Beginning of this year during our church prayer and fasting time, Nili and I really felt like this was to be a special year with God.  The words “Know Me” became so obvious and our personal anthem.  This morning during my devotion time I read Psalm 19 – here is the scripture that JUMPED out at me…

vs 12 – Who can understand his errors?  cleanse thou me from secret faults.

Sometimes we hit walls and have sins that keep messing up and we don’t understand why, or why we still fall for the same trap over and over again.  When I read this passage I see the perfect pattern that we ALL know but we don’t accomplish.  The fact is that we need to remain OPEN to God and his way of doing things… we have to let those things be removed and let HIM cleanse us.  We have to be genuinely apologetic and make life changes – but it doesn’t stop there…

vs 13Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

We need help.  We can’t do it on our own – we have to rely on God’s love for us, the Son’s forgiveness and the Holy Spirit’s wise counsel in order to overcome the “walls” that seem impossible.  I am talking about those things that you can’t seem to overcome – they are plaguing you.  Whether it’s a sin of offense, or a sin of omission – either way we have to create the environment WITHIN to extinguish what is gripping us from the inside.

Our senior pastors shared yesterday about Samson and how he was a great looking God-vessel on the outside (Nazarite, holiness in action) but on the inside he burned with lust and selfishness.  We have to be honest with ourselves if we are going to grow…

vs 14Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

Our last step is to watch two areas – our mouth and our heart.  We have start speaking  and believing those things that are acceptable. Now here is where I normally insert my comments on holiness in lifestyle, but I will refrain this time – only to say “you know what you are thinking” – now look at where it is coming from…

God, I want my heart to be after yours – I want my mouth to speak your words – God I want to be YOURS alone.  Help me to overcome things that I have no strength for and remind me that when I am weak… I don’t have to be STRONG…

Been working on this for a little while but you are going to be my sounding board. Basically, successful people grow. This is how it goes…

When responsibility exceeds capacity, trouble happens… Growth is needed!

How often have we jumped into a new position or a promotion and its a great “honeymoon” period. Full of new ideas, new structure and development, new successes and lots of grace for failures. Heck, you are the new guy. But there comes a moment when all of that potential reaches a maximum point and we have to start taking Personal responsibility. It’s a tough moment, because it has a tendency to catch us off guard.

I want to start talking about how to prevent that moment from taking place. Hopefully, we are striving to grow. Growth will always expose the critical difference between capacity and responsibility. So lets take it on full force so that the curve downward is temporary and the capacity grows to exceed the responsibility.

How do we expand our capacity? Here are a few quick answers that we can discuss in future blogs;

1. 1- self internal correction – when we are honest with ourselves we see the problems before anyone else does. A lot of times we self-preservation begins to try to “cover” the failures up, instead of exposing and correcting the problems. Internal correction immediately puts the brakes on downward capacity. It takes a certain level of selflessness to grow in capacity
2. 2- external correction – good companies evaluate, great companies add value. We need to accept external correction as a means for focused growth. Great companies will use evaluate periods to develop unity, focus, and personal professional growth. Too often we are quick to point out the wrongs (company) and we are quick to get offended (indivisible). External correction, when delivered/received correctly, promotes growth.
3. 3- personal development – I remember vividly when God told me “the more you know, the more I can use you”. He sent me back to school in a supernatural way that year and that is why I am who I am today. We have to take serious our educational and practical growth. When we are handed talents, we cannot bury it in the ground…we have a responsibility to cultivate that gift, produce fruit from that gift, and reproduce that gift.
4. 4- spiritual development – it’s the “favor gets me what money can’t buy…plus what money can”. It’s true that our relationship with God is the greatest factor in our capacity to lead and succeed. If there is any one thing that I can promote off this blog let I PT please be that we dive into God and get to KNOW HIM.

More on the way… But wanted to get this one out…

Good morning all,
I was reading this morning in Hebrews where it says – And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” (Hebrews 10:38 NIV)

The phrase, “I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back” is resonating with me this morning. Do I shrink back? Why does God call out cowards? What confidence is He looking for in us during this passage?

To really understand where God is coming from we have to look at what He is talking about. For the previous 9 chapters, the book of Hebrews is calling out of us the legalism of faith by works. There is a place of self righteousness that comes with serving The Lord out of selfish ambition. I have written a lot about the “antilove” of loving self, how fitting that it ties back in to the whole grace conversation. When we are passionately pursuing God there is a requirement to not be pursuing selfish gain. It is completely contrary to the servant leadership example of Christ. We have to live selflessly in order to be bold in the grace given to us. Our relationship takes a shift from self- realization and self-assurance to selfless abandonment to the growth and love of God being shed abroad. It’s is reaching the souls of those around us for their sake and not our own, or so,e times at the cost of our own.

So full circle while this looks like it is making no sense. There is a place of self assurance that becomes self-preservation. Instead of grace being a starting point of being a servant, it becomes the basis of our faith and a selfish anthem of self-righteousness. Grace was never intended to replace Love. God is love. The opposite of Gods love is loving oneself (otherwise known as selfishness – living for my good). When the passage in Hebrews talks about shrinking back, I can only think of one reason to shrink back – self. Either I am afraid (self-preserving and concerned with what others think or will do to me) or I am thinking of me (self-indulgence is the need for personal value and cigs always centered focused) or I am puffed up and exposed (self-promotion is the root of our insecurities with feeling the need to look better than we are – when that is exposed we shrink back and restart our relationships or even our jobs and influence).

We have a responsibility to have a relationship with the Father. Understanding who I am in Christ will never allow me to “shrink back” but it will also never make any situation about me. Basically, we become cowardly when our faith is based on “who we are”, instead of “who He is”.

Lord, help me to grow closer to you today. Help me to no longer live for me, or gain selfishly, or self-ambition. I want to be an ambassador for you today. Representing your kingdom, your wealth of love, and your way of loving on people. The moment I think of myself, remind whose I am. Remind me that I am to think of others more highly than myself. That because you have changed me, reached me, encouraged me, saved ,me, shown grace, extended mercy: I have a responsibility to have the Same love that you have. Help me to be that way today. I need You, I Love You, here I am, use me.

B

Here is my new counseling questionnaire…
1- are you spending QUALITY daily time with God?

That’s it… That s the entirely of my new counseling procedure. To be honest, anytime I personally am dealing with my own issues, they only overwhelm me when I’m not diving into my relationship with God. I think that to many of us have given the authority in our situations away, I stead of taking authority.

Genesis 1:28 – God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” We have been given authority, and we have been everything we need…

2 Peter 1:3 – His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

So premise establishe – the key ingredient to every victory is a relationship (a real, thriving relationship) with Christ. We have our own solution. It’s not to say that we don’t need encouragement, or that we don’t need to depend on each other. After all Adam was given a helpmeet for a reason. It asked two to make a thing go right… However, until we realize that the authority of the situation is in our hands, we will never have victory over our problems. It may take an army to overcome you situation, but unless you are the leader of that army, and unless you are taking orders from God… Then the victory will be temporary if at all!

So what is my charge here? – spend more time with God. He is the healer, He is the comforter, He is the lifter of our heads, He is the strength, He is the solution, He is the only one who KNOWS anyways.

What is the solution?

Live with Him. He the bride of Christ. Living a life haphazardly creates separation from God. It is a relationship. The more you spend time with our things or other “gods” the more you lean to the flesh. The more time you spend developing a relationship with the way of the world, the more we will act like, and face the problems of sin.

What is the solution?

Do what you know to do.

Colossians 1:5 The faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

Growing in you since the day you heard it – wow.

Is that true among us?

Are we still allowing the WORD to grow us since we heard it?

Or is the problem that we have not yet truly understood God’s grace?

That is a can of worms right now.  When did I start to truly understand Your grace?  When did I truly start to let the WORD grow me?  I think those two came hand in hand in my life.  Last Sunday I was able to pray with someone to rededicate their life to the Lord.  They were so excited, yet they were doing the same thing that I had done years ago.  I used to get saved almost every week at church (sometimes twice) because I wasn’t growing.  I had yet to truly understand God’s grace.  I needed to experience God enough to understand that it wasn’t my works that was maintaining my relationship with Jesus -

‘God, it was my pursuit of You and accepting Your pursuit of me that made it work.  You love me and You want to know me – when I allowed that to become my passion in knowing You then things began to change.  We try to say  – get in the WORD – and we try to say – YOU NO LONGER NEED TO WORRY, GOD HAS FORGIVEN YOU.  But we don’t do a good job of combining the two for an understanding of who YOU ARE!’

This takes a mind change that each of us have had to make.  I think everyone of us has been saved at least 100 times, and I think each of us can look back to when it changed for us – it was when we allowed the grace of God to become evident in our lives.  It was when we allowed God to begin to work in us (we stopped disqualifying ourselves and damning God’s love in us).  Wow – back into the love journey I guess. I believe that is where the grace message has been lost – this hyper grace thing that everyone is either embracing or fearing.

1. One the embracing side – everyone is experiencing the love of God in such a real way that it is freeing and exciting.
2. On the fear side, everyone is watching and seeing the realization of holiness becoming extinct.

To both sides I say – watch the edge.

If not for the grace of God is such an incredible phrase — we use to make ourselves feel better about something we accomplished or avoided (our way of getting credit, but falsely giving credit to God)…

Just saying…

But seriously – the moment I BELIEVE that works have allowed me to maintain my relationship, or that works somehow brought salvation into my life then I have MISSED the love and grace of God.  Faith without works is dead , certainly,  but even within faith it is about our faith in GOD not in ourselves -or- our abilities (we have started to mix the two too much in the church).  As for the hyper grace – it is so rooted in the essence of who God is, but without the personal responsibility.

We forget that it was HIS KINDNESS that leads us to repentance ‘Romans 2:4′.  We still need to have a fear of God, in honor – to be sorry for what we do – not in reference to our worth, but in honor of who HE is and what HE has done for us.  It is not that HE has to die again for our sins, but it is a thankfulness for what He has done.

When I mess up, I know that my wife loves me and forgives me(as much as she knows how), but it is because of my love for HER – I still apologize.  In our passion for God, we have to recognize that is still a relationship.Our love for GOD compels us to do our part too.  I want to be a better person because of HIS love for me – so that I can be a better witness of Him.  I want to walk in the holiness that God has made available because of HIS sacrifice.  That means that I need to do my part.  Again, its not about worth or value.  What Grace has done for me? It as solidified my worth based on what GOD thinks of me.  BUT it does not excuse me from being transformed, being renewed, aspiring to be holy because HE is holy, or asking forgiveness when I am wrong.  I do those things BECAUSE HE paid for them, I do those things because HE loves me and HIS grace is sufficient.  It is not to earn a relationship, it is to honor the one HE gave me! I want to be more like HIM, so that I can be used MORE by Him.  I don’t think we can talk about Grace too much, as long as we realize that grace is for a reason (cause we need it).

God I love you – use me all day long for YOUR kingdom!

I Love You

B

I think I have found the answer to every problem that ever existed.  Seriously…  When I really boil down all the problems that I deal within counseling, coaching, team leadership and personally – it is all boiled down to one simply thing that would fix everything.  Ready for it???  I am warning you that it will seem so simple, and so common – but it is the truth.  In fact, you will likely dismiss the rest of this blog when you read this, and that will be a mistake.  We need to all challenge ourselves concerning this, IF we are really going to make a difference.

Make God more important than yourself.  That’s it.

Make God more important than yourself.  That’s all it takes.

Make God more important than yourself.  You will never be offended because it isn’t about what you WANT.

Make God more important than yourself. Relationships become selfless – God is love, and love is never SELFISH

Make God more important than yourself. Marriages become a team – living for the other, even if they are living for themselves.

Make God more important than yourself.  Never lack – wants, desires are for others and not yourself.

Make God more important than yourself. Bad decisions disappear – not living for my desires, but God’s (poor decisions are based out of selfishness)

Make God more important than yourself.  Change is easy – its about others, instead of our own comfort

Make God more important than yourself.  Fear no longer exists – there are no limits, no hesitations

Make God more important than yourself.  He will SHOW you how important you are to Him…

Every decision there is an option to live for God or to figure out a way to manipulate our desire to gain some form of pleasure into an excuse to call the decision “spirit led”.  I am not about to pronounce that God doesn’t want us blessed or want us to ENJOY things. However, since when have the materialization of goods things become the prominence of our “enjoyment” our focus?  Do we really feel that good “feeling” of a new car or a new home even comparatively equates the eternal enjoyment of being a part of someone’s encounter with a loving God?  Yet, we are self infatuated to the point that every evaluation is literally based on the foundational flaw of how it affects us.  How it compares to our “personal” preferences.  It is as if I have become my own moral agent, my own base of character judgement.

1 Corinthians 3:[20] And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

Here is our hope – that if we change our mindset to literally be SET on Him, then we are led by the spirit and then we will walk out the plans that God has for us.  I can no longer allow myself to get discouraged (then I am looking to myself), and I can no longer allow myself to worry or fear (then I am looking to what I can do instead of what God is doing).

I need more of You God.

Pb

I am sitting on a plane right now thinking about a lot things, specifically the church. I know that my mind rolls around to that a lot, but honestly this time it’s not about structure or systems, or even what we need to do next. It’s about the body. The body of Christ. I have been on a hiatus of Facebook recently just to keep it in its priority, but recently went back on to see how the world was doing. To my lack of good timing I signed on the day after the Presidential Elections, that was a mistake. On it, my eyes were welcomed to all kinds of accusations, people being offended, defriending, apologizing for ill conversations – and my heart sank. It’s not one thing or one action, it wasn’t one position or one person… My heart sank because there was a mass spiritual moral depravity painted in full monochromatic fashion for the world to be reminded of who we are. its all of us, leader to newbie, seasoned to servant – every spectrum displayed a picture of what not to do. It was an art gallery. It was as if everyone had painted a picture and then realized that the image they painted was not as pretty as they thought… and everyone saw it. Art pieces were flying everywhere, people trying to quickly repaint the canvas, hide the canvas, explain the canvas, or just move it into another section of the gallery where it “fits in”. Where have we gone? It’s like the church of Laodicia in the book of revelations where we have LOST our first love.

When my love for Him out weighs my love for me, then I am his son.
When my heart breaks for the words I THINK, never letting them embrace the presence of sound, then I am his own.
When my mind doesn’t go THERE, doesn’t entertain THAT, then I have his mind.
When my actions produce life, instill confidence and create freedom, then my life is His. But until that day, that I have laid… my life on display in His presence to stay…and living so that THEY can be loved HIS WAY – it’s only then I can hear Him say… Well done… My son.

God, take my heart and mold it into you…taking every dry place and adding oil, every selfish place and removing it. I want to be solely yours! I need you God. We can’t do this on our own… We need You. We need your help to love like You do.

1 Timothy 1:22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit[d] in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,

Purity  = loving one another… 

Wow.  Finally found a scripture that basically shows that the closer you get to God the more you love people.  We know that in 1 John 4:8 it says

“God is Love”,

I think we come up with so many other objectives in our Christian walk.  Not only that, but this scripture ties in that it requires us to recognize that it that we are born of an INCORRUPTIBLE seed.  This is a seed that doesn’t worry, deal, or dwell on the corruptible.  It is founded on the only incorruptible truth – the Word of God.  All our emotional desires, all our hurts and offenses, all our imposing on others is based on corruptible seed.  We are focusing on the fruit that produces the wrong seeds.  When we simply change or aim to change others behavior we are not planting incorruptible seed.  Love through the Word of God is the only incorruptible seed.  We are purified through obeying the Spirit and the Word, and that purification creates a SINCERE love for the brethren;

“loving one another fervently with a pure heart”. 

Today, dive into your walk with God and ask the questions about your motives.  Why are you serving God?  Are we still working on ourselves only?  Sure we need to continually be purified and grow, but it is in the action of walking out who God is (love) that we grow closer to Him. Lets be about the Fathers business – loving people.

God, remind me that life is not about my good decisions, or my ability to climb higher in life – but truly about serving EVERYONE around me.  Every conversation is an opportunity for me to be Yours.  Forgive me of my selfishness.  Forgive me of my self seeking.  You remind me of Your love for me daily, please help me remind others.  God I will be Your hands, Your feet, Your mouthpiece today.  I need You, I want to be close to You – take over my thoughts and my day today.  I am Yours!

I love You

B

Goodbye

Today I lost someone, and honestly I cannot say that I was extremely close to them, but still it is affecting me.  Today, I lost someone that I did not know if they knew Jesus.  I have all the excuses in place, I have all the conversations via text where I would mention Jesus, talk about faith, even say “watch, He knows how to do miracles”.  But – I never asked.  Here I am, constantly preaching about living your moment, defining who you are by how much you love people and the greatest demonstration to love with God – and I never asked. I don’t write this to be a cute long blog today, instead I write this as an apology and a plea.

Apology to God, and to Mike.  Mike, I am sorry I never asked you if you knew Jesus.  I pray that someone did, and that you had at some point in your life asked Him into your heart.  I know that He loves you and your family.  Please forgive me God for not asking, for having excuses in my life of “waiting” for the right moment.

My plea – Sure, there are those who plant and those who water – but what is the fear?  That they will say no?  Man, what if they say yes. We can’t wait til we feel “good” to ask, God’s love for them is now.  Who is in my life that I need to ask, that I come into contact with that needs to be asked, given a chance, loved on.

God, let this start now – So I ask you, the reader, do you know Jesus?  If not, give me just a few minutes and I can introduce you to the most amazing, loving, accepting, freeing, comforting, encouraging, dream giving, prayer answering, forgiving God ever – He loves You so much!

God, I love You – Thank You for loving me – use me, here I am, I am Yours

B

 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Oh my, what are we living for?  What is the INTENT and PURPOSE of our decisions, dreams or daily grind? When I read this scripture tonight, it stirred up in me again the purpose of our existence and the “work” we do everyday to do the opposite of this.

When I get up in the morning I am full of list making, accomplishment directives, goals for the day, reminders of where I want to be and what I want to defeat… but in light of this scripture- all selfish.  Now I know my heart, and I know that my intent is to develop those around me and cultivate the vision within.  But, when I really look at the things that I worry about, or the goals that I have for my life – are they entangled?  Are they for pleasing myself?  I believe the church has done a good job of deceiving ourselves into believing that the blessings are for us. Don’t get me wrong, it is God’s design that we walk in prosperity, but it is also His design that we are not ENTANGLED with the affairs of this world – rather intent on pleasing HIM instead of pleasing self.  And I can hear the voice in my head saying that there is room for both since God wants us blessed… yes.  But what is that blessing?  Is it lots of stuff, or is it being the distribution of lots of stuff.  Is it being excited about getting a new car, or is it getting excited about giving away our car?

I guess I am asking where the blessing “meter” is landing in your/my life?  Is it landing in the “affairs of this life” or is it landing somewhere in the supernatural area.  What are the first things we think of with the blessing?  What if God landed you a 147 million dollar check – what is your first thought?  Pay off the house or pay off someone else’s house?  Does that 147 million dollar check fulfill your dreams, or are your dreams at such a place that a check can’t handle it. Basically – are our dreams materially based?  And we can all act like there is more to it – but in our personal honesty and integrity – when we dream… is it really about us?

Those dreams of mine are entangled in the world. They are caught up in the affairs of this life and in the truest sense of the word… shallow.  Yes, I have shallow dreams.  I am changing that – but honestly some of my dreams are solved by living in the “affairs of this life” category.

As many of you know, these blogs are my thoughts and often are targeting me.  I share these so that hopefully it challenges someone else’s heart as well.  So you may disagree with me, you may think that I have gone away from my “promises” path (I assure you not – just deeper on that path).  But the ultimate purpose you can fulfill today, and even in this blog, is to please Him.  Find out what He is speaking to you Today – for Today.  Its not about what is true – is about what is truth… Find Him, purpose Him, grow in Him, embrace Him, and live this day in such a way that at the end you can say  – I pleased You, and let You handle the affairs of this life.

love to you all

and love to YOU.