Day 17: 50 Days of Impact

In the book The Hobbit the is a point where the party is making their way through a woods and are instructed to stay on the path. Some point on that path it was really hard to identify where the path was going, but none the less the path remained. Of course, they eventually wondered of the path and ended up in trouble once with ogres another with spiders. Both times if it wasn’t for the reluctant hero noticing that they had left the path, they would have been doomed. As reluctant as he was he still did what needed to be done to rescue his companions. Honestly he didn’t know them that well, he was tricked into the journey, yet once on the path he understood the importance of remaining on the path.

 

“Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil.”

Proverbs 4:25-27 NLT

 

Ever see someone walking with their heads down, maybe looking at their feet or even on their mobile phones. These people have an idea where they want to go but realistically they have no vision on how to get there. Their focus is on something else.  It will be ever so easy to stumble off the path they are on or hit something in their path they don’t see coming. You can’t avoid something you don’t see coming.

 

Solomon gave us the instructions look straight ahead when going somewhere, or in life. Be determined on your direction, be vigilant to the path you’re on and you will have a better grasp on your vision. You will see distractions, you will have time to avoid obstacles. Yet we as people are easily distracted by shiny things. It is not always easy to say no to being sidetracked. But we need to keep our focus on our destination and remember the goal is more important.

 

I also say this, looking forward we can see those who are sitting on the side or just off the path. We can stop to help others back on the path, this isn’t a distraction this is part of your journey. As long as when you stop you don’t lose sight of the path and the goal. Care, love and offer to walk alongside. Whatever it may take to help someone else join you on the journey to life everlasting with Jesus.

 

Dear Jesus, lift my head from looking at my feet, I want to focus on moving forward on the path of life. You are the reason I am alive and I want to focus on your path. Help me with head lifted high to see overs who need a hand on the sides of the path. Let me share what I know and love them as you would love them. Amen

 

Day 35: Original 50 Days of Pray Revisited

Thoughts on Day 35: Having a child or loved one walk away from their upbringing is heartbreaking. To invest your time and love into them and show them the truth and love only God can bring and see them turn it down can almost be a slap in the face to how you raised them. What did I do wrong? The answer is simply this, nothing. Every human must make a choice themselves what path they choose in life. As parents we are entrusted for a small about of time, maybe 1/5th of their life to introduce them to who we are, what we believe and our moral standards. But at one point they will have to make these choices on their own. What you invested into their lives we pray becomes the foundation of who they are.

DAY THIRTY-FIVE

Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6 NKJV)

I would think this scripture would be in the top ten for most parents. It is one that gives hope as a vast majority of children these days walk away from the church at the first opportunity. Why if the child really had an experience with his/her maker would they walk away? Why, why, why?

I have a couple theories,
1) the world is an easy tempter of pleasure,
2) a child leaves home and a circle of believers and moves to a place and doesn’t join another for either lack of trying or maybe a hard time joining a group,
3) influence of girl or boyfriend, and friends.

Don’t be discouraged if your child has walked away. God has not forgotten them even if they seem to have forgotten Him. Keep praying that God will reveal Himself to them daily, through His creation and by bringing people into their path showing the love of Christ. Don’t give up on you Child, God hasn’t, and the Holy Spirit is working on them daily.

Dear Jesus, if we have a child who has walk away from You and are living a life we would call sinful we ask You to bring them back. Holy Spirit send people into their lives to show them the love of Jesus, remind them of the creator. Give us a peace that You know what you’re doing in this situation and no matter how long it takes we won’t give up on our loved ones until they have come back to Jesus. Amen

Day 11: Original 50 Days of Pray Revisited

Thoughts on Day 11: I honestly still have no idea how things will play out once we get to heaven. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, the important part is how we live our lives here on earth. Are we working towards receiving rewards, or are we more concerned with helping others find the truth that we have found?

 

23Feb 15

DAY ELEVEN

Proverbs 16
20 It pays to take life seriously;
things work out when you trust in God.

We live in a world that focuses on entertaining us. We even have shows that celebrate those who entertain us. For some reason, I turned into the Oscars last night. Not exactly what compelled me to put it on. Now don’t think that was all I was doing, it was background while playing a game with my wife. So, the Oscars. It is kind of interesting watching the award winners give their thank you speeches. Some of them feel the need to ramble on and on over their new dust collector. It made me wonder.

When we meet our maker, he has done all the judging, he has separate the sheep from the goats, will there be an award ceremony? The Bible does talk about gaining crowns in heaven. I envision that there will be no nominees or big intros but I can see us all being honoured one at a time, the glowing smile on the Fathers face as he presents us with crowns. And as we think about what we should say we don’t say a thing, we look over at the King of Kings, humbly walk over to his throne, and lay it at His feet. Honoured that He thought of us and knowing that He is deserving of all our worship and nothing we did in this life would have been possible without Him.

So in saying all this, I pray that you take life seriously. Trust God in all you do, trusting what you see on TV or in the newest blockbuster won’t help your life at all. The newest self-help book or do it yourself won’t get you anywhere. Trust God, with everything, don’t hold nothing back. Cause when you get to heaven and get a chance to see where God was involved in your life you will understand a lot clearer that God has our best interest at heart.

Dear Heavenly Father, I am done playing games. I am done following ideas of the world that only end in disaster and more sin. I pray Jesus that you will help me to daily trust in God. Asking the Holy Spirit to guide me. I will trust that all things will work out and I am going to put God first and trust Him in everything. Holding nothing back, loving others like you do. Amen

Day Six: Original 50 Days of Pray Revisited

Thoughts on Day Six. If you aren’t from Canada, check out what is happening here. I remember growing up in church and even recently hearing that we are glad to be living in a country where there is no fear in sharing about our faith and worshiping God openly. With all that is happening and the laws that are being pushed I wonder how much longer those freedoms will be around. Don’t give up though, TRUTH will always trump evil, there will always be those who want to see past the lies and desire to experience Truth no matter the cost.

18 Feb 15

DAY Six
I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth. Stay with GOD! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with GOD.
Psalm 27:14
Ever notice that every couple of years a movie comes along that is so against what Christians believe in that it causes seemingly worldwide panic, that “this movie” is going to shake, break, or destroy Christians. I can think of 50 SOG, Showgirls, or DaVinci Code. But in the end, they come make some noise yet in the end when was the last time you read an article about DaVinci Code?
This is what I see, anything that Satan tries to do that is evidently evil is a high show stopper, quick fry in the pan, looks good to start, but eventually rots away and hides. The reason you don’t hear about it anymore is because it wasn’t lasting truth.
Why is the Bible still around? Why is God the same as He was back in the days of the bible? Because He is TRUTH. TRUTH endures. Gods love flows through all His creation and is consistently all around us.
The bible says not to be taken in by every new fad that comes along. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, I quote the Psalms once again, Stay with GOD! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with GOD.
Dear Lord, help us to not be drawn into every new fad that stirs our heart. Help us to stay with God, even when the world tells us it isn’t important. Help us to read your word and write Your truths on our heart. Let our lives reflect this Truth, let our actions match our words as to be examples to those around us. They need to see you through us. They matter to you so they matter to me. Amen

 

Day 11: 50 Days of Change

“Without wise leadership, a nation falls; there is safety in having many advisers.”‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭11:14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Most of us if now all of us have grown up receiving advice from our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents teachers and close friends. These tidbits of advice they have given us are either things that will help us through life avoiding choices they have made, or stones to help us build a solid foundation.  It is true that some of the advice they have given is not worth listening but how do you decipher the good advice from the bad advice? 

One sure fire way to ensure that the advice you are receiving is good, is to have more then one advisor. If mom and dad are giving the same advice you can trust them. I think back to the Lord of the Rings, the deceiver Wormtongue who had the ear  king Theoden and ended up poisoning his mind with his advice to the point that the king was doing everything he said. The knights of the round table were many whose advice the king would have trusted because he had many advisors. 

As child we don’t normally get to choose who their advisors are, we accept those in authority and trust they have our best intentions at heart. As adults it is difficult to disserern who has your best intentions at heart. We can pull advice from many different sources then the writer of the proverbs had. Tv, books, internet, social media and even blogs. How do we know that the word that are pointed at us are there to assist in our daily walk for the better?

For one we can see if it aligns with scripture. Checking it out with the good book will strengthen your ability to receive advice in the future. Know what to says gives you a great starting point. Second if it feels like wonky advice, pray about it, don’t jump into the advice ask the Holy Spirit to discern if it is good advice or not. Thirdly find a group of Christian friends you can confide in, having just one close friend is great but many will give you a clearer picture on good advice.

So where are you getting your advice from today? Is it leading you to or from Jesus? I pray that you have many advisors who can help you in your daily walk with God.

Jesus, today I pray that if we are receiving bad advice that you help us change our pattern of accepting advice. If we don’t have a group of advisors we can trust, I pray that you will help us establish a group of friends who can help us with receiving God advice. Show us in your word what constitutes good advice and what is wrong. Let us be able to advise others on making good godly choices. Let us see the world they way you do, that you love them. We want to reach the lost for your glory, so that none will perish because of  bad advice. Amen

Day 9: 50 Days of Change

“If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself; but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding.”‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭15:32‬ ‭NLT‬‬

We have become a socitety where the word discipline had become confused. Those who have grown up in a home where discipline was lacking are in most cases missing something,  their respect for others and their property doesn’t mean the same. If they grew up in a home where they always got what they wanted and did what ever they wanted, then why now should that be any different in their work, their own families and social circles? A child who grew up in a home where they were harshly displined to the point of abuse will feel they never satisfy those around them, they are always wrong and seek to satisfy never reaching the mark. Discipline displayed in love and respect, providing guidelines and boundaries will most times produce well mannered  respectful members of society. Of course this isn’t always the case especially true if the child is friends with someone who gets away with everything.

I say all this so we can hopefully identify who we are. How we accept discipline as a child will greatly effect how we receive discipline from our Heavenly Father. If we grew up with everything handed to us and freedom to do whatever we want, how hard will it be to accept discipline? We will most likely ignore it and go our own way. If discipline was abused and forced on us we will either expect God to be rough and abusive or we will hide away in our shell trying to avoid it either way we will reject it. Maybe you rejected the disciple of you parents due to what you seen other families doing, how easy then is it to reject Gods discipline when it comes as it shouldn’t apply to me. 

As the Proverb states the rejection of discipline causes harm. Discipline is meant to redirect you from something that is harmful. If a child defiantly backtalks a parent, and they discipline them for it, the parent knows that later as an older teen or adult backtalking the wrong people could lead to backlash. Boss will fire you, police will arrest you, bullies will beat you up. You never see the full picture when your being disciplined. In the moment you feel so small and underappreciated. But as the Proverb continues, as we listen we understand. After we will see why it was necessary, though it may be days,  weeks, months or years before we see it. 

So today as we look to change our lives in Christ, are you willing to accept his discipline in you life? Will you listen to the words on the Holy Spirit in your life? Will you take his advice and move away from harmful things that seek to hold you back from what God has for you? 

Jesus, thank you for loving us.  Don’t stop guiding us in how to walk with you. I am willing to accept your disciple so that I can be an example of your love to those around me, I want to be effective in reaching the lost. They matter to you so they matter to me. Amen