Although you might not verbalize it, I’m sure the thought has gone through your mind… “What if…?” What if I lose my job? What if it’s… cancer? What if I don’t make the team? What if she grows up and doesn’t live for Christ? What if my parents won’t understand? What if I fail the test? What if they say “No?” What if we can’t ever get back on top of these bills? What if he doesn’t like me? What if I don’t get accepted? What if I’m… pregnant? What if I never get pregnant? What if we never get approved for that loan? What if I’ve reached the top of my career and this is as good as it will ever get? What if I end up alone? What if? » Read The Rest

Matthew 6:24
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

It’s impossible to do two mutually exclusive things. You can’t go east and west at the same time. You be faithful to your spouse and play the field. Those are contradictions in terms! And here’s the point, you can serve God… OR money… but not both. God will tell you the most important thing in life is not money or stuff. Stuff and cash will tell you the most important thing in life IS NOT GOD… or church… or worship… or spiritual things… They’re OPPOSITE things. …so you’ll have to choose.

Now, you and I don’t sit down and say, “Well, I have to make a choice here… I think I’m going to serve… money!”

I don’t think many of you have said that. I know a couple people who have said that… but it’s not very common. It’s more insidious than that. When you wake up and find that your life is just cluttered with stuff… priorities and commitments are in everything but spiritual matters… maintaining and caring for the concerns of money and stuff overwhelm you… managing investments and bank accounts and stuff becomes so absorbing that eventually it demands your full time and attention… we wake up one day… and all we answer to is the master of stuff and money! You simply don’t have any time to give to God. You have no energy left to respond to Him. You’re busy! You’re overloaded. You’re overwhelmed! You’re… tired! You can’t serve God! Because you’re serving money! You LOVE God! You just can’t respond to Him. And by every action… you’re just entrenched in materialism…

Jesus would say, “The problem is in what you believe…” » Read The Rest

In our weakest moments we reverse the order of the Lord’s prayer. Instead of praying how Jesus instructed - God’s glory - then our good - we put ourselves on the spotlight. We worship… not God… but ourselves. And this is how it sounds.

“Hey, God! Make me look good! May other people see me and know me and like me! Make other people do what I want them to do as if I were You! I expect You to give me what I need in advance and give me what I want as well. Let me get even with my enemies for what they’ve done to me! Forgive me in advance for when I give in to temptation… which I will. And deliver me from consequences! Praise God, hallelujah, thank you, Jesus. Amen!”

That, unfortunately isn’t far from the truth.

You and I make the choice every day. Will we chose to orbit our lives around God’s glory first then our good as it falls into place after that? How you answer that question… determines who you have chosen to worship.

Someone I came to know when I became a youth pastor surprised me when I head him confess that one of the unspoken rules in his family as he was growing up was to evaluate everything in light of one particular question. They never outwardly asked the question (well, maybe they did). But they lived under the question for sure. The question was: “What will other people think?” It shaped what they bought. It shaped the places they went. It shaped what they ate. It shaped what they drank, or didn’t drink. It shaped the style of clothing that they wore – who they spent their time with – even when, how often, and why they went to church… And, in his rawest moments he’d confess, “You know, Jeff, it is a terrible thing to live under the burden of trying to impress everyone!”

You and I are wired to crave approval. We acquire the taste of people’s approval at an early age. » Read The Rest

This note was posted in the office of a church I visited this summer over the copy machine It read, “Dear God, so far today I’ve done alright. I haven’t gossiped. I haven’t lost my temper. I haven’t been greedy or grumpy or nasty or selfish or self-indulgent. And I’m very thankful for that. …but in a few minutes God, I’m going to get out of bed… and from then on I’m going to need a lot more help.”

I don’t think I make it that far. Usually I blink open my eyes… and look around and I think… “O God! Forgive me!”

Standards are not evil. The OT Law is not poison. Jesus says, the problem is not with the law but with us!
You know, you don’t get mad at the thermometer because it registers 101° fever. Do you? We don’t say, » Read The Rest