Month: January 2012

He Answers Me When I Call

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Psalm 4:1-8 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. So I am confident you will hear me again. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself (wow! I belong to him. I’m known by Him. What a feeling); the Lord hears when I call to him. Be angry, and do not sin (it’s okay to be a little frustrated with the Lord when things don’t add up); But be careful, don’t go too far – ponder in your own hearts on your beds, be silent and know that He is God. Selah Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, “Who will show us some good? That is a sacrifice of fools. Don’t be caught tripping, wallowing in your pity party. Instead, burst into songs like Paul and …

The Twenty Minute Window

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It is 2:41 in California and I just finish writing the last part to a 4 part blog series entitled All In. I said I would deliver the series in 4 day and I did, but I really struggle to get done. I had so many things to carry out this week so I found myself just one day off until 35 minutes ago. I hit the publish button and went to one of my favorite blogs to read and learn and be stretched. All of a sudden I’m gripped by what I am reading and by the time I’m finished, I realized that I had just stepped into my twenty-minute window to listen in silence to the voice of my creator. A word with power is a word that comes from silence. So say the Egyptian Desert Fathers of the third century A.D. So says one of my old spiritual mentors, the late Henri J. M. Nouwen. So says the life and speech of Mama Maggie of Cairo, one of my new spiritual mentors. Our world is wordy, says …

All In

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Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength How to love the Lord with all your strength This is our last post in the series All In. So far, I have challenged you to take everything you have, every part of your life and invest it in this relationship you have with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are not yet fire up to give yourself completely in 2012 to the Lord maybe this last post will help you jump in. The command here in Mark to love the Lord with all one’s strength is a call for us to intensify our affections or bring all our energy to bear on one thing – loving God with zeal. In Ecclesiastes 9:10 we find the word “Might.”. In Romans 12:11 we find the word zeal. And in Colossians 3:2, 5 we find the word heartily. All of these used to describe how we need to …

All In

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We have seen what it means to love the Lord with all your heart and with all you soul. Today, I will continue this blog series by sharing what it means to love the Lord with all your mind. This will be the 3rd part in this 4 part series ALL IN And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30 The Mind is the seat of the intellect. Hebrews 11:3. To love God with all the mind is to love God through our thinking. Hebrews 11:3 says by faith we ‘understand’. What does it mean – “by faith we understand?” It means – “by faith we think.” Faith is not inconsistent with thinking. Sometimes we see faith as purely mystical. But true faith requires thinking, reasoning and rationality (Matthew 6). I understand that there are some things you just can’t explain, but I am deeply offended when our culture tells me that because I …

All In

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We are in a series entitled All In from the book of Mark and chapter 12:30 where it encourages us to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength.” Yesterday we talked about how we can love the Lord with all our heart and it all came down to what or who we hold the dearest in our heart. Today I want to continue with the title – ‘How to love the Lord with all our soul.’ How to Love the Lord with all our soul! The soul as we know is the seat of all affections. The soul loves life. The soul loves the good things of life. It wants to keep you running after the good  things of the world. It wants to keep you hooked on pleasure. The soul wants you pursuing the things of the world. The soul has so much love for money, fame, status, and lots of pleasure. Here is an example from Luke 12:19, 20 of where the …

ALL IN

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I would like to introduce a four-part blog series that I will deliver over the next four days. I am taking my title from Mark 12:30 and I am going to unpack the verse talking about what it means to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. I am praying that it will be a blessing to you. Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength Part 1: How to love the Lord with all you Heart According to the Bible, the heart is the center not only of spiritual activity, but of all the operations of human life. Proverbs 4:23 calls it the “wellspring of life.” The heart is also the seat of the conscience (Romans 2:15). It is naturally wicked (Genesis 8:21), and has the potential to contaminate life and character (Matthew 12:34; 15:18. Therefore, if the heart must love God fully and completely, a few things must …