Year: 2016

Praying the Word: Parent Edition

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Effective praying is precision praying. Prayer is most effective when it has as its backbone reliable substance in the word of God. The Bible says that when God sends forth the rain, He aims for a precise result. The same is with the word of God, after it is sent forth, it does not return to God void. It accomplishes exactly what it was sent forth to accomplish. Scripture even assures us that God watches over his word to perform with razor precision what He intended. It is therefore imperative that when we pray, we pray with precision. When we pray we must pray God’s word. In this series, I would like to take us on a journey, an adventure to discover the power of precision praying. I will seek to show you examples of how to pray for various aspects of our lives. So today, I would like for us to begin with the privilege of parenting. Recently my status as a father was upgraded to father of not one, but two teenagers – …

Habitation vs Visitation

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Have you ever heard someone pray for God’s visitation? “Visit us, Lord!” Have you ever prayed that prayer? I have prayed the prayer before, and one of my all time, old school worship song is entitled, “Visit Us.” So, I am not trying to scold anyone for praying for God to come near to where they are. Depending on what one may actually be praying for, I think it important to pray for habitation instead of His visitation. For several reasons, I will explain. But for starters, what does the bible have to say about God’s visitation? Visitation carries a biblical idea of God coming to deliver us from captivity, bondage, slavery, darkness or sin. Also, the Lord visits us to show us acts of kindness, care, and love. (Exodus 3:16; 4:31; Jeremiah 27:22; 29:10; Luke 1:68, 78, 79; Ruth 1:6; Job 10:12; Luke 19:44). It also carries the biblical idea of an investigation, a probing and consequently a reckoning or judgment for sin or rebellion. (Isaiah 10:3; Jeremiah 8:12; Hosea 9:7). Visitation is twofold when it comes …

Culture is not Expensive to Create

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"Culture is not expensive to create, but costly if not done intentionally" @johnerikthinks thanks for the 1% change idea. Very encouraging. — Walter Bright (@WaltBright) September 10, 2014 I spoke this morning at a Youth With A Mission Base in Northern California to a small group of hungry, looking for revival, kingdom builders. I shared a bit about myself, my mission and my church. It was a very cold morning, but together, we enjoyed what we felt was a unique opportunity to partner with local churches to see a new move of God in their communities. Various people from that group spoke up to confirm what we were feeling through unique and timely testimonies of what the Lord was saying to them, and showing them. The conversation actually brought into a clear understanding of how we should strategically pray. At the end of our time together, a young woman from Jamaica walked over to me and asked a very simple, yet poignant question: “What’s the culture of prayer in your church?” I took a few minutes …

Sorry, Honey, I’m Busy Right Now

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Originally posted on A Homeschool Mom:
Keys clicked away as my eyes glued to the screen in front of me, my little girl playing near my feet. Before I knew it an hour had gone by, and my husband was walking in the room asking what was keeping me so busy. Without blinking, I replied with a calm, “Researching ways to spend time with our daughter.” Looking back, I laugh at my silliness. Instead of researching ways to spend time with my daughter, I should have been spending time with my daughter. A funny story, tis true, but a lesson which needed to be learned. How often am I putting off spending time with my children, preparing future opportunities, when I should be making the most of time we have now? Our daughter has grown quite a bit since then, and three siblings have joined the fun. This lesson remains true, no matter their age or numbers. I need to be purposeful with the time we have, choosing the put off what could be done later for the sake…

The Day God listened to a man

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Joshua 10:12-14 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.  There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel! I believe in a God of Miracles. There is nothing He can’t do. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. If you don’t believe that, the only thing I can tell you is that I have experienced His wonder working power in my Life. I understand it is hard to wrap one’s brain around things of the supernatural or the miraculous. We were never meant to understand everything just by way of reasoning. …

What does it mean to Gain Christ?

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“I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8 When my oldest daughter was about three years old, I would pick her up from preschool and bring her back to the office every week day. We had a little play area at work for kids to hang out until parents were done working. So she would just play in that space until it was time to go home. One day, as she played and I sat in my office putting finishing touches on my weekend message, I kept hearing this noise coming from the play area. It sounded like someone was tapping on a table with a hard object. So took a little peek to see what she was doing. Well, she was playing with one of those educational toys that help children learn different shapes. I noticed that she was forcefully trying to …

Seven-fold Blessing of Delight

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Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who fears (reveres and worships) the Lord, is the man who delights greatly in His commandments. Delight Psalm 1:1, 2 says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” The power of delight occurs approximately 110 times in Scripture in various forms. Less than fifteen occurrences are found in the New Testament. The word “please” which is related to delight occurs about 350 times, about seventy-five of these occurrences in the New Testament. The Old Testament however, has two of the most common Hebrew terms for delight which means “to bend towards, or to be inclined towards an object or person” and “to delight or take pleasure in.” A reverent respect mixed with love and hope and a holy bend or inclination toward God and all He is and stands for …

Where do you feel the closest to God?

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I met with a friend a few days ago. He took me out for some Mexican Food at a place call Sol Mexican Grill. The food is amazing there. At the end of of our wonderful time together, I asked him the following question: “My church is not growing, what else do I need to do? He looked at me and said, “I don’t know! I don’t know! What kind of answer is that? I thought to myself. “There is a lot of stuff you need to do, and all of them are equally important. But, there is one thing I would focus on the most,” He added. At this time he proceeded to tell me a story about a friend: “My friend went to Italy for vacation and he came back very excited about his visit. So I asked him what excited him the most on his trip. He said, it was a visit to one of the historic Cathedrals in Rome that blew his mind. He told me he had never felt that closed to …