I just got through celebrating my second Father's Day as a father. I am a blessed man. My earthly father is no longer with us, but I can celebrate the fact that he is now with my Heavenly Father. Isabel and Anglea really made Father's Day special. One of the things that Angela gave me was an outfit for Isabel to wear that says, "Jesus loves me and so does my daddy." While changing a diaper I read her shirt to Isabel and she just grinned and nodded her head yes. She is a loved little girl.
Angela not only is a great mother, but an amazing wife. We went on an overnight beach trip. Our little family. I had such a great time just spending time and appreciating what God has blessed me with in a special daughter and amazing wife.
I recall hearing Johnny Hunt mention a passage in Ecclesiastes 4:12 that is a great picture of our marriage relationship, "...a chord of three strands is not easily torn apart." The three strands of our "chord" are Angela, myself, and Jesus Christ. Remove anyone of these and immedaitely the chord becomes much weaker. Since neither Angela or myself are perfect, we have disagreements...all couples do. But these are just "tugs" on the chord and with Christ holding the chord together, there is no danger of the chord snapping.
I am a blessed man!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Expectations
I recently had the opportunity to preach and God had/has really been speaking to me about the expectations (or lack of) that we have as Christians. I discussed how we should be expectant when we come to a time of corporate worship. We should come expecting to see lives changed, we should come expecting to see God move and work. I also discussed how we should have expectations when we go to God in prayer. If we don't believe that God is able to do what we are praying for, why do we even pray? Lastly, I discussed how we should expect to hear a word from God every time we open up the Book. It may be over simplifying things, but we have a book that is the WORD of GOD, when we read it shouldn't we expect to hear from God through His word. Really profound, huh?
This lack of expectation was reinforced while reading my favorite book (apart from THE Book), "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer. Tozer talks about the scene that unfolded on Mount Carmel with Elijah (I Kings 18 starting in verse 20). This is the story of where Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to see who is worshipping the REAL God. Go read the story. Tozer's comments on this was that many evangelical churches today are content to cut up the sacrifice, place it on the alter, arrange the stones of the alter, prepare everything, rearrange the stones and sacrifice, worship the alter...and not care at all if the power and fire of God does not fall...not care that God is not encountered.
If we don't expect to see God move, don't be surprised when we miss His movings.
This lack of expectation was reinforced while reading my favorite book (apart from THE Book), "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer. Tozer talks about the scene that unfolded on Mount Carmel with Elijah (I Kings 18 starting in verse 20). This is the story of where Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to see who is worshipping the REAL God. Go read the story. Tozer's comments on this was that many evangelical churches today are content to cut up the sacrifice, place it on the alter, arrange the stones of the alter, prepare everything, rearrange the stones and sacrifice, worship the alter...and not care at all if the power and fire of God does not fall...not care that God is not encountered.
If we don't expect to see God move, don't be surprised when we miss His movings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
