Advancing the Kingdom by Steps and Stages: The Prep Work

One of the main points of being a Christian is to send out the good news to the unbelievers. There are several avenues through which this can be achieved. Praise the Lord for his ingenuity! He has not created all of us to do the same exact tasks in life. He has gifted us all with very unique talents that can reach the lost in ways that the person next to you might not be able to. We are all called to do specific things for the kingdom but all of it ultimately ties into advancing the kingdom of God.

Recently I have begun using the talents and gifts that God has given me in the area of media. I am currently working with one of the most artistically anointed guy I have ever met. What a blessing Paul Griffith is! God has put a vision in his heart, and has spread it to mine, of ways that we can better equip the saints in their advancement of the kingdom. We are making a website full of videos available for churches to use in their services. Videos will range from sermon aids to worship backgrounds. A wide variety of things will be available. I am very excited about how God will use this.

Currently we are in the prep stages for our first video shoot. However, the website now has an opening page, a construction sign if you will. Here is the home page for your preview priviledges!

in.vis.io/n

Yes. That is the url. No .coms or www. Later I’ll blog about how Paul came up with that title. However, for all of you that can’t figure out how to type the above url in your browser, we have another way to access the site with the .coms and everything. It brings you to the exact same page!

www.invision-media.com

Well I hope you enjoy this little sneak peak of the website. We will keep you posted!

Thankful for His Goodness

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercies endure forever.” (Psalms 107:1 NKJV)

God is so good! He is the absolutely, hands down best thing that has happened to me ever. Anything that is good in my life is because God had a hand in it. I am eternally grateful. When I think about God’s goodness and His grace I can’t help but get excited! He has created the earth in all of its entirety. He has created the vast expanses known as the universe. Yet in all of this, He takes time to fellowship with us. He comforts us in our sad times and strengthens us in our weakness. He is the ultimate giver and asks for only one thing in return, to follow Him with every ounce of our being. There is nothing I would rather do in this life than devote my life, my every breathing moment, to the God above all.

“Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!” (Psalms 107:15 NKJV)

I have so many things to be thankful for in this life, so many blessings God has provided me with. Most important to me are the people God has placed in my life. When you are surrounded by people that love God with every fiber of their being it is near impossible not to thank the Lord of Heaven and Earth. My friends are truly a blessing in my life. Also, more than friends, is my family. Praise the Lord for family. God has truly blessed me with an excellent family. My parents fully pursue after God’s plan for our lives and it shows in our day-to-day lives. They always seek God for the answer to a problem. They are extremely wise and superb instructors. I am so grateful for my little sister! She is a bundle of joy and is continually growing into the beautiful woman of God that God has called her to be. What a blessing she truly is. I am excited to see how God will grow us and use us as a family.

I love you Dad, Mom, & Sarah!!!!!!

So this leads me to ask you a question. Have you thanked God for anything lately? Have you told anyone about God’s goodness in your life recently? What an encouraging thing it is to hear how God is moving in other people’s lives!

So my prayer for you to day is this:

I pray that every day you thank God for something awesome that He has done in your life. Also I pray that as you thank God, He continually gives you more reasons to be thankful. That He constantly blesses you in ways you never thought possible. That your quiet time grows ever stronger, deeper, and more refreshing. And most of all I thank the Lord that He has made a way for us to spend eternity with Him in His magnificent presence!

Hungry?

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled” Matthew 5:6 (NIV)

What does it mean to hunger?

 According to the Apple dictionary, it means –to have a strong desire or craving

  We all know the sense of hunger.  We all get it at one point or another.  Some get it more than others.  We all have that point in a day where we can hear our stomach telling us to get some food to satisfy our needs.  It tells us that we need some sustenance to put in our bellies to give us energy to burn and the vitamins and minerals that we need to continue living. 

  Once you feel this hunger, what do you do? You will more than likely find something to eat, and eat it.  It’s really not that difficult of a concept.  When you are hungry, eat some food! 

  Though this may seem quite simple, many Christians lose this understanding when it is applied to spiritual matters.  Oftentimes, we as Christians cry out to God, “We are hungry for You.  We crave Your presence.  We want to see Your face.” Now inherently, this is not a bad thing to tell God.  It is imperative that we discuss with God our desires and our hearts cry.  These statements become a problem when the hunger stops there.  If a Christian cries out to God that they are hungry for Him, but spend no time in His word, how do they expect God to fill them.  That might work for babies.  All they have to do is start crying and they are fed.  However, we are not babies forever(thank the Lord!)  We eventually learn how to feed ourselves.  We learn how to use utensils that help us eat more effectively.

It makes no logical sense for a hungry person to not eat food that is provided for them.  It would be pure stupidity.  Yet we as Christians do that exact thing!  We hunger but when we are provided with food, we don’t eat and continue to tell of our hunger. 

 Matthew 6:33 (NLT) “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

  The wise thing to do in this situation is to take the food we have been given, the word of God.  If we hunger for God’s presence, we should read the book that describes his presence in a million different ways through a million different people.  If we wish to see his heart, we should read the book full of people moved by God’s everlasting love and eternal faithfulness. 

  The best part of this is that once you start feasting on who God is and how He moves, your appetite only becomes whetted.  What you thought beforehand would satisfy your desires, only leaves you begging for more!  You just want to eat and eat.  This is how it should be.  Us spending our time every day in God’s word and in fellowship with Him.  Talking with Him. Praising Him.  Worshipping Him.  Loving Him.

  When I was a growing lad, my mother always called me a bottomless pit, because I ate so much.  My eating habits have since changed as I have grown wiser about the care of God’s temple, but that is what our spirit man should be.  We should be bottomless pits in the spirit.  Always getting more of the word and God’s presence. 

 In summation:

If you are hungry, then eat.  If you want to see God, open your eyes and look at Him.  He’s everywhere.  Don’t let the confines of religion make this more complicated than it is. 

 My prayer to day is this:

 That I never quit spending time with God and that I grow closer to Him daily.  That I eat when I am hungry and that I open my eyes when I need to see.

 

P.S.  Just in case you didn’t realize this, God is an awesome God.  He supplies your every need, He protects you from danger, and He loves you with such an insurmountable love that no human mind can comprehend the depth or power of it (by their own power).  Ephesians 3:18

God Bless You!

Red Letter Redneck Day!

Today was a great day! It started out with an awesome time of fellowshipping with God and digging into his word.  After losing track of time I ate lunch and went snake hunting by Gillespie lake. 

 There we sharpened a broomstick and attempted to spear big 'ol bullfrog tadpoles.  Sadly, we were not successful.  Oh well.  I then proceeded to watch a couple of 24 episodes.  

Great Stuff!  For dinner I enjoyed a good 'ol fashioned Crawfish Boil!   MMM... MMM.. Good! Everything tasted great and the corn was very spicy.  Just the way I like it!  

And to top it off,  I have strike for a show tonight.  That always involves some good man work! gggrrr ugh ugh!(Man Grunts) And finally hitting the sack after a good day's work, with a little sunburn!

The Fellowship

 

Romans 6:11 (AMP)

Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.

Fellowship - companionship,companionability, sociability, comradeship, camaraderie, friendship,mutual support; togetherness,

I'd like to keep this one simple.  One of the most foundational and fulfilling parts of christianity is fellowship with God.  The more time I fellowship with God, the more I love Him and appreciate Him. 

Another beautiful thing about fellowship, is when you fellowship with fellow believers, God can use them to encourage you and lift you up.  So inadvertently, while fellowship-ping with my friends, I ended up fellowship-ping with God too.

Isn't God Great!!!!!!! 

My prayer to day is this:

That God bless those who I enjoyed fellowship with tonight.  That they stay warm and they continualy see new sides of God.

P.S. Jackie & Jesse, Ya'll are awesome!  Love Ya'll!

Homeward Bound

As a child, this had to be one of my favorite movies.  It always astounded me how diligent the animals were in finding their way home.  Obviously, home was an extremely important thing to them.  As I contemplated this,  I began to realize that  it wasn’t the town itself that the animals cared about.  Instead, it was the people who lived in that town that daily devoted time to love the animals.  This is seen by the multiple lines of the animals concerning their owners. 

           

            This leads me to the joyous conclusion that home is not about a place, but people.  Throughout my life, I have traveled a moderate amount and met a lot of people.  However, always I have had one home.  That is the beautiful town of Fort worth, Texas.  I have lived their all my life.  If you’ve never been there, you need to pack up and head there right now! Well….not really, but you get the idea. But as my conclusion stated the beauty of Fort Worth is not in its inherent beauty, but in its people. 

 

            At this moment, I believe it is appropriate to give a brief description of these people.  Imagine that a million tough circumstances hit you all at the same time.  Well, it was my friends, both related and not, that helped me get through these things.  These friends would pray with me, encourage me, advise me, impart wisdom into my life, prophesy over me, and smile at me when I needed it the most.  Are they perfect? No. As great as they are, no human is perfect.  But But I love them anyway.  So to all of you, thank you so much!  Ya’ll are awesome!

 

            But when I began college, I began a process of adding another home.  It was an interesting experience; leaving everything I ever knew to go out on my own to an unfamiliar place.  But thanks to my Lord and Savior, I easily transitioned into this new place He called me to.  I have met some really awesome people that I get to work and fellowship with daily.  I especially enjoy the nights where the guys get together and get sucked into the world of 24! For anyone who hasn’t seen 24, you are missing out on one of the most well written, well produced, and well acted show!  It is pretty much the Best Show EVER!!!!!  But anyway, God has truly blessed me with awesome friends in Jackson. 

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.”

 

It has been a great first year and I am extremely excited about what God has planned for me in the next three years!  I will definitely enjoy these last few weeks at school but I already feel the pull to be homeward bound.  As this season is closing, another begins.  God has got some awesome things planned for this summer that are going to radically change people’s lives.  I’m excited, thrilled, and exhilarated that I get to be a part of it. 

 

My prayer to day is this:

 

            That God will bless and comfort all of those people that I have come into contact with.  I pray that they ever increase in their capacity to love and that they continually seek the one that made them and gave them a purpose in life.

PS. Jack Bauer is the ultimate man!

I Love_____!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do we love in this world?  I hear people say that they love several things.  I hear phrases such as “I love that movie!  I love that food!  I love that song!”  Do we truly love these things? What is love? Many musicians sing about it in states of confusion or hurt.  They sing about how they love someone or how their love for someone has hurt them.  But once again, what is love?  According to the Apple dictionary, it is “an intense feeling of deep affection.”  This leads my mind to thinking.

  MMMMmmmmmm……..

 I am finding something strange about the above quotations.  Can we have intense feelings of deep affection towards mere items?  I know I have enjoyed several movies in my life but I cannot think of a single one that has caused me to feel intense feelings of deep affection towards it.  That just seems silly to me.  Yet, at the same time,  I cannot count the vast amount of times I have said such a statement like “I love ______ movie!”  Also I cannot think of a food that is so delicious and nutritious that I have gained intense feelings of deep affection for it.  That just sounds ridiculous.  It reminds me of a SNL skit I saw once where a kid loved hot dogs so much that another kid told him he should marry it.  He proceeded to marry it and the aftermath, needless to say, was quite bizarre. 

 I once heard Brother Kenneth Copeland say that there are only two things we should love in life; God and people.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  The only things in life truly deserving of our intense feelings of deep affection are God and people. 

 This revelation has sent me on a quest of sorts.  I now am attempting to correct myself from saying I love things that I don’t truly love.  I have eliminated the phrase “I love _____”from my vocabulary unless it pertains to God or people.  This has turned out to be quite a difficult task.  I never realized how habitually I said that phrase.  I had to go to a dictionary to fix my situation and find words that said what I meant.  In all of this I have found some beneficial results.  I have found that my word have more meaning.  I have become more specific in what I say and inadvertently I have become clearer in my communication.  Additionally, I have found that my ability to love God and people has increased.  I now love my friends more than I ever have before.  I love my family more than I ever thought possible.  I do everything I can to serve them with all I have.  I have begun to love others that were difficult to love with relative ease.  Though I have never been one to let my temper run free, little things would sporadically annoy me.  However, nowadays I find that agitation rarely comes to me, even though my surroundings haven’t changed.  I already don’t recognize myself from previous months; the growth of love has grown so extensively.

 Ultimately, I have realized the power of love.  It can turn around hardened people and aid in delicate situations.  I can use it to help brighten other people’s lives and mine as well.  I find that I enjoy life even more than I did previously.  Everything looks and feels brighter.  Furthermore, it can add clarity to your decision making.  It gives you inspiration to help others and to serve those around you.

 Moreover, love can help you in your calling.  An abundance of people are clueless as to what their calling in life is.  They don’t know what to do with their lives.  They don’t know how God wants to use them.  Here’s a piece of advice.  If you don’t know what God wants you to do, love those around you.  No matter what your calling, we are all supposed to love and be lovely towards those around us.  In this it is highly likely that you will receive your calling.  It worked for Job.  When he was at his worst point, he prayed for his friends, an act of love, and his situation turned around.  He became twice as wealthy as he was before and lived a great life. 

 So now the finality of my point.  What do you love?  What do you say you love?  Do you really mean what you say?  In your life, love two things; God and people.  More than this, love God and people to your fullest capacity, holding nothing back. 

My prayer to day is this:

That I increase in my capacity to love daily, that God’s love is shown through me, and that I say what I mean.