The Lion King and You

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In the mythic story of The Lion King, the lion cub Simba is separated in his youth from his father through a murder engineered by his uncle, Scar, the character symbolizing the evil one in our story. Scar arranges for the cub to be caught in a stampede of wildebeests, knowing that his father, Mufasa, will risk his life to save his son. He does, and Simba is saved, but Mufasa is killed. Scar then turns on Simba and accuses him, at such a vulnerable and desperate moment, of causing his father’s death. Brokenhearted, frightened, racked with guilt, Simba runs away from home. 

This is the enemy’s one central purpose—to separate us from the Father. He uses neglect to whisper, You see—no one cares. You’re not worth caring about. He uses a sudden loss of innocence to whisper, This is a dangerous world, and you are alone. You’ve been abandoned. He uses assaults and abuses to scream at a boy, This is all you are good for. And in this way he makes it nearly impossible for us to know what Jesus knew, makes it so very, very hard to come home to the Father’s heart toward us. The details of each story are unique to the boy, but the effect is always a wound in the soul, and with it separation from and suspicion of the Father. 

It’s been very effective.

But God is not willing to simply let that be the end of the story. Not in any man’s life. Remember what Jesus taught us about the Father’s heart in the parable of the lost son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20 NIV). Filled with compassion, our Father God will come like a loving Father, and take us close to his heart. He will also take us back to heal the wounds, finish things that didn’t get finished. He will come for the boy, no matter how old he might now be, and make him his Beloved Son. 

(The Way of The Wild Heart , 56, 57) 

What lies have you been believing about yourself that is keeping you from running home to the Father?

What's your giant?

Read Psalm 33-34; Acts 24

David said to Saul, "Let no man's heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." 1 Samuel 17:32-33

I remember learning the story of David and Goliath in Sunday school. As a child, I tried to picture the scene of this teenager going up against this scary, mean giant. How big was Goliath in comparison to David? Where did David get such courage to even think he could defeat him? In reality, all of the odds were against David. David had not ever fought in a battle. He had no experience, no armor, no weapon, and no one fought alongside him. Who was he kidding? But David had something far more powerful than physical stature, experience or weapons: he had faith in his God.

Do you ever feel like you are in the midst of a battle where the odds are stacked against you? Or maybe you see the giants, hear their taunts and decide to flee and hide out, as opposed to standing up to them, as the Israelites did before David arrived? Today, we are all in a battle and there is one clear enemy. Make no mistake about this fact: “your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Satan will use whatever tactics he can to get to us, to frighten us, and to keep us from fighting back. He will play tricks on our minds so that we see giants that are not real. He will deceive us into believing that we have no ability to win. One of the best tools Satan has against us is fear. Fear keeps us from facing the giants. Fear keeps us from ever achieving victory because we are afraid and run from the battle. Fear becomes our own trap of despair, depression and disillusionment. So often, the battle takes place in our own minds with giants conjured up in our thoughts, but we must understand that this is not God’s will for us.

Where did David get his courage? He believed in his God, the God of Israel. He believed in all that he had been taught about God, and he had witnessed God’s faithfulness and protection in his own life. And on this day, he was willing to put his faith to the test. David took a huge step of faith, depending completely on the Lord to save him. With one sling of one rock, the giant fell.

For us, today is our day of victory. Today is the day to face the giants in our lives. In faith we step out, stop running, stop hiding and stop believing the lies of the enemy, Satan. In faith, we face the enemy head on and we claim victory in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. He has fought the battle and won, on our behalf, but we need to step out, stand up and sling the rock. Today is the day.

What's your giant today? How are you going to trust in God's faithfulness and stop believing the lies of the enemy?

To Die or to die

Mark 8:31-34

When you choose to follow Jesus, might get caught between a rock and the Rock (Isaiah 26:4) If you ignore the demands of your friends, you face humiliation and rejection. Yet if you do the wrong...abusing yourself, others, Jesus.. you know God will be less thrilled, so you think.

Either way you die. So whats the use of picking sides? Jesus bluntly told his disciples that obeying God's plan would mean he would be mocked and killed on the cross. He was still determined to obey God. How many times in the past month have you felt mocked cause of your faith?

And Jesus said that anyone devoted to him must imitate him. Deny oneself and take up the cross daily. Swap your way for his way-totally. Obey him even when it hurts-even when you feel like you've been pierced with nails and all you can do is twist in pain.

Daring to stick with Jesus sometimes feels like you've been hung up to die.Tough stuff, huh? But Jesus promises that his way leads to life. I dont know about you but I love promises but us as humans have a tendacy to break them. Jesus NEVER has or will!

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Mark 8:34

Have you picked up the cross today?Are you stuggling with the cross? If so go to God in prayer, go to a Godly friend, a pastor, a leader in the church.

If you snooze you LOSE

Why would anyone want to "please God in every way?"

Before we decide to trust God, we figure that knowing, following, an enjoying God ranks in value right up there with a stash Starbucks or Chick fil a bags thrown in your car. So instead of recognizing God as King of the universe, we rule our own lives. We're God's enemies, rebels, against him.

You probably know the facts on how God figured out a way to bring us back to himself. Though we deserve to die for our sins(Romans 6:23). Christ suffered our punishment for us. He died on the cross in our place so we can be forgiven(Colossians 1:22-23)

Once you're sure of those facts, you have a colossal reason to choose total devotion to Jesus. You've admitted, I've been wrong, God. I thought you werent worth it. I disobeyed you. I accept the gift of forgiveness and daily to follow God because you realize the infinite value of being tight with him. He's rescued you and brought you into his kingdom of love. And he's worth every bit of you life.

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. Colossians 1:10

So is your alarm going off? Are you hitting the snooze? Is God trying to show you his grace but your sleeping through it? If it is then WAKE UP!

Daily Devo 2 Walking down hill

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. Pslam 138:7

This is a good verse of things that are going on right now in our community, trying to rebuild oave a great storm. But so many times in our lives we walk through a pretty hard storm and we never see the storm as something we must walk through. Once we are in the storm of our lives we often dont see God protecting us, helping us, guiding us through the storm. We think its to tough to get through the storm, When God is there leading, pushing, but still protecting us. We must never forget that in all of our lives we will go through several storms but we must never forget who will be in the center of that trouble storm helping us.

The Hebrew of this verse literally means to "go on in the center of trouble." What descriptive words! and once we have called on God during our time of trouble, pleads His promises of deliverance but not received it and continued to be oppressed by the Enemy until we are in the very thick of the battle or the "center of trouble" others may tell us, "Dont bother the teachers any more" Luke 8:49

When Martha said"Lord,... if you had been here, my brother would not have died"John 11:21, Jesus countered her lack of hope with His greater promise, "You brother will rise again" John 11:23. And when we walk " in the center of the trouble" and are tempted to think, like Martha, that we are the past of the point of ever being delivered, our Lord also answers us with a promise from His Word: "though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life".

Although His Answer seems so long in coming and we continue to walk in trouble, "the center of trouble is the place where He preserves us, not the place where He fails us. "The cimes we continue to walk in the seeminly utter hopelessness are the very times He will "PS 128.He will bring our trouble to completion, causeing the Enemys attack to cease and to fail.

In light of this what reason would there ever be for us to worry?

People of Courage

"Be men of courage, be strong." (1 Corinthians 16:13)
Never pray for an easier life - pray to be a stronger person!
Never pray for tasks equal to your power - pray for power equal to your tasks.

We must remember that Christ will not lead us to greatness through an easy or self-indulgent life. Heaven is always above us, and we must continually be looking toward it. Some people always avoid things that are costly, or things that require self-denial, self-restraint, and self-sacrifice. Yet it is hard work and difficulties that ultimately lead us to greatness, for greatness is not found by walking the easy to find path laid out for us through the meadow. It is found by being sent to carve out ouw own path with our own hands.

What are you willing to sacrifice to reach the glorious mountain peaks of God's purpose for you?What heartaches will you endure, if they proved only to make you stronger, not just happier?

Stand up, speak out,
and bravelyin God's name
BE STRONG

How we need to live

Romans 12:2 Don’t be like the people of this world but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him

God knows your potential. He gave it to you. He understands your weakness. He sees past your inabilities. He has complete confidence in the person you can be. Only God can help you reach your potential. Only He can give you strength beyond your weaknesses. Only he can give you lasting fulfillment. But your attention has to be on Him, not on measuring up to others. And it you’re focusing on the wrong things, He may use extreme measures to get your attention.

We strive as humans to measure up but who is doing the measuring? Majority of the time its ourselves or the world when it should be God. As you read these reads these words think of your life and who are you trying to measure up to, who are you allowing to do the measuring? I want to hear your thoughts so leave me a comment.