“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” –William Temple I try really hard to [...]
Every Christian should expect trouble, persecution, hardship and tough times from time to time. The Bible promises us these things will come our way. However when you’re in the midst of that “stuff”, these 7 facts about God and why we’re here can help you re-align your life with His purpose and allow Him to carry you through the tough times of life.
In my post last week entitled How To Live For God – 6 Practical Suggestions that Will Change Your Life, we looked at how God transforms us through living a disciplined life. We saw that the spiritual disciplines put us in the perfect place for God to transform our lives. I do have a confession [...]
“The first and best victory is to conquer self”
Plato
I’m gonna start this post out today with a quick exercise. Unfortunately for you it requires reader participation, but don’t worry, I’m not gonna ask you to stand and do jumping jacks or anything crazy. Just do me a favor.
I’ve become convinced that we often ask God to lay out the entire plan of something and He in His infinite wisdom knows we either can’t comprehend or take it all in and so I believe He revealed to me in my life a simple strategy for difficult times when we are crying out for the full answer or full plan and He doesn’t seem to be complying. I believe sometimes He just wants us to focus on the next step. Here’s what He told me to do recently:
Have you ever been stirred deep within your spirit?
Now what I’m asking here is not the same thing as having a deeply emotional experience (either positive or negative), so getting jacked up at a conference where the worship and preaching were awesome doesn’t count. No, I mean stirred to action; stirred to change; stirred to boldness like never before in your life? And not in a way that brought guilt or shame either…but in an encouraging, uplifting and empowering way?
Are you looking for God? It’s a question that I would propose most born again, bible believing Christians would answer instinctively and adamantly, YES! And as Buddy Owens points out, the pursuit of God has been going on since the day you were born and lasts a lifetime, that’s for sure.
But the real question is this…
Are you the hunter or the prey?
