Only God

Scripture For Today:

"As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, who say to a tree, 'You are my father,' and to a stone, 'You gave me birth.' For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, 'Arise and save us!' But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah."
- Jeremiah 2: 26-28 ESV

We all have one, or even several of these. These are the broken cisterns, the worthless jugs that hold no water. I love what happens here..God is challenging his prophet, and his people to take the things in their lives that they cling to, and make them do wondrous things. It can't happen. It will never happen. As fleshly beings we have a tendency to make gods out of things, or people. It's foolish, but it happens in such a subtle way, that by the time we're aware of it, the sin has already been committed. Thank God we have his word to deflect us from temptation, and especially Christ..who in his mercy allows us to be able to turn to him...broken, ashamed of ourselves, and committed to giving God his rightful place in our hearts and lives.

Dear God,
Let me learn from this. Give me a directed desire for joy, fulfillment, and peace that can only come from you. I recognize that at this moment, you are all I need. Please allow this one moment to last, spilling over into the rest of my days here. I boldly come and ask this in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Time Is More Than A Magazine

"And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls." -Acts 2: 40-41

I've been wasting a huge amount of time lately. I can justify it by saying that I'm working on my live show, I'm doing things for my ministry, etc, etc, and yadda yadda yadda. But I'm fooling myself. I could be writing about insight I've gotten from my reading, or actually reading more, praying more BEING more for Christ. The fact of the matter is I can find so many other things I'd rather do. Okay. Confession time is over.

To wit:

I wish I had Peter's faith. Yeah, it's easy to say, "What kind of Faith do you need when you hung out with Jesus personally, and then when they turned up the heat, you denied he existed to you?" Yeah, fair enough. But the twelve weren't stupid. They knew exactly what could happen to them if they aligned themselves with the executed Jesus. They spoke boldly, taking their lumps of persecution with joy In their Heart and a hymn on their lips. In Our day, it's nowhere near as difficult. Perhaps if I were more filled up, then it would simply overflow from me as a natural consequence of gravity. A cup doesn't overflow when it's a quarter full. If you want your faith to increase, then ya gotta fill yourselves with Gods Word. And as your faith shows increase, so do your fruits, and your ability to evangelize becomes automatic. Like Gravity.

Lord, give me the motivation to seek you, to want what you want for me, and to not waste so much time. Increase my faith, and let me overflow with your grace, changing my outlook, my attitude, and my results. In Jesus' name, Amen.