Latest Posts

5 Ways to use your tax return

Published by

About a week ago we got our tax return in the mail. And every day for the past week, my wife has told me, “Walter we got to talk.” Well, she is right, last year we didn’t talk and the money vanished into thin air. In other words, we spent it carelessly. So, this year, we are considering five options. We are complete in accord with the first one – which for us, is non-negotiable. But the other four, we are still talking about. Please allow me to use these five suggestion to get you thinking about how you are going to use your tax return.

Use the 10 percent and over and above principle.

If you’ve been faithful paying your tithe throughout the year, you don’t have to give 10 percent this time around on your tax return. If you have paid your tithe correctly, on the gross and not the net, than you really don’t have to give 10 percent, you’re covered. However, there is the over and above principle. That means, you can, if you decide to give over and above you regular 10 percent. You may also consider giving to your parents, or your favorite charity. In any event, a great love offering to your church won’t hurt at all.

Pay your debt

If you have substantial debt, this could be the right time and opportunity to get out of debt or put a massive dent in the amount you owe. This is a decision you will never regret. It is a blessing to live a debt free life. If you truly want to live a life of freedom, paying off your debt is the best thing to do (Proverbs 22:7). God obviously intends for us to lend to others, but if we are in debt, that possibility becomes very slim (Matthew 5:42).

Take a much-needed vacation

Instead of borrowing more money to take a much-needed vacation, it could be a great idea to actually take a vacation and pay as you go. Most American, when they are going on vacation, put all their traveling expenses and accommodations on a credit card. You may have all the fun in the world using your credit card, but paying it off is usually not a fun experience.

Jump start or revamp your emergency fund

One of the first things we learned many years ago in premarital counseling on finances, was the importance to having an emergency fund. Something set aside for emergency. But if your family is like mine, that fund can quickly dissipate. Now that you have some extra cash, this could be a great time to either start or revamp your emergency fund.

College fund for your kids or retirement fund?

Some argue that your kids will have more sources of money for college than you will have for those many years during your retirement, therefore, you should not sacrifice your retirement savings.  Rather, investing in stocks, mutual funds, getting a 529 savings plan or applying for Federal, state, and private grants and loans, are great ways to plan for children college. Which ever way you decide to go and whatever you decide to do, timing is key to success. So it is smart to start now – the sooner, the better.

Okay, enough of what I think, I not an expert in these matters. But before you leave, would you mind      sharing what you are going to do with you tax return this year? Or, better still, do you have any tips to share? Thank you very much.

Encourage thyself in the Lord Monday

Published by

And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God. 1 Sam. 30:6 KJV

There is going to come a time in your life when the world around you will seem to be caving in. Your closest friends, trusted colleagues and faithful brothers and sisters will all turn their backs on you. There is going to come a time in your life, when all hell will break loose over you. You will be hard-pressed from every side, and your enemy will seem to have  gained the upper hand or advantage over you. And of course, Mondays will come around once a week to remind you that you are in a dead-end job, and nothing’s working. When that happens, you need to lay hands on yourself and encourage yourself in the Lord.

So, listen to this song and tell yourself the following:

  • God is still on His throne and He’s got your back!
  • My God is with me, I’m never giving up
  • Help is on the way… weeping may endure for the night, but His joy is coming, my break-through is coming
  • It’s not over until God says it’s over. He is not finished with me yet. My promotion is on the way
  • This is not the end of my dreams, career, life, for with God all things are possible, there is no limit to what he can do
  • I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength
  • If my God is for me, who could ever stop me… if my God is with me, who could ever stand against me?

Conclusion/ Let me Prophesy over you with these words:

Something is moving, turning around for you. Seasons are changing, everything is going to be alright. Here comes the sun, piercing the clouds. You’re closer than you think, closer than you’ve been before. Don’t give up, encourage yourself in the Lord.

3 Signs of a Revived Christian Life

Published by

Jesus Christ came so that we can have life and have to the full. To be truly alive to Christ means, we must have his life flowing within our hearts. If you are like me, you’ll admit, that life leaks. Sometimes I am truly on fire and full of spiritual vitality, but other times I experience seasons of dryness.

The question is how do I get my spiritual life revived again?

An Abiding Presence

The first sign of a revived christian life is a life that enjoys the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. He possesses a fullness that is ever-increasing – from glory to glory. In the words of a famous preacher, it is “something that you don’t have to stir up, crank up, work up.” Too often, revival is about how loud and emotional people can get in a meeting. Don’t get me wrong, I think, when God shows in our meetings it is going to get loud. But too often, people try to reproduce something God did before and act as if he is doing it again. Revival is more than volume, or mimicking moves of God. It is about the tangible, indwelling, abiding presence of God. It’s about the real deal, not the stuff that is worked-up. In order to enjoy that presence, we must do the following:

  • Abide in Him – “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” John 15:4
  • Guide our hearts above all things – “Keep your heart with all vigilance,

    for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23

  • Keep in step with the Spirit – “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” Galatians 5:25

  • Practice the disciplines of prayer, meditation, worship – “Blessed is the man who’s delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” Psalm 1:1-3

The things of earth simply go dim

The second sign of a revived christian life is a life captivated by a single-minded devotion and love for Jesus and the things of God. When it doesn’t bother you anymore, that you missed your favorite TV show or the Superbowl, not because you forgot to Tivo it, but because you wanted to take part in something of eternal significance – you are having a revival. When all the things of earth grow dim in the light of God, his church, his people and his work, that’s a sign of a revived christian life. To make that happen, we must be willing to:

  • Put God first – “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33
  • Love not the world and the things of the world – “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” Ephesians 5:15-18

A Hunger for More

The third sign of a revived christian life is an insatiable hunger for more of God. There is no place for things as usual. There is a hunger to spend time with the Lord in prayer, worship and meditation. There is a hunger to see God move in the lives of others. There is a hunger for purity and holiness. Your heart breaks over the things that break the heart of God. The more you seek God, the more you find Him. The more you find God, the more you see Him. It’s a never-ending desire for more of Him.

  • Hunger for more – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6
  • Never be lacking in zeal – “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit,7 serve the Lord.” Romans 12:11

God Deeper with the following Power Passages on Revival

Ezekiel 37:1-14

2 chronicles 7:14

Psalm 85

Psalm 145:1-5; 17-21

Matthew 9:35-36

Acts 2:1-41

Prayer
Revive us again Lord;
Fill each heart with your love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above. Amen!

Holy Worldliness

Published by

The church has a double calling: on the one hand to live in the world, and on the other not to conform to the world. The first is a call to worldliness, as opposed to other worldliness—getting involved in the life of the world around us. The second calling is the call to holiness. We have no liberty to respond to one call without the other. Indeed, we may neither preserve our holiness by escaping from the world, nor may we sacrifice our holiness by conforming to the world.

Escapism, on the one hand, and conformism, on the other, are equally forbidden to Christian men and women. Instead we are to combine both callings to involvement and to separation. We are to develop what Dr. Alec Vidler, an Anglican scholar of the former generation, in his book “Essays in Liberality called “holy worldliness.”

Ezekiel 11:12? “You have not followed my decrees. You have not kept my laws. But you have conformed to the standards of the nations around you.”

2 Kings 17:15: “They imitated the nations around them, although the Lord had ordered them, ‘Do not do as they do.’”

Matthew 6:8: “Do not be like them.”

Romans 12:1, 2 “Do not conform any longer to the fashions of the world around you.”

Excerpt From John Stott's "Three challenges to the Contemporary church." Page 4

Beyond Information to Transformation

Published by

Let me begin with a status update from my spiritual father’s Facebook page. He wrote:

Reading through Jeremiah and Lamentations in the One Year Bible [really gasping for air].  GOD’s tolerance for dirty living was at “0.”  And my “take away?”
1.  Clean living is valuable.
2.  Clean living’s got to be “on our radar.”
3.  Clean living has to be a from the “inside–out” deal.
GOD — please — take GT beyond information to transformation.

In this Facebook status update I would like for you to notice just one phrase. Forrest says, “Take GT beyond information to transformation.” For those of you who do not know Pastor Beiser, he is my spiritual father. And he leads a thriving church in San Francisco. This phrase, “beyond information to transformation,” has been one of the driving forces of his life and ministry, at least since I’ve known him. Making disciples  is what he lives for.

So, how do you lead people beyond information to transformation? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Pioneer a yearning lifestyle

  • Let your people see your devotion. Don’t just preach about prayer be a prayer warrior. Don’t just preach about reading and studying the bible, model it. Don’t just talk about fasting, fast. Don’t just beat people over the head about holiness, be ye holy. Don’t just talk about worship, be a worshiper. Be the visible demonstration of where God is calling your audience. Only when you are that visible demonstration, can you impart others. I have seen this consistently in the life of Forrest,  from my young days of being in his discipleship group, until recent years working with him as a pastor. I have seen his hunger for transformation.

2. Prepare yourself diligently for preaching

  • Infuse your preparation with prayer, humility, quiet meditation. Study to show yourself approved. As much as it depends on you stop preaching other people’s sermons. If you do – use an outline so that you can spend time developing the sermon notes. Give some time to finding sermon illustrations, but don’t make embellishing your sermon your main thrust. Remember it is about impacting not entertaining. Go deep but also recognize that there are people who may have no clue about what you are talking about. So understand your audience. Work with the Holy Spirit by giving him space to do the work through you. Use every style of preaching you know and let your message be prophetic, practical, profound, creative and  gospel centered. I have not seen this diligence in anyone else, like I have, in Forrest. His hard work, his ability to grow and adopt, contextualize, be creative and at the same time make space for the Holy Spirit to have His way is a trademark of his ministry.

3. Put a Bible in every member’s hand.

  • Choose a sound and correct bible translation. I don’t mind people using their bible apps on their iPhones, ipads or what have you. But create a culture where people are interacting with God’s word at all cost. Create a culture of taking notes. Give weekly assignments, so that people are in the word.  Small group involvement, impacting some so that they can impact others. Create discipleship groups and accountability groups. I remember walking, for the first time, into one of Forrest’s services and getting saved. Few weeks later, I was traveling across the city to co-lead a bible study group. Frightening en? I can’t start to recount how much that helped me to grow in my new-found faith.

4. Preach the truth and nothing but the truth

  • Preach the hard stuff, not just the stuff people want to hear. Get in their faces, not in a holier that thou kind of way, or a fleshly judgmental way, but in a truth-loving biblical way. People come to church to hear something that will challenge them. They are looking for something that will help them break sinful habits and untangle their lies and deception of their own flesh and Satan’s traps. Preach the truth – for it is truth the sets people free. It is not your call to come across as smart or intellectual with quotes and platitudes and philosophical rubbish. Your call is to “die in that pulpit until Christ comes alive in you” – I think I heard that somewhere. I have heard many sermons from Forrest and they all felt like he was talking to me – like he had read my spiritual email that week. I’ve had him cornered me, one on one with rebukes. I remember once he told me, “Walter, you are a closed book, open up your life, be accountable.” I remember his warnings, challenges and most of all, his honest, powerful and life changing encouragements.

5. Plan external learning experiences

  • There are other pastors, churches and believers living and experiencing the life of transformation. Churches that have moved beyond just dispensing information to bringing life and transformation in the life of their people. You can certainly learn from them by  visiting some of their services, sending teams and leaders to catch some fire. Be open to new things. You can invite pastors who are living examples of a ministry that has gone way beyond just giving out information to people to leading people in a life of transformation. A few years ago when i worked with Forrest, he took me to Illinois to a conference for some exposure. He was on a journey to do something new in San Francisco – he was hungry for something new to happen in his church, so we went expecting for God to do something new in our lives. I could feel it, see it in his eyes and even hear it in his voice, he wanted it badly. Today that vision is  blooming at gtsf.org

Beyond information to Transformation!

There is no other place I know this is happening than at GT – Glad Tidings Church in San Francisco  Pastors Forrest & Christina Beiser. Check them out gtsf.org

Broken Cisterns, Fountain of Life

Published by

The_Fountain_of_Life_wide_t_nv

Why do most people fail to look to God solely for their every need? Why do we, knowing the all-sufficiency, providence and faithfulness of God, act like we really don’t believe he is the source of our every need? I mean, words like:

  • come unto me all who are weary and I will give you rest
  • I will supply all your needs according to my riches in glory
  • I daily carry your burdens
  • I am watching over my word to do it for you
  • I am the Lord who heals you
  • all the promises of God are yes, and to his glory the Amen is said
  • I will never leave you nor forsake you
  • all good a perfect gift comes from above, from the father of lights
  • must mean something, right?

With Him “is the fountain of life; and in his light we see light. Yet in the face of all these incredible promises, we “commit two evils: we forsake Him, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for ourselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” You name them:

  • the temporary high
  • the quick fix
  • the boyfriend who still lives with mama
  • Peoples and institutions
  • government and employers
  • doctors and banks
  • an escape into a world of fantasy and lustful entertainment
  • isolation

All the while this limitless, ever flowing supply, from this unstoppable stream, continues to burst its banks looking for ways to flow into our lives. But every wave that comes, it meets walls erected so high and backs turned, instead of wide opened arms gratefully embracing this fountain that is life itself.

And yet He still stands. Arms wide opened, saying,

“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”But I’m still here… Would you come?

Emmanuel – God with us

Published by

Click Picture for gallery

Father
MIGHTY GOD
WONDERFUL COUNSELOR
EMMANUEL OUR GOD IS WITH US.
PRINCE OF PEACE

The past few days have been devastating for many families across America. As the people in Boston and Texas heal and regroup, may there be a sense of His nearness in their hearts an minds.

His promise remains true:

Emmanuel – Our God is with Us!

7 Habits of Highly Effective Leaders

Published by

Charles Nobles once said, “first we make our habits, then our habits make us.” We are what we repeatedly do. And if we ever want excellence in our lives, we need to remember that it “is not an act, but a habit.” Some habits are good, others very bad and still some are of no value or eternal significance. However, to effectively impact the people around us and leave a lasting impression, we must develop good habits and do everything in our power to unlearn bad ones.

The following are habits of highly effective leaders:

developing great leaders_wide_t_nt

Where the Lord leads, they follow

It is laughable to think that one can lead effectively without he being led. You may be the head of your home, the head of your church or the head of your company, but God is the head of you. A highly effective leader is humble enough to recognize and submit to the leading of the Lord. A leader who follows God where ever He leads, is bound to succeed. It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “He that cannot obey cannot command.” A highly effective leader follows God’s lead.

They seek excellence in everything they do

In his book, Excellence, Andreas J. Kostenberger says, “Excellence does not fall into anyone’s lap, it is the result of sustained, deliberate effort. Nobody wants to be a fine scholar but a terrible, or even mediocre, husband and father. Nobody wants to excel in scholarship but fail as a wife and mother. Neither should your calling as a mother or father, and wife or husband, necessarily induce you to engage in mediocre scholarship if called to an academic career.” Highly effective leaders seek excellence in everything you do.

They invest in their spiritual, physical and intellectual development

No matter your platform or success in life, ministry or business, if you want to stay effective or at the top of your game, it is important that you strategically invest in your spiritual, physical and intellectual development. You may have to spend a few extra dollars, but it will be worth it. Plan which conference you will attend during the year, how many books you will read in a month or whether to invest in a personal training or gym membership. The truth is that the best leaders are the best learners.

They hunger and thirst after righteousness, God, and the Holy Spirit’s endowment

Highly effective leaders have three things working powerfully to their advantage:

  • their hunger for a life of purity and integrity
  • their hunger to spend time with God
  • their hunger for the anointing of God’s Spirit

These three go and in hand. One cannot stand without the others. Integrity is, if not the main thing in leading or influencing others, than one of the most important ones. Highly effective leaders pursue God relentlessly. They are not too busy for God and not busy with God. A. W. Tozer said, “Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again.” There is so much one can do in his own strength and power, but there is much more he can through the ability that comes from the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

They seek and support deep and meaningful friendships and fellowships outside the home

Highly effective leaders are not lone-rangers. They actively seek meaningful friendships. They seek to take their relationships beyond the shallow and superficial, into deep, long-lasting and life changing experiences. They treasure the friendships they have, nurture them and invest in them. Their goal is not to use friendships to a selfish advantage, but cultivate them for mutual encouragement. They are open, transparent and forthcoming with these friends.

They prioritize for valuable family time

Effective leaders understand that their very first priority is to their families. You can win the world for Jesus, but if you are not winning your family for him, you might want to reconsider a few things. Effective leaders know when to stop working (they don’t bring work home), to take part in the life of the family. Special dates, special trips, special occasions – they are there, because they’ve learned to prioritize. That’s how you save the world – you save it as you are saving yours.

Check out The 7 Habits of Effective Christians

How to resist and defeat Cultural Pressures

Published by

Resist_std_t_nv

We are exposed on every side to cultural pressures. Between the two temptations of escapism and conformism, the latter is more common—that is, accommodation to the prevailing culture. We are exposed to cultural pressures incompatible with the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which, nevertheless, are demanding from us a capitulation that we are not prepared to give.

And if we do capitulate to the pressures of society around us, then we compromise our integrity, we blunt our testimony, and we suffocate our spiritual life.

What are the pressures of our culture to which we are forbidden to conform? What are the contemporary trends which threaten to envelop and engulf the church and against which we need to be on guard? I have selected three. I’m sure there are many more we could discuss, but these three are very important.

First there is the challenge of pluralism: the church is called to be a community of truth.

Second there is the challenge of materialism: the church is called to be a community of pilgrimage.

Third there is the challenge of moral relativism: the church is called to be a community of righteousness.

Excerpt from the sermon notes of John Stott. The 
Three Challenges to the Contemporary Church, Page 11-15

Let me add just a few more lines from Ephesians chapter 6:

Stand your Ground

Stand and be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might

Stand suited in the whole armor of God

Stand, having fastened on the belt of truth

Stand, having put on the breastplate of righteousness

Stand, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, as shoes for your feet,

Stand, in all circumstances take up the shield of faith

Stand, wearing the helmet of salvation

Stand, holding the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God

Stand, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication

Stand, keeping alert with all perseverance