T-Ball All-Star State Champion!

We are so proud of Trevor! He made the T-ball all-star team this year. He played 3rd base (very well!). It really was a great team. Often, Cheryl and I completely forgot that we were watching kids that were only 5 and 6 years old. The team played in a couple of tournaments over the last 2 weekends. They played 10 games in all. The temperature was boiling hot (we've had 17 days in a row over 90 here in Charlotte), but we endured! In the end, Trevor's team, the Porter Ridge Pirates, won the state championship. Trevor is hoping to be a major league baseball player some day! Go Trevor! I'll have some pics up soon on Facebook.

This Is It

I ran across this blog post today by Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church. It was too good not to pass on...

I was watching the Michael Jackson This Is It DVD the other day, marveling at how incredible all the musicians were.  I asked Holly, “How good would you have to be to play in Michael Jackson’s band?”
“You’d have to be the best,” she said.

Of course, she’s right.  It would have been any pop musician’s dream come true to have played with the king.  And if you ask any serious aspiring musician how hard they’d be willing to work for a guaranteed spot playing for someone of that caliber, they’ll say, “I’d do whatever it took.”

But that’s not the way it works.  You don’t get to the peak by putting in massive amounts of work once the opportunity comes your way.  That kind of opportunity only comes your way after you’ve put in massive amounts of work.

How many years do you think Michael Jackson’s guitar players played in their bedrooms before they ever played their first public gigs?  How many club gigs do you think they played before they ever played an arena?  How many arena tours do you think they played supporting opening acts before backing a headliner?  And all of this with no guarantee that the opportunity of a lifetime would ever arrive.

David fought lions and bears privately before he took down Goliath publicly.  Essentially, he was training for an opportunity that he didn’t even know existed at the time.  He’d never heard of Goliath.  He just knew that there was a calling on his life, and he needed to be faithful with today’s responsibilities to prepare for tomorrow’s opportunities.

I love Proverbs 18:16: “A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.”

Most of us spend our lives waiting for someone to make room for our gifts…for opportunity to come knocking at our front door. According to this verse, your gift makes room for you.  It’s by actively operating in your gift that you get the opportunity to ascend to the next level of influence. The people who get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities aren’t the people who wait for them to come, then prepare.

They are the people who embrace God’s preparation process long before the opportunities ever arrive. And when that moment materializes, they realize…this is it…

Math Problems

Are you good at math? I happen to hate it! Yes, that's right. You heard me. Math hurts my brain. I would rather write a book than perform a couple hours of math problems! At the same time, I encourage my children to excel in it. Why? Because it's a necessary and important skill to have in life. If you think about it, math is everywhere!

While I dislike math, there is one type that I am working hard to get better at. It's found in 2 Peter 1:5-7. It says, "For this very reason, make every effort to add  to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love."

Sounds easy, right? Not exactly. But it is possible with God's help. I've heard a lot of people talk about how this spiritual addition takes place over the years. Some believe that much of it has to do with how many church services a person attends a week or how many hours they spend in prayer. Others believe it has to do with how many Bible verses a person has memorized or how long they have served in a particular ministry.

While all of these things are noble and good, I believe that the opportunities to "add" to our faith occur in the every day ordinary moments of our lives. In a sense, we are performing math problems all day!

We have a chance to add self-control to our lives when we see that special item in the store that we know we can't afford but would love to buy! We have a chance to add brotherly kindness to our lives when we take a person out for lunch who needs some encouragement. We have a chance to add perseverance to our lives when we are waiting on God to answer our prayer for something he has promised us (Boy, am I living this one right now!!!).

We add to our faith by choosing God's way in the decisions (big and small) of our lives. As we do this, our faith becomes stronger and God is glorified. That's good math in God's eyes...and it doesn't even require a calculator!

The Fear of Man

I ran across this blog post today by Jamie Munson. Great words of wisdom...enjoy!

We often care about other people’s opinion more than we care about God’s opinion. We worry about our status among fellow humans because we fail to grasp our identity in Jesus. When we fear man, we’re vulnerable. (I addressed this issue recently in a sermon about The Parable of the Sower—how fear of man keeps us from bearing fruit in our lives.)
“The fear of man lays a snare,” the Bible says, “but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 29:25). Here are eight consequences—snares—that can result from fear of man:

1. Idolatry. When we care about what man thinks more than what God thinks, we turn people into idols that we worship—seeking to please them in order to earn their approval or respect.
2. Ineffectiveness. When we fear man we neglect God’s calling for us and we lose focus on executing the tasks in front of us because we’re too preoccupied with what others are thinking.
3. Lack of love. When we’re overly concerned with “getting it right,” we turn people into projects to accomplish. We withhold our compassion and grow reserved and calculating in our pursuit of people.
4. Fakeness. If you’re overly motivated by the opinions of others, you won’t act like yourself. You’ll be a chameleon, adapting yourself to any situation for the sole purpose of fitting in.
5. Apathy. Fear man and you’ll quit taking risks because of the potential for embarrassment in failure. If an endeavor is unlikely to succeed, you’ll never take the chance. In other words, you’ll never do much of anything.
6. Dishonesty. It’s tough to speak truth into someone’s life because the truth can be painful. If we fear somebody’s response, however, necessary words will remain unsaid because we care more about ourselves (being liked) than we do about the person (seeing Jesus work in their life). This negligence always creates more long-term damage than the hurt it avoids in the present.
7. Isolation. Fear of man won’t let you delegate anything because others might not do a good job (or they might do a better job), which could reflect poorly on your performance and reputation. Fear of man compels you to control everything—even if that means going it alone.
8. Decision Paralysis. When we live out of fear rather than out of the convictions God has given us, we spin in circles unable to move forward.

I invite you to join me in respecting and honoring others and submitting to authority, but also in repenting of our fear of man. Fear and worship are reserved for God. In the end, only his opinion counts.

3D Vision

My family took a trip to Discovery Place today. For those of you not from the Charlotte area, Discovery Place is a interactive science museum for kids. One of their current exhibits is a 3D IMAX theater. We watched 2 movies. One was about sea turtles and the other one was about sharks.

It was so neat to see my kids experience 3D for the first time! Zachary loved it! At first, Trevor was scared. He kept taking his glasses off! Kyrsten, on the other hand, was just plain wigged out by it all. As long as Kyrsten kept her glasses off, however; she wasn't scared at all. The fish seemed far away from her.

It's really amazing how a little pair of glasses can change the dynamics of the screen. This whole phenomenon got me thinking about how I read my Bible. Now, I know what your thinking. What on earth does a 3D fish movie have to do with your Bible reading. Actually...not much! It's just the weird way my mind works.

Study the scriptures and you will see that the Holy Spirit has a way of illuminating His truth to us. Have you ever had a verse just about jump out at you. Perhaps you've read it many times, but on a particular occasion it hits you square between the eyes. That's illumination! In a sense, God's spirit gives us eyes to see something in a way we've never seen it before. It comes alive! It's 3D!

So often, I just read the Bible without asking God to speak to me. I read it for information, not revelation. In a strange way, my 3D experience was a reminder to me to pray and ask God to speak to me before reading the scriptures each day.

I don't know how you read your Bible. Just a little reminder...whatever you do, make sure that you don't forget your special glasses. (1 Cor. 2:12-14)