What Were You Created To Do?

Isaiah 6:1-3 "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:  


“Holy, holy , holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”


A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a young man and we were talking about our place in the world and what God wanted us to do with our lives.  During the course of our talking together the passage in Isaiah came up.  He asked me, "Don't you think that those creatures ever get tired of doing what they're doing and want to do something different?"


As I thought about his question, I found myself saying to him, "Not at all.  You see they were created for just that one thing.  And when you are doing what you are created to do, then you never get bored with it, or want to change and do something else.  Because you are doing exactly what you were created to do."


The conversation ended, and we went our separate ways, but I continued to think about what I had said to him.  It was one of those moments when the Holy Spirit had revealed something to my heart, and I had spoken about one of the mysteries of the Kingdom by revelation, and not from my own knowledge.  And the truth of what was revealed to me that day is astounding.


There are all kinds of people who are in the world doing all kinds of things with their lives. There are those kids who finish high school and go to college seeking an education so that they can go out and make lots of money, and become someone in this world.  And don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything bad about getting an education.  What I find is contradictory about education is when young people go after it in order to chase the dream of what they think will make them happy.  And the truth of what will make you happy and satisfied in this life is if you are doing what you have been created to do.


I have told my kids since they were old enough to understand me that I didn't care what they did with their lives, as long as they followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and did what God created them to do.  I have not pushed my agenda for what I think they should be doing with their lives, instead their mother and I have encouraged them to find out from the Lord what they are supposed to be doing and go and do just that.  And praise God that is what they are doing.


Because the truth of the matter is, no matter what God has created you to do, if you are doing it you will be satisfied, have the supply which you need to make it and never once be unhappy with your life.  And there are so many unhappy people in this world, mostly because they are chasing the dream of what they think will make them happy, instead of finding that thing which God created them to be and doing that.  And we can never truly be happy, satisfied and blessed unless we are doing what we have been created to do.


You might ask then how do I find out what I have been created to do?  First I would suggest that you talk with God about it.  Just ask Him.  The Bible is very clear that if we lack wisdom we should ask God and He will give it to us.  (James 1:5)  The second thing that I have often encouraged men to do is to get alone somewhere and think about what it is that makes you come alive on the inside.  You know, that thing that if money were no object you would make every effort to go and do.  That is a clue to what you were created to do, and sometimes it has been hidden by years of doing things you were not created to do.


Of course we have to weigh these things out and compare them to Scripture and make sure they are not contradictory to what God's Word says either.  I have known people who have taken this out of context, left their jobs and run to do what God created them to do and in the process have lost everything.  We have to use a little wisdom here too.  Talk to God about what you should be doing, get a plan to work towards that goal.


For instance, what makes me come alive, and the thing that God has created me to do is to write and help people discover the things of God.  So for some time now I have been moving in that direction with my life.  But, I have not quit my job and stayed home to write a best selling novel, no I get up every morning and go to work.  You see, I have responsibilities which I have to meet in order to continue eating and living in my home and providing for my family.  But I do work towards my goal of following what the Lord has created me for every day, looking for opportunities to achieve this little by little.  Remember our life is run like a marathon, not a sprint.  


So do that, ask the Lord what He created you to do, find those things that make you come alive and then begin to follow after them.  And what you will see is that one day you will be doing that thing that you were created to do, and you will be very content in your life.  Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Who's A Sinner?

I fell into sin yesterday, and I was wondering this morning about that and how it's the little things that trip us up. You know the sins that don't really seem like much, but end up hurting our relationship with the Father. Jesus told us that if our eye offends us we should pluck it out, well that seems a little extreme doesn't it? Yet there it is, a command from our Lord. So what are we to do with that?

One thing that I've come to realize in Christianity is that we as a people group try to rate our sins or categorize them into various degrees of evil. Murder is at the worst end of the spectrum, while gossiping may end up on the "little sin" end of the scale. One of the things that I find really funny, is the fat Christian who points his finger at the person who drinks or smokes and condemns them as one of those really big sinners. The truth is, gluttony is just as much a sin as what they are pointing out, but lets don't talk about that, after all a person's gotta eat, right? And don't you know that we are told to fellowship with other believers, and we do that around meals. Yeah I know, just next time skip the third helping and two deserts, how about that? (And I've been guilty of this so don't stone me).

There are no degrees of sin with God period. Sin causes separation from God. It breaks the fellowship that we have with Him, and that is why it is bad. Regardless of what sin you commit, this will hinder you in your relationship with the Father. This is why He hates sin, not because He has this big list of do's and dont's, but because He knows that when we sin it keeps His best from getting to us, and He is all about doing good for us. Remember, "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11"

And that is the point really, the relationship I have between me and God. So when I sin, and we all do, this barrier raises up which keeps me from receiving God's best for my life, and the devil knows this. He works very hard to trip us up in this area. Now before you come to the conclusion that we are just pawns in some big cosmic chess game, I'm not saying that the devil can "make" us sin. What he does is plant thoughts in our little pea brains to see if we will act on them. Take a look at James 1:14 - 15 in the Amplified Bible:

"But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death."

"Baited by his own lust and passions". Hmm, now this is interesting, we are not driven along by the devil and his minions with pitchforks prodding us to do wrong. No, it is the lust and passions within us that cause us to sin. So, while the enemy has a part to play, we can no longer just blame him for our short comings can we? I think not. You know the bait covers up a hook, and it is the hook that causes the problem, for it snares us and brings the destruction of our fellowship with God.

So what are we to do then? If it is our lust and passions that trip us up then we need to learn to control those things. But how do I do that Dave? I'm glad you asked. You have to have a working knowledge of God's Word. We can no longer take a casual approach to the Bible and it's teachings, to do so allows sin to have it's way with us. We must master those things that would try and trip us up. Now before you go any further, just because you read the Bible does not mean that you will magically never sin again. You may read in the Word that you should not do something, but just having that knowledge won't save you, you have to act on that knowledge.

Just as sin starts as a thought and then you act on that thought. God's Word is a thought which you must act on too. The key here is that we have to do the acting, either for good or for bad, it is our choice. No longer do we have the right to say that we couldn't help ourselves because that is a lie, we can..."IF" we make the decision to do so. So get a Bible reading plan and start it, then act on those things that you learn there and you will see the things that once tripped you up will begin to have less and less ability to entice you.

Now I wonder as you read this today, did you get the point I've been making this morning, or have you just been trying to decide which sin I committed yesterday? Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Here's A Thought, Are You Doing Everything God Asks?

In Genesis 6:8 it reads, "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." And then Genesis 6:22 says,"Noah did everything just as God commanded him."

I walk in the favor of God every day, the Bible tells me that He has placed His favor upon me. Actually, one of my daily confessions is, "I'm surrounded by God's favor shield. People like me and they don't even know why." But I wondered this morning as I read these two Scriptures if I was living the first one without doing the second?

It's great that God has favored us, actually that is one of the most awesome blessings that He has given, but are we doing the second part? Are we doing everything that He has commanded us? Do you even know what He has commanded you to do? Are you even taking the time to listen for His voice to speak to your heart?

I know that I like to claim the promises of God for my life. I love reading about what He did for saints in the Bible, and then believe that He will do that for me. After all He is no respecter of persons right? But do I do my part after procuring these promises? Do I do everything that He is commanding me? If I was to be truthful, probably not. But the most awesome thing about God is His willingness to forgive when I don't measure up.

Look at Adam and Eve in the Garden, they eat the fruit and have their eyes uncovered. God shows up "looking" for them? I mean He is God right? He knows all, sees all and He is looking for them? The Bible does say that they were hiding, but come on God knew where they were. Why was He doing that? To give them an opportunity to repent. When He finds them, He asks Adam what he had done. This is another opportunity to come clean about his actions, but he just blame shifts it onto Eve. So God asks Eve, giving her an opportunity to ask for His forgiveness and she just blames the serpent.

If you will look at the story of Cain and Able too, after Cain has killed his brother the Lord asks him where is Able? Cain's answer, "Am I my brother's keeper?" You see when God asked Him where Able was, it wasn't because He didn't know, He was giving Cain the opportunity to own up to his actions and ask God to forgive him.

God is nothing else if He is not faithful and true to want to help us. If He didn't want us to repent, He would have just killed Adam and Eve never giving them the chance to get right with Him. I am so thankful that He doesn't give us what we deserve, which basically is the definition of mercy. How could I not do everything that He commands me?

So how about today spending a little bit more time with Him and asking Him what it is that He wants you to do? And then going out and doing that with all of your being. I mean after all Jesus died for us, can't we live for Him? That's how I'm going to spend my day praying to my Father, let's just see where this takes me. Shalom my friends!

How'd You Like To Be Job?

I don't know why the book of Job fascinates me so much. Maybe it's because so many people are quick to put God and the devil playing a chess match with Job in the middle. I think this one passage of Scripture has been so misquoted and it aggravates me that God gets blamed in this way. Let's look at it for a minute.

Job 1:21, "And Job said, Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."

This passage of Scripture gets quoted a lot at funerals, and while it has the appearance of being Godly, I really think it has been used by the enemy to confuse and bother people more than anything else. It's plain to see from the passages before this, (Job 1:12 -19) that it wasn't the Lord that had taken from Job, it was the devil. Job in his limited understanding of what was happening determined that it must have been the Lord, even though it wasn't.

Deception. That is the enemy's number one tool. He works to deceive us every chance he gets. If he can get us to thinking that God is the one doing things, or we have through some lack of effort on our part caused the calamity to happen, then he has won a small victory. He loves to take himself out of the equation when bad things happen, then sit back and watch us scramble around trying to affix the blame to someone other than where it belongs.

Notice the earlier passages (verses 13 -19) when the messengers start to come in. The first one arrives and tells how all of Job's oxen and donkeys were taken and his servants killed. While this guy is telling Job what has happened, the second messenger arrives and tells how all the sheep and servants were killed by fire from the sky. Before he can finish, a third messenger shows up and tells Job that all his camels are gone and the servants killed.

But the worst news came when the last servant arrived and told Job that a mighty wind came out of the desert and destroyed his oldest son's house killing all ten of his children. It is at this point that Job makes the statement found in verse 21. Now I've had some bad days, but I think that we can all agree that Job probably has had the worst day of anyone ever. He lost everything in the course of a few minutes time.

On a side note, did you notice that it was fire from the sky (lightning I'd imagine) and a mighty wind (a tornado) came in from the desert to destroy his son's home? Those sound an awful lot like what insurance companies call "acts of God" to me, does it to you? And if it was the devil that caused the calamity in Job's life, then shouldn't those actually be called "acts of the devil"?

The thing that I want you to see here today is found in verse 22, "In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrong doing." Even though Job said that the Lord takes away, that was not considered in God's mind, charging Him with wrong doing. It says that Job did not sin by charging God with wrong doing. What does that say about us when we do? If we say that some catastrophe in our life is caused by God, then according to this Scripture we are in sin.

I know that I have foolishly charged God with things in my past, but since learning who is behind things, I have corrected that in my life. How about you, have you ever charged God with something that should have been attributed to the devil? If your answer is yes, then you should probably hop on over to 1 John 1:9 and confess your sin to Him and receive the forgiveness that is yours in Christ. You'll be glad you did.

Okay to wrap this up, there is no cosmic chess game going on, the devil is not on equal footing with God. So in the future if bad things happen understand that it isn't God that is doing them, so place the blame square on the devil's shoulders and keep moving forward with God. I like to say it like this, God is good, and the devil is bad. That pretty much covers it in my life. If something good happens, then it is from God, and if something bad happens it is from the devil.

Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Watch Out! Your Enemy, The Devil Is Trying To Get You!

We are admonished in 1 Peter 5:8 to stay alert for our enemy the devil, is looking for someone to eat. I like that Peter doesn't say that the enemy is eating up people, but "looking" for people to eat. He then goes on to say that we are to resist him in the faith, and not to be surprised that Christians all over are going through the same thing.

And this is not an isolated incident either. This is an all out attack on the believers in Jesus. And the devil is not even subtle in how he is going about it, no he is patiently waiting and watching for us to slip up somewhere so then he can attack and have us for lunch. One of the biggest problems that I see lately is that most Christians don't even act like the enemy is real, much less that he is working hard to devour us.

Today if you talk about the devil and what he is doing, most of the time people just roll their eyes and say, "Oh man, you're one of those wacky Christians." People just want to dismiss the fact that we have an enemy and that he is trying to steal, kill and destroy. They will chalk up bad things happening to circumstances, being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just coincidence. I think the saints in the Bible had a little bit better grip on this subject than we do.

Look at the lion in the picture I put in my blog. Do you notice how well he blends in with his surroundings? I mean you can see him there, but if you just took a casual or quick glance you might actually miss him. That is how the enemy works too. He blends in with society in such a way that you can actually miss him at work. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us how the enemy works; he steals, kills and destroys, that is what he does.

We were told by Peter to stay alert for our enemy. Staying alert does not mean take an occasional glance, it means:

1) to watch

2) give strict attention to, be cautious, active

a) to take heed lest through remission and indolence some destructive calamity suddenly overtake one.

We have to be the ones looking for the enemy, no one else can do it for us. And this is not to say that we have to be cowardly, or fearful while looking for him. After all we have the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to counteract the works of the devil. But we have to be watching for him to be able to confront him, and not be caught

unaware.

We need to pay a little bit more attention to things in the spirit, and not get caught forgetting to pay attention to this fact that we have an enemy and that he is trying to trip us up. We are most definitely in the last days, and the return of Jesus is closer than any of us probably realize. But this does not mean that we need to go into a docile, holding pattern mentality. We need to stay alert, and be on guard for the attacks that the enemy will try on us.

While the enemy may have a bulls eye on our backs, we don't have to be his victim. Spend time in God's Word daily, pray and seek the face of God and then listen for the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit to make you aware of what is going on around you in the spiritual realm. The enemy cannot get us if we are aware of him coming. He is a coward, and chooses not to face us directly, because he knows that in a full out frontal attack on a Christian he will be withstood. But if he can trip us up and cause us to sin, then he can pounce on us once we are down.

And listen, if you've slipped up and sinned, don't stay there. Get up, turn to 1 John 1:9 which says that if you will confess your sin to God, that He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Doing that puts you right back on your feet and in right standing with God which keeps the enemy from munching on you.

Understand this too, once you have confessed your sin to God, he forgets it and will not remind you of it again. But when you hear that condemning voice in your head telling you how bad a person you really are, and how much you blew it this time, know that that is the enemy trying to trip you up again. You need to forgive yourself as well. The devil would like nothing better than once you've asked God to forgive you, for you to continue to beat yourself up about what you did. It's forgiven, now dust yourself off and go get back out there.

Our enemy the devil may be like a roaring lion, but that's all he can really do, roar. He can only eat up those who will let him. Get 'em up folks, let's go out and whip the enemy today!

Know Thyself, And To Thyself Be True

Something that I have learned from experience, is that no matter who you are, God can use you. I had a conversation with a person who had entered into a new phase of ministry not too long ago. As we talked, I asked them how they were finding their new role to be, to which they replied, "I've not been to bible school, so I can't really do much." (I'm paraphrasing the conversation here.) I will say that this sent up red flags in my mind however, and that "Don't tell me!" spirit on the inside of me began to rise up.

Many years ago I contemplated going to bible school. I sought the Lord concerning whether or not I should go, and in a comical way (I love it when the Lord does that.) He answered my prayers through a travelling minister who came to our church. This man operating through the gifts of the Spirit said to me, "Just as I've used ignorant and unlearned men before, I will use you." There was a lot of laughter, and even the minister was a little taken aback by what the Lord said through him, but that word from God answered my prayer about bible school, and I've been used by God ever since.

One thing that I've noted over the years is this thought that if a person hasn't been formally trained by attending bible school, then they don't have as much to offer the body of Christ. And please understand me, I'm not saying that people shouldn't attend a bible school, they should do whatever the Lord leads them to do, they just shouldn't think they are not as capable if they haven't attended bible school.

Look at the men that Jesus chose as His closest disciples. These men didn't appear to have formal religious training. They were; fishermen, tax collectors, a doctor, a thief, etc. Yet Jesus saw something in each of these men and He called them to follow Him and become His disciples. And it is in this, (Becoming a disciple of Jesus.) where you will find those who are doing the will of God. It is following Jesus as a disciple that is the most important thing, and that does not always include going to bible school.

I think so many people have been cheated out of their place in the Kingdom of God because of them thinking that since they are not formally trained, they cannot do much for Jesus. The Holy Spirit is our Teacher and our Guide. He is the One Who instructs us, and that can be done from your living room floor while you read the Bible and pray. God speaks to the hearts of men, and has been since the beginning of time, if you are willing to take the time and listen for Him to do so.

If God is telling you to go to bible school that's great, you should go and give it everything you've got. But if He isn't saying that to you, don't feel that you aren't able to do anything for His Kingdom. Find out what it is that He has for you to do and go and do that with all of your heart. Just know who it is you are, and then be true to that, not short changing yourself in the process.

God will use you if you will let Him. I guess my question to you is, will you let Him? Get 'em up folks, there is a whole world of people who needs us to help them out there, so stop wondering if you can do anything and let God show you that you can!

We Need The "You" Joint In The Church

I heard a minister say yesterday that we need all the "you joints" in church. That set my mind to thinking about "U" joints in vehicles, and wallah, a blog was born. I wasn't really sure what a universal joint in a car does, so I did what all of us do now-a-days, I googled it. And this is what I found:

"U joints are used in drive-shafts to allow the shaft to flex under load and still be able to transmit power from one end to the other. The engine and transmission vibrate as they are under power because of the pounding action of the pistons while they go up and down. Then the twisting force of the drive-shaft pushes against the transmission as it spins, and the rear axle flexes up and down on spins as the car rolls over bumps. If the drive-shaft were one solid piece, all of that extra motion would be impossible to manage and the drive-shaft would break. So they put a U Joint on each end, and sometimes one in the middle, and the drive-shaft can bend and flex while it spins."

So the U joint if broken, keeps the car from moving. Now let's look at a Scripture, and I'll tie all of this together for you. 1 Corinthians 12:18: "But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him." Here Paul is talking about the church, not our actual physical bodies. He is saying that God has set each and every one of us in the church where He wants us. (If we've actually taken the time to listen to His voice that is.)

My friend Pastor Daniel Shirley made this statement while we were having lunch yesterday. "If God set you in the body as He pleased, do you think He might be displeased if you take yourself out?" What a great question. If in fact God has led you to a church body to be a part of it, and you through reasons other than God instructing you to move on, decide that it is time to leave that church, do you think that will please God?

So here's the thing, God is the power source (The engine.) and we are the "You Joints" that He has placed in the church as it has pleased Him. Without the you joints, the vehicle can't move. If you were placed in the church, and you decide to leave, then the church cannot move forward as it is supposed to. We need each and every person that is supposed to be at Word of Life now. We need you, even if you feel as if you don't play a valuable role. What I found out about the "U Joint" in cars is that they are not the most expensive parts, but they are absolutely invaluable in making the car go.

Just like the "U" joint isn't the most expensive part on a car, and you may feel that you aren't the most valuable part of the church, but regardless of what you think or feel, God sees you as a very important part of His church, because it pleased Him to place you there. I for one, will begin to see people at my church in a different light now. We are all "You Joints" at Word of Life, and each one of us is needed. Don't let the enemy lie to you now and say that you are not an important part of the mission at Word of Life. We need you now more than ever!

Demoralization

There is this little insidious tool that the enemy has in his arsenal that he likes to use against believers. I have experienced this to a certain degree in the last few months and I can tell you that it is subtle and creeps up on you like a snake in tall grass. It's called "demoralization" and it can kill you if you let it. The definition for demoralization is, to undermine the confidence or morale of; dishearten. Let me explain what I mean with an example from my own life.

As you know if you have read my blog for any length of time, I am a Christian, a born again believer in Jesus Christ. This does not mean that my life is without challenges, not at all. Every life has its share of them, so to think that just because I'm a Christian will exempt me from problems is just not true. I have been walking with the Lord for a long time now, and I had, while I was in the shower yesterday this thought, (While coughing and hacking up a lung.) "Oh come on, are you kidding me? I'm going to have congestion and the mucus fun now? What the heck? It's just one thing after another!" And then my heart sank within me.

I'm no novice at this Christianity thing, I may not be a father in the faith yet, but I'm no novice. I realize that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, (Matthew 5:45) but for some reason I felt demoralized standing there in the shower. It seemed as if everything that I had ever wanted to do for the Lord was slipping through my fingers like the soap bubbles off of my body. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, and I wanted to whine a little bit. (Yes, you heard my correctly, I wanted to whine.) I finished getting ready for church and my bride, daughter and I left to go meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We attended both services yesterday and I am so glad that we did. The first service was good, and my friend Daniel Shirley brought forth a strong word from the Lord about how the stone had been rolled away and that we should stop living under the law, and live under the grace that Jesus purchased for us. But it was during the second service, while Daniel was preaching that he made a comment about something my Pastor David Emigh had taught him. He said, "Preparation time is never wasted time, unless you waste it." And that made me sit up and take notice.

For a while now, I've been trying to understand the movings of the Spirit of God in my heart. There is something on the horizon for me and my family, but I'm not quite sure as to what it is. I've been searching, and asking but as of yet it is still a little hazy, the clarity has not come yet. And while I await the clarity, it seems that there has been one thing after another that has assaulted my heart for quite some time now. The death of my son, business appearing to not go as well as it used to and my not knowing where it is that God is leading me and my family right at this moment, and yesterday the fact that God's provision for my health was not where I wanted it to be. All of these things have been sucking the life out of me, and the real problem is that I have allowed them to.

You see here in lies the problem, it's not really the subtle attacks of the enemy that are major issue, it's the response that we give to them. The Bible teaches that the power of life and death are in our tongues (Deuteronomy 30:19). So when the attacks come, what are "WE" doing with them? Do we take a que sara, sara, whatever will be will be attitude? Or do we look a little closer into God's Word and find out what His provisions are for the thing we find ourselves in and take action?

Daniel and I were talking last night at dinner and he made the comment to me that after the sixth day, God quit creating. He put His creative power in mankind, and it is now up to us to create using our mouths. We really do have what we say, so what we need to be saying is what God's Word says about our situations, and not what we feel like saying. I've heard people say quit telling God how big your mountain (challenges) is, and tell the mountain how big your God is. And if we'll do that, then the weapon of demoralization will not have any effect on our lives.

Okay, so there's that...get 'em up folks, let's go out and whip something for the Kingdom today!

What Is God Showing You?

I read this book called Real-Life Discipleship the other day, and it sparked my thinking about some things that we as Christians do in our walk with the Lord. One of the main things I wondered about is how much do people in my church study the Scriptures for themselves. We are told to "study to show ourselves approved" (2 Timothy 2:15) but I wonder just how many of us do that?

I have been amazed over the years at the people that I have known, that seem to be standing still in their Christian walk. I'm not judging them, I just wonder how it is that they think some of the things that they do, and actually do some of the things that they do. And understand me, I'm not perfect, not by a long shot, but I am concerned about why people don't seem to grow in following the Lord.

I think one of the reasons that so many people struggle is because they are not searching out the Scriptures for themselves. Oh, they go to church, maybe even on Sundays and Wednesdays, but never seem to grow much past their initial salvation experience. The one thing that I have learned is that if I wait for the pastoral staff at the church to teach me everything that I need to know about God and His Kingdom, I'm not going to grow very much. This is not to say that my pastoral staff isn't a good one, not at all they're the tops, but I can't just expect them to be the only way that I can learn from God.

After all God is about relationships, He wants to have a personal relationship with each and every one of us, and in that we will learn from Him. He longs to show us things, and teach us, if we'll let Him. And yes, that does come from a corporate church setting too, it's just not the only way that He teaches us. I mean who would you rather learn from, the man or woman who is an instructor or the person who created you and everything around you?

When I worked in Children's Church, it always amazed me the parents who would bring their kids to us on Sunday mornings and wanted us to turn them into spiritual giants. Never mind that the parents never prayed with their kids, or taught them Bible stories. They just thought their kids would get it by osmosis I guess. These types of parents are also the ones who think that their kids will learn everything at school, because after all isn't that the teachers job?

We have to study on our own, and besides if we have the Holy Spirit who Jesus said would teach us all things, then there is an untapped resource that many people are not using. I for one would hate to stand before God one day and have to answer for what I learned about His Kingdom and say, "Well I went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays the Pastor just didn't teach me everything." I don't think that will go over very well with God, do you?

So crack open your Bible and begin to read it. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you things, believing that He will and before long you will be learning all about God's Kingdom. The really cool thing is when God has been showing you things out of the Bible and you go to church and the Pastor is talking about the things that God has already showed you, that's pretty awesome!

So crack the book, and let's learn about God from God too...Shalom!

Could It Have Been?

Many were the days as a young boy that I spent in the backyard of my parent's home fending off dragons and rescuing fair maidens form evil men of old. Much like Don Quixote's windmill, I had an old, gigantic oak tree that served to feel the brunt of my wrath. Many were the leaves that fell to the ground as dragon's scales slowly giving way to the behemoth's soft underbelly. I always vanquished my foe, and rescued the maiden, yet the beast always returned to challenge me the next day.

One of the saddest days of my life was the day I realized that I really was too old to continue fighting imaginary dragons, and hung up my sword and shield. You may have had a similar experience, where the realization that adulthood was near and you would have to leave all of your childish dreams behind. I hated to leave the nobler days of knighthood behind me; it was one of the toughest things to lose in my childhood. Little did I know that a mere twenty-five years later I would begin to re-visit some of those thoughts and dreams of my youth.

Knights of old have always fascinated me. I don't know if it is the swords, the chain mail or just the ideals they stood for, but I have always found them interesting. I always wanted to be the knight that fought against overwhelming odds, with truth as my shield dispensing righteousness with my sword and triumphing over every evil enemy all the while winning the heart of a fair maiden. Any movie with swords and knights seemed to call to me saying, "Come join us in our noble adventures."

I remember my sword, which in my mind's eye always gleamed with the shine of polished silver with gold inlaid in the handle, but which in reality was made of wood. That sword was my constant companion and I was quick to dispense justice to any brigand who dared behave in any manner unworthy of the crown.

There was a time when I wondered if I had been born into the wrong time, and that maybe I should have been born during the era of knights and kings. Then one day I gave my heart to Jesus Christ and received the free gift of salvation and realized that He had a plan for my life and it could not have been fulfilled during that time period, but had to be in this present day.

As the Spirit of God told Jeremiah, "Before you were formed in your mother's belly I knew you." (Jeremiah 1:5) It was by accepting Jesus as my Lord that I was removed from the kingdom of darkness and placed into the Kingdom of Light. I went from not having a King, to having one in a moment of time.

One of the things that I find curiously odd is that the Holy Spirit moved on James the king of England to have the Bible translated so that all men and women would be able to read God's Word. This was done during the time when knights roamed the European countryside. I mean God could have chosen any time to move upon someone to translate the Bible into a common tongue, why did He choose that time?

Could it be because that what the knights of that time stood for were very similar to the attributes that God wants His men to achieve? After all when God talks about the armor of God in Ephesians, His equipment list is that of a knight's isn't it? (Ephesians 6:10 - 18) This excites me to think that perhaps there is more here than a little boy's fantasy about slaying dragons and saving damsels in distress?

Maybe, just maybe God has a plan for us as men and we were closer to understanding it when we were ten playing in our back yard. Perhaps that wasn't as much playing, as it really was preparation for the lives that He wants us to live, the lives of knights of the realm, His Realm.

Well suit up then men, let's go out and whip something for the Kingdom today!