Super moon!!!!

SUPER MOON!!!!!

That baby is bright.  Wow...  I looked outside to see what all the hype was about and there it was.  A moon that would make any late night fishing trip more enjoyable.  I think the bigfoot tracking weirdo’s could even find him on a night like tonight.  Its beautiful.  

It also made me start thinking.  God is literally showing off right now, in my opinion.  He has given us amazing views, breathtaking sunrises, stunning lakes and mountains.  There is all this beautiful evidence of Him and all these things that were created to cause man to give God glory-but...

What happens?  Sadly, we happen. We decide that while God and His creation is amazing, we want our own stuff.  Romans 1 tells us what happens and its simple but sad. 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

What I am saying is we pull an Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) and decide that instead of giving God what is due to Him and Him alone, we decide to give God our ghetto, busted sacrifices and expect Him to be impressed by our actions.  REALLY??? The God who spoke the world into existence is supposed to be impressed by something I can give Him?  I don’t think so.  We get so busy in trying to please God and others that we forget to appreciate all that God has given to us.  By seeing what He has freely given to us, it would/should cause us to desire to worship Him more, which would ultimately bring Him the glory that is due to Him and Him alone.  

I am convinced that people do the things they do to seek mans approval and not to glorify God.  God has given us all these amazing things and yet we're good.  We are happy pleasing our neighbor and showing them our newest stuff, yet we have our first love.  We have put God on the back burner and while we sing songs with lyrics like Chris Tomlin's "Enough", we don't mean it.  We simply mean that God is enough as long as He does not interfere with my day to day life.  

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

You are my supply
My breath of life
And still more awesome than I know
You are my reward
worth living for
And still more awesome than I know

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

You're my sacrifice
Of greatest price
And still more awesome than I know
Youre the coming King
You are everything
And still more awesome than I know

More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I know
More than all I can say
You are more than enough for me

After singing this, we go back to living our lives as if God has not made a difference at all.  If these lyrics held true when we sang them, the world would no longer exchange the Truth of God for a lie...

Thoughts????

I'll pray for you

I’ll pray for you...

Its a simple statement really, but Christians use it as a way of saying “get me out of this conversation immediately”.  Its not intentional, but its kinda the polite way of saying “look at the tree”, then pointing one direction while frantically running the other.  

Why does this happen when we know we will probably not pray for that person?  

What would it look like if we really took the time to stop and pray for each other?   

What would it look like if when we said that we would pray for someone we really did?  What would it look like if we really were praying without ceasing? (being in an attitude/spirit of prayer)  

We are told in God’s Word to pray without ceasing and in another place to pray for each other, but most of us don’t for some reason. What if we did these things?  It would serve as a reminder that we are to put God first, others second, then ourselves last.  I struggle with this a lot by the way-mostly because I am awesome or at least I think I am.  I believe the reason that we do not do this is because we are selfish.  We live in a me first consumer driven world.  With products that promise health, wealth, good looks, large muscles, and instant happiness, its no wonder we turn to these things before turning to God.  I can buy the latest, greatest product and I will instantly be transformed into Captain Awesome and have my own legion of minions to praise my awesomeness.  

So how do we fix the “I’ll pray for you” problem that has taken over the Christian community?  I want to offer one idea (there are plenty better ones out there).  

I have chosen to specifically pray for one person a day.  I pray for other things/people like I normally would, but chose to focus on praying for someone else who I may not pray for otherwise.  (I’m not intentionally not praying for this person by the way)  I feel that in our world that puts me on a pedestal and others beneath me, it is important to remember to pray for others intentionally and fervently.  I usually contact the person and tell them that I am praying for them specifically and ask them if there is anything in particular I can pray for.  I then do my best to pray for that person and their needs as much as possible throughout the day.  This has caused me to stop focusing on myself and try to focus on the needs for others.  I want to challenge you to do the same thing.  Maintain your normal prayer life, but chose one person a day to pray for.  The person could be someone who you do not normally see, or your best friend.  This has radically changed how I pray for others and I am afraid that I did a horrible job of explaining myself, but hope it at least makes you think about others.  

Thoughts???