Blog

It is Monday morning and my wife and I decided to start going back to the gym this morning. 

We have had nearly a month break due to Covid exposure and other schedule challenges. 

Yesterday, at church, I mentioned to some brothers that we were heading back to the gym. Their silence was amusing. Some Christians believe it is a waste of time. 

Going to the gym and working out is also considered by some a vanity thing and just not important.

But our bodies are gifts from God. We are stewards of our bodies and it only makes sense to take time to take care of them. 

By being physically fit and healthy, we are more capable of accomplishing what God has set on our daily paths! Amen?

1 Corinthians 9:26-27 “Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”

Don’t make exercise a half-hearted endeavor! Set goals, create a plan, and then execute it. Don’t be afraid to pray for help. The Lord will help you help yourself! He wants us to take care of the body he gave us.

Isaiah 40:29-31 NIV (29) He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. (30) Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; (31) but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

God will help us, and he will reward our fitness efforts! 

That is, if they are done in His service and not for the selfish vanities. 

Put your trust in God, and He will guide you.

Do you have a exercise routine? If not start today! 

If you do, stay with it and make progress. 

The Lord will help you and he wants you to take care of the Temple. Amen?

You Ready For The New Thing?

Too many of us are holding onto baggage from the past.

Some of us can not see the present, let alone pursue the future, because we are looking back! 

We are often so busy looking at our past that we can not see what God is trying to do right in front of us. 

There is a new thing that God wants to do in our lives! 

The path may be a unfamiliar path. We may not know what is around the corner. There may be mountains to overcome. There may be valleys around the corner. But, you can be sure that our God is there! He is right there with us.

Are you ready for the new thing? 

Then quit looking at the past. 

Leave the past baggage and head toward that new thing God has for us!

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV (18) "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. (19) See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

God bless you all.

Are You Prepared For The Visit?

I was awakened a couple times real early this morning and it was my wife hurrying around in the bedroom getting something. I quickly fell back to sleep. But every once in a while, I would awaken to her footsteps as she was busily doing something!

Normally I am the one that is up around 6 but this morning she was up before 6.

So, I got up and got a quick shower and then went to the kitchen to make some coffee. 

Tammy had made a breakfast casserole! This is one of my favorite breakfast meals. This take time, usually prepared the night before and then baked in the morning. 

I asked her how long she had been up. She didn’t know she replied, “I don’t know, I just got up.”

While I was making coffee, Tammy hurried into the bedroom and made our bed. I noticed the kitchen was all cleaned up as well. The dishes from our late-night snacks had been cleaned up and put away. 

Then while I was in the bedroom getting dressed for the day, Tammy was sitting at a small table in the kitchen and reorganizing her cookbooks.

I realized she was preparing for the visit. We had company coming over and she was getting things in order. 

Those things we usually don’t worry so much about when we don’t have company coming over. She was taking care of everything she could think of.

That made me wonder how many are not prepared for their visit. How many don’t have their “house” in order for the visit?

Matthew 24:44 NIV So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Prepare your house today, brothers and sisters, because you have company coming!

2 Timothy 2:15 NIV Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

Are you prepared for the Visit? Have a blessed weekend.

The Doctor’s Examination

Any of you enjoy having to go to the doctor for an examination?

I mean, really enjoy having to get undressed so those body parts, you would rather not be seen, are examined! 

I didn’t think so. Who does?

This morning, my son has a physical examination, and his demeanor is broadcasting loud and clear that he is not looking forward to it either. I explained that the doctors know what to look for and are doing it as a preventive process for anything that could lead to anything bad.

If he had a choice he would still decide to not go! 

I know many people that do not go see the doctor and their reasoning is pretty much, “I don’t need to.” Some will say, “I’m just fine. I’ll go when I need to.”

We do this with our spiritual walk as well! Most of us will not truly ask the Lord to examine us and tell us how we are doing.

We convince ourselves that we are fine (without a blemish) and that we will ask him to examine us when we need it.

Psalms 26:2 KJV Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.

We should be examined daily by the Great Physician! 

But do we postpone our daily appointment with HIM? Some of us cancel it all together thinking we don’t need a checkup. We can’t see the “blemish” in our lives.

Psalms 139:23 KJV Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

The Great Physician will examine and help us daily, if we will let HIM! 

If we don’t let HIM, then things will only get worse! Just saying...

So, I want to encourage you to take a minute and ask the Lord right now, “Examine me oh Lord. Show me my thoughts that do not bring you glory. Help me oh Lord.”

Have a blemish free day!

Are You Distracted?

Have you ever heard your friend, co-worker or worse yet your spouse say, “Are you listening to me?!” Husbands are stereotyped as having selective hearing, right? We all realize that we were distracted by something and that is why we didn’t hear them talking to us. Let me share a story today:

Back when the telegraph was the fastest method of long-distance communication, a young man (poor) applied for a job as a Morse code operator.

Answering an ad in the newspaper, he dressed in his best clothes, and he went to the office address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, busy office filled with noise and clatter, including the sound of the telegraph in the background. A sign on the receptionist's counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office. The young man filled out his form and sat down with the seven other applicants in the waiting area. Some were discussing their qualifications they held.  They were all dressed better than he was, and he felt uncomfortable.  He just sat there in silence.  After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in!

Naturally, the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. They muttered among themselves that they had not heard any summons yet.  They assumed that the young man who went into the office made a mistake and would be disqualified.

Within a few minutes, however, the employer escorted the young man out of the office and said to the other applicants, "Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has just been filled." 

The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and one spoke up saying, "Wait a minute, I don't understand. He was the last to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That's not fair!"

The employer said, "I'm sorry, but all the time you've been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse code: 'If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.'

None of the “more qualified” heard it! They were too busy explaining to others their qualifications. The young man sat in silence and listened! He was tuned in to the “voice”. He had eliminated all the distractions and heard that small faint telegraph pecking away the message!

Ask yourself today, are your ears tuned to His voice? Have you eliminated the distractions in your life so you can hear HIS voice? Ask the Lord to reveal your distractions so you can eliminate them.

John 10:27 KJV My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

Can you hear him? Just asking…

Too Many Irons in the Fire

Have you ever heard that saying?

It is a very common saying and it refers to having a schedule too busy to accomplish everything that you intended to get done. It goes back to the simple blacksmith trying to get more work done than he could possibly get done and some of the work ends up destroyed by the fire instead! 

Don’t miss this. Work that he had planned on getting done is ruined because he tried to do too much!

Can you relate to this? Do you have too many things in your daily schedule? Are you adding things to your schedule even tough you are having enough trouble accomplishing everything already on your schedule? Have you found yourself telling someone that you sorry you didn’t get something done that you said you would do? Did you forget to do something that was on your list of things to do?

When we have too many irons in the fire, the result is that some things don’t get done.

We as Christians must be careful to not have too many irons in the fire too. Many Christians have more than one job while pursuing additional education. Then we add our hobbies which some people have more than enough in just hobbies. (Just saying) Oh, what about what we do for recreation, yes add that to the list. (I struggle with that)

You see, we have so many irons in the fire that we haven’t even placed a spiritual iron in the fire! Ouch! Someone needed to read this. Amen?

We Christians are becoming like the world! Our own schedules are not allowing God in as much as we should be. In fact, many Christians are realizing that these days are similar to the days of Noah.

Matthew 24:37-39 KJV (37) But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (38) For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, (39) And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

People were very wicked in that time and as we are seeing today, our country has become very wicked. Take a close look at what they were doing back then. You will notice that not all of them were bad things, right? But it becomes clear that they had excluded God from their heavy schedules! The whole world as we knew it a year ago has changed. It seems that the whole world around us has surrendered to evil.

Do you see how we have become such a wicked nation? In Noah’s day they ignored his preaching! (2 Peter 2:5) Today, many “Christians” ignore the true preaching and go on about their busy, very busy schedules! We have too many irons in the fire!

Today, reevaluate your schedule. Too many activities? Too many hobbies? Too many commitments? Too many recreational activities? Having to make excuses for not completing them all?

Finally, what is your top priority? God should be the first on the very top of the list. But is he? Just asking….

If not, its time to take some irons out of the fire.

Dumb as a Box of Rocks!

Have you ever been told that you are dumber than a box of rocks?

Have you ever told someone that they are dumber than a box of rocks? 

Have you ever thought that you did something that made you dumber than a box of rocks? 

Have you ever wanted to be dumber than a box of rocks? LOL. I didn’t think so.

But, sometimes our actions don’t warrant us being considered smarter than a rock.

Sometimes, the Lord might use rocks to do something that we wouldn’t do! What? you, say. Jesus said:

Luke 19:40 KJV And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.
Jesus was talking to the “righteous” when he said that! Amen?

So, what I am saying this morning is, lift up the Lord today and praise him. Regardless of your situation! 

If not than you might be dumber than a box of rocks. Just saying.

Have a blessed day

“My load is too heavy!”

Have you ever said that? Maybe, never told anyone but you feel like the load is just more than you can handle?

In my last blog I talked about it and yesterday I preached about it. Baggage! In my sermon I mentioned a story from my latest book, Lil’ Light’s Lessons -

We hiked down the Bear Canyon Trail which was about as extreme as the Tejas Trail was going up. I noticed that Adam seemed to be having a harder time than Thad was. We had reached the bottom of Bear Canyon Trail and I stopped for all of us to take another break.

Adam dropped his backpack like it weighed a ton! I looked at him and shook my head. After we had all drank some water and ate a trail snack, we put on our backpacks and headed towards camp. I let everyone know that we were just over a mile from camp. Adam kept lagging behind and whining about his backpack.

I finally got tired of listening to him complaining and took hold of one of the backpack straps, “Give me your pack!”

Adam slipped out of the pack and the sudden weight dropped and I almost fell to the ground!

I let go of his backpack to avoid falling over, “What the heck you got in your backpack, Son?” I barked.

Adam whimpered, “Just some rocks.”

I looked at him in shock, “What?”

He whimpered quietly, “Rocks.”

I opened the backpack, and it was nearly full of rocks that he had been picking up along the way.

We all took off our backpacks and I asked him, “What part of not picking anything up,” did he not understand?

Adam looked at me innocently and said, “I didn’t think that meant rocks too.”

Tammy started laughing.

I shook my head, “Take all the rocks out, Son.”

Adam asked how many he had to take out of his backpack. I laughed and told him until it was light enough for him to carry it back to camp. Adam dumped out about half of his rock collection.

After we had hiked on another half a mile or so, Adam dumped a few more, and then after another quarter of a mile, a few more and so on. When we reached the Pine Springs campgrounds (our base camp) Adam had maybe two rocks left in his backpack. Once we reached base camp, I explained that he still had to leave the last two rocks at camp.

You know we all carry unnecessary burdens in our spiritual backpacks. Sometimes we add more and more burdens to our backpacks. And when we reach a point that we are ready to give up, God will show us that we need to get rid of some of those burdens.

Eventually, if we continue to consult God, and seek him first, we will have dumped out all our burdens. There are always a couple that we keep wanting to hold on to simply because we can carry them. But that is not a good enough reason to keep them. 

Empty your backpack of all your burdens today. It sure makes hiking through life much easier. Just saying. Have a blessed day!

Tomorrow morning at church, I am starting a series on Baggage! Our church made a video regarding our baggage. Watch it by clicking this link –BAGGAGE.

So many of us go to the altar to leave our baggage but when we get up to leave, we reach down and pick it back up! Maybe not physically as in the video but spiritually as we walk away! Some of us before we even leave the Lord’s house.

What baggage are you carrying around right now? I am sure with the way things have been going in the world lately, you are struggling with a few.

Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV (31) Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. (32) Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Its hard to not get caught up in bitterness, rage or anger if you watch the news or read posts on social media. It is easy to join in with slander and malice thoughts if you entertain what is being said.

We need to Let Go of that Baggage and lean on Jesus!

Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV (1) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything (LET GO) that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, (2) fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (3) Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

If we should focus on what Jesus endured on the cross for us, it will make what we are going through seem trivial, amen?

 
So, you got some Baggage? LET IT GO!