Wait For It

You may be wondering why there was no blog post yesterday. The best answer I can give is that I wanted to illustrate a point about patience. In James 5, we see that the Biblical author wants us to experience patience  in some key areas and we need it in order to become the mature and complete followers of Christ that He wants us to be.

So I hope you take our little illustration to heart and watch this clip that helps us understand what happens when we pray for patience.

We'll see you on Sunday.

PS--I want t be clear that the inclusion of this clip (or any clip I use) does not mean I necessarily endorse the film/show/event from which the clip comes.

Celebration Week 17

It's time to celebrate what God has done! So take some time to watch these videos and thank God for what He is doing in your life!

Enjoy! And we'll see you on Sunday!

Generosity

I want to broach a subject that many outside of the church feel that we Christians (especially us pastors) are preoccupied with, and that subject is giving. I personally hate to talk about giving, but I also know that it is vitally important if we are going to live lives that honor Christ, because He is One who also gave. So, here it goes:

On Sunday, I hinted at the fact that the Greek word translated "cheerful" in most translations of 2 Corinthians 9:7 is the word "hilaros" from which we get our English word "hilarious." As I thought about this hilarious giving, I wondered what it might look like. It might look like someone paying someone else's utility bill, or putting a tank of gas in someone's car. It might look like covering someone's automotive costs when they really can't afford to have that car fixed. It might look like paying for the person behind you in the fast food drive through. It might look like randomly going into a hardware store and paying for someone's purchase with your own credit card. It might look like organizing a gift shower for Christmas for someone who just lost their job, and making sure that their kids have a great Christmas.

Now you may ask yourself, "Self, how did he come up with these particular examples?" Well, that would be a great question, and in response I will say this...each of these things has happened to me. And I will also say that in each instance, it is caused me to either inside my mind or literally out loud, laugh...a lot! When these things happened to me it caused me to be hysterical and laugh sometimes to the point of tears!

And you know what? God loves that kind of giving! God loves it when we give to the point of making a joke about it. Making it fun to give is a way that we can show God and others how much we love them. So, how is your generosity? I'm not talking about to the church (although, we always welcome your gifts there), but to your neighbors and friends? Don't give til it hurts...give til it tickles!

We'll see you on Sunday!

Enough

Yesterday, we were challenged to make sure that we were keeping God as enough in our lives; that HE was enough for us, and that even if all else was taken away from us, we would still rejoice because HE was enough.

I got to thinking about this last night as I was trying to sleep, remembering that I hadn't set up a blog post for today, and really trying to make sure that in my life, God was enough for me. I then got to thinking about my day, and how I really spent the day doing things at the house, getting it ready to move in and such (for those who don't know, we bought a house at the beginning of the month and have been working hard to get it ready to move in by November 1st). As I worked, I realized that I hadn't thought of football at all for the whole time I was working. I was just working and singing and thinking. Then I got home and got ready for dinner, and my son asked me who won the game. I told him I hadn't a clue. God seems to be taking my passion for football and transferring it into a love for my family and for Him.

It's interesting that when we ask God to do something for us (like keep Him first in everything we do, or ask Him to be enough for us), He is more than willing to make it happen. When we pray according to His will, He delights in answering those prayers. When we pray, "Lord, help me put You first." He is right there to answer that prayer, because He wants to be first.

I guess I share all of this because I believe that when we ask Him according to His will, not only does He hear us, but He will answer, and that should be enough.

We'll see you on Sunday!

Ascent Week 17

Psalm 121

I look up to the mountains—
    does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth!

He will not let you stumble;
    the one who watches over you will not slumber.
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
    never slumbers or sleeps.

The Lord himself watches over you!
    The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.
The sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon at night.

The Lord keeps you from all harm
    and watches over your life.
The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go,
    both now and forever.

Your God

"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming." -Colossians 3:5-6

"...If we find God to be so boring or so negligible that we must put other things in his place that really satisfy us more than he does, then we not only offend him, but we also destroy ourselves. And those two things make God angry." --John Piper 

What is your god? Our god is the very thing that we find to be the most important thing in our lives. So today, I want to us to get ready to worship on Sunday with this question...what is really most important to us? If it is anything other than the God of the Bible, then we are living in sin.

Something to think about today, and we will see you on Sunday!

Your Stuff

Today I want to pose a simple question to you and have you think about it throughout the day. The question is simply this:

Do you own your stuff, or does your stuff own you?

Do things you have cause you to want more and more things? Do the things you own keep you spending more time and money on them than the people in your life? Or do you control the things in your life by being able to drop them at any moment? The trick is that there are more of us in the first group than the second. Most of us cannot tear ourselves away from the computer, smartphone, tablet, or TV to have a meaningful conversation with a loved one. Most of us are so consumed by the things we own that we would rather spend time with them than our friends or family.

This week, we'll be looking at what James says about the rich, and about what God wants for us as rich people (and compared to the rest of the world, we are very, very, rich). So make sure you be in church this Sunday at Grace!

And we'll see you on Sunday!

Celebration Week 16

I wanted us to celebrate this week by sharing with you skit that made its way through YouTube about 6 or 7 years ago. I wanted to share it with you, because it is the picture of where so many of us find ourselves from time to time. Oh, we may not be contemplating the taking of our own lives, but we feel like we've failed, like we're being pushed down and drug out. We are trying to find our own way in the world, when in actuality, Jesus is there, trying to get our attention, trying to help us. And when we finally fall on our knees and cry out to Him? Then we find His power at work in our lives, and the forgiveness of the Lord rushes in and we are free! Watch this clip, and then let me know what you think of it. And we'll see you on Sunday!

A Lack of Exercise

When I look in the mirror these days I see a lot of evidence that I don't exercise nearly as much as I ought to. The simple fact of the matter is that I'm fat, and I need to shed a few pounds (or maybe many pounds...anyway...). But the problem is not just in how I look. When I fail to exercise there is a much bigger problem that comes into play...namely, my joints in my lower body become hard-pressed to do their job effectively. When I put extra weight on my knees, hips and ankles, I cause them to break down and deteriorate much faster than they would under normal conditions. So, thus, begins what I call the "vicious circle." I need to exercise to loose the weight. The more I exercise, the more of a pounding my joints take. The more of a pounding my joints take, the more sore they become. The more sore my joints are, the less I want to exercise. The less I exercise, the fatter I become. The fatter I become, the more weight I gain, making my joints more sore, causing me to exercise even less...and so on.

The reason I say this, is because I feel that we have a lack of exercise in the Body of Christ. As members of that Body, we tend to get lazy. We feel fat because, let's face it, here in America we haven't been forced to exercise at all when it comes to our faith. We say we have suffered persecution when are laughed at for talking about what the pastor said during his Sunday sermon. Or we are called "preacher man/woman" because we pray over our meal at lunchtime. But friends, that is not persecution. That's not the kind of persecution the majority of the church in other parts of the world face. Some face excommunication from their families and even death in the wake of choosing to follow after Jesus Christ.

Paul said, "I want to know Him (Jesus) and the fellowship of His sufferings" (Philippians 3:10-to read this whole chapter, click here). Why did Paul want to "fellowship" in the suffering of Jesus? Because in doing so, he began to realize just how much Jesus gave up for him. He began to realize just how much Jesus exercised for the purposes of being that perfect sacrifice so that we might have our sins forgiven, our debts covered and paid for.

Friends, we need to remember that Jesus' death, burial and resurrection give us strength to be disciplined enough to exercise each day through the reading of God's Word and prayer so that we might be lean, mean, spiritually strong fighting machines! And in that we should rejoice.

Comment and/or share with me how you keep in Spiritual Shape. And we'll see you on Sunday!

Slander and Judgment

Sunday morning we challenged you to keep an eye on your mouth this week, by making sure the things you say don't slander or judge anyone. I wanted to use this post to make something clear. We are allowed to judge certain things. What we are talking about here is the judgement that comes from a person sitting down and stating emphatically, "What you've done is not of God." The truth of the matter is that when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses, many thought that what he did was not of God...and it began the most pivotal reform of the church since Christ rose from the dead. So be careful judging someone's motives, because you might miss the mark completely.

But we are allowed (and even supposed) to judge the actions of people. We are supposed to call sin, "sin." In fact, if we fail to do that, we are falling into the trap that helps the culture become able to say, "anything goes!" When we something that is wrong, we are to call it out, and not stop until that thing is changed. In the church, we are to confront, engage and encourage people.

We are to confront sin when we see brothers and sisters in Christ doing things that ought not be done by sons and daughters of the King of kings.

We are to engage in relationship with our brothers and sisters, because when we are in real relationship, we find that we are able to confront and not fear any retaliation. We can even accept confrontation when it comes our way because we know that the person is acting in our best interest.

And we are to encourage each other to live our lives the way God intended us to live them. If we don't, we are simply standing over people and not offering any help.

So watch what you say today, and live your life in such a way that God is going to do awesome things through you!

Comment about how you were able to either confront, engage or encourage in your church. And we'll see you on Sunday!

Ascent Week 16

Psalm 120
“I took my troubles to the LORD; I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer. Rescue me, O LORD, from liars and from all deceitful people. O deceptive tongue, what will God do to you? How will he increase your punishment? You will be pierced with sharp arrows and burned with glowing coals. How I suffer in far-off Meshech. It pains me to live in distant Kedar. I am tired of living among people who hate peace. I search for peace; but when I speak of peace, they want war!”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭120:1-7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Celebration Week 15

This week, we will celebrate with two songs submitted by readers. If you'd like to submit a request for a song for celebration Wednesday, then please send me an email at jim.augustine1970@hotmail.com, and I'll do my best to get it in at some point. We've had some issues with people being able to leave comments, and so I thought I'd put out a way for you to get in contact if you wish.

Here are this week's celebration songs:

There's a Light:

In the Eye of the Storm:

Have a great celebration Wednesday!

And we'll see you on Sunday!

Submitting to Humility

Last week we touched a little bit on submission. Today I want to talk about it again, with a bit of an emphasis on our humility. Humility goes hand in hand with submission. When we submit to God, we are doing so, understanding that He is greater than we are. This is humility.

One of the greatest passages in the whole Bible on this topic is found in Philippians chapter 2. Read it here, and then come back and finish our blog post.

As you read that passage, did you notice that Jesus was (and is) God, and even though He was, he did not cling to it. Look at it again, and notice that Jesus "gave up His divine privileges." He didn't come to this earth and say, "I am the King of kings! You must serve me! You must bow to me! You must give me the best of what you have because it is what I deserve!" He could have, because it would have been the truth; He does deserve all of that. But instead, the passage says that "he took the humble position of a slave (emphasis added)." He served those around Him. He saw the intrinsic value in each and ever person He came into contact with, and He served them.

Not only did He serve those around Him, He also "humbled himself in obedience to God." He became obedient to God. Elsewhere in Scripture it says that Jesus "learned obedience from the things he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8). It's hard for us to think that Jesus had to learn something, but it's true. He learned to be obedient to God throughout His life, ultimately giving His life on the cross. The ultimate obedience was Jesus going to the cross. My friends, that is true submission through humility. If we want to be God's servants, then we must humble ourselves.

Just another something for you to think about today. So have a great day, comment below if you have a story about a time you were obedient, and we'll see you on Sunday!

Seeing Sin as Sin

So yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centers in NYC. As I was trolling Facebook yesterday, I watched some videos that were posted that took me right back to 2001, and I felt, once again, the sting of the horrific events that unfolded that day. I read some recollections of friends who posted, and I got to thinking that in those days, we saw sin for what it was. We saw the horror perpetrated on American citizens and we decided that there was nothing too drastic to do to find justice for those who were killed. We were not whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, or Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or Mormons, or even men and women. We were Americans...we were "One Nation Under God!"

But as I look back on that paragraph that I just wrote, I realize something else about that day. We did not see our sin. We saw the sins of those who committed these violent acts. We saw the sins of the organizations behind them, supporting them, funding them. We saw the sin of dictators around the world who hate us, and would do anything to keep America from being the great nation it is.

But we didn't see our sin. We didn't see that the ripple effects of such a horrific attack were really the result of the first sin...which is, but inheritance, ours. You see, the Bible tells us that Adam (the first to introduce sin into this world) is the father of all who came after him. And as a result, we inherit his nature...the sin nature. Every man, woman and child ever born after that has been born with a sin nature. We are all guilty, and we are all sinners. So when we see sin, no matter who is doing it, we must see it as ours...and it should grieve us.

When we see sin as sin, a couple of things happen. We see in Isaiah chapter six, when Isaiah comes face-to-face with God Himself, what is he struck with? He is struck with the fact that he is a sinner, and he is standing in the presence of the Holiest of Holy Beings! Now the wonderful things happen right after that and Isaiah is forgiven, pardoned and covered so that he can go on and do the work that God has called him to do, but he is initially struck with his sin because of God's holiness. When we see sin for what it really is, we will be struck again with just how holy God is.

The second thing that should happen when we see our sin for what it is that it makes us sick. When we see God for who He is, and see us for who we are, and see sin for what it is, it should really make us grieve. We are called to live holy lives in the midst of this unholy culture, but God is good, and He is not only able, but willing and ready to forgive us and use us for His purposes.

So do you see your sin for what it is? Do you see your sin in light of Who God is? If not, take some time today and get your focus on God, and ask His forgiveness for the things that are not right in your life, and then live for Him!

Comment below if you'd like to share anything about what you were doing or your reaction to 9/11. And we'll see you on Sunday!

Ascent Week 15

Psalm 134

Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD
   who minister by night in the house of the LORD.
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
   and praise the LORD.
May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth
   bless you from Zion!

(This is the last of the Psalms of Ascent. Next week we will begin back at Psalm 120, and start going through them once again!)

And we'll see you tomorrow!

What Submission Looks Like

I wanted to post today about the qualities of submission, what it looks like in every day living, and how we can be submissive to the will of God in our lives. But the problem is that if I write about all that, none of you need to come to church on Sunday. ;-) (Insert advertisement to make sure you attend church here.)

But what I do want to do today is help you to understand how you can know what it is that God wants you to do so that you can submit to that. The truth of the matter is that so many of us say we want to follow Jesus, but then we have no idea what it is that He wants us to do. "How can I truly know God's will for my life?" people always ask.

Well, today, you're in for a treat, because I'm going to give you a simple formula for knowing God's will for your life. It may seem oversimplified, but I think it gives us great insight into what God expects of those who follow after Him.

Romans 12:1-2


As you see from the text there are two things that we need to do to understand God's will. The first is to offer our bodies to God. That means that the physical body that we have been given by God is to be given to Him to be used for His will and His purposes. This, in and of itself, is another excellent definition of submission. The body is to be used to worship God, and it is to be acceptable to Him. This is the first step to knowing what God wants for you to do.

The second step is found in verse two, where Paul tells us to allow God to change the way we think. Did you know that there is nothing that you do in this life that doesn't first start with a thought? Aside from those things that are simply "built in" to our genetic code, like breathing or our heart beating, everything we do or say begins with a thought. This is why God so desperately wants us to change the way the we think. When this happens, God will transform us into a new person...a person who is able to do the things that He wants us to do. We do this by replacing the garbage of our minds that comes naturally to us with the truth of His Word.

And look at the end of that verse. When we do the things that God wants us to do, we will then know His will. So friends, there it is. A simple formula to knowing God's will for your life.

A) Submit your whole life to God, and
B) start thinking the way God does by reading His Word every day!

Comment below about a time you saw God's hand transform your life by helping you think differently about a certain situation. And we'll see you on Sunday!

Please Don't Use That Word

Today, we begin to talk about a topic that is not on anyone's wish list to talk about. In fact, when I mention this word, you're going to be tempted to read no further, but I assure you, it would be in your best interests to do so. This word, while it is controversial today, is crucial to the survival of the Christian faith. And if we are to become all that God wants us to be, we need to not only understand what this word entails, but we need to act upon it as well.

What's the word? The word is submission, and for most of us, we don't get it. We think that submission is giving up our identity, our will, or our personality. And while some of those things may go with submission, it doesn't mean they have to. In fact, when we truly submit to God all that we have, He gives most of it back to us...only better.

Here is what is involved when it comes to submission. First we give God everything that we are. We give up our rights, we give up our wills, we give up our dreams and desires. We do this because we realize that without God, all else is worthless. We submit because we understand that without God in our lives, we have no life at all.

Jesus depicted it this way: A man went out into a field and there he found a very expensive treasure. He took that treasure and he buried it in the field so that no one else could find it. And then he went and sold everything else that he had so that he could buy that field and the treasure that was buried in it. We submit to God because we understand that HE is that treasure. We go out and give up all that we have so that we can have HIM!

My friends, that is submission. That it what it means to submit to God and to allow Him to have complete rule and reign in your life. If you refuse to do this, if you refuse to give God all that you have and all that you are, you are not in submission.

Come back tomorrow when we talk about what true submission might look like, and we'll see you on Sunday!

Celebration Week 14

This week, let's celebrate the fact that we have been rescued from the dominion of darkness, and brought into the kingdom of the Son!

Celebrate and leave a comment telling me which song you'd like to celebrate to next week!

And we'll see you on Sunday!

Life in Pieces

Wisdom is tricky. We think we know something, but we really don't. We think we're on top of things, but we really aren't. The issue at stake most of the time is that we think we know what we know, but we really only know a piece of what we need.

Wisdom is like that. We build upon the things we know, adding to it, and finding out that the things we thought we know aren't really true. As we get to know God in this way, we begin to see more and more of who He really is. We thought we know thus-and-such about God, but the truth of the matter is that we really only knew part of it, and this new revelation of Who God is (in our experience, not from the Scriptures) helps us to see what we previously "knew" about Him in better focus.

So why do I say this all to you? It is because I want you to remember that the quest for God's wisdom is a never ending quest. Keep on reading your Proverbs, keep on studying your Scriptures, keep on seeking the truth, and you will become wise beyond your years...because you will have the wisdom of God.

Comment below about something you thought you knew about God and realized after a while that it wasn't quite all there was to know. And we will see you on Sunday!

Ascent Week 14

Psalm 133

How good and pleasant it is
   when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head
   running down on the beard,
running don on Aaron's beard,
   down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
   were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
   even life forevermore.

Sincere Apologies

Brothers and sisters I would like to apologize for the last two "Placeholder" posts that went out. My intent was to have those written by the time they posted, and as a result, these uncouth "posts" went out. It was an oversight on my part, not having these finished by the time they went to post, and I am truly and sincerely sorry for that. I can only commit myself to doing a better job of making sure that the posts that go out are truly thought-provoking and spiritually inspiring. I am sorry for not being there for you the past two days.

With that said, I hope that you have a great weekend...and a holiday weekend at that...and we will see you on Sunday!!!!