Article: Creating a Memory was written by his child.
Creating a Memory
TGIF Today
God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman01-31-2008
"The greatest among you will be your servant" (Matt 23:11)
Ken Blanchard, the author of the One Minute Manager, once shared a story about what can happen when individuals in a company model servant leadership, no matter where they are on the totem pole.
A business consultant was training more than 3000 employees of a mid-western grocery chain to approach their jobs with a goal of creating a memory for their customers. She stated that "this is what will distinguish your store from all others."
Johnny was a 19-year old bag boy that had down-syndrome. His first response to the consultant's suggestion was "I'm just a 'bag boy.'" Nevertheless, he went home and shared what the consultant said with his mother. They began to ponder the consultant's words about how he could create a memory for his customers. Johnny had a habit of collecting inspirational thoughts that he would often read. He decided he would begin printing these sayings and place one in each of the bags of his customers. When customers came through the line he would place the sayings in their bag and say, "I've included some of my favorite sayings in your bag in hopes it will encourage you today. Thanks for shopping with us."
After just a few weeks, an amazing thing began to happen. One day the store manager noticed that all the customers were lined up at only one cashier station when there were other stations open. He began to panic, thinking the other stations were broken. After further investigation he found this was not the case. Actually, customers wanted to come through Johnny's line in order to get his saying of the day.
One woman came up to the manager and said, "I used to come to the store only once a week, but now I come everyday!" Johnny's example spread to other departments in the store. The florist began giving a flower to each florist customer. The meat department put Snoopy stickers on each meat order with a special greeting. This one act by a bag boy changed the entire climate of the store.*
How can you create a memory for someone in your workplace today? Jesus was all about creating memories.
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Article: Believing Your Uniqueness was written by his child.
Believing Your Uniqueness
by Jon Walker
“The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me – to tell people the Good News about God's grace.” (Acts 20:24 NCV)
God gave you a unique role to play in his Kingdom.
You’re the only person in the world who can live your particular life for the glory of God. There is no one else in the world with your unique mix of spiritual gifts, passions, abilities, personality, and experiences. God shaped you for a very specific ministry, and no one else can fulfill your mission.
Paul writes: “The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me – to tell people the Good News about God's grace” (Acts 20:24 NCV). God doesn’t want us to waste a precious minute of our lives doing things that don’t matter – if the most important thing we can do is left undone.
It’s never too late to move faithfully into your mission for God. You may think you don’t have any skills God can use, but the truth is God would never send you on a mission without making sure you had everything you needed – including your unique S.H.A.P.E.
He sends you with his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, inside you to guide you.
What does this mean?
· Let’s not waste God’s grace – The apostle Paul writes, “But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste. Haven't I worked hard trying to do more than any of the others? Even then, my work didn't amount to all that much. It was God giving me the work to do, God giving me the energy to do it.” (1 Corinthians 15:10 MSG)
· What if it’s true? – How would you live differently if you really believed God had created you for a unique mission, one that only you could accomplish?
© 2008 Purpose Driven Life. All rights reserved.
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Article: Greek versus Hebraic was written by his child.
Greek versus Hebraic
TGIF Today
God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman01-25-2008
"I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and make you like a warrior's sword" (Zech 9:13).
In the early church there was an emphasis on developing a heart toward God. This was the Hebraic way. The scriptures were not accessible like they are for us. So, the relationship with God was the key focus. God related to his people on a personal and intimate level. And obedience was the key to a healthy relationship with God. Decisions were not made based on reason and analysis, but by obedience. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Ps. 111:10).
This is why many of the miracles performed in the Bible went against natural reason, (i.e. feeding five thousand, crossing the Red Sea, retrieving a coin from a fish's mouth, walking around Jericho to win a battle, etc.) God constantly wanted to check the leader's obedience, not his knowledge.
Knowledge and reason came into the early Church with the Greek scholars in subsequent centuries. This is when the church began to affirm oratory skills among Church leaders. Gradually, over many centuries the focus on knowledge and reason has become more accepted in the Church.
Loss of intimacy with God has been the fallout as a result of the influence of the Greek spirit. The primary focus has been teaching and discipleship instead of the development of a personal and intimate relationship with God. This has resulted in a form of religion, but one without power.
In the early church, the rabbi was there primarily for quality control, not as the primary teacher and speaker. He did not even address the people from an elevated platform. The whole congregation was in a more circular format, each sharing what they believed God was saying. The focus was on the power of God working through each individual, not one individual (1 Cor. 14:26).
Is your focus on gaining more knowledge or growing in intimacy and power with Jesus? He desires to know you intimately.
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Article: Out of Your Comfort Zone was written by his child.
Out of Your Comfort Zone
TGIF Today
God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman01-26-2008
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Cor 9:8).
Have you ever been given an assignment at work that was beyond your perceived ability?
When I was in my late twenties I made a career change which necessitated a job change. I decided to apply for a job that involved selling advertising on golf score cards. Usually this meant going into small towns and making sales calls to small business owners in that community. Not an easy job for a rookie in his first sales job.
At first the two non-Christian owners refused to hire me because my answers to their questions led to me discussing my faith in Christ. They felt I should be in the ministry, not sales. However, they reluctantly decided to take a chance on me and sent me to small towns in Kentucky to sell golf scorecards in the middle of winter. Little did I know that they were trying to set me up for failure and did not think I had any chance of success.
I got into my Volkswagen bus and headed for the hills of Kentucky. As I took on my new job I told the Lord I was not qualified for this and He would have to help me to be successful. After a week of selling and sleeping in my car at night, I returned with a full inventory of sales from several cities. When I walked into the office and met with the owners, they looked at me with total surprise. They could not believe I had been successful. I would go on to work two years at this company, become an executive with them, and play a key role in leading one of the partners to Christ.
Do you have a major challenge in your work life? Ask God to help you be successful in your assignment. God delights in showing His children His power so you can abound in your good work.
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Article: Father, Son and Holy Scriptures? was written by his child.
Father, Son and Holy Scriptures?
TGIF Today
God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman01-27-2008
"Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?'" (John 14:9).
The disciples had been with Jesus for three years. They'd seen miracles - dead men came back to life, the sick were healed, and water was turned to wine. These were but a few of the hundreds of miracles they saw Jesus perform. However, even after these experiences, they lacked one important thing - intimacy with Jesus. They didn't really know Jesus.
This must have been a great disappointment to Jesus. He'd invested so much into developing a close and intimate relationship with the twelve. Consider that they spent three years with their Master. They learned about Him during those years. However, they had knowledge without intimacy. They experienced God's power individually and He even performed miracles through their own lives. Sometimes it is easier to do the work of God without the intimacy with God.
A friend once commented about the current condition of much of the mainline churches today: "You'd think the trinity was the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures versus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There's never been a better description of the Church today.
But, alas, this is a challenge to my own walk with God. It is easy for me to fall into this trap of working so hard for Jesus that I forget to work with Jesus. Jesus desires intimacy more than works. He tells us in John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." Whatever works we do must be a fruit of our intimacy with Him.
Lord, help us not to just know about you. We desire to know you.
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Article: was written by his child.
hey gals, yiyin here. here're my exam dates, do pray for discipline and a motivated mind to mug. thx! =D Land Surveying --> 1st Feb 10am to 12pm
Math --> 15th Feb 9am to 11am
Fundamentals of Civil Engineering --> 21st Feb 9am to 11am
Chemistry --> 22nd Feb 2pm to 4 pm
i seriously muz mug!!
Article: Dying to be Faithful was written by his child.
Dying to be Faithful
Persecution brought out the best and worst in the early Christians.
by Jennifer Trafton
"Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil—only let me get to Jesus Christ!"
Hardly the stuff of Sunday morning conversation in the 21st century. Ignatius, a bishop in Antioch, wrote these words in a letter to the Roman church in the early second century. He had been arrested for being a Christian and knew that a grisly death probably lay before him. Yet he looked forward to it almost joyfully. Why?
Ignatius and many other believers in his time were dealing with dilemmas most American Christians will never have to face: "Should I go to the local executioner and volunteer to die for my faith, or should I try to avoid being arrested at all costs? Is it okay to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods just once, if it means staying alive? Does martyrdom bring me closer to the sufferings of Christ? Are martyrs more special than the rest of us?" Questions like these shaped early Christianity.
The unpopular crowdDespite what many people imagine, the early church was not constantly on the run from wild beasts, torture chambers, and fiery deaths. For the first three centuries of its existence, Christianity was an illegal religion in the Roman Empire. But at first it was only a tiny sect, hardly worth the notice of the emperors.
This began to change with the emperor Nero. In A.D. 64, a fire destroyed 10 of the 14 city wards in Rome. Though Nero probably wasn't playing the fiddle at the time, as the legend goes, he was unspeakably cruel and perhaps even insane. To deflect public suspicion that he had ordered the fire to be set, Nero blamed the Christians.
The historian Tacitus (who called Christianity a "deadly superstition") said Nero had believers killed in a kind of circus in his public gardens: "Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to flames. These served to illuminate the night when daylight failed." The apostles Peter and Paul probably died during this time.
Fortunately, torturing Christians for amusement wasn't the usual practice among Roman authorities. Persecution happened from time to time in various places, but there were also periods of relative peace and toleration. Some officials tried to make sure Christians were treated fairly.
But the suspicions Nero aroused damaged the Christians' reputation. Public hostility towards Christians grew. Rumors spread about their secret practices. They were seen as superstitious, anti-social, and disloyal to the emperor. They undermined Roman society, in which pagan religion played a crucial role. They became scapegoats. The early Christian writer Tertullian complained, "If the Tiber floods the city, or the Nile refuses to rise, or the sky withholds its rains, if there is an earthquake, famine, or pestilence, at once the cry is raised: 'Christians to the lions!'"
Bearing the nameAround the year 155, persecution broke out against the Christians in Smyrna in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). Believers were being fed to the wild beasts in the arena and burned alive. The crowd began to call for the Christians' leader, so the authorities brought in Polycarp.
Polycarp had been a disciple of the apostle John and was a revered elderly leader of the church. The proconsul pled with him: "Curse Christ and I will release you." Polycarp's reply is classic: "Eighty-six years I have served Him. He has never done me wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who has saved me?"
The church in Smyrna wrote an account of Polycarp's death and sent it to believers throughout the region. This was the first Christian martyr story, and it influenced how Christians thought about martyrdom ever afterward.
"If you suffer as a Christian," the apostle Peter had said, "do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name" (1 Peter 4:16). Indeed, in the first centuries of the church, Christians often suffered not for any particular accusations but because they bore the name. When pagan sacrifices were demanded of them, martyrs responded (like Polycarp) with a simple statement: "I am a Christian."
This was no time for lukewarm, half-hearted believers. Becoming a Christian was deadly serious. Two of the most famous martyrs of the early church, young women named Perpetua and Felicitas, were new converts during a period when conversion to Judaism or Christianity was against the law.
Christians held those who stood firm in the face of death in the highest honor, because they were literally imitating Christ's death. Churches celebrated these deaths annually as the martyrs' "birthdays." Some believed that martyrs went straight to heaven, while the rest of the church had to wait until the final resurrection. And some Christians wanted so badly to achieve this highest honor that they deliberately sought death. When the future theologian Origen was a boy, he was so eager to be martyred that his mother hid his clothes in order to keep him from going to the authorities. It worked. He wouldn't turn himself in naked.
The true martyrsIt's difficult for us to understand this attitude today when we read about the horrific sufferings some martyrs underwent. In 177 in Lyons, Gaul (modern France), the Christian community faced mob beatings and prison conditions so horrible that many died before they could be thrown to the beasts. Some were chained to a hot-iron seat where their flesh was burned—making them literally a human barbecue.
Blandina, a young female slave, inspired the others with her courage: "After the scourging, after the wild beasts, after the roasting seat, she was finally enclosed in a net, and thrown before a bull. And having been tossed about by the animal, but feeling none of the things which were happening to her, on account of her hope and firm hold upon what had been entrusted to her and her communion with Christ, she also was sacrificed."
Unlike Blandina, those who volunteered for martyrdom were often the very ones to buckle under pressure, bringing shame upon the church. And as the persecutions grew more intense, many Christians surrendered their Scriptures and sacrificed to the pagan gods.
So the martyr stories had to get across a very important message: Don't go seeking wild beasts and torture chairs! But if you are forced to suffer for your faith, here is how to act and what to say—be like these brothers and sisters in Christ who did not give in when persecuted, but trusted God.
And Christian leaders like Clement of Alexandria reminded believers that it is not only those who literally die for their faith who are "martyrs." The word means "witness," and being a faithful witness to the gospel is something every Christian is called to do, in every circumstance.
Christianity Today: Christian History & Biography
Article: Beyond Prayer Requests was written by his child.
Beyond Prayer Requests
Groups should consider whether their requests line up with what God is doing.
By Wayne Jacobsen
You'd have thought I'd just cussed by the way the mouths around the table soundlessly fell open. And all I'd said was "I don't think I can pray that for you."
The woman who had just asked us to pray was perhaps the most shocked of all.
My home group had just finished eating dinner, and we were sharing prayer requests. With obvious distress, Kris had told of her daughter's plan to move in with a boyfriend that weekend, and asked us to pray that God wouldn't allow it.
I usually try not to take exception to people's prayer requests, but I have a low tolerance for requests I think God clearly will not answer. On this occasion, I didn't keep quiet.
Once they all caught their breath, I explained. "I think all of us here can understand why you want God to stop her from doing that. If anyone here feels that's what God wants, you're free to pray that way. I'm wondering, however, whether asking God to override someone's ability to make moral choices isn't akin to witchcraft."
I could see Kris was near seething at my bluntness, so I hurried on. "What I suggest we pray for is that God would reveal himself to your daughter. That he would let her see clearly the choice she is making. And that God will show you how to trust him and love your daughter, even if she makes the stupidest mistake of her young life."
I had hardly finished before Kris blurted out through tears, "That's exactly what I need."
We gathered around her to pray. Instead of praying for the situation not to take a distressing turn, we prayed for Kris. What could have been a sympathetic but shallow exercise in prayer became a marvelous discovery of how God works in difficult situations.
Prayer Snares
At most prayer meetings a host of requests are made, then a handful of people offer quick prayers until the list is covered. Rarely do we stop to ask if a particular prayer request is in line with what God is doing. Rarely do we follow up to find out if God answered.
We are often left praying a list of wishes, as though if we throw enough darts at the balloons on the wall, we're bound to hit one of them.
My young son awakened me to the folly of this. We were reading John 15 one morning for a family devotion when he suddenly blurted out, "That's not true!" I had just read the verse about God giving us whatever we ask of him. But my five-year-old was already aware that most of what we prayed for as a family didn't happen. I wondered if our prayer practices were teaching him, whether we liked it or not, that prayer is only wishful thinking.
While the exercise of prayer itself offers comfort for the moment, I'm afraid many prayer requests teach us to use God like a genie in a bottle. I don't want my son, or my brothers and sisters, to get that impression. I'm no longer comfortable praying for things that I'm not convinced are in sync with God's heart.
Here are certain types of prayer requests that reflect more our human desires than the desires of God. Do these sound familiar?
The trivial: "Let's pray I can get over this cold" or "Give us a rain-free day for the church picnic." Our comfort and our plans seem important to us, but might God have something larger in mind? Might the farmers around us desperately need the rain? Our requests need to reflect things we truly expect God to do, not just our thoughtless hopes and whims. I don't want my requests to trivialize the awesome gift of prayer.
The self-motivated: "My brother's unit just got called up to go to Iraq. Let's pray he won't have to go." While I can understand the emotion behind the request, it is still misplaced. If he's in the military, why shouldn't he go? God's purposes frequently include hardship and risk. Should we ask him to trump his purposes for our convenience?
The controlling: As with Kris' request, I think we're spitting into the wind if we ask God to make other people act according to our will. He doesn't even force people to adhere to his will. Why should he make them act according to ours?
The manipulative: Not all prayer requests are directed at God. We're usually more diplomatic about it than Charissa, who was only four years old, but knew what she wanted. "Jesus, would you help Bob and Laurie learn how to spank their children, so their kids won't hit me when I come over?" I'll admit it worked for Charissa, but I don't think prayer was intended to send subtle (or not so subtle) messages to the faithful.
The blaming: A group in my former church was praying for an infertile woman. They thought she wasn't getting pregnant because her husband wasn't godly enough be a good father. So they asked God to change him. She blamed him and tried to manipulate him to change, and by the time she came to see me, she was incredibly frustrated. I told her I thought they'd missed the point. None of us qualify for God's gifts. If God waited until everyone was ready to have a baby, no one would ever give birth.
The mass-produced: I don't know why we think we have a better chance of getting prayers answered if more people are in on it. Like many of you, I receive prayer requests on the Internet begging me to pray for people I don't know, about needs I'm not involved in. God's answers to prayer are not based on a tally sheet. Prayer was designed for two or three faithful believers to focus on, agree, and fervently intercede, rather than enlisting large numbers of uninvolved people.
Prayer Pointers
Prayer enables us to discover what God is doing, to trace his hand in the circumstances of our lives. Through the vital communication of prayer, he transforms us in the process. Prayer, therefore, is not so much a means of manipulating the master plan, but of being shaped by the master's hand.
Not all prayer groups are conducive to that kind of prayer. Not all requests follow that understanding. Consider five guidelines to direct your prayer times to foster a transformational, ongoing walk with God.
1. Focus prayer on the people involved. The temptation at "prayer-request time" is to narrow the request to action points we want God to undertake or gifts we want him to give. That misses what God considers most important.
When the news arises of a brother sent to war, the opportunity for prayer is not to ask God to keep him home. That limits the scope of prayer to events, when it should be focused on people. It also limits the other pray-ers to a specific request, without offering an opportunity to discern God's heart in the matter.
Instead, address the fears of his sister, the worry of his mother, and the faith of the soldier himself. We can pray that God will mold our courage and our ability to trust, that he will help us overcome fears, and that the brother will recognize God's presence. These are the evidences of God's work and the kinds of prayers he answers.
I've discovered that smaller groups give us time to process someone's struggle and help identify God's work. Even home-sized groups can be too big for this kind of prayer. I have always found it more effective to break down in groups of two or three where people really know each other and give them the time to explore the situation together.
2. Seek God's perspective. Most prayer requests fit what we think is best, and often run counter to what God is actually doing.
I love how Peter and John responded to the Pharisee's threats that they stop proclaiming Jesus or face punishment. When they gathered later with other believers to pray, they didn't pray for what would be easiest. They could have prayed God would convert the Pharisees or wipe them from the face of the earth. But they didn't see either of those options as fitting God's design. Instead, they prayed for boldness to continue to do what God asked, even when they knew they might be beaten, imprisoned, or executed for it.
A primary step in prayer should include asking God to reveal what he is doing in the situation and pausing long enough to let him answer. One of the things I most appreciate about Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God is that it invites us to trust God to show us what he is doing in our lives. Prayer should be directed by talking together to see if anyone has a specific insight about how to pray for the people involved.
3. Let trust, and not fear, fuel your prayers. Fear is the death of prayer because it is the opposite of trust. Most of my prayers, even well into midlife, were driven by my anxieties and fears.
I remember praying through our finances, and though we had enough to supply our needs for the present, I was concerned about the long term. I trusted him enough for today, but kept praying that he would do something to take my anxiety away for tomorrow. But God didn't want me to trust in my IRA or the state lottery for security, he wanted me to trust in him.
What most enhances my relationship with Jesus is my ability to trust him, no matter what circumstance I'm in. He rarely answers prayers that ask him to fix my circumstances so that I can trust him less. His desire has always been that I would trust him more.
Prayers permeated with a faith-filled security in God's love and confidence in his character will be more effective than petitions for him to appease me.
When I'm fearful, I've learned to pray first for my fear and for a fuller revelation of God's love before I pray for the specific outcome I might want. When I'm praying for others, I do the same.
4. Pray in agreement. I learned this fascinating aspect of prayer from a group of Christians in the Australian Bush.
The man leading the prayer meeting offered some unusual instructions:
"Tonight as we pray, we're only going to pray for what we agree upon. If one of you feels led to pray over something, ask the group if that's something we all sense. If it is, we can pray in agreement. If not, we'll pass over it for now and move on to other requests." I asked him later why he gave the unusual instructions. He said they had learned that praying for someone can become a subtle form of manipulation.
"If a man is depressed, then others pray for him to be happy. He's pressured then to smile at the end of the prayer and say, 'Thanks. I feel better,' whether he does or not. Maybe he doesn't need to 'feel better' right now. Maybe he needs to learn to cling to God in the midst of suffering. You don't know unless you ask."
If the person being prayed for didn't agree or understand the insight, the prayer group would set it aside and see what others might have on their hearts.
Often, they told me, two or three weeks after someone had declined to be prayed for in a certain way, he or she would return convinced that was just the prayer that was needed.
By asking permission of one another to pray in certain ways, these Australians were able to maintain a more authentic and honest form of prayer. They also had a chance to share insights and see what God might be saying. It gave them the freedom to pray with boldness when they knew that all were seeking the same thing.
5. Follow up. Nothing expresses our concern to someone in need more than following up with a phone call a few days later to see how they are doing and what might have happened after our prayer.
I'm convinced we do too little of this because we have so little hope that our prayers will affect much. But if the goal is to zero in on what God is doing and see him accomplish his will in our circumstances, then our initial prayer only begins the process.
If nothing has happened since, we can ask God for wisdom. Is he doing something else in this situation than we thought? Is he teaching us to persevere in what we started?
Staying in the process until something is resolved will not only be a blessing in that instance, but will train us for future opportunities in prayer. This invites us to make any request of God, but it does not tell us to expect him to answer them the way we want. God is not our fairy godmother who waves a magic wand to conform every circumstance to our whim. Real prayer is the process of getting involved with someone's need, praying as best we understand God's work, and then staying in the situation until we see God act.
It is a risk to pray in that expectant way, but it can lead to some incredible prayers. One of Henri Nouwen's spiritual directors once prayed over him:
"May all your expectations be frustrated. May all your plans be thwarted. May all of your desires be withered into nothingness that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit."
While I don't recommend praying that for someone you don't know well, here is someone who understood God's heart in prayer. Teaching people to move beyond their own agenda to touch the heart and passion of God will be a challenge, but it will deepen and enliven your prayer life.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Leadership journal.JoHannah Reardon is an associate editor with ChristianBibleStudies.com
Article: Tell God: Whatever It Takes, Anytime, Anywhere, Anyway was written by his child.
Tell God: Whatever It Takes, Anytime, Anywhere, Anyway.
by Jon Walker
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13b-14 NIV)
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
When Saddleback Church celebrated its 25th anniversary, Rick Warren called for a radical commitment from God's people — all over the world — to tackle the giant obstacles that keep people in spiritual darkness.
In this new year, we can “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13b-14, NIV).
We can, once again, affirm our commitment to the work of the Great Commission. My prayer is that we will view this declaration as a covenant with God, promising him that from now we will do whatever it takes: anytime, anywhere, anyway.
A Call to Radical Commitment
By Rick Warren
Today I am stepping across the line. I'm tired of waffling, and I'm finished with wavering. I've made my choice; the verdict is in; and my decision is irrevocable. I'm going God's way. There's no turning back now!
I will live the rest of my life serving God's purposes with God's people on God's planet for God's glory. I will use my life to celebrate his presence, cultivate his character, participate in his family, demonstrate his love, and communicate his Word.
Since my past has been forgiven, and I have a purpose for living and a home awaiting in heaven, I refuse to waste any more time or energy on shallow living, petty thinking, trivial talking, thoughtless doing, useless regretting, hurtful resenting, or faithless worrying.
Instead I will magnify God, grow to maturity, serve in ministry, and fulfill my mission in the membership of his family.
Because this life is preparation for the next, I will value worship over wealth, “we” over “me,” character over comfort, service over status, and people over possessions, position, and pleasures. I know what matters most, and I'll give it all I've got. I'll do the best I can with what I have for Jesus Christ today.
I won't be captivated by culture, manipulated by critics, motivated by praise, frustrated by problems, debilitated by temptation, or intimidated by the devil. I'll keep running my race with my eyes on the goal, not the sidelines or those running by me.
When times get tough, and I get tired, I won't back up, back off, back down, back out, or backslide. I'll just keep moving forward by God's grace. I'm Spirit-led, purpose-driven and mission-focused, so I cannot be bought, I will not be compromised, and I shall not quit until I finish the race.
I'm a trophy of God's amazing grace, so I will be gracious to everyone, grateful for everyday, and generous with everything that God entrusts to me.
To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I say: However, whenever, wherever, and whatever you ask me to do, my answer in advance is yes! Wherever you lead and whatever the cost, I'm ready.
Anytime. Anywhere. Anyway.
Whatever it takes Lord; whatever it takes!
I want to be used by you in such a way, that on that final day I'll hear you say, "Well done, thou good and faithful one. Come on in, and let the eternal party begin!"
What does this mean?
Today, I affirm this commitment to God and submit to his plans and purposes for my life, no matter what it takes.
