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Episodes
Friday Mar 18, 2022
Friday Mar 18, 2022
BE READY WHEN YOU GET THEREAt age 29 I had been the pastor of a tiny congregation in South Dallas, TX for six years. A huge faith-based event took place in Reunion Arena every year and I typically volunteered there as, essentially, an usher. Right before the event was scheduled to start, the executive director of the conference came to me and told me the main speaker couldn’t make it and that I would take his place. It took a lot of convincing from him to make me believe he wanted me to step onstage in front of 20,000 people in less than an hour.That night I gave every ounce of passion within me, but it wasn’t because I was in front of thousands. It was the same intensity I gave every week to the 20 or 200 people who walked through the doors of my church. Afterward, the director told me that he had seen me preach in Spanish at my church without my knowledge – he didn’t know what I was saying, but he knew what was happening in the room and trusted me with a large moment because of that small one.Remember that Jesus laid out this principle for us: it is the person who is faithful in the small things who will be entrusted with bigger things. So many of us are trying to get “there,” wherever “there” might be, but when we get there, we’re not ready for it. The great tragedy would be to live your life waiting for that moment to come instead of living your life preparing for when that moment comes.What I have seen over a lifetime is that, from our perception, we wonder why God hasn’t given us the opportunities we long for, and from His perception, He wonders why we chose to be unprepared for the opportunities He placed right in front of us. You cannot know every challenge you will face, but you can know who you are when you face that challenge!Are there areas in your life where you feel God has called you to prepare yourself for something larger? How has God rewarded your stewardship of small things with the trust of larger ones?
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
Thursday Mar 17, 2022
KNOW WHAT YOU WANTThere is a story in the life of Jesus that has always struck me as odd. Jesus was leaving Jericho and a large crowd began to follow him. In the midst of the commotion two blind men were sitting by the road. “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” they cried out. The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet but they raised their voices even louder. “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. The men responded, “Lord, we want our sight.”Usually when we read a story like this we are primarily struck by the outcome - it’s no small thing that at the end of that story Jesus gave the two blind men their sight. So the question Jesus asked often goes over looked.When Jesus asks them “What do you want me to do for you?” he wasn’t asking because he didn’t know, but because he needed them to declare what they wanted God to do on their behalf.The Psalms tell us that we are to delight ourselves in the Lord and he will give us the desires of our heart. This means we need to know our hearts, we need to know our desires, and we must allow those desires to be informed and then formed by our love and worship of God.If you don’t know what you want, then God trying to give you what he wants is a wasted effort. You have to want what God wants in order to receive what God wants to give you. There are times in life when it is not within the scope of God’s intention for our life to give us certain things we ask for. But wouldn’t you rather err by asking for too much than too little?What do you want from God? Is that a question you typically ask yourself? Is there anything you want that you’re afraid to ask for?
Wednesday Mar 16, 2022
Wednesday Mar 16, 2022
DON’T STOP UNTIL YOU ARE FINISHEDThe concept of The Last Arrow came to me when I was reflecting on a story from the life of the prophet Elisha in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this story, Jehoash is the king of Israel in the midst of a massive war, and he seeks the wisdom and counsel of Elisha in how to win against the armies of Judah.Elisha tells Jehoash to ‘get a bow and some arrows’ and then to ‘take the bow in [his] hands.’ After commanding Jehoash to shoot one of the arrows out of the east-facing window, he declares that Jehoash will have victory in battle. But then Elisha asks him to take the remaining arrows and ‘strike the ground.’Jehoash strikes the ground three times before he stops and, quite unexpectedly, Elisha grows angry with him. ‘You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.’ And that is where the story ends.Jehoash began with the promise of a complete victory and afterward found himself the recipient of much less. And it all centers around one decision: he struck the ground three times and then stopped. To put it another way, he quit. For Elisha, Jehoash striking the arrow was connected to his ability to receive the full measure of God’s intention for him, and when he quit the victory was lost.It makes me wonder how many times in my own life I thought I failed, but actually the only thing that happened was that I quit. When you come to the end of your life, will you be able to say, “I gave everything I had,” or will you have a hollow feeling inside of your soul that you quit too soon, that you expected too little, that you did not strike the last arrow? Make the commitment to not stop before you are finished, because you are truly stopping before God is finished.Are there areas in your life where you too easily give up? Can you identify patterns in your past where you thought you failed when you actually quit? What makes you want to be a person who lives their life fully alive and dies with their quiver empty?
Tuesday Mar 15, 2022
Tuesday Mar 15, 2022
SET YOUR PAST ON FIREIn 1977 my family’s home erupted in an electrical fire that consumed everything inside. While my mother lamented the loss of my brother’s trophies and promised him they could be fixed, I remember that my brother seemed strangely unmoved. The insight he left me with that day was that if those trophies are the highlights of our life, then our lives were not worth living, going forward. Why waste time and effort to reclaim the past when it would be much better for us to focus on creating the future?There are things and even people that you will have to leave behind if you are going to keep moving forward - anyone and anything that would keep you trapped in the past and would rob from you the future God has for you. Jesus clearly imparted to all of His disciples: You cannot follow me into the future if you are holding on to your past.Your past will be your future until you have the courage to create a new one. Take every memory that continues to wound you, take all of the pain, all of the regret, take all of the bitterness and disappointment, take all the moments of betrayal and every failure out of your heart and put them in the fire.Keep in mind that this is not an invitation for destructive behavior; don’t burn relational bridges or operate under a scorched-earth strategy. Try to make sure you do the right thing in the right way; appreciate the past, but live in the present and for the future. The journey into our best future always passes through the furnace. The fire both forges us to who we must become and frees us to live the life for which we were created.What has a negative hold on your life that you need to leave in your past to create your future? Identify three strongholds over your decisions, behaviors, and relationships that you need to ‘burn’ to move forward into the life Jesus is calling you to live.
Monday Mar 14, 2022
Monday Mar 14, 2022
DON’T STOP UNTIL YOU ARE FINISHEDThe concept of The Last Arrow came to me when I was reflecting on a story from the life of the prophet Elisha in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this story, Jehoash is the king of Israel in the midst of a massive war, and he seeks the wisdom and counsel of Elisha in how to win against the armies of Judah.Elisha tells Jehoash to ‘get a bow and some arrows’ and then to ‘take the bow in [his] hands.’ After commanding Jehoash to shoot one of the arrows out of the east-facing window, he declares that Jehoash will have victory in battle. But then Elisha asks him to take the remaining arrows and ‘strike the ground.’Jehoash strikes the ground three times before he stops and, quite unexpectedly, Elisha grows angry with him. ‘You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.’ And that is where the story ends.Jehoash began with the promise of a complete victory and afterward found himself the recipient of much less. And it all centers around one decision: he struck the ground three times and then stopped. To put it another way, he quit. For Elisha, Jehoash striking the arrow was connected to his ability to receive the full measure of God’s intention for him, and when he quit the victory was lost.It makes me wonder how many times in my own life I thought I failed, but actually the only thing that happened was that I quit. When you come to the end of your life, will you be able to say, “I gave everything I had,” or will you have a hollow feeling inside of your soul that you quit too soon, that you expected too little, that you did not strike the last arrow? Make the commitment to not stop before you are finished, because you are truly stopping before God is finished.Are there areas in your life where you too easily give up? Can you identify patterns in your past where you thought you failed when you actually quit? What makes you want to be a person who lives their life fully alive and dies with their quiver empty?
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Pastor Bob McCartney gave a sermon series on current social issues this fall highlighting the truth found in the Bible. Here are my notes from this sixth sermon in his series, True Colors.Racism is rooted in ignorance. It is a reaction without facts and a prejudice based on outward appearances, but it is a reality in a sin-cursed world. A racist says that my ethnicity is superior to yours.7 from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, 8 from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed. 9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”Revelation 7:7-10 NASB19951. God created one race – the human race.There is only one race! We have a common ancestry.The Bible doesn’t speak of different races, ethnos is ethnic groups.There is no one who is beyond the scope of God’s grace. If you don’t get the beginning right, you won’t get the ending right. We have a common family heritage in Adam and Eve.God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.Genesis 1:27 NASB1995Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.Genesis 3:20 NASB1995Racism is not compatible with the Christian life.25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,Acts 17:25-26 NKJVWe know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.1 John 3:14-152. Christians are responsible for bridging the racial divide.Saying you are not a racist is the lowest possible bar you can set. The church is a preview of what heaven is going to be like. We are supposed to actively pursue unity, but we as a church aren’t doing a good job on that.Root out and reject any lies that we have believed. These lies are demonic.The curse of Ham: The only curse we are under is the curse of sin and that effects us all.Interracial marriage is sinful: The prohibition was never racial, it was religious. We are to marry people who are spiritually compatible to you.Learn to listen and show some compassion and empathy. Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.This is how you say it, I affirm, believe, and support the statement that black lives matter unequivocally, nevertheless I do not support the BLM organization. John 13:35.A. B. VinesWe, as Christians, are called to actively seek to reconcile the differences between races. Racial reconciliation is not the gospel, but it is an outgrowth of the Gospel.18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.2 Corinthians 5:18-19 ESV3. Biblical justice is a matter of equity.Equality is different than equity.Equity in Hebrew means level or straight. It is rooted in truth and in fact. The Bible does not promise an equal outcome, which is equality.And He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity.Psalms 9:8 NASB19954. Racism flows out of sinful hearts, not systems.Racism will not be eradicated by a system change. There may be systemic racism, but it flows from the sinful hearts within the system. All the regulations in the world can not change the human heart.We don’t have a skin problem, we have a sin problem.Tony EvansThe human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?Jeremiah 17:9 NLTand He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.1 John 2:2 NASB1995