Reflection on Freedom

Fellow Believers,

This weekend our nation celebrates its Independence from tyranny with cookouts and fireworks. As believers we have each day to celebrate our freedom because of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us on the Cross at Calvary. This 4th of July enjoy spending time with your family and friends, and never forget how much Jesus loves you and wants to have a relationship with you.

Isaiah 40:10 (New International Readers Version)

10 The Lord and King is coming with power. His powerful arm will rule for him. He has set his people free. He is bringing them back as his reward. He has won the battle over their enemies.

God Bless America!

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

40 Something With God

Believers,

In the second part of our series on numbers we are going to look at the meaning of 40 found in the Bible.

We see that God brought a flood across all of the Earth after 40 days and 40 nights of rain in Genesis 7. In Exodus 19 we see Moses called to the top of Mount Sinai to talk with God for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses came down the mountain after the 40 days with God with the 10 commandments found in Exodus 20. Also in Exodus we see that because the Israelites chose to disobey God that they wandered in the deserter for 40 years until they were allowed to enter the promise land. We also see in the New Testament where Jesus went into the desert to fast for 40 days and nights after which he was tempted by the Devil.

I have had numerous opportunity to spend time in the desert due to my job as a Soldier. My time in the desert gave me time to reflect on my life and decisions that I have made. You see this in the Bible as well. God does not send us away without a purpose in mind. He is always working in our lives. What does God want to teach you in the desert of life? I also notice that it was important for Jesus to go away and be alone. We also need to make time for him in our life.

Deuteronomy 8:1-3 (New International Version)

1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Are we willing to humble ourselves and keep his Spirit in our hearts to show others that Jesus is the only way?

Your brother in Christ,

Mike

John the Baptist's Challenge for Believers

Fellow Believers,

I was reading through John 3 today when I came across the following verse that really had an impact on me.

John 3:30 (New International Reader's Version)
30 He must become more important. I must become less important.

We live in a society today that places a tremendous amount of value on our personal importance. According to Webster's Dictionary importance is marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence : valuable in content or relationship. How often do we devalue the worth of our relationship with Jesus Christ and place other things in our lives before our relationship with our Savior? We are all guilty of not placing Jesus in a position of importance from time to time.

My daughter is two years old and learning to do things on her own, and when I offer to give her assistance when she is struggling she gets loud and says, "I can do it". I thought today how often do I tell God "I can do it" and then rely only on myself to get the task accomplished. God wants us to lift him up and offer everything over to him.

I will leave you with this thought. Doing things our way is just a recipe for disaster and if we want to succeed we need to do them God's way. It is not easy to be humble and admit that we need help, but God already knows our heart and our plans.

Today, are we going to continue to put our self first or is it time to allow God to direct our paths?

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Daily Renewal

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am always fascinated by the breath taking beauty of morning sunrises. The beauty of the mornings cause me to think about what an amazing God I serve. You can not help and see his touch every where around you. I also take this quiet time in the morning and renew and recommit myself to Christ and to serve as he would have me in his Kingdom.

It is not enough for us to remember the cost the Jesus Christ paid for us on the cross only during communion or while we are are in church. We need to be daily resurrected with an unquenchable passion for serving and taking the message of Jesus to world.

Let us take time each morning to pause and to thank God for everything. Paul challenges us in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 with this question, are we going live today seeking our own selfish desires or are we going to follow God's will for our lives?

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (New Century Version)

14 The love of Christ controls us, because we know that One died for all, so all have died.15 Christ died for all so that those who live would not continue to live for themselves. He died for them and was raised from the dead so that they would live for him.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike

The Power of Two

Fellow Believers,

There is a tremendous message found throughout the Bible as God uses the number two. Take a look at the scriptures below:

Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation)
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

Matthew 5:41 (Contemporary English Version)
41If a soldier forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles.

Matthew 6:24 (The Message)
24"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.

Matthew 18:19-20 (New Century Version)
19 "Also, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about something and pray for it, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 This is true because if two or three people come together in my name, I am there with them."

Mark 6:7 (New Century Version)
7 He called his twelve followers together and got ready to send them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.

Luke 10:1-2 (Contemporary English Version)
1 Later the Lord chose seventy-two other followers and sent them out two by two to every town and village where he was about to go. 2He said to them: A large crop is in the fields, but there are only a few workers. Ask the Lord in charge of the harvest to send out workers to bring it in.

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed by the task that were before you not knowing if you could get them accomplished. I know that I have and thought to myself that I will never be able to do all of this work all by myself.

God realized in the Garden of Eden that it was not good for man to be alone. There is too much along the way that will try to trip us up and cause us trouble if we go it alone. In Matthew 18: 20 we see that if we are with two other believers God is there with us, and with God with us we can not fail.

Jesus chose to pair up his disciples as he was sending them out to minister to others around the World so that He would be there with them and that they would not lose the faith. It is good to have a person on Earth that can hold you accountable in your faith so that you might do good works for our Heavenly Father.

So take heart today and realize that you do not have to do it all on your own. Let us humble ourselves today and join His team that is reaching out to people in need and spreading the Good News, and if we are asked to carry our Cross for Christ and extra mile let us do it with a smile on our face. Let us chose to serve God and not man.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Stories Found in the Numbers of the Bible

Believers,

Over the next couple of post I am going to look at a few of the numbers that catch my attention are repeated throughout the Bible and see what they mean to us as believers in Christ. I will be taking a look at 2, 40, and 1.

I am excited about where this study will take us.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike

Living Counter Culture for Christ

Fellow believers,

Have you ever considered yourself a rebel or an outlaw?

As I read through the Bible I see believers of Jesus Christ that are completely and passionately in love with him. They sought to live out their lives daily as God commanded them knowing that they were going against the popular culture of their day.

Think about these words and phrases:

1. If anyone would come after me, they must deny yourself and follow me (Matthew 16:24).
Society says live for yourself and forget everyone else.

2. It is better to be last than to be first (Matthew 20:16); Make yourself a servant (Mark 10:43).
Society says being first is the only way to live and you have made it when others serve you.

3. Love your enemies; Do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27).
Society says hate your enemies and seek revenge against those that hate you.

There are many more examples in the Bible of how we are to live our lives in direct opposition to world we live in so that others may see Jesus Christ in us.

Let us take the world by fire and do something totally amazing for Jesus Christ and live as rebels not conforming to this world or its view, but live as a committed servant who is passionately in love with Him.

I was in church one day listening to the message being preached and realized that for so long I had been just a warm body in church and not putting into action the Word of God. That day I made a commitment to God and myself that I was going to act on his Word and stop doing it my way.

What a truly amazing way to live your life in complete submission to the will of God. Let us not wait and make today one action for our Heavenly Father.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Make Everyday One of Meaning

Our troubles, our frustrations, our pains, our anxiety, and every aspect of our life are easier with God's help, as there is nothing that he cannot do. Today and for the remainder of my life I am actively going to lace up my running shoes and run towards God and seek out his will. The path will not be an easy one and I will stumble along the way, but God's grace has covered my sins.

What a mighty God we serve. Let us take time to reflect on the words of Paul in Romans 12:1-2 and use them as a pattern to govern our lives for him.

Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Image of God

Yesterday morning as I was driving to work I thought about how big and amazing is our God. He created everything in this world and did so in six days. AMAZING! He made everything with a tremendous amount of detail to show just how much he cares. Look at the millions of blades of grass that make up the breathtaking field, the hundreds of leaves that make up the trees in the forest, and how he made each snow flake different. AMAZING! God did this for a purpose so that we would understand just how much he cares for all of these things that do not have the ability to love him. Then God created man and woman. AMAZING! What is truly amazing about this is that God created them in his image. WOW. We are created in the image of God. We are not screwed up or mistakes we are created by God and for God.

It hit me that there are millions and millions of people on the earth and each created in his image. AMAZING! Pause and think today when you interact with someone you are seeing a piece of God. We are the only Jesus that some will ever see. Again, I had to pause and think, when people see me do they see Jesus in me.

I thought about how Moses turned his face when he was face to face with God in his presence. We get to see daily glimpses of God each day. The question we all need to ask is what are we going to do with those glimpses of God? Are we going to push them away or are we going to walk with God and talk to him?

This passage in Psalms 8 best fits with my thoughts this morning, and it is AMAZING that David had the same thoughts that I did many years ago.

Psalm 8 (The Message)
A David Psalm 1 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. 2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble. 3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? 5-8 Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden's dawn light. You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps. 9 God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

Welcome

I am a follower of Christ and committed to being molded more into his image daily. There are times that I stumble and fall, but God's grace and his forgiveness allow me to get back up and continue to follow Christ. I will be sharing my thoughts and beliefs about certain passages I read throughtout the week. May we all be strengthed by the reading and the sharing of His Word with other believers. I am excited about the journey that we will share together.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike