Life in the Trenches

Just wanted to share some things I am thankful for

1.  That God rescued me from Hell.

2.  That God paid for my sin.

3.  That God has given me eternal life.

4  That God loves me.

5.  That God has given me so much.

6.  That God has given me a beautiful, amazing wife.

7.  That God gave me great parents.

8.  That God has provided financially for me.

9.  That God has given me good health.

10.  That God has allowed me to lead an amazing church.

I could go on forever here.  Because God has been so good.

During this holiday, just remember all that God has done for you and how  faithful He is.

So this Sunday at church it was pretty awesome.

Ann Atwater came and spoke about racial reconciliation.

We were able to present in this service how humanity’s biggest need is to reconcile with God and that through that reconciliation we are able to reconcile with others.

It was amazing to see how God could bring reconciliation between a Khlu Klux Klan leader and Black Activist.  What an amazing testimony to the grace of God.

Alot of times people complain man I just don’t have a place to share the gospel.  And while I do understand that frustration I think a lot of times the reason we think that is because we refuse to look up.

God has placed us where we work, live, go to school, go to the gym, kids on soccer teams, etc..  for a reason.  Your mission field is simply where ever you are at.  We are called to build relationships where ever we are at, because we have some good news to share

Colossians 4:5 says “be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity”.

And so my question is what opportunities has God put in your life that He wants you to take advantage of?  Where is He calling you to build relationships at?  With who is He calling you to build relationships with?

There are a ton of people that are waiting to know God and to come to church, we just gotta tell them.

So for those of you who don’t know my wife and I are going to India January 8th through the 17th.  We will be sharing the gospel (Jenn through keyboard and me in the poorest slum in the world) and I will also be training pastors there.  We are really excited about the trip and so I thought I would share a couple prayer requests.

1.  That God would give us a burden for the people there.

2.  That God would use this trip to spur us on and give us a burden to do great things in our church in Greensboro.

3.  That we could raise more finances for the trip.  We have raised 2,000 and need to raise 5,000.  So just be praying that we can raise the additional 3,000.

4.  For the people in India that their hearts would be open to hearing the gospel.

It has been a rough six or 7 weeks when it comes to outreach for me, because I have continually felt burned out.  But this morning marked a turning point.  I had been praying a lot for my burden for the lost to come back and I really felt God brought it back this morning.  I was able to have conversations with two people in my neighborhood and was able to here one guys struggles. 

So keep praying for me as I go into my neighborhood, I am praying for God to do big things. 

Also don’t give up when your not feeling it about outreach, hang in there, keep praying and keep giving God your heart. 

Love you guys

God is up to big things, even when they are uncomfortable.  I think sometimes we as the church avoid uncomfortable situations but sometimes uncomfortable situations are exactly what God wants for us because He wants us to trust Him and follow Him into better things.  So don’t avoid uncomfortable situations.

Thought someone might need to hear that.

I think a lot of times in prayer it can be very discouraging when you feel like God does not answer your prayers.  You feel like oh maybe I’m not praying in His will (which may be true), or maybe He just doesn’t care (This is not true

But lately God has been using a passage of Scripture to speak to me and I just wanted to share it with you. 

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ “

⁶And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?

All this to say DON’T GIVE UP.  Just becuase your prayers haven’t been answered doesn’t mean you should stop.  Yes God probably will not answer selfish prayers and yes sometimes He won’t answer your prayer because its not what is best for you.  But don’t give up unless God shows you that. 

Pray about what God puts on your heart until it either happens or He changes your heart.  Keep praying your prayers don’t give up.  Your prayers can change the world.

Just thought somebody needed to hear that.

I think from time to time we go through dips.  Maybe we are little depressed, or arent feeling up to par.  Maybe things dont seem to be going right, or spiritually we just feel a little dry.  I think from time to time we go through periods where motivation to live for God is scarce. 

So what do we do when (and it will) this happens.

1.  Accept it.  So often we try to get out of the dip.  We try to pretend like things are ok or just use emotional positive thinking and stuff.  And listen its good to have a good positive attitude, but it is bad to deny reality.  If your in a dip admit, stop trying to get out of it for a moment and go be with God. 

2.  Be with God.  Some of my best times of pray have come when I’m in the dip.  Alot of times when we are in the dip we are tempted to run away from God not towards Him.  This always makes things worse.

3.  Dont focus on whats going on but rather what God is doing in you.  God is in control and when your in the dip its easy to forget that.  Its easy to get all hung up on your circumstances and not allow God to do what He is trying to do in you.  God works in our lives through hard times, by allowing us at times to go through things like depression, sadness and frustration, etc…  He does this because He is more concerned with our growth in Godliness than our temporary happiness. 

4.  Dont give up.  Never stop going, dips are never permanent no matter how much it feels like it.  God will take you out of it, just hang in there and dont give up

Hope this helps

From time to time God lays things on your heart that you just have to say.  I had to have a couple of tough conversations with people this week that I know really hurt their feelings.  But the thing that I know is that if I love them then I have to say it.

You see God puts things on our hearts to say to others because He wants others to grow.  So with that in mind I wanted to give a couple of thoughts about what we should and should not do when God puts something on our hearts to say to another which he will if you are faithfully following Him.

You should not

Gossip about the thing he put on your heart or form a prayer group about it

Talk to the other person in anger

Be a pansy and not talk to them.

You should

Pray a lot before hand to make sure if you should or not, if you can’t shake it after a week or so you probably should

Go in humility and be gentle (if you can’t do this wait until you can)

Be clear dont speak in vague terms give examples ( I hate it when people have a problem with something but can’t give an example of what they are talking about or a solution about the problem)

Talk to them and not let your frustrations build up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to help others grow.  When you get up to heaven I promise you that if you confront when God puts things on your heart, that there will be someone up there thanking you that you cared enough about them to have an awkward conversation.  Is there someone God has called you to talk to?