“You can Fail and not be a Failure.” This important principle is illustrated by the story of Daniel Ruettiger or “Rudy.” In addition to the information the film provides you can read about Rudy in John Maxwell’s book Failing Forward or Rudy Ruettiger’s book Rudy’s Rules. Here is how Maxwell tells the story: “Rudy” desperately wanted to play football for Notre Dame. You may have seen the film based on his life called Rudy. It was a good movie, but his real story is even more remarkable and compelling.
Read moreThe importance of meditating on God's Word
How can our reading and studying of God’s Word take us by the hand and lead us into the presence of God? How can our study of God’s Word actually be a means of grace as it was in Paul’s life (Acts 20:32)? One answer is the meditation of God’s Word. It is easy for us who are bombarded with information not to meditate or process all the input to which we are exposed. We are inundated with news from our car radios, emails at work, texts and tweets from friends, website surfing, and podcasts and TV in the evenings, and endless cell phone calls.
Read moreDon’t Waste Your Life (Psalm 127)
Solomon in the only Pilgrim Psalm (Psalm 127) he wrote, challenged us three times in two verses, not to live a “vain” or empty, worthless, or wasted life. John Piper wrote a book entitled Don’t Waste Your Life. In chapter three, he wrote of two women who some might consider to have wasted their lives. In April 2000, Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon, West Africa. Ruby was over eighty. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty years old, and serving at Ruby’s side in Cameroon. The brakes failed, the car went over a cliff, and they were both killed instantly…. Was that a tragedy?
Read moreA Biblical Goal for 2021
What day of the year are more goals set than any other day of the year? This coming Friday or New Year’s Day. Michael Hyatt in a video series called 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever says that traditional goal setting doesn’t work. He backs up this statement with these facts:
1. 95% of those who lose weight on a diet plan regain it and some gain more than they originally lost.
2. 25% of people abandon their New Year’s resolution after one week and 60% after six months.
3. The average person makes the same New Year’s resolution 10 times in a row without success.
I read about a recent medical study that reported nearly 600,000 people undergo heart bypass surgery each year in America. Because the procedure is a temporary fix, afterwards patients must make lifestyle changes by eating healthier, quitting smoking, exercising, reducing their stress. It becomes a life or death issue! But the study revealed a shocking result. Ninety percent of heart patients don’t change. They continue the same path prior to their surgery. They know change is important and consequences are life-threatening, but they stay the same
(Reginaldi, Paul; Dodson, Amanda (2013-08-20). Revitalized Church, How To Leave A Legacy Church (Kindle Locations 1316-1322).
A Biblical Goal for 2018
What day of the year are more goals set than any other day of the year? This coming Monday or New Year’s Day. Michael Hyatt in a video series called 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever says that traditional goal setting doesn’t work. He backs up this statement with these facts:
1. 95% of those who lose weight on a diet plan regain it and some gain more than they originally lost.
2. 25% of people abandon their New Year’s resolution after one week and 60% after six months.
3. The average person makes the same New Year’s resolution 10 times in a row without success.
Read moreYou Can Know God’s Will for Your Life (Part 3)
The first is through our God given desires. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and he shall give you the desires of your heart.” If we are delighting in the Lord, then most likely what we desire is God’s will. One of the reasons I knew God’s will for my life was preaching is because I had a desire which fits with 1 Timothy 3:1: “If any man desire the office of a bishop he desires a good work.” "Desire" is mentioned twice in that one verse.
Read moreYou Can Know God’s Will for Your Life (Part 2)
Three conditions to meet in order to know God’s will for your life
The First Condition, You Must “Trust in the Lord.”
For the unsaved, it is God’s will that you get saved. God has a decreed will and a permissive will. God has decreed some things that will happen. God decreed the death of Christ for our sins before the foundation of the world. In Acts 2:22-23, wicked men carried out the predetermined plan of God when they crucified Christ. Even the decreed will of God does not eliminate human responsibility for which these wicked men are accountable to God.
Read moreYou Can Know God’s Will for Your Life (Part 1)
When John Wesley was thirty-two years old, he was a bachelor missionary in the colony of Georgia. While he was serving a church in Savannah, he met a young woman named Sophia Christian Hopkey. She was pretty and intelligent, and Wesley fell head over heels in love with her. But Wesley belonged to a group called the Holy club, and one of their ideals was that members should remain single. So Wesley was caught in a dilemma. Was it the will of God for him to marry Sophie or not? To find out, he and a friend named Charles Delamotte decided to draw lots. On three pieces of paper they wrote: “Marry”; “Think not of it this year”; and “Think of it no more.” Then they put the pieces in a container. Delamotte closed his eyes and drew out the third one, “Think of it no more.” Wesley was heartbroken, but he took the result to be the will of God. He ended the courtship, and, not long after, he sailed back to England. In his journal, he wrote over the record of his romance, “Snatched as a brand out of the fire.”
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