Morning Prayer as a Kick Off
“If morning prayer is a foreign habit, stop and pray for one minute with the Lord’s Prayer as your guide. Repeat tomorrow.” – Burk Parsons Personal prayer life is one of the elements of my faith that I struggle with on a regular basis. I love God, and therefore, prayer should be a more integral part of my life. I need to be more disciplined for taking time away, but I try every morning to pray on my drive into work. I am not sure whether it is being tired or other factors, but I often feel the time is cold. With all of that in mind, I really appreciated Burk Parsons suggestion. I sometimes feel like I am muttering a foreign language to God, and the suggestion to use Christ’s own words as He directed us is great. Any other...
Howl-le-lu-ya
Haven’t really decided what I think of this yet. I know that it is targeted toward kids so I feel as though I should be a little easier on it then if it wasn’t, but to me its just kinda creepy. What are your thoughts? [/kml_flashembed]
The Importance of Acceptance
What would you do to be accepted? To be promoted? To be recognized by those you look up to? Whats would you do to impress them? Ten years ago I would have said I didn’t strive for acceptance and that was either a flat out lie or just me being naive. I find now that there people who I will do things for that are out of my comfort zone to make happy. I think a lot of that goes back to me finding relationships more important then my own image of myself. Not sure if that’s right or not but its just my thought on how I function. The greatest paradox for me is that I care so little for Christ’s acceptance. I mean the God of the universe call me His child and because of the finished work of his Son I am completely and totally accepted by Him as I am....
I Can Do All Things
Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” I have a lot of good ideas, but I am not so hot on follow-through. My thought process often goes something like, “Wouldn’t it be great if somebody did such-and-such? Wouldn’t that be a great testimony/community outreach/offering?” Then when I do nothing about it myself, I tend to fall back on the fact that I’m not a natural leader – I know it isn’t my talent or “spiritual gift” – or that I don’t see any evidence that people would support my idea or get behind it … there all all kinds of reasons why I’m not the right person to carry it out. And yet, I profess to believe in this amazing, all-powerful,...
What Is Impossible With Men
The other day I was reading my Bible and came across the story of the rich young ruler. It’s a popular story among my emerging Christian friends: Jesus tells a rich young ruler that unless he sells his possessions and gives to the poor, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. In the light of the Prosperity Gospel and theocapitalism (which is when the free market system is worshiped like a god), this account serves as a reminder that we, as Christians, cannot serve both God and money. But then a few verses down I noticed this: “Those who heard this asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with men is possible with God.’”–Luke 18:26-27 (NIV) Even though I’m not rich by any stretch of the...