Desire

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.  Luke 12:34

One of my high school teachers recently reminded me that we should learn to ‘bank’ on God during the good times as well as the bad.  I never thought of it like this before, but putting your trust in God on a daily basis is like making a deposit in the bank.

When you need it, you will have money in your account.  The same thing applies with our faith-we must also store up our trust in God when life is easier and then we will be confident when turning to him during a crisis or difficult situation.

When God is the center of our lives, we make our relationship with him the highest priority.  We long to spend time with him, talk to him, listen for his direction and we think about him quite often. 

Let your heart yearn for him, after all it is our heart that really matters the most to God.

Patience

The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives…patience.  Galatians 5:22

Many sleepless nights at home with sick children and living in Atlanta for a few years with an insane amount of traffic has taught me a little bit about the virtue of patience.

God’s word tells us that patience is actually a form of perseverance and endurance that allows us to respond to difficult circumstances with grace and self-control.

Patience is not a learned behavior as many would have you believe.  It’s actually the by-product of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart and mind of a believer.

God promises that when the Holy Spirit is in us, he will produce more patience in our lives.

I Can See Clearly Now

I cry out to God Most High, to God who will fulfill his purpose for me.  Psalm 57:2

Being so passionate about music, people often ask me why I never pursued a career in the industry.  For one, I can barely hold a tune.  Not to mention, I cannot read music and I am simply not proficient at playing an instrument.  I was a DJ at one time on an FM radio station I Alabama and enjoyed it very much, but there is more to it than sitting in a production booth and spinning tunes for a radio audience.  As only our Loving Father can work out, God has blessed me in profound ways that have intertwined both my love for music and my love for Jesus Christ...

Many years ago, I fulfilled a dream by playing the bass in a local band (Zephyrus Jones) back in my small hometown of Alabama.  This would have never been possible if I was not serving as a youth minister at the West Point First United Methodist Church.  Since we moving to Knoxville, I have been equally blessed to serve on the audio/video production team at Cokesbury Church's West Campus a couple of Sundays each month.  

Throughout my life, God has often used music as the medium to speak to me and there are countless times that I will hear a song that brings back a flood of memories and makes me think of my mother...   

You see, God has created all of us with both a general purpose and a specific purpose.  In a general sense, we are all to share the love of Christ with other people.  In specific terms, we have all been given unique Spiritual gifts that God wants us to use to make a worthwhile contribution while we are here on earth.

The more we fulfill God’s general purpose, the more clear our specific purposes become.

Wherever You Find It

If you seek him, you will find him.  1 Corinthians 28:9

Sitting down to enjoy a meal together as a family sometimes proves to be quite difficult in our home.  The other night, we almost finished eating dinner before any of us realized we had forgotten to bless our meal and give God thanks.

Life can become so fast-paced and hectic at times, it’s easy to forget that God is with us all day, every day, at all times, ready to listen to us talk about anything that comes up in every area of our lives, at any given time.

We must remember to seek him by sharing our thoughts, needs, and concerns with him through prayer.  The more we practice acknowledging his presence, the more we begin to gain the intimacy with God that we so desperately desire and need.

Thanks be to God!

Go Your Own Way

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  2 Corinthians 5:7

Just like an athlete who trains to be the best in his/her specific sport, for us to live victoriously requires us to live in deep dependence on God and God alone on a daily basis.

The world usually associates victory with success and winning, not stumbling or falling and making mistakes.  But too often, when we are successful in life, we tend to go our own way, forgetting about our loving Father and depending on our very limited strength and resources.

Coming to a place with God where we rely solely on him is not necessarily the path of ongoing success; often times we must encounter multiple failures before we are able to totally depend on Him.  However, with each failure, we grow in our reliance with Him and live the lives of blessed assurance that we will be victorious in this life and the next.

Praise be to God!

I'll Be Good To You

God is waiting around to be gracious to you.  He's gathering strength to show mercy to you.  God takes time to do everything right-everything.  Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.  Isaiah 30:18, The Message

I love the above passage of Scripture, particularly the beginning...."God is waiting around to be good to us."

That means He's actually looking forward to opportunities to show His abundant goodness to us!  Our loving God wants to make every wrong right, but He can only be good to us if we believe His promises and we are patiently waiting on Him to be good to us.

The enemy will stop at nothing to drudge up our pasts and make us believe that our futures' look bleak. We must keep our hearts and minds focused upon Jesus Christ and choose to believe God.

When we do so, we are prepared to face each day without thinking negatively and we are ready to receive all of the wonderful gifts and blessings that God is waiting to give us!

That Is Why

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 9:12

It is inevitable, but we will always face hardships while we are here on this earth.  Regardless, we must come to a place in our relationship with Christ where we can truly open our hearts and minds to receive all that He has in store for us.

Our children are growing up very quickly, but on rare occasions, our boys (ages 9 and 6) will let us comfort them by giving them a reassuring hug. Just like a child finding comfort in his/her parent's arms, we too must seek our Father with that same child-like faith and determination.

We must also let our guards down and simply allow Jesus into our hearts to do the work only He can do.  Little by little, Jesus can turn our weaknesses into strengths through His transforming power and grace.

Have peace knowing that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from His presence!