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Posts tagged with: Truth

Have you wondered this…”Why am I not as strong of a Christian as I could be?”

I think one reason that Facebook is so popular is because it creates DIALOGUE…communication that goes two ways…I post, you listen, you post, I listen! You are sitting in silence with facebook-friends and dialoging. It’s great!  There’s much to learn from this that can relate to the health of our Christian walk.

If you are struggling at being a fully devoted follower of Jesus. MAYBE one of the problems you have towards Christ is that your relationship with Jesus is too MONOLOGUE = one directional. He’s my Savior. I cry out to Him. I Sing worship songs about Him. I go to Church. I pray to Him. I study the Word, I go to Youth Group. I read books. I have a great preacher. I attend small group. I do christian work. I tune in to Christian radio. These are all Monologue…One directional LOUD & BUSY efforts. If there is dialogue it is usually dialoging with people, not God. It tends to still be all about you doing life with people. This is good…but other people are not God.

When God gave us 1 mouth and 2 ears…was He trying to make a point?

potato mouth

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When was the last time you just stopped and listened to the Lord in silence for a long period of time? When was the last time you let Him speak to you? Not music, preaching, books, group discussions, etc. When was the last time Only GOD spoke to you?

He usually speaks through a quiet whisper.  Read 1 Kings 19:12

You’ll have to get very quiet and be still if you want to hear Him.  Read Psalm 46:10

When was the last time you allowed God’s voice to enter your loud and busy world/Head/Heart?

Don’t forget…

“Jesus OFTEN withdrew to a QUIET place to spend time with His Father.” Luke 5:16

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8

You will not find the time to do this. You can only make the time to listen to God.

“Be still and know that I am God.”  Psalm 46:10


World Revision (Post 3 of 3)

For those of you who have been following the post about the World Vision controversy…finally…here is post 3 of 3.  If you haven’t read posts 1 and 2, I would encourage you to do so first by clicking their links right here.

WORLD VISION CONTROVERSY BLOG POST 1 of 3

WORLD REVISION BLOG POST 2 of 3

Continuing with Post 3 of 3…

I have been trying to figure out how to blog on this without it being an entire book.  So…I spoke at a Church called “Just Church” in Surprise AZ recently.  My message is my blog post 3 of 3.  I wish the message was video, but it’s only audio.  As you are listening…I have 3 “stations” on stage.  Hot…Lukewarm…Cold.  You’ll hear me go back and forth to each location as I walk us through what the Bible means when it says there are different kinds of sins.

To be clear…

The Bible does NOT say that “no sin is greater than any other sin.”  In fact…the Bible is clear…there are, for sure, 2 different levels of sin.  My message spells this fact out.

To help you envision what is happening on the stage…the only visual I had on stage was a Jewish Prayer Shawl called a Tallit.  See Pic at right, so as you listen to the message you can imagine what it looks like when I am wearing the Tallit as I stand on the “Hot” station of the stage.  Tallit Pic

The Lukewarm station is in the middle of the stage and the Cold Station is the far right of the stage.  (To be clear…the Tallit can only be worn when I’m standing in the Hot Station on stage.  To have the Tallit on my head is to represent Jesus living in me.  It is impossible to have Jesus living in me while I am practicing sin (Lukewarm) or when I haven’t accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior yet. (Cold))

If you have questions after listening to the message, please just ask.  This message has a lot of controversy potential in it…but it was spoken in love…and it is Biblical Truth.

Too many people are calling themselves Christian and at the same time are living in direct disobedience to how the Bible says they are to live.  This kind of life is living Lukewarm.  Please listen to the message for clarity on this.

Here you go…Just click the link below and listen…The first words you’ll hear me speak are “Disgusting huh?”  I say that because the Church just showed a video clip of somebody throwing up…to prepare for the message called SPEW!  LOL … Please listen by clicking the link below…

JUST CHURCH “Spew” message spoken on June 1st, 2014

I love ya…and I’d do anything for you to help you follow Jesus more fervently.

Trent

 


The Greatest Injustice in the world…

ReturnHopeLogoThe greatest injustice of all, would be having a world full of well fed men, women, and children with no disease, fresh water to drink, a rich supply of clean clothes, every orphan and widow provided for, yet all of these cared for people, still facing a reality in Hell because we didn’t give them Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives.

That is the ultimate injustice.  That would be the greatest trick of the devil.  To have all this good work take place, but none of it matter eternally for those who were cared for.

ReturnHope wants to do something about this “greatest injustice.”  However, this injustice can only be conquered by using a specific strategy that will impact not only women and children eternally…but men too.

It seems to me that there is a lot of ministry taking place around the world.  Good ministry work.  It seems most of this good ministry work is focused on the care of the women and children.  I haven’t met anybody who is okay with watching women and children suffering.  But if we want to solve the problems of the world…it is going to have to be through the changing of the lives of men all around the world too.  Let’s admit it.  Men cause war.  Men have testosterone.  Men are the muscle of the world.  World problems are caused on a majority basis…by men.  Change the men…change the world!  Change the men…and women and children will be blessed too.

Injustices can only be fully conquered when the man is impacted along with the entire family for Jesus Christ as Lord.

ReturnHope wants to take on the impossible task of being used by God to change the hearts and minds of the men of our world and turn those hearts and mind towards the Lord Jesus.  In this endeavor, think of how blessed the women and children of the world would be too!

In the American Church…there is a comparable man problem that relates to my point.   If your Church reaches the mom of the family, the mom and kids will become the church, but the man of the family, more than likely, will stay home and not become the church and miss out on the growth opportunities that being the church creates. If the kids are reached, then mom will likely join the church too, but dad will end up staying home.  What this creates is a frustrated mom and child(ren) because the heavy influence of unchurched dad outweighs the influence of the church on the mom and kids. (One hour of Church added with another 2 hours of small group influence for the mom and kids cannot compete with the other 168 hours of the week controlled by unchurched dad’s influence.) So, a church that aims to reach the man for Christ, can be confident that mom and the kids are highly likely to come too.  It’s a whole family philosophy of how to design a strategy of the church…and the same should be for a world mission’s strategy!

The last 15 years of my life I have been privileged to travel to places like Peru South America, Uganda Africa, Jerusalem Israel and other amazing places.  In these locations,  I’ve encountered injustices that are ruling that culture. The same cause is evident in all these locations.  The cause is… men aren’t leading or being impacted by the good news of Jesus Christ.  Men are not being partnered with, or challenged to become responsible to their God given purpose to work, provide and steward the family that He gave them.  Men seem to have been given up on, and I think, that is a perpetuator of injustices.

So much good work is being done around the world towards the injustices of lack of clean water, nakedness, lack of shelter, disease, orphan and widow-hood.  A majority of this good work is being focused on the women and children.  Now, understandably, it is a very good thing to help the women and children.  ReturnHope International is going to do a lot of ministry for women and children everywhere…But…I beg of all people involved in the family of ReturnHope to be focused on being used by God to change the lives of the men of the villages around the world too.   As we do all our work, I beg of the ReturnHope family to always be thinking about how our work is being perceived by the man of the family, or the men of the village we are impacting.   If we are not careful we can easily create welfare situations where women and children become dependent on the American difference maker.  Please Lord, don’t allow ReturnHope difference makers to mistakenly fill the position of the man of the family in the foreign culture!  We want the native man to step up into his God designed role for him to be the provider and care taker of the family that God asked him to steward.  As we do our work for women and children, let’s never stop thinking about the man and how our work might be affecting his heart, mind and self esteem.  Let’s involve the man by walking alongside him as we do good work together for women and children!

We must go after the grown men too.

This is an impossible task.  This is a task where we must begin by only praying and planning and then moving forward with what will be trial by fire.  Chuck Swindoll said that when there is an impossible task that needs to be tackled, He will find an impossible person…crush them…and then use them to take on the impossible task.  I’ve been told by quite a few that, “I’m impossible!” 🙂  The last 3 years, God has been crushing me and allowing me to be crushed by others. (I wrote about this on this blog site if you’d like to read it…click the following links…its two part and its called “The Crushing part 1” and then “The Crushing part 2”)  I believe God has allowed this crushing to bring me to the point of right here..right now.  He is asking me to take on the leadership of ReturnHope and team with you to use our talents to begin this impossible ministry.  I imagine that when this life is over…our efforts will have been fully worth it…whether we failed or succeeded.  Let’s spend the rest of our lives in this pursuit and then we’ll do high fives together about it all in eternity together…red, yellow, black, brown and white….male and female!!

Please start praying with me about our first encounter with a group of village men in Uganda.  These men will be sitting in a big circle most of the day in a distant village.  In the middle of the circle will be a large bowl of home made alcohol.  Each man in the circle will have a long straw that reaches from the bowl to his mouth.  SANYO DIGITAL CAMERAThis drinking begins in the morning and goes all day.  At night…well…this is when evil reigns.  These men in their drunken state rape their wives and abuse their daughters, beat their kids and fuel injustices towards total hopelessness….does this cause you to hate them?  If so, then I ask you to pray for them and change your heart towards them.  The men in this picture are only doing what they have been taught by their fathers, who were taught by their fathers…  Pray that ReturnHope will break this vicious cycle by also reaching the men sitting in these circles.  What is exciting for me is to explain to you what you cannot see in this picture.  All around this picture are groups of other men who are not drinking and being responsible, groups of women singing and playing with their children and/or cooking lunch or dinner. Children are playing soccer or climbing in the trees and they all want to know you, and spend time with you.  On every trip ReturnHope goes on, you will be able to choose which group you want to get involved with and interact with.  It is truly an amazing adventure and trip that will change your life.

So…

ReturnHope has a man on the ground in Uganda right now who is scouting out our very first village.  We will enter this village by providing a fresh water well (Money is already raised for this well!) and beginning a relationship with the village leaders…the men, and also the women and children! The date isn’t set yet, but we are getting ready to go!  I personally am going to be working on the men of the village.  ReturnHope will need people who want to do good in the villages for the other people all around the village too.  My gut tells me that this first trip might be more spontaneous that most of you are prepared for, but that is just a hard reality of the first trip ReturnHope takes.  Once the first trip is complete, we will be able to plan ahead a bit more!

In the mean time I am asking you to pray specifically for the men we will encounter in this first village.  Please pray frequently, so that when we arrive and meet these men, they will have been prayed for by hundreds of you…Hopefully thousands of you.  Please pray that the Holy Spirit will help us pick God’s first circle of men that He wants us to influence.  Pray that these men’s hearts will be prepared for our encounter. Pray for a man in the village who is a pastor who ReturnHope will equip with material and training to be even more impactful in his ministry work for the Lord.  Pray that as we encounter these men, they will give their lives to Jesus and accept the challenge to work alongside us to conquer the injustices they face in their own villages and country!  We as Americans cannot do the work ourselves, we must walk alongside the foreigner and team with them.  We must be learners alongside them as we teach each other.

This will not be a one time encounter.  When we enter a village, we enter into a life long covenant and relationship with the people of the village.  We will return on occasion to continue with these villagers as our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ who someday will live lives that are not controlled by injustices.  The relationships that we build with these men, women, and children will last an eternity.  We will all impact one another in a mighty way.  It really is a beautiful picture of returning hope to one another.   I believe it is what God intended for the Body of Christ to be…aka…The Church.

Every time you eat…I’m asking that you would pause and pray for this endeavor.  When you read your Bibles, pray again.  When you meet for your Bible study, ask the group to pray specifically for our success in impacting this first village of men, women and children that we encounter.

Again, we (you & me — ReturnHope) are beginning in Uganda Africa.  As soon as we pick our first village…I will inform you of its name and location and when we are planning on leading a group over!  Our trips will consist of impacting Men, Women and Children.  I will give updates all along the way.  I pray that you will share this post with the people in your life who are looking for a purpose to get involved in that lasts eternally!

Will you pray everyday about all of this?  Will you go with us over there?

It has begun.

Let’s ReturnHope to places that are imprisoned by hopelessness…and then ask them to pay it forward by returning hope to others too!

What a cool and challenging adventure!

 

 

 


20/20 Hind-sight about Jesus…

Isaiah 28:16 says,
“Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“Look! I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem,
a firm and tested stone.
It is a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on.
Whoever believes need never be shaken.” (NLT)

The USA was created nearly 250 years ago.
The Book of Isaiah was written around 700 years before the birth of Jesus…totaling 2700 years ago.

Can you imagine if you were someone reading the book of Isaiah..let’s say…600 years before Jesus was born? You wouldn’t have known how much time would pass before the coming Messiah would actually arrive. Every day you would wonder if today was the day for the Messiah to be born. Some, maybe didn’t even know what this “Cornerstone” would actually be. I imagine there was great awe and wonder, maybe even fear being talked about, as the people prior to Jesus’s birth, studied and contemplated who or what this cornerstone was all about.

I’ll bet it was very frustrating for the people of that day. Wouldn’t you strive, with all your effort, to determine who or what this cornerstone was, so that if you believed in it, you would never be shaken, as the verse in Isaiah says? It would be all consuming. I would want that cornerstone more than anything. Not knowing what it was would have sent me on a wild game of hide and seek as I tried to discover what this “Cornerstone” was, so I could believe in it, so I would never be shaken!

Today…we are very fortunate…

We don’t have to be frustrated like the people who lived BC. We can look back with 20/20 hindsight and know WHO the cornerstone is. The Apostle Paul, who in the early part of his life hated Jesus and His followers, wrote the following Bible verse, “Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.”

I wonder if Paul shook his head in awe and wonder as he wrote that sentence? One day He hated Jesus…the next He was admitting Jesus is the Cornerstone and Lord of all!

Paul met Jesus personally. Paul used to imprison and oversee the killing of people who dared say that Jesus was the cornerstone referred to in Isaiah. Now, Paul is the writer of more than 1/2 of the New Testament that professes that Jesus IS the cornerstone. It’s crazy what happens when someone meets Jesus personally!

You and I do not have to be frustrated wondering where hope is found. We do not have to be nervous wondering what we must do to have salvation. We do not have to argue about who is the Cornerstone that everything else is built on or stumbles on. We do not have to fight to prove that Jesus is the cornerstone. He IS the Cornerstone. He rose from the dead to prove how immovable that cornerstone…He…really is.

If you are reading this, you and I have such an advantage over the faithful followers of God that lived BC. We can look with 20/20 hindsight to know who Jesus is and what He has done. We have the new set of Scriptures called the New Testament to witness to who that Cornerstone is. We have the 39 books of the Old Testament to compare to the 27 books of the New Testament to do a full study of who the Messiah is and what we must do to make Him our Lord and Savior and King. You and I can have complete confidence in the fact that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life! He said so Himself.

That’s a good thing! That’s a good book! That’s Good News! That’s the Holy Scriptures, pointing us to a holy God and asking us to live Holy Lives. The Apostles and many others are so convinced that Jesus is the Cornerstone, that they were willing to have horrible things happen to them instead of denouncing Jesus. If you want to read about some of these people, read Hebrews chapter 11.

Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Cornerstone. A sentence was written by the great Prophet Isaiah 2700 years ago, telling us that we can live unshaken lives if we build on the foundational cornerstone of Jesus Christ Himself! He is a firm and tested stone. He is immovable, steadfast, and undefeated! He is the THE Champion of the Faith. He is the Great Physician. He is the Comforter. He is the full payment for your sins. He is the Rock! He cannot be shaken! Anything that comes against Him will not succeed!

Knowing this….check out the following passage…written by King David approximately 2900 years before Jesus came. Talk about faith. Read the hope and strength that King David had in God nearly 3000 years before the birth of the Cornerstone. If David can have this kind of faith and strength prior to the birth of Jesus…not knowing with 20/20 hindsight where His confidence should be…not knowing who the Messiah would be, then how much more faith and strength can we have knowing…with 20/20 hindsight… that Jesus IS the cornerstone?

1 I wait quietly before God,
for my victory comes from him.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress where I will never be shaken. Psalms 62:1-2 (NLT)

Jesus is the Rock…
You are Solid as long as you stand on The Rock.
Rock on!

Trent


If I were an Old Man…

I was up early this morning to spend time with the Lord, abiding in Him and allowing Him to teach, lead, comfort and direct me. God is so good. He always does what is best for us…and that, sometimes, doesn’t feel good. I mentioned in a previous post about how crazy-fast this past year has gone. In fact, time seems to fly like never before. On this day there are only 188 days until Christmas. I’m not trying to be morbid, but If I do the “math of average” and I live to be the average age of a person who dies in the U.S. 87.7 years…then that means I have 45 Christmas’s left before I join the Lord. At first that seems like a lot, but when I begin to think about my kids and grandkids and how many of those future Christmas’s I might or might not spend with them…45 doesn’t seem like very many. I would think that I would be sad about this…I’m not sad, but it does cause me to mourn. God never intended for life to be like it is today. Life can be so very harsh. There is a lot of anger in people. There is a lot of craziness going on in the world. There seems to be a great panic in our culture for something we can’t fully describe or attain. A fight for being on the right team. A fight for the “top.” A fight for self gratification. I don’t want to be all bad news. My goodness, there is a lot of good going on right now too. So many people serving others, opening doors, standing for good, sacrificing so others may be blessed. We live in a world of polar opposites. Good versus evil. It’s all simply called life.

I read a verse this morning in my time with God. The verse is found in the Bible at 1 Kings 20:11. I have read the Bible many times and yet I do not ever remember reading this verse in those past journey’s through the Bible. The verse reads, “A warrior putting on his sword for battle should not boast like a warrior who has already won.”

This verse caused me to contemplate many things. The ancient wisdom in that verse is deep and wide. Reading the verse made me feel very young. Then, the creative side of my brain made me think of myself as an old man sitting with a young lad, telling him about how to live his life. I imagined myself sitting and talking about my life’s experience. I imagined myself hoping this young man would listen to what I was saying and hopefully take some of my personal experience and learn from it. The good and the bad. Here are some things I think I would tell him.

Young man…(obviously, ladies, you will have to read this as if it were speaking to you in the feminine.) What I’m about to tell you is what I’ve learned over my life…It’s not everything I’ve learned in life, but what I’m about to share is deeply important. I hope you will listen to it and learn from it. I hope we can meet regularly and that you will allow me to speak with you often about other things I’ve learned that I’m not going to remember today. What I tell you is my experience…it may not be the same for you. The road I paved is not the same road you will travel. But, learn from this old man and then pave your own road.

I heard a really good man say, “Heaven is real, the Bible is true and God loves you more than you’ll ever know.” I love that phrase and it is as true as truth gets. Build your whole life around that phrase.

I know you are hoping that life is going to serve you well, fill you up, and give you great success. It might, but I have found that life won’t think about you, only God can fill you to full, and success must be earned and is never guaranteed.

If you do earn success, it can be gone tomorrow. Don’t count on it to make you happy.

Happiness, by the way, is something you are never entitled to or deserve.

Finding the right woman to marry will make you or break you. When you find her and marry her, her whole family is included in the marriage. Your whole family too.

Sex is great, have it only with your wife.

Every year you live, it will go by faster.

Stuff will never make you happy, but you will be tempted your whole life to think so.

You will never be free from temptation, so don’t pray for protection from it more than you pray for strength to resist it.

Most people in your life will betray/hurt you in some form or another. Be very grateful for the few who do not. And no matter what happens, don’t let bitterness and un-forgiveness reside very long in your heart.

Live your life working very hard to not hurt or betray the people in your life. You will not be perfect in this endeavor.

Resist taking anything for granted. Your family, your church, your job, your success, your money…anything. There is no guarantee that it will be there for you tomorrow. The only person/thing that is guaranteed to be there for you is Jesus Christ.

Do not let fear hold you back from anything.

Every job situation will look great from the interview…you will know the truth once you accept the job and get into the job’s reality.

When you swim in a cesspool long enough you will get used to the smell. So…if you ever notice you are in a cesspool, get out immediately.

There is a lot to think about in the wisdom line I just shared above.

Do not let concern for what people think influence your decisions.

God will ask you to do things that will make no sense at all…do them anyway.

Do not believe for one second that God is interested in your comfort more than your character. God uses pain to refine character. If you don’t like that fact, it won’t do you any good to get mad at God about it.

You are going to hurt people. Do not do it on purpose, ever. When you do hurt people, say you are sorry and mean it.

The phrase, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Is true and it’s a choice. They really are just words.

Hurt people….hurt people. So…when someone hurts you, think about what has hurt them that causes them to now hurt you. It will help you forgive them.

If you promote the progress and purpose of others, you will look back over your life grateful and fulfilled and spent.

When you promote the progress and purpose of someone else, don’t expect them to do the same for you.

The size of the dream you have in life and whether or not you accomplish it, is directly correlated to how much pain and suffering you are willing to endure.

A majority of people will never win the lottery, or have even 15 minutes of fame. Don’t live for that hack dream. Remember, that anything worth having will never comes easy.

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing…even poorly.

If you are not good at something you really should do, keep practicing. You’ll get better. Someday you’ll be an expert at it.

If you have children, they will bring great joy into your heart.
If you have children, they will squeeze your heart with worry and fear.
If you have children, do everything in your power to make them successful. They will be here long after you are gone.
Try to have children. If you cannot, then adopt or foster.

Travel to a 3rd world country as soon as you can and spend no less than 4 days serving those who live there.

Never forget the people who live every day in 3rd world countries where you only visited.

If you become successful, do not let other people write what you should say.
If you become successful, do not purposefully have a public relations spokesman speak on your behalf.
If you become successful, do not prevent all bad news from getting to you…If you only let good news reach you, you will live a life starved of the truth about yourself.

Your wife knows you better than everybody except God. Listen to her unless she tells you different than God.
Do not keep news from your wife. You and your wife are one. You will not be really protecting her when you leave her in the dark about anything.

Do not keep secrets of any kind.
Live your life in such a way that you are not even tempted to keep secrets.

Speak the truth even if it makes your voice shake.

You can raise your voice and get angry without sinning.

Don’t forget the side of love that is loud, hard to give, and delivers pain.

Freedom is always living for and with others. When you only live for yourself, you are not actually free…you are slave to self.

You will never feel like forgiving, but forgive anyway and often if necessary.

Forgiveness does not mean the offender doesn’t face consequences.

You should love everybody. That does not mean you will like everybody.

How you live your life on this earth is your choice to enter Heaven or Hell. Choose wisely because God will honor your choice.

Read the Bible as often as possible. Do what it says, no matter the consequences.

Jesus is the truth and the only way to Heaven. Don’t ever let your doubt about that fact, convince you otherwise.

No matter how unpopular it makes you, never ever disagree in word or action with what Jesus of Nazareth says.

Try to have a sense of humor about yourself. It will be harder on some days than others.

The more you laugh at yourself, the lighter life will be.

You can’t control anything. That’s God’s job.

Who you are is more important than what you do or what you have.

Don’t ever forget how much God loves you.

Life is short. Live in faith, but take risks.

Do not mistake risk with faith. They are very different. Faith is confident assurance. Risk is not.

Always be a learner. The best teachers are those who are always trying to learn something.
The best way to learn is to ask questions and listen.
The next best way to learn is simply by experience.
Learning by experience can be very painful.
The most painful learning experiences may be expensive, but they are still a great education.

When an old man sits and shares with you, it’s always a good idea to have a pen and paper. That’s why I wrote these down for you. Next time, bring your own paper and pen.

When I die…I will be waiting for you in Heaven. Make sure you get there. I’d like to sit with you and have more of these chats.

The next time we sit and chat…I’d like to listen to you tell me about what your life experience has taught you.

See you soon.

Trent


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