I would appreciate some prayer today. I have to keep this one short.

The phrase says, when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. That is not the whole story though. If you stop you will find yourself stuck in the same place. You have to get out of the hole my friends. Don't stay there.
Be poured out like Paul. All The Way Out.

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. - 2 Timothy 4:6

As you walk through this weekend. See who you can join up with. It will open your eyes and show you how God does things. He doesn't sit back and passively watch. He is an active participant. Read the words from Phillipians Chapter 2:1-7

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Have a great weekend Family.

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. - Matthew 23:5-7

Why Do You Do What You Do?

Are you recognition driven? If you are that is fine. Most people enjoy being recognized for their accomplishments. There is nothing wrong with it. The problem is when we begin to believe our own positive press. When our sufficiency is found in what we can do instead of what God has done.

This is from the book Future Grace by John Piper.

This empty craving for the praise of others signals the failure of pride and the absence of faith in God’s ongoing grace. Jesus saw the terrible effect of this itch for human glory. He named it in John 5:44, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” The answer is, you can’t. Itching for glory from other people makes faith impossible. Why?

Because faith is being satisfied with all that God is for you in Jesus. And if you are bent on getting the satisfaction of your itch from the scratch of others’ acclaim, you will turn away from Jesus.

But if you would turn from self as the source of satisfaction (repentance), and come to Jesus for the enjoyment of all that God is for us in him (faith), then the itch would be replaced by a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).

Find Your Joy in Jesus and Enjoy God As He Is.

Some Sundays are easier than others to get into the spirit of worship. The cold of winter contrasted against the warmth of my bed makes mornings like today move slowly. Like honey that has sat too long I have gotten a little crusty. I am hard to pour some mornings. ;)

So to prime the pump, so to speak, I let the word of God apply the right amount of heat to get me going. So when I opened my browser I saw the image in today's graphic. The picture comes from the artist Michael Bolognesi. As I thought about how God set the stars in the skies I was drawn to the Psalms where we see our scripture.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

God has called us back to himself. That is amazing to me. Why? He is self-sustaining, he is all-sufficient, there is no lack in him. And yet... He is mindful of me and you.

As you head to your places of worship this morning know that God is mindful of you. Read Psalm 8 and know your God.

O Lord, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

God created us to be together. That means that we share the victories as well as the defeats. We spend so much time crafting a "beautiful" image online that we forget that what really builds community is a complete picture. The same goes for our health and well being. No one can help us if we keep our struggles to ourselves.

No one believes the facade anyway so you might as well ditch it and start being real.

Push on my friends.

Finding Contentment

Who reading this really loves cold weather? I don't mean chilly. I mean the kind of cold that whips through you and make you rethink your life decisions. We just had a few days like that. Negative temps with the wind chills made us talk about running to warmer climates permanently. The only problems with this is that we had the same thoughts in the opposite direction when we lived in the land of 100 degree summers.

Double Minded

The Bible says that should stay away from the double minded man. He is unstable in all of his ways. The challenge of these verses is that, if we are honest with ourselves, we are all double minded. When we are hot we want to me cold and when we are cold we want to be hot. When we were young we yearned to grow up but a soon as the realities of grown up life hit we longed for the good old days.

Enjoy The Season You Are In

My encouragement for you today is to enjoy whereever you find yourself. This is because, ultimately, your joy is not in any external thing. God has ordained a time and a place for everything. Is God enough where you are right now?

Carlton

Today is the first day back on the grind for me. I wanted to raise a mug up to everyone living in the future with me. If you have goals for this year get started and do something today. Don't give up!

If you don't have any goals do something anyway.

No Default Living

One of the conversations that came up a few times as the 2014 wound down was how folks felt stuck. It took me a while to figure this out but life does not happen to you. You have made decisions, whether implicit or explicit, that ave brought about your circumstances. If you know you are making bad decisions then the first step is to stop digging. If your circumstances are coming because you are doing nothing then now is the time to do something. Pick a direction and go. Stop wandering.

Will it be easy? NO!
Does that make a difference? NO!

Eat Your Veggies

So what will I be doing? I mean it is easy to give advice but how will I be living it? I am glad you asked that.

I am going to focus on buliding/strengthing a habit each month. For January I am focused on Prayer/Bible Study. I am following Professor Horner's Bible Reading Plan. This is a challenging plan in that you read 10 chapters each day. At the end of this 8 month program you will have read:

• The Gospels (Matthew, Mark ,Luke and John) four times
• The Pentateuch (first 5 books) twice
• The Pauline Letters 4-5 times
• The OT Wisdom Literature six times
• The Psalms at least twice
• The Proverbs a dozen times
• The Book of Acts a dozen times
• The OT History about 1.5 times
• The Prophetic books about 1.5 times.

I use the bible app Youversion. The app allows me to listen the chapters in order.

While following this plan will go throughout most of the year I am using January to establish the rhythm needed to keep it up. Last year I Followed the M'Cheyne One Year Program. There is even a audio podcast on iTunes to help with listening.

Challenge

If you are up to it. Pick a habit you want to establish this month. Let me know in the comments and I'll check in with you. For those that make it thourgh I will do a giveaway on 30 Jan 2015.

I look forward to walking with you this year.

My amazing god-daughter posted the bolded portion of the prayer of benediction. I was intrigued by it and after some research found out it was a prayer given by the Franciscan Monks. I thought I would share it with all of you.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor. (St. Francis of Assissi) Have a great weekend and great services at church.

3 when his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness! - LinkThis is the first thing that Job mentions about being God's Man.  Job knew who God was and understood that God knows what is best.  He used this wisdom to navigate through the world that was around him.  Do you truly trust that God has an answer for every situation that you find yourself in?  I wish that I could say that I have this one locked down but honestly I cannot.  On the big things I lean in to God but for the small stuff I find that I rely on my own strength.  This is where things can get out of whack.  It is in the incremental decisions where I can get off course.  Time to get my eyes fixed firmly on God.

My prayer for you today is that you would allow God to be the lamp that lights your way through this dark world.  Let Him guide your steps.

God's Man

^1-2 So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.

^3-4Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

^5-8And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It's because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn't long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it's all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

^9-11Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

^12-14So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

^15-17Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

¹⁸Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.

¹⁹Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don't take advantage of them.

²⁰Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end.

²¹Parents, don't come down too hard on your children or you'll crush their spirits.

^22-25Servants, do what you're told by your earthly masters. And don't just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you'll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you're serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn't cover up bad work.

Earlier tonight I sent this txt to my god daughter, "You need a Job 29 Man". I know that she is used to my very random text messages. Here is the text of Job 29 for your reading pleasure. I have spoken on this scripture in these posts "Portrait of a Godly Man", "Agent of Change", "Servant Leader" and "Thoughts For Today". I will be back later to flesh out this letter to my daughters.

^1-6 Job now resumed his response: "Oh, how I long for the good old days, when God took such very good care of me. He always held a lamp before me and I walked through the dark by its light. Oh, how I miss those golden years when God's friendship graced my home, When the Mighty One was still by my side and my children were all around me, When everything was going my way, and nothing seemed too difficult.> ^7-20 "When I walked downtown and sat with my friends in the public square, Young and old greeted me with respect; I was honored by everyone in town. When I spoke, everyone listened; they hung on my every word. People who knew me spoke well of me; my reputation went ahead of me. I was known for helping people in trouble and standing up for those who were down on their luck. The dying blessed me, and the bereaved were cheered by my visits. All my dealings with people were good. I was known for being fair to everyone I met. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, Father to the needy, and champion of abused aliens. I grabbed street thieves by the scruff of the neck and made them give back what they'd stolen. I thought, 'I'll die peacefully in my own bed, grateful for a long and full life, A life deep-rooted and well-watered, a life limber and dew-fresh, My soul suffused with glory and my body robust until the day I die.'> ^21-25 "Men and women listened when I spoke, hung expectantly on my every word. After I spoke, they'd be quiet, taking it all in. They welcomed my counsel like spring rain, drinking it all in. When I smiled at them, they could hardly believe it; their faces lit up, their troubles took wing! I was their leader, establishing the mood and setting the pace by which they lived. Where I led, they followed." (Job 29, The Message)