A Christmas Journey You May Not Have Considered

journey

The Christmas season is notorious for traffic and travel. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, many people will travel great distances to celebrate with loved ones. The highways will be clogged with travellers, any of which will NOT be exhibiting the joy of the season. Hopefully for you, all of the going will be worthwhile as it results in great times with your loved ones. I know that will be the case for us.

The first Christmas was noted for its travellers as well. Mary and Joseph travelled about 80 miles in a journey that probably took them anywhere from a week to 10 days; a journey made even more complicated when traversed with and by a pregnant young woman. Magi travelled from the East – probably somewhere in the Persian Empire – to pay homage to a newborn King. Even shepherds temporarily went AWOL and travelled into nearby Bethlehem to confirm the news delivered to them by angels who had travelled from heaven.

Your Christmas Journey

The advent of the Giver of Life set many to travelling literally, but metaphorically, once He gives us life, the travelling has just begun. This life He gives us is quite a journey! We should all be travelling spiritually – moving closer to Him each day. God has called us to Himself so He can transform us into the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29), and that transformation can be understood in terms of a journey. Once God begins a work in our life, He promises to FINISH it (Philippians 1:6)

Where are you in your spiritual journey? Have you begun to walk with Jesus? If not, the reason He came was to die for your sins so you could be forgiven and have a relationship with God. You can learn more about that by following this link to The Story.

Are you learning more and growing closer to the Lord each day or have you stalled along the way in your spiritual journey? Have you detoured or even taken a few steps backwards? Just as every trip needs a route plan, so also we need an intentional plan to grow.

This Christmas begin or resume your spiritual journey by intentionally and regularly studying God’s Word and praying.   Make an intentional effort EACH DAY to move a little closer to the Lord. You can find some helpful hints by clicking here. Next year, may Christmas of 2023 find you so much closer to the Lord than you are this year.

How Are You Doing at the Half-Way Mark?

half-way-mark
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July 2, 2022 is the half-way mark of the year.  It hardly seems 182 days ago that we set some spiritual goals for the year, and now provides us a great opportunity to check where we stand with those goals.  The half-way point gives us a reference point from which to gauge our progress with still enough time to make the necessary adjustments to get us back on course.

Today, I want to suggest some simple diagnostic questions you can ask yourself at this half-way point and some encouragement to keep us moving along a path that draws us closer to Jesus.  Take the time to consider the questions honestly, and ask God what adjustments He wants to make in your life.

If I am not closer to God, I must remember that He hasn’t moved, so I must have drifted.

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Intentionally Keep One Christmas Decoration Out

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Christmas is over and the un-decorating now begins, making room for all of the new gifts we received for Christmas. How do we repack the ornaments? Where we store the lights? And what we do with the nativity scene? As you put the decorations away, let me challenge you to intentionally leave one of the items on display. 

When you pack your nativity scene and safely secure Mary, Joseph, and the manger, don’t put Jesus in the box.  At least metaphorically, keep Jesus unpacked throughout the year.

Often, we denounce our culture for “taking Christ out of Christmas.” But do we conveniently leave Christ out of our lives when it seems beneficial to do so? We stand firmly against those who have “taken prayer out of our schools.” But we do regularly pray with our children or pray privately in our prayer closets? We lament culture’s attempts to remove the Bible from public life. But do our Bibles gather dust on our end tables and shelves in our homes?

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Pitch Your Tent and Go Camping With God

tent

I’m not much for camping out.  I prefer my lumpy mattress to the hard ground.  I feel much more at east in my climate controlled bedroom than a nylon tent.  My idea of “roughing it” is a hotel with no wireless internet connection.

That being said, tents played an important role in Old Testament times.  One of my favorite cases in found in Exodus 33:7-11.  As Moses led the Hebrews through the Wilderness, they set up camp for a short time at various locations.  When they would set up camp, Moses would set up a tent far off from the camp that they called the “tent of meeting.”

Anyone who wanted to pray could get alone and meet with God.  The Bible tells them that when Moses went into the tent, the cloud representing God’s presence would engulf the tent.  When the people saw the presence of God come upon Moses and the tent, they would “rise up and worship, each at his tent door.”

Pitching Your Own Tent

I think it’s past time for you and me to have something like a tent of meeting in our lives.  We need a place to get alone with God and let Him speak to us.  

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3 Reasons You Need a Regular Prayer Time

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“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”  So Mark Twain quoted his friend, writer Charles Dudley Warner. With floods, hurricanes, and unseasonable heat, the weather has been the topic of conversation lately, but no one has offered any doable solutions. The weather remains in God’s hands (thankfully) and He continues to serve His purposes through it.  In the meantime, we will probably keep talking a lot about it and continue doing nothing about it. Unfortunately, prayer is another topic that garners more TALKING than DOING. 

We admit the ever-present need for prayer, we profess our belief in the power of prayer, and we talk about the potential of prayer to “change things,” but we continue to allow other things to distract us from the work of prayer.  Yes, prayer is hard work, because when we stop to focus on prayer, our enemy throws everything in his arsenal at us to stop us.  He, too, recognizes the potential power our prayers wield against him and he aims to stop us.

Prayer is hard work…our enemy throws everything in his arsenal at us to stop us.

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Today, I will add to the talk – or in this case the writing – about prayer, but I do so in hopes that this will remind us of our need to talk less about praying and engage a consistent, intentional, and daily time of prayer.  I want to share from the example of Jesus in Mark 3:7-12, when Jesus withdrew with His disciples from the crowd so they could give time to prayer. 

Three Reasons You Need a Consistent, Intentional, Daily Prayer Time

If Jesus, the son of God, withdrew regularly to pray, how much more so do we need to establish the discipline for our lives?  Let me suggest at least 3 reasons.

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Prayer Meeting and the Great Omission

prayer meeting

Many churches call their Wednesday night gathering “prayer meeting.”   I supposed the name described the evening’s activities at one time in history.

We church folks talk a big talk about believing in the power of prayer.  We make bold statements like, “Prayer changes things.”  We promise to pray for others we know who face great life challenges.  But the service that bears the name “prayer meeting” remains the least attended service on the church calendar. Prayer meeting has become the church’s Great Omission.

Many churches experience the largest Wednesday attendance when the church is having a congregational meeting to vote on “business.”  Conversely, the Wednesday night meeting called “prayer meeting” usually involves very little group prayer.  Bible study, prayer requests, and family supper usually occupy more time on the agenda than prayer.

Prayer meeting has become the church’s Great Omission.

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Give Pop-Up Prayer a Chance

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Pop-up ads are the scourge of the internet.  I have finally eliminated most pup-up ads, but now find myself a victim of pop-up autoplay videos.  Some of the videos are ads; some are news stories.  All of them startle me and distract me from the work I am trying to do when online.

Recently, however, I have been trying to cultivate the proactive of pop-up praying in my daily routine.  Pop-up prayers are spontaneous, short prayers triggered by something that I experience during the course of the day.  I often utter pop-up prayers when driving, talking on the phone, or working at my desk.   I find the more I have intentionally looked for pop-up possibilities, the more involuntarily they have occurred.

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Beware of Hidden Prayer Sins

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Prayer is a good thing, right?  Well, it can be.  It should be.  However, prayer is sometimes sabotaged by hidden prayer sins that keep us from the full its benefits.

Hidden Prayer Sins

Below you will find a few hidden sins that lurk in our prayer times.  The list is certainly not exhaustive and you can probably add more.

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6 Prayers You Can Pray for Your Pastor

pray for your pastor

One of the perks of being a pastor is having people pray for you. Sometimes you even get to hear them pray for you. What a humbling experience. In every place where I have served as pastor I have enjoyed the blessing of prayer support. And I greatly appreciate it. I need the prayers, really, I do. If any pastor will be honest he will have to admit that the responsibilities far outweigh the man, and prayer brings the power of God to the tasks at hand.

Whoever is your pastor – and I know that there are as many who read this who are not members of my church as who are, maybe even more so – I hope that you pray for your pastor on a regular basis.

How to Pray for Your Pastor

From time to time people ask me, “How can I pray for my pastor?” Let me use the letters in the word PASTOR to give you some ideas.

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4 Habits to Help You Pray without Ceasing

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“Are you the man who prays?”  The question humbled me.

I had just finished leading a voluntary staff prayer meeting at nearby organization when she posed the question.  I’ve had the blessing of leading prayer times with the team there several times over the last two years.  I never realized the impact those prayer times were making beyond the special needs for which we prayed.  I answered her question in the affirmative, now I need to make sure I was telling the truth.

As disciples of Jesus, we are supposed to pray; we are commanded to pray; we are instructed how to pray.  However, if we are honest with ourselves we often talk more about praying than we actually pray.

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