corrective hand often through our circumstances, but we MUST NOT consider every difficulty a sign that we are NOT “doing right.” Many times those difficulties of the opposite truth that we ARE INDEED “doing right.”
When we engage God’s mission for any season of our life, the devil is not happy and will do all he can to thwart God’s work through us. So, what can we do when “doing right” seems to be “going wrong”? Let me suggest three reminders.
So, don’t let the opposition you may experience when you serve God distract, disturb, or derail you. As God opens the doors, walk through them, ignoring the sounds of the devil’s naysayers.
My Atlanta Braves aren’t playing very well at all these days, and some fans are leaping off the bandwagon in Titanic proportions.
What if God treated us like we treat or sports teams?
Psalm 130:3-4 – “If you, O Lord, should mark our iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, that You may be feared.”
Psalm 103:12 – “…as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.”
1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”