lemme share something

I was studying for next Wednesday. We will be discussing Moses. And I ran across this and thought I would share:

"Within both Egyptian and Hebrew culture it was believed that a person's name revealed the very essence of one bearing it. It is for that reason that the Bible will sometimes explain a name (such as that of Moses, for example) or it will recount the changing of a name to better reflect a person (such as when Jacob became Israel and Abram became Abraham).
The ancient Egyptians and Hebrews took their belief that a name was to be the exact representation of the person one step further. They believed that to know a person's name was to know that person wholly and utterly, even to the extent of sometimes having power and authority over that person." from the devotion "I AM WHO I AM"

This makes the request Moses made of God even more profound. When Moses saw the burning bush and turned towards it, God called to Moses. He gave Moses the charge to go back to Egypt. AND THEN Moses asked, "Whom shall I say is sending me?" In a nutshell Moses was saying: I want to KNOW you. I want to know the real you. I want to wholly and utterly know God.

This in it of itself is amazing. From the get go, Moses wanted more than a superficial relationship with God. He wanted to know his NAME. His very being. His essence. His power. His authority.

Learn from Moses. Follow his lead. ASK GOD QUESTIONS. Get to know Him. Test Him. Confront Him. Turn around and see the burning bush. And when He calls your name, say "Here I Am."

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in sync

Psalms 26.3 says: So I never lose sight of your love, But keep in step with you, never missing a beat. [MSG]

God has a beat. A heart beat. We have to make His hearbeat our heartbeat. When it isn't, then we are off beat and we "sound" bad. But when we listen and learn (from His Word) his rhythm and immitate His beat, then He showers us with blessings (good stuff).

How do we get in sync with God?

S= be saved. This is the first, most basic step. The only way you can hear Him is to be a part of His family. You have to confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Y= begin to yield. The Holy SPirit live sin you and is constantly speaking to you. Teaching you. Guiding you. You have to stop and listen to the still small voice. The more you yeild to his voice, the stronger it gets.

N= never give up. Even the most tight bands get off beat at times. It happens. When you get off beat from God, don't give up. Decide right now that no matter what you will strive to stay on beat. And if you have a set back, it won't stop you.

C= become contagious. People who are in sync with God are simply contagious. They have an inner peace and joy. They don't care who ridicules becuase having God's heartbeat makes them confident.

this & that

The story goes as follows: God promised Abraham that his family would be so big-- you couldn't count 'em. Abraham waited what seemed like forever for the promise to come true. Finally, when Abraham and Sarah were very old, they had a son, Isaac. Then God decided to test Abraham. He told Abraham to give up his son.

Can you imagine the three day trek Abrham had to take to the moutain where he was going to sacrifice his son? There must have been tears. The inner turmoil.

God wants us to get rid of our "this" to make room for God's "that." Abraham's "this" was his son. God was testing him to see if his "this" would get in the way. Did Abraham love his "this" more than his God. Becuase Abrham did not spare his "this" then God promised to bless (good stuff) him tremendously.

When we get rid of the "this" in our lives then God's good stuff has room. He wants to pour in to our lives with limit... but we have "this" things that stand in the way. "This" things take up our time, our energy, our money, our attention. Some examples of "this" things are...
Attitudes: Rebillious attitude. I-Don't-Care Attitudes. We need to break 'em. We need to dispose of our "this" attitude becuase God wants to give you good stuff like peace, love, joy.
Habits: Things we do over and over again. It may be web sites, chat rooms, relationships that do not advance our life as Christians. In fact, they detour us from our journey to be more like Christ.
Hobbies: Not every "this" in our life is necessarily bad. But some of us have so many things we doing that they push God further and further down the priority list. Evaluate your activies, you hobbies. Are you doing things that are just busy stuff and push God out of the way.

I challeng you to get rid of one "this" thing today. Just one! It can be the easiest thing. And when you get rid of that "this" thing in your life, you will realize that you are have made room for God's "that". His "that" is so much better. Perfect even.

Ziplock God

My wife uses ziplock baggies for everything. Obviously for food-- sandwiches, crackers, fruit, vegetables-- but also for traveling-- jewelry, clothes, toiletries. She uses the plastic bags to separate, protect and keep things safe.

God is a ziplock kind of God. In John 10.27-30, Jesus says that no one (especially the Destroyer and Thief) can snatch them (sheep) out of his hands. When we put our life in God's hand, we know we will be protected and safe no matter what.

So how do we get in God's hand? Verse 27 says we must "listen and follow" him. To be underneath God's umbrella of protection, we must listen to Him and follow Him. We can listen to Him by attending church serves (like the turnaround on Wednesday nights and Sunday morning). But we don;t have to go to church to listen from God. We can read His word, meditate on Scripture, sing songs that praise Him.

How do we follow Him? Put what ever you "heard" while listening to Him into practice. The word "follow" is an action verb. So put your faith in action. When confronted with a choice between doing right and doing wrong-- chose to do right. To follow Him means to be like Him, do what He would do, speak like He would speak.

Personally, whenever I am disobedient or don't listen and follow Him, I step from underneath His umbrella of protection and feel vulnerable. Get under God's umbrella, ella, ella-- ehh ehh ehh.

Happy 29th Birthday Ms. Michal!

Ms. Michal Turns 29 tomorrow (Friday) July 13th.

ziplock god

John 10.27-29

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Coming Up...

I Am Jospeh (part 1)

The reason I am intrigued with Joseph is becuase he grew up in a household with a strong generational curse that was overflowing with lies, jealousy, favoritisim and adultery-- to name a few. Joseph grew up with one dad, four sets of mothers, four sets of siblings. That in it of itself is cause for deep anguish. Add to the fact that his brothers hate dhim so much that they beat him to the point of death and sold him into slavery. From Abraham to Joseph, I believe each generation had a chance to stop it but Joseph was the only one who said enough was enough. So I want to go through each generation and what they did and how the generational curse multiplied and carried over to the next generation hardache and pain.

So let's go through this slowly together. First up, Abraham...
ABRAHAM: When God told Abram to leave his father, family and his country and go to a place that God would show him-- Abram disobeyed because we find out he decided to bring his nephew Lot with him. Disobeying God brought hardship on Abram when it came to sharing the land. Having Lot around gave Abram extra problems. Lot also chose to live in Sodom and Gomorrah, and when God decided to destroy the cities because of their sin, Abraham had to intercede in behave of Lot. When Abraham and Sarah were crossing over into foreign lands, Abraham told Sarah to lie about thier relationship becuase Abraham feared death. He told Sarah to say they were brothers and sisters. This may seem like a small lie, but by following this family lineage, you will see that the lies get bigger and "badder" and I believe it started here. The ruler of the forgien land thought Sarah was attractive and treated Abram well. But God brought a curse on the ruler. He found out the truth about Sarah and Abram and sent them away. Fear make sus do crazy things. Wrong things. We have to take hold of fear. Take hold of our thoughts and make them obedient to Jesus Christ.
So far, we already see the seeds of disobedience and deception. However, I think it's important to note that in the book of Hebrews God still called Abraham His friend. So no matter what we do, there is still forgiveness for our sins and redemption. Thank God.

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guess what this is all about

re-reading through the family line of abraham, i found something really disturbing... each father passed on to the next generation un-godly examples of adultery, lying, jealousy-- to name a few. abraham was the father of isaac; issac was the father of jacob; jacob was the father of joseph. you realize that joseph grew up in a grossly dysfunctional family? he had one father, four sets of siblings from four different mothers, their was favoritism, jealousy, sexual deviance, lying, cheating, pain, cover up... and joseph decided it stopped with him.

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In July...

Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow night we'll conclude our series on "A Daily Dose Of..." with KINDNESS. To recap tho, we talked about FORGIVENESS on the first Wednesday of this month. Remeber: Un-forgiveness builds a wall of anger, bitterness and hatred. So forgive (free one from consequence, blame or guily) like God forgave us through His son. Last week we compared our life to a boat in FRIENDSHIP. We all have a boat and depending on who we allow on our boat will determine if our boat sinks or floats. Throw over board those that cause you to act, think or speak in negative ways.

That brings us to tomorrow night and KINDNESS. The only thing I want to say is that you hear a Bible story in a new way...

Really Really... Um... I Dunno

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This is pretty funny... no?

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Cora Playing Soccer