Never Give Up

In life we all go through ups and downs with emotions, with unforseen circumstances, with storms of life, with letting ourselves down and not living up to who we want to be. I have three words for you “Never Give Up”. Jesus tells us that there will be storms, that you will have ups and downs, that you will let yourself down. But one thing is certain and never changes – God and his love for us. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but what he does ask is that we depend on him and that we lean on him and that we build ourselves up strong by spending time with him. He gives us direction on how to do life and on how to lean on him. We could never survive life if it wasn’t for his goodness and mercy and his grace that gives us ability to be strong when we are at our breaking point, when we are at our weakest. When we learn that we are nothing with out him and that we can’t do it on our own, that is when his grace works in our lives and he makes a seemingly impossible situation work out.

James 4:6  “⁶ But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

We need to realize and be humble about life. We need to learn to trust that God knows what is best for us and that we don’t. When you learn to be humble in life in reverence  to God, he then will give you grace to get through what ever life is handing you. You will find more peace about not knowing what to do, because you are learning to lean and trust him in and through life, even when we go through hard times. He has been my constant and ever so faithful to me, and he will do the same for you.

Proverbs 3:5,6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heartand lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ in all your ways submit to him,and he will make your paths straight.”

This requires a DECISION on your part to put your trust in him. If you believe the bible than you should believe his word is true and that his promises are true. He will guide us, but it is up to us to place our trust and faith in him so that he can guide us. Things aren’t automatically awesome and perfect when we do follow him, but that decision to trust him will give you peace in times of trouble. And if you follow him and trust him long enough, learn also to see the miracles he will give birth to in your life. He will work things out even through the storms and the heart aches. It is a tough thing to do, to not make every decision on our own, but it is the best thing we can do, so that he can work in our lives the way he wants to. “All things work for the good of those who love him”.

Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

We need to trust that God is with us and he will never leave us. If we learn to trust in him and walk with him, we will find more courage and strength that if we were trying to do things on our own. He will give us grace to live life more joyfully and more fulfilled. Trusting him does require patience, because we live in such a NOW, Instantaneous results kind of world, we need to learn to change our patterns. It is something you choose to do, but if you don’t fully choose to trust, then you won’t see the great things God has planned for you. While you trust God, you should have a personal relationship with him, walking with him daily, talking with him daily and letting him lead your path. If you trust him, but go your own way, you can’t expect for your path to be straight and for things to work out. God has a plan for you and that is something he wants your trust in too. So continue to follow him in your life and learn to trust him. Make the choice, its yours to make. But God will lead you if you learn to follow.

Philippians 4:12-13 “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

My challenge for you today to apply to your life, is change your patterns of impatience and make a choice to trust in God and follow him through all the ups and downs in life. He gives you peace and grace to get through anything this life throws at you. I challenge you to follow him with your life and trust him with your life. He has the best life planned for you.

Perception

Today I want to talk to you about perception. About the way we look at life and what our mindset is going into life and all it’s different situations. Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person. I think it really is an important thing and the Bible the tells us so as well. Think about the kind of people you like to be around. Do you like to be around someone who is always complaining, dragging their feet, and someone who knows how to turn a typically normal situation into this big drama, or something negative to complain about. Or do you want to be around someone who is always looking for the best in people, someone who is looking to spin a bad situation into something that really isn’t that bad after all if you look at it a certain way. I mean you can take both of those to extremes and a lot of times extremes can be dangerous and unreal. You want the positive person, unless you are one of the negative extremes people. Of course be sympathetic to someone who may be going through a hard time and try and relate to them, but don’t let them bring you down or drag you into negativity. Do your best to look at life with the eyes of love and the way God looks at people.

Phillipians 4:6,8 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God…….Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Proverbs 17:22 “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Matthew 15:11 “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

I could go on and on with verses that God is telling us to look at life positively and with love and kindness. These are just a few encouraging verses to you on just that. We need to really take a look at our heart life and our mind life, what kind of voices are talking to us in any and every situation? Are they voices that scream negativity, doubt, fear, hate, and so on or is it a voice of peace, love, kindness, forgiveness, and positivity? One of them is the right answer, the second one is the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us and the negative one is either your own negative attitude that you have adopted as your own, or it could be the devil and his evil temptations that are sly and may come off as a normal response, but are just temptations to give in to those negative attributes that we talked about. I’m not saying that any time you are negative, it’s the devil, but watch out for it. And plain and simple, looking at life one way or the other is a choice. You have the power to change and to be a light and to walk in love.

A lot of times when you fill your heart and your mind with negative thoughts, that is a direct line to what words come out of your mouth. If your heart is filled with God’s word and his direction and love, you’ll find that his word and love are the type of words that will come out of your mouth in conversation. Same with that dirty negative attitude, if you are always dwelling on the negative of life, those are the type of things that will flow from your mouth in conversation.

Matthew 12:34 “You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.”

My challenge to you today is to try and see what kind of heart and mind you have taken on as your own. Do you find yourself thinking negative a little too often or do you find yourself full of positivity and God’s word? Be honest with your self evaluation, if you want, ask others which category they would put you in. Once you have determined what you were, now you have the choice to make a change, now you can determine what kind of person you want to be. Learn to fill your heart and mind with God’s Spirit and direction, and then choose to put away any negative thoughts that may want to overwhelm you and give them to God, for he cares for you. I challenge you today to start thinking positive and start speaking positive no matter how bad life may get, it’s only worse if you let it be, by your outlook and perception of it.

Jesus Community

Jesus set an example of how we should live out our lives. What I am going to talk about is 3 key staples of Jesus’ community life. Here is a look at 3 different kinds of relationships that Jesus had. 1st is intimacy with God, he would always draw himself away to spend time with God. That is a relationship that we need to develop in our own lives, it is the most important relationship that we have in our life. 2nd was Jesus’ community with insiders, those who were his disciples. They would spend time eating together, in fellowship together, and were very close. In our church this is the example that we need to live by. Us as a church or a community of believers need to have authentic relationships. 3rdly in Jesus’ life, he had influence with outsiders. Those outside the church, the non-believer. For us, same thing, a relationship with those outside the church.

Luke 6:12-19 is interesting and kind establishes what I just told you with Jesus’ relationships.

¹² One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. ¹³ At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles. Here are their names:¹⁴ Simon (whom he named Peter),Andrew (Peter’s brother),James,John,Philip,Bartholomew,¹⁵ Matthew,Thomas,James (son of Alphaeus),Simon (who was called the zealot),¹⁶ Judas (son of James),Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).¹⁷ When they came down from the mountain, the disciples stood with Jesus on a large, level area, surrounded by many of his followers and by the crowds. There were people from all over Judea and from Jerusalem and from as far north as the seacoasts of Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸ They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those troubled by evil^[b] spirits were healed. ¹⁹ Everyone tried to touch him, because healing power went out from him, and he healed everyone.”

If you look at it closer, you see kind of a pattern, Jesus went off by himself to have intimacy with God and spent the night praying. At day break he picks his disciples and has community, he chose some guys that he was going to do life with, to do ministry with, they then come down from the mountain and do ministry to other people. You’ll see this over and over in Jesus’ life, those 3 main relationships.

Why was Jesus’ so concerned with community? Did Jesus really need them? They a lot of the times didn’t even get what he was talking about. They would get in to stupid fights over who was the greatest of them, which is completely the opposite of what Jesus taught, When Jesus told them to stay awake in the garden, they fell asleep. When he told them to go to sleep on the boat, they woke him up and asked him to pray. I mean Thomas was a doubter, Judas was a Traitor, Levi was a tax collector, Peter cut a guys ear off. They told Jesus they would never leave his side, but when Jesus faced his biggest trial, they all scattered. Did Jesus need their community. Maybe he did, because of the value of love.  Jesus needed a group of people that he could do life with. That he could love. So that he could give us an example of how us as a community of insiders, as a church should do life together. (Matt 22) Love God and Love People.

John 13:34-35, Jesus says  “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. ³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Jesus is telling us right now, that we don’t have to be the prettiest, smartest, most awesome people in the world. But what we do need to be, is a people of love, and a people of close community. Jesus stamp on us, is the way that we love one another, that is how people will know we are his.

Here are 3 principles that Jesus tried to establish as biblical authentic community. Here is the first,

1.Everybody is Welcome – it didn’t matter who they were or where they came from. He would accept them, embrace them, include them, ANYBODY who would come up to him. Prostitutes, Tax collectors, etc.This is what Jesus was about. This is how us as a church should be. A lot of people may never again want to go to church because they didn’t have a good experience when they went, maybe they got judged or didn’t feel welcome. We need to be a community and church where everybody is welcome.

2.Nobody is Perfect – We are all on the same level (Romans 3:23). None of us deserved salvation. We all stand in a place at the foot of the cross in desperate need for the bloodshed of Jesus Christ. Everyone of us stand in a place in need the forgiveness of God. There is no room for judging one another. Matt 7:1 – Jesus wasn’t saying that we shouldn’t  make moral discernment to one another. He wasn’t saying there isn’t a time where we should go to a loved one and say “you are screwing your life up”. What He is saying is that there is no room for I’m up here and your down here.We all come from the same place, and we should look at people through the eyes of love.

3.Anything is Possible – Transformation is possible. Jesus took a man by the name of Simon, and called him Peter which means “Rock” and knew you will stand before thousands, who was at one point was scared and ran from Jesus, but then one day he came to a place where he would die for Jesus. Saul was a hater and killer of Gentiles, became Paul who became a man who gave his life to love the gentiles. This is something that we have to get as a Church. Jesus set the example for us. We are to look at one another and say I see something different about you. You have a “New Name”. You are not who you used to be. You can become something different. The old is gone and the new is come. You can become someone new. We should look at people and say I see a new name in you, I see what your life would look like if you just surrendered your life to Jesus Christ. Yet sometimes we don’t treat each other as if anything is possible. We may gossip, or judge inside ourselves, instead of seeing the best in one another. Not looking with the eyes that say anything is possible. We should believe the best in people. God can still transform people. Anything is possible.

Jesus community – Everybody is Welcome, Nobody is Perfect, Anything is Possible