2 Timothy 4:7: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith….









Have you ever noticed how often scripture compares our walk with God to either farming or exercise? The references are everywhere!

I was watching a video recently of a couple of really smart guys talking about science. One of them made the assertion that our minds were created with the ability to “understand” creation. In other words, God has given us clues in His creation that lead us to Him, and given us the ability in our created minds to find Him in it.

Let me just take a second here to praise our God. No matter where we are, no matter what we do, God has left evidence of His existence; and not only that, but evidence of His intense, active and complete love and pursuit of us! Open our eyes, Lord, to see You in everything!


Ok... back on track...


One reference to exercise in particular that I have always pondered comes out of Romans chapter 5. In verses 3-5 the author says this: “...More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame…"

Don't ask me why (because I will talk all day about it), but I like to run. Actually, it's more of a slow jog, but I enjoy it nonetheless. I was pondering this word “endurance” in regard to what it means in these verses from Romans the other day as I was running, and something occurred to me. 


Endurance is not so much of a stretching of what I am capable of as it is a stretching of what I believe.

Check this out! In running terms, when I challenge myself in terms of either speed or distance, I am, in essence,  suffering... I am bringing myself to the edge of how fast or how far I believe I can go. The more I challenge myself at that edge of belief, the more I believe I can do; and the more I believe I can do, the more I will do.

The more I allow myself to suffer (rejoice in my sufferings), the more endurance (belief) will be cultivated in me, and the more character (action based on that belief) will show through. Hope, in running terms is the reciprocation of this process. In other words, when I start to act on an expanded belief (I run farther and/or faster), my “edge of belief” moves outward.

This is so encouraging to me in my walk with God. When I go through a difficult circumstance, I can try to control or change the situation under my own strength, or I can trust that God sees farther, knows more, has greater wisdom and care, and is just plain smarter and bigger than me. I can try to run away or take control myself, or I can rest in God's providence and let Him do what He wants to do in the way that He wants to do it. This, to me, is what “rejoicing in my sufferings” means. As I see God do what only God can do, I believe God more (endurance). As I believe God more, I act upon that belief (character). As I act upon that belief, my hope is encouraged; both for my eternal future in Him, and in the next “suffering” that comes along.

“Lord, today I choose to be still and know that You are God (Psalm 46:10). I will rest in You when I am weak and burdened (Matthew 11:29). I know that You do not push me into trials to walk alone. I know that You have gone before me and You have won the victory! I will not try to take control of my own life, but I will fix my eyes upon You, because You are the Author and the Perfector of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). I will not be anxious about anything. I will bring my requests to You with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6).”

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm gonna go for a run...

Ephesians 3:20, 21- Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.







How many times in our lives do we misunderstand or completely miss something that God is doing because we have an idea of how we think it should play out... and God has a different plan of action than we thought.

This is exactly what happened in Jesus' time. The Hebrew people were diligently looking for the Messiah to come, but they missed it because they weren't willing to consider that God's plan of action was different than they thought it was going to look like.

I have been so humbled and challenged over the past few months with the idea that my experiences can be my greatest assets, and they can also be my greatest liabilities. It is that idea of tension again. My experiences (and the experiences of others) can be my greatest assets because I can learn from them and grow; but they can be my greatest liability if I am only willing to believe God based on what I have already experienced.

I don't want my expectation to be limited by my experience!!!!!

God is SO much bigger than what I have or ever will experience of Him on this Earth. I don't want to live in the box of my experience. When I worship Him, I don't want to only expect Him to move in the ways that I am familiar with. I want to believe Him for more. I want my eyes to be fixed on Him, not on what I have experienced of Him. Lord, do whatever you want in and through my life! Do it whenever pleases You, and in whatever way You choose! 

Genesis 22:8- Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."






I am sitting here in awe of my God again. The idea that a Holy, infinite, perfect God would desire to have relationship with me enough that He would send His own Son to be the sacrifice for my sinful nature- to create the way to have that relationship- takes my breath away! I literally can't find the words to accurately describe the feeling that overwhelms me when this thought that "He has become to me what He has required of me" sets into my mind and heart. 

I have read this verse in Genesis probably hundreds of times over my life, and understand very clearly that this was a real scenario that also symbolized what God was planning to do through Jesus thousands of years later. Today, I read it through the eyes of a Jewish historian named Josephus. It is his words that struck me at the center of my heart today:

"That God would provide himself an oblation (sacrifice), He being able to make a plentiful provision for men out of what they have not…"

The thought that keeps blowing my mind as I think about this is that JESUS IS ENOUGH! He is enough to save me. He is enough to sustain me. He is enough to satisfy me! He didn't need anything from me for His sacrifice to be enough. What blows me away even more is that God knows He is enough, and yet He still chooses to bless us with provision and favor and everything for life here on Earth. 


God's holiness demands that our sinful nature be paid for through a sacrifice of blood. We cannot DO anything to clean up enough to clean ourselves from this sinful nature. If we could, then there would have been no need for Jesus to come. God, in His extravagant, out of this world love and desire for us, became the sacrifice necessary to restore relationship with Himself. 


He has become to me what He has required of me! 

Deuteronomy 10:16- Circumcise your hearts, and don't be stiff-necked any longer. 




Sometimes I wake up and my neck is so stiff that I can't turn my head either direction. It's like I slept doing a headstand all night! It makes everything difficult for at least that day, and usually doesn't loosen up for a couple of days. It even makes it hard to have a conversation with someone unless they are standing directly in front of me! 

I could give you a statistic on how many times this phrase is used in the Old Testament, but I didn't want to take the time to count, and quite frankly, I didn't think anyone would care that much :) Suffice it to say that God uses the term "stiff-necked" quite often in regards to the people of Israel. 

I also have to admit that this is a phrase that I hadn't given much thought until today (and no, I didn't sleep doing a headstand last night), but I got to thinking about it today.

In the context of the verse above, God is telling His people to stop being stubborn and look away from the things of this world and to look at Him. He is telling them to stop being stubborn, to stop following the ways of the world around them, and to follow Him whole-heartedly.

Here's the inevitable question that goes along with this:
Where am I looking? What have I set my mind on? Is there anything that takes a higher place in my mind than my God? 

I have to admit that I let worry and doubt take precedence over who God is and what He says at times.There are times and seasons where I let my opinion of myself or someone else's opinion of me take the place of who God says that I am. There are times when I feel like I need to take the bull by the horns, and make something happen. There are times when I feel like, no matter what I do, I cannot succeed….
And I would venture a guess that you can identify with that at times too.

 Let me tell you something... I am learning that He doesn't need my help. 
HE IS FAITHFUL! FAITHFUL! FAITHFUL! FAITHFUL! 

What I have found is that if I am not being deliberate about focusing my eyes on the things of God, I get swept up in mindsets that do not glorify God. Faith is active-  I HAVE to keep my eyes on the Author of that faith.
I have to look at Him. I have to look at Who He is. I have to look at who He says I am, and what He tells me to do.

God isn't just encouraging His people to look away from the ways of the world… He is encouraging us to look at HIM!!!! Where I look is my choice. I can choose to search out what God says and look at that, or I can choose to either stay in ignorance or deliberately look away from what He says.
I choose to look at Him!

Mark 2:27- …the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.






I was reading in the book of Nehemiah today about how he set up guards at the gates of Jerusalem so that vendors from other nationalities could not come in and do business with the Hebrews on the Sabbath day. The Law of Moses was very clear that no work should be done on the Sabbath day, and Nehemiah had just returned from Babylon to discover… well let's just say they weren't taking this command from the Lord very seriously. 

As I read about this, I thought of the verse from Mark that is quoted above, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me. We have to be willing to fight for the things that God has provided FOR OUR GOOD, because the current of this world will sweep them away in the blink of an eye if we don't fight. 

The Bible says that the message of the cross is foolish to those that are headed for destruction. (1 Corinthians 1:18) The world has a different way of thinking, a different way of believing, a different way of acting… and the ways of God don't make sense to them much of the time. 

This whole idea brings me right back to what my last 2 blogs have centered around- the complete sufficiency of Jesus and how it applies to my daily life.  If I believe God when He says that if I seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness that all things will be added to me (Matthew 6:33), then I will not seek to add things to myself. I will seek Him. 
If I believe Him when He says that, "As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can I, unless I abide in Him. (John 15:4), then I will seek to abide in Him, and let the fruit grow in the season and quantity that He determines. 

Whether or not I have someone telling me that this mindset is foolish straight to my face is irrelevant. The current of society is to be ambitious and go after what you want. And don't get me wrong, ambition is an amazing and respectable quality. The current of culture is to focus on what I'm doing as a means of how well my life is turning out. It is to try to be better, to change myself day by day. 

Let me make it personal to diffuse the possibility of offensiveness. I lead worship at my church. In fact, I make my living by being the worship leader at the church. It is so easy to get focused on putting out a good "product" (the music) or on doing a "good job" so that my livelihood stays intact. There are so many things that would steal my focus that it makes my head spin! The truth of the matter is that God hasn't asked me to be good at music. The truth of the matter is that I'm not in front of the congregation to even lead them by TELLING them what worship is. The truth of the matter is that I am anointed to let my passion for Jesus be seen through my worship.

I fight with any number of different mindsets all the time. When I look at the heart of God, I see that I have it backwards so much of the time. I get so focused on trying to be better, and using that as my indicator of whether He is pleased with me or not. Instead, I should be saturating myself in His Word and in His Presence through prayer and worship so much that I discover that my life has been changed. 

Phil. 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.





Never have I felt like more of a hypocrite than right after I posted my last entry called “I Just Want Jesus”. I am a very goal oriented person, and have been in a position to coach others to be very goal oriented as well. So, to make a bold statement saying that I don't want anything but Jesus, implying that my only goal is to find Him made for some real head battles in the days after posting....

And then I read the verses quoted above, and my heart took a breath. I don't have to be perfect to take a stand. I don't have to have it all figured out to tell the world (or my little blog family) what's in my heart.

I DO believe that Jesus should be my all in all. My only pursuit. Not a means to an end. Everything in everything.
I DO NOT know how this all plays out. I have looming questions about the role of goal setting in my life now. I have spent so much time and effort looking into the power of evaluating belief systems and how my core values affect my behavior. After all, isn't the essence of evaluating belief systems and core values a search for truth?

Here's to forgetting those things that are behind. The ways I used to approach life, the ways I did things, the ways I thought about things. They are all Yours Lord. Use what You want, and in what way pleases You. You are my goal, my strength and my prize.  

Philippians 3:7,8- But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.







I'll never forget kneeling at an altar in Mission Texas in the spring of 1999. A pastor friend of mine sat down on the stairs next to me, and opened his Bible. He read this passage to me, and told me that he felt like this would be a couple of verses that would guide my life. 

I have come back to these verses more times than I can count over the last 15 years, and it seems like every time I do, they come to life all over again. I have spent many prayer times thinking and asking God what it means to count everything as loss for His sake, and God has always spoken to me in a very meaningful and appropriate way for where I was at in my life. 

Well, I revisited this passage in my prayer time this past Sunday morning before practicing with my worship band at church, and once again God really spoke to me. I found myself saying "I just want You Jesus. I just want You Jesus."

Everything- EVERYTHING in this life is worthless save for knowing Jesus. I don't want good music, I want Jesus. I don't want to be a good husband or father or worship leader, I want Jesus! I don't want money, I want Jesus! I don't want anything but Jesus!

Jesus is enough! He knows that He is enough for us. He knows that we need nothing in this world except for Him. What an amazing Father we have that would choose to pour out His favor and blessing on, in, and through us knowing that it's not what we need! 

Have I been called to be a good husband? You bet I have! 
Is it my God-given responsibility to raise my kids in a way that's pleasing to Him? Absolutely!
Have I been anointed to lead worship? I believe that I have….

Sometimes, in our journey toward change, we have a hard time seeing our own potential. Sometimes, as we walk along, we need someone else to tell us the truth when we can't believe it for ourselves. To put it simply, we were never intended to walk through this life alone.




If you're anything like me, this is a hard concept to embrace. For some reason we view asking for help as a sign of weakness or some sort of failure. I mean after all, self-control starts with the word “self” right?

I had a little bit of a revelation about self-control recently. I think that self-control has less to do with will-power, and more to do with proper planning. If I can avoid the pitfalls that have tripped me up in the past, I will be WAY better off than if I try to walk straight through a minefield.

However, there are blind spots... there are obstacles that we can't see. Sometimes, the ones we know about and have planned for sneak in. I mean, if I'm trying to eat less sweets, I can avoid buying them myself- but I can't control whether a coworker brings them into the office.

Allowing someone else into your journey of change can be a dangerous road to walk. Don't let just anyone into this journey. There are people who would tell you that their way is the only way to accomplish your goal... and if you're not careful you might end up compromising who YOU are for someone else's view of you.

On the other hand, we can never get caught in the arrogant trap that we have a corner on the market so to speak. There will always be something we can learn if we will listen and watch. This is why it is so important to really take the time to discover who you are, what you want, and how quickly you want it. It's only then that you can weigh the counsel of others against what is in your heart, and know if it is for you or not.

Only you can dream. Only you can take the journey of discovering exactly where you are, and only you can decide on what your plan of action will be... but you should not take the trip by yourself. Let someone encourage you when your goals seem out of reach. Let someone challenge you when maybe you've set the bar below what your potential is. WHO'S WITH M?!

In the journey toward change, there is one word we all must reckon with if we are to succeed: TENSION.

As we endeavour to better our lives, we must find a balance between enjoying the comforts of life and standing at the edge of belief (see blog post "The Edge of Belief" 12-19-13)

Maybe you have heard the phrase, 'If you do what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten'. Most of us know that lasting and meaningful change isn't something that happens comfortably.

But what about the other side of the coin???

What happens when you step out to the edge of belief and you fall flat on your face? What happens when you turn the previous statement into, 'I want to get something more than I've always gotten, so I'm going to try something different'.

Doing something different means doing something that you're maybe uncomfortable with... something that feels awkward. And along with that comes a few trips and stumbles let me assure you!

This is where that magic word TENSION comes in. We want to set our goals at a place that forces us out of our armchairs, but allows room for learning. We have to find the balance between, 'I'll never make it so why try' and, 'It's all or nothing' .

The more comfortable you are with living on the edge of belief, the faster your change will come. Just remember that the important thing is to take that first step. Change happens at different speeds and in different ways for everyone.

Tomorrow we will talk about the importance of community as it relates to the pursuit of lasting and meaningful change.

Don't be afraid to create a little tension in your life :) You just might be surprised at what you find inside yourself!

Meaningful communication is not about what a person says, it is about what the receiver hears.
One of the most beautiful elements of human interaction is when you have earned the right to speak into another person's life. To really be able to speak to another person in a way that is meaningful to them is one of the greatest honors I can think of.


To communicate with another person you have to go to where that person is. Even the most educated and empathetic individual still comes from the place where THEY ARE. It takes both people in this effort to even have a hope of being successful. The person receiving has to be open to the person giving, and the person giving has to be humble enough to want to speak to where the receiver is. AND, if you want it to be a back-and-forth communication, both people have to play both sides at the right time.

If this is the case, then you can see why it is so amazing when 2 people can really connect in communication. It is something that happens through time and effort. A person's “language” is unique to that individual, and only that individual can teach it to another individual.

I say that to make a distinction between us as human beings and God. God speaks your language. The Bible says that the words of the Lord are perfect. They are like gold refined in a furnace 7 times. There is no flaw in God's words. It does not take effort for God to speak to you right where you are. You don't have to explain to God what is in your heart or in your mind. He knows us better than we know ourselves.

One of my favorite things is when God shows me what's in my own heart. Sometimes I come to God and I think I know how I feel, and after spending time with Him, I realize that my own heart had deceived me. In His gentle way, He tells me the truth.

My favorite example of this in the Bible comes from the book of 1 Kings. The story goes like this:
Elijah is sitting in a cave at the base of Mt. Horeb. 40-some days before this he had challenged 400 prophets of Baal to a “burn-off” of sorts to see whose God was the real God... After God proved Himself in the “burn-off”, Elijah commanded that all the prophets of Baal be put to death. Then, he beat the king's chariot down the mountain ON FOOT.
When the queen hears about this, she sends a messenger to Elijah saying that she will have him killed within 24 hours.... and Elijah runs away.

So.... long story short, here Elijah is, staying in this cave. The Bible says that God comes to him and says, “What are you doing here Elijah?” Elijah answers, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down Your altars, and killed every one of Your prophets. I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me.”

Can you hear the desperation and loneliness in Elijah's voice. He's saying, 'God, I have fought hard for you, and nobody cares! In fact, for all I've given, they're after my life as if I was a criminal. Where are You in this God? How can this be happening to me?'

What I love about this is that God sees right through the WORDS that Elijah is speaking, and directly to the heart of the matter. Elijah's words were saying one thing, but his heart was saying, “I'm lonely God. I'm afraid God. I don't know what to do God.” And God answers in kind. He calls Elijah out onto the mountain to show off a bit...

The Bible saya that a great wind comes and breaks the rocks, and an earthquake, and a fire... but the Bible says that God was in none of those things. Then.... there comes a whisper, and God speaks to Elijah again...

“What are you doing here Elijah?” HE ASKS HIM THE EXACT SAME QUESTION! It's as if God was showing Elijah that it isn't all the miraculous and powerful works from His hand that Elijah needed... it was a deep communion with Him- deep enough to recognize a whisper- that he needed.