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Time & Life

The quality of any life is determined by the investment of time.  Proper use of time brings strength, causes growth, and produces results.

Our physical body can be strengthened and conditioned by exercise.

Our mind can be enlightened and developed to master new skills.

Our resources (gifts, talents, abilities, assets) can be invested for increase.

Time is the substance of which life consists.

Time is opportunity to create a life. 

Benjamin Franklin said,

Do you love life?  Then do not squander time, for it is the stuff life is made of.

The message of Jesus and the message of Christianity is a calling out into life.

Life in His Kingdom is filled with adventure and unlimited potential.

God has given us a life consisting of time for the purpose of grasping, perfecting, and performing His will.

He commands us to “redeem” the time.  This word is a picture of a merchant searching through the market place for some valuable commodity and eagerly “buying it up” wherever it is found.

Are you “buying up” the moment or has the moment been “stolen” from you by broken focus?

“Carpe Diem” – Seize the Day!

Love The Lord!

Matthew 22:37

And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).

Jesus gives us the greatest of all His commands – an ideal for life.

An ideal is a model we hold in our minds, a standard we reach for.  Ideals determine our priorities.

Ideals are powerful because what we love, desire and focus our beings on is what we become.

The greatest revelation in the history of the world is that God is love and God loves us.

The sweetest of all human emotions is love.
The greatest of all possible human experiences is love.

God has unimagined blessings for those who fully love Him.

1 Corinthians 2:9
…Eye has not seen and ear has not heard and neither has it entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him.

Our love for Him must be proven by the involvement of our entire being.  It is the highest kind of love for it motivates you to do what is right and noble regardless of what you may be feeling.

This love Jesus commands is the noblest, purest and highest form of self-sacrificing love.

We are never totally right with God until our heart, soul, mind, and strength manifest our love for God.

Love for God must be more than a confession.  Our entire being must manifest that love.  Love like this is manifested through obedience to His commands.

Love is always the first step.  God keeps covenant with those who love Him and keep His commandments.

When we are troubled, when we don’t have an answer, when we don’t know what to do, when our resources are not sufficient to meet our need, when we are frustrated, confused – just start with God and love Him with your entire being.

When we start with our circumstances, our challenges, our lack, and our doubt we are so limited.

Our problems are solved by responding to His love.  Start with God and then go to your need, your lack, your challenge, and your circumstance.

The whole purpose of life is to lead us to the final and ultimate truth that God is the one who loves us and can fully satisfy us.

When we start with God and loving Him with our entire being – presenting our bodies (all of us) as a living sacrifice – then we love our families, we love our neighbors, we even love our enemies, and we lead them to Christ.

We must renounce every competing affection, and be willing to lay down our lives for the advancement of His kingdom.

Sowing Power!

If you sow a thought, you will reap a feeling.  Sow a feeling and you will reap an act.  Sow an act and you will reap a habit.  Sow a habit and you will reap character.  Sow character and you will reap destiny.

From the beginning God taught us the importance of sowing and reaping.  He Himself sowed the Word of Creation and our universe was born.

He sowed His son Jesus into the earth and is still reaping a harvest of souls which no one can number.

Today Jesus continually sows the seed of the Word of His Kingdom into our hearts so that we can understand and live by His laws.

His purpose in sowing His Word into our hearts is to recreate the Garden of Eden within us.

The concept of His abundance is found everywhere in His creation.

A spiritual Garden of Eden within will cause us to live life from His principles within rather than living life in the external senses.

In order to accomplish this, our faith and worship life cannot be just another compartment of our highly compartmentalized life.

There is absolute abundance in the Kingdom of God.  It is possible to have total favor with the Ruler of that abundance.

God is never diminished by circumstances.  He can cause our plans to succeed. He can cause people to like us.  He can cause us to be preferred and chosen above others of equal talent.  He can protect us and guard us.  He gives His angels charge concerning us.

When His Word is spoken into our hearts, we can then speak that Word into a situation and it will perform His purpose.

Are You Ready for Your Kingdom Moment?

Have you ever earnestly longed for, prayed for, believed for something so fervently that every fiber of your being waited in anticipation for it to happen, and then, suddenly – it happened – and things began moving so fast you could hardly keep up?

All those long years of waiting, praying, believing and then it happens!  Your time, your day, your hour has finally arrived.

Then as the reality sets in and you are staring in the face this huge open door of opportunity, the questions flood your mind.  Am I ready for this?  Can I handle this kind of responsibility? Am I spiritually mature enough to deal with all that goes with this kind of position?

Of course, God-opportunities never come to us unless He believes we are ready.

If you wait until you think you’re “ready enough” for your “kingdom moment” you will most likely not accomplish anything great for Christ because you’ll probably never really “feel” like you are ready.

After all you are not the best judge of your “kingdom readiness” – He is.

1 Corinthians 4:3:  Paul says, “I do not judge mine own self.”

We should judge ourselves in matters of discipline, but never judge ourselves “ready” or “not ready” for a great kingdom assignment.  If you let your emotions dictate your “readiness,” you will probably never achieve anything worthwhile in life.

Most likely, you won’t feel good enough, prepared enough, or mature enough to handle a great new assignment.  But when God thinks you are ready for a tremendous new leap of faith, He will provide the grace, power and miracles to make you ready.  He will mature you and equip you for the task.

One thing is sure – You are more than you have become and you can accomplish more than you have accomplished. 

God is a master at taking insignificant lives and making them significant.  When He calls us to do something, He also equips, provides, sustains, and empowers us to do more than we think or even imagine we can do.

God is always calling us to push beyond the limits of our lives into bigger and broader dreams and adventures.  You and I stand in the midst of a “kingdom moment” that will touch and change lives the world over.

If You Missed this Weekend at TheChurch on Strayer

Several years ago a pilot was practicing high speed maneuvers in a jet fighter.

She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent – then flew straight into the ground.  She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.

In our high speed, fast-paced world today, many people have no clue whether they are flying upside down or right-side up.

For those who believe in God, there must be a belief in practice that there is a right-side up.

As people who live in God’s light, it often appears to the world that we are living upside down.

In the Kingdom of God –

          Up is down,
          Greatness is serving,
          Getting is giving,
          Promotion is humility,
          Leaders are servants,
          Strength is weakness,
          Life is death,
          Authority is surrender.

Nothing is more important to your life than knowing, experiencing, and living the laws of His Kingdom.

It is His joy to help us create our life in His Kingdom on earth.

In essence we become trainees or apprentices to proclaim to the world – the Kingdom of God is here and now.

The whole creation is awaiting the demonstration of Kingdom living.

If you missed this weekend at TheChurch on Strayer…

Let us begin our study today with a profound truth -

        As a believer, you now have the very life of heaven within you.

That means you and I are right now equipped by God with eternal life which we can live out on a day-by-day basis in the presence of this evil age.

In this world, we are soaked with secularity.  It seems people have little regard for a loving, caring, interactive God.

Jesus prayed for us to live in victory and be fulfilled while being in the world but not of the world.

Full-time Kingdom living brings us into our created purpose as we live lives of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

John 17:14 - I have given and delivered to them Your word (message) and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world…

The Holy Spirit is the C.O.O. ─Chief Operating Officer─ of God’s Kingdom on earth.  He is also the C.E.O. ─Chief Executive Officer─ of God’s Kingdom on earth.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives daily helping us, comforting us, and counseling us by becoming our advocate (defense attorney), intercessor, strengthener, and standby is God’s guarantee of His promise of eternal life. (John 16:7)

• You don’t have to win ─ God guarantees victory.
• You don’t have to struggle, fight ─ trust and obey.

Live as subjects of His Kingdom; enjoy His protection, preservation, and provision.  As Kingdom subjects, we are sealed by God.  “Sealing” keeps out the polluted air.  He keeps us in the midst of an evil age.  Nothing shall, by any means, harm us.   

Life on the Other Side

Life with a capital “L” was never designed to be lived in a stationary, status quo, mundane, lethargic, monotonous kind of state.

In reality, life with a capital “L” was designed to be motion-filled, ever-changing, challenging, energetic and exciting.

All too often we find ourselves absorbed with the routine, allowing others and circumstances to dictate the pace and quality of our living.

Perhaps that kind of life is best described by the old Greyhound slogan – “Just take the bus and leave the driving to us.”

Or the Yellow Pages slogan of – “Just let your fingers do the walking.”

God never intended for us to be passive observers in life, but He wanted us to become faith-filled, active, exploit achieving, daring men and women of accomplishments.

• Adam was to tend the garden meaning to keep, cultivate, protect – all words demanding activity and achievement.
• Noah was to build an ark meaning to design, construct, finish – words demanding intelligence, creativity, work – 120 years of it.

One thing is certain – there is no time for idleness, slothfulness, laziness, lethargy or inertia.

God is always moving in the earth, directing His people, speaking His plans, encouraging us to experience Him in His great endeavors.

Perhaps it is time for us to hear the words of Psalm 68:1 – Let God arise and His enemies be scattered.

Too many people love the security of sameness.  God never changes, but His means and methods are ever changing.