For the last couple of weeks, Hannah has been playing with a variety of friends.  They follow her wherever she goes.  They are her pals.  There is Larry-boy, Bob the Tomato, Jimmy Neutron and even Pooh Bear.  They aren’t all together with her at one time and she only plays with one or two at a time.

The other night, we were in the bedroom and Hannah told me to say hi to Jimmy Neutron, so I turned toward the closet door and said, “Hi, Jimmy!”  Then Hannah exclaimed, “No Dad, he’s over there!” and pointed toward the nightstand.  I simply said sorry because I do not see invisible people very well.

Hannah has faith to play and see the unseen.  Shouldn’t this be the way we understand the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives?  He is invisible yet very present.  The Holy Spirit is not seen with the human eyes but His work is.  We must have faith in the unseen to see the Holy Spirit work in the seen.

I am reminded of Jesus words that we should have the faith of children.  Perhaps He gave us those instructions because we need to believe, although we cannot see the person of the Holy Spirit or the actual resurrected Savior, yet we believe that they exist.  Jesus told doubting Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  We must have faith in God and His work, whether we see Him working or not.

We have an invisible friend in the Holy Spirit.  He is an ever present help in time of need.  He is our comforter.  He is our companion and friend.  He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother.  He is a guide and convicts us of sin.  He is the revealer of Jesus and we would do well to value Him in our lives.  We must have faith in our invisible friend.  Whether you see Him or not, He is there.

Are you hungry?

It seems to me that we all love to eat. Now I am not saying we are all overweight, however, most people enjoy eating good food. One thing I have learned is that after we eat enough, we are satisfied and sometimes even miserable. Our spiritual appetites are the same. We are hungry one minute, but after we experience God in some way, we are satisfied. It takes a while for our hunger to come back to us. Through our desperate times it draws us to God , but when the trial is over, we seem to be satisfied spiritually.

Proverbs 27:7 says, "A satisfied soul loathes (tramples on) the honeycomb,"

When we are satisfied, we no longer desire the deep things of God. We are content. We say, "I sure have come a long way. I think I will stay here for awhile." This is not God’s intention for us. Have you ever eaten a large meal and after your done despise the thought of food? Even desert doesn’t look good anymore. We would trample on a Snicker Blitz Pie because we are not hungry, we are satisfied. It is the same with spiritual things. If we are satisfied, we dread going to the next level. Why? It requires something of us. It will cause us to stretch our spiritual bellies to make room for more. This is not always easy. Now on the flip side, the hungry soul knows that it can never be completely full of God. If we could be completely full of God, we would be satisfied. God allows us to sense a little void in our hearts so that we will pursue Him to fill it. He always keeps us at peace, but He allows us storms and times of desperation so that we might cry out to Him. When things are hunky dory (that’s east Texas for perfect), we tend to pursue God less. When we look within our selves and find that there is no way we can make it without Him, then we will seek Him.

The rest of Proverbs 27:7 says, "But to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet."

When you are hungry even brussel sprouts will be good. Through trying times, through inadequacies, through hardships, God proves to be sweet.

Paul said in Philippians 3:10, "That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection and in the fellowship of His suffering."

To know Jesus we have to need Jesus. I challenge you today, be Christ dependent not self-sufficient. It is good to use our abilities, however, without Christ they are just abilities. With Christ, they become fruits. Have a blessed day!

Has somebody ever done you wrong? 

What a dumb question for me to ask!  I know that everyone can say a good hearty yes to this, but let me tweak the question just a bit.  Was that person who hurt you someone close to you?  Someone that you had blessed?  Most often it is those that are closest to us that hurt us.  Why is that?  Because we leave ourselves more vulnerable to those who we are closer to. 

Look at the life of King David who could really never trust those closest to him.  His own son, Absalom sought to overthrow the kingdom.  David ministered to King Saul and Saul tried to kill him.  Sound familiar? 

David wrote in Psalm 35:11-14 we see David’s frustration with this problem.  He writes, "Fierce witnesses rise up; They ask me things that I do not know.  They reward me evil for good.  To the sorrow of my soul.  But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself in fasting; and my prayer would return to my own heart.  I paced about as though he were my friend or brother. I bowed down heavily, as one who mourns for his mother.  But in my adversity they rejoiced."

David had sought God for the others when they were down and out.  He had fasted and prayed for them and mourned with them only to see them turn their back on him.  Life is not fair is it?  Maybe this is your life story.  Maybe you are the one who is there to bless others…to minister to others needs only to see them turn against you in your most vulnerable moment.

Our first reaction is to fight back.  Speak against them and lash out at them with our tongue.  This is a natural response to hurt.  That is why churches today have so much conflict.  Because there is so much hurt.  When there is alot of hurt, people react by hurting others.  Many times people are threatened by the other party and that causes them to turn against them.  What are we supposed to do?  Fight Fire with Fire? It was Jesus’ disciples who were ready to call down fire from heaven to consume their enemies but Jesus stopped them. 

David’s response was verbal but not in a negative way.  In verse 17 of the above text he asks God to take care of them.  He says, "Lord, how long will you look on?  Rescue me from their destructions, my precious life from the lions.  I will give you thanks in the great assembly; I will praise You among many people."

The answer can be summed up in the "two p’s".  Pray for the offenders and Praise God in the midst of your hurt.  By doing these things you make yourself better and not bitter.  Pray that God would handle the situation and heal your hurts.  Pray that God would touch their hearts and that He would change them. 

Then put on a shout of praise.  Nothing makes you feel better in the times of loneliness and hurt than to just give God praise.  As you lift Him up, He lifts you up.  This will cause you to focus on God and not on those who have hurt you. 

Friend, hurts in life are inevitable.  Life is hard and your spirit will be wounded.  You do not have to live with the pain.  God will fight the battle for you.  Make a decision today to pray for those who hurt you and then give God your highest praise.  It will make you feel better.

Spring is here and the rain has also been non-stop.  As the trees bloomed, they dropped thousands of seed pods from their limbs.  They have littered the yard, driveway, patio and clogged the gutters.

As always, I procrastinate.  I have taken my time in cleaning out the gutters and pulled into my driveway to find green shoots rising in the gutter.  The rain continued, as did my procrastination, and before long those shoots became small trees.  In fact, it looked like I was growing shrubs in my gutters.  The seeds had germinated and the soil was made by the old leaves and growth began.  After a couple of weeks of growing trees around the edges of my house, I decided to clean out the gutters.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to use hedge trimmers, but it was quite a bit of work digging out 4 inches of growth.  The gutters were packed full of trees, seed pods and leaves.  In fact, when it rained, there was no where for the water to go.  It was clogged.  After spending hours last night cleaning out the gutters, water was able to flow again.

This is often how our spiritual lives work.  Little seeds planted in the wrong places will grow unwanted trees.  Those seeds are often small compromises, sin that we allow to be planted into our hearts until it sprouts.  Small seeds produce big trees and it is no different with sin.  The Bible tells us that a little leaven leavens  the whole lump.  We must clean out our spiritual gutters.

What is it in our lives that we have let clog the flow of God’s Spirit?  What do we need to clean out to allow us to sense God moving again? 

Here is Sunday’s message.  Instead of the traditional mother’s day message, I shared basic parenting principles, not just for Mothers but for the Dads as well.

A couple was arranging for their wedding, and asked the bakery to inscribe the wedding cake with "1 John 4:18" which reads: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."

The bakery evidently lost, smudged or otherwise misread the noted reference, and beautifully inscribed on the cake "John 4:18": "For you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband."

“I’ll be praying for you!”

Does this phrase sound familiar to you?  How often have we answered someone’s need by telling them we would pray for them?  Do you always pray like you said you would?

I remember one time as I was taking my Sunday afternoon siesta I was invaded by a dream that pierced the very core of my heart.  In the dream my mother came to me and said with excitement, “I can’t wait to get to heaven and hear all of those prayers you prayed.”  I was instantly gripped with shame, trying replay through my mind how many prayers I had actually prayed.  It was reality hitting me.  My mother had countless times asked me to pray and I didn’t always follow through with her wishes.

How many of us are guilty of this?  This dream got me thinking.  Does God really keep a tab on the unprayed prayers.  In the book of Revelation you find a picture of God keeping the prayers of the saints under His throne.  I believe that when we get to Heaven we will be able to see the many prayers that we prayed and the answers that those prayers brought.  But what of the prayers never prayed?  Are they also kept track of? 

I believe that it will be revealed to us the results of not interceding for someone else.  The prayer that we should have prayed could be for one of our troops whose life is in danger and our pray stands in between him and eternity.  Will you pray?  It could be someone’s loved one on a hospital bed about to breathe their last.  Will you pray?  It may be someone who has been depressed and someone asked you to pray for them.  They are on the edge of the bridge about to jump.  Will you pray? 

You may be the catalyst to save someone’s life.  You may be the one that will pray them through to their miracle.  It may be your prayer that God is waiting on.  Will you pray? 

I challenge you, do not say half-heartedly, “I’ll be praying for you.”  Go to the throne room of God and cry out to Him for their miracle.  For their life!  You are an important vessel to God!  God wants you to pray and you will see results.  The tragedy is, however, if you don’t pray there may never be those results.  Your prayers are being logged and who knows even those unprayed prayers might be accounted for one day.  Let’s make the choice to pray and when we get to Heaven we will see the results of those prayers.