Psa 63:1-8 ESV
(1)  A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
(2)  So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
(3)  Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
(4)  So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
(5)  My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
(6)  when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
(7)  for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
(8)  My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

A wordation is sorta like a vacation but instead of spending all your time site seeing or eating, you spend all you time in the Word and in the presence of God. I’m going to a Bible conference next week and they’ll be five sessions a day for six days. No wife or kids (her ideal) just me, the Word and the Holy Ghost. I’m expecting to be changed by the Word and the glory of God.

I’m not going with a list of demands or any pressing need weighting in on me. I’m just going to spend some un-distracted time with the most important, powerful and wisest person in the earth…

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Act 5:38-39 ESV
(38)  So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail;
(39)  but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!" So they took his advice,

Mat 7:15-20 ESV
(15)  "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
(16)  You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
(17)  So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
(18)  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
(19)  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
(20)  Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

How can you tell if a so-called move of God is really God or just the works of men?

Time and fruit…

Time

I recall a conversation I had with a brother after one service when he told that he me was going to get married to a young lady that he hardly knew. The witness I had in my heart was that this was a very bad move. I also knew he wouldn’t listen. He could tell by the expression on my face that I was trouble by this news and he asked with a smug smile on his face “what, you don’t think it’s a good ideal?”. I paused and said “time will tell”, and it did, their marriage was troubled from the start and ended in divorce.

Time will always tell on you….

Fruit

After almost 15 years in the ministry I’ve come to this very profound conclusion. If it waddles, has a feathers and likes water, it’s a duck. I don’t care if it says it’s an eagle and wears a very nice eagle suit, I don’t care if it graduated from eagle academy and has all the proper documentation…if what you say you are doesn’t line up with what you’re doing then houston we have a problem.

Actions are fruit and fruit reveal the true nature of a thing.

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(1Co 3:16 ESV)
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

(1Co 6:19 ESV)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

(2Co 6:16 ESV)
What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The most important, powerful, wisest person in this earth lives in me…

And if I let Him, He’ll help me.

John 14:26 (Amplified Bible)

But the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will cause you to recall (will remind you of, bring to your remembrance) everything I have told you.

All of life’s circumstances most be judged in the light of this fact.

Eph 3:20-21 RYLT-NT
(20)  and to Him who is able above all things to do exceeding abundantly{super abundantly} what we ask or think, according to the power that is working in us,
(21)  to Him is the glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus, to all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen.

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Found this interesting post on the Leadership Network blog about how some Pastors are using Starbucks marketing plan as their roadmap to Church growth.

Seven multi-site churches are highlighted for their international satellite campus locations in Wall Street Journal’s recent article, Inspired by Starbucks: Charismatic Pastors Grow New Flocks Overseas, Using Satellites, DVDs and Franchise Marketing To Spread Their Own Brand of Religion. The article highlights multi-site churches in the U.S. that are going international:

Mr. Gramling’s Flamingo Road Church, which has a weekly attendance of 8,000, is based in Broward County, Fla. …  Mr. Gramling says he tried to copy the success of Starbucks by assembling a creative team to hone "the look, the feel, the branding idea, of what Flamingo Road is." Like Starbucks, Mr. Gramling is thinking big. His goal is 50 churches world-wide, 100,000 members and a $150 million-a-year budget.
At least half a dozen U.S. mega-churches have opened international branches in recent years, and plans are in the works for many more. "If Starbucks can start four stores a day, why can’t churches?" says John Bishop, the pastor at Living Hope Church. His congregation in Vancouver, Wash., which has a weekly attendance of 6,000, has 23 satellite churches, including new sites in New Zealand, India, Mexico and the Philippines. The Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, La., has eight U.S. branches, and in the past year opened churches in Mozambique and Swaziland. Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Fla., with 10,000 members, recently launched branches in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Atiquipa, Peru.

I’ve been working really hard to relieve myself of the obligation of having to have an opinion about everything…but I did find this comment very interesting.

"The religious market is saturated in the U.S.," says Manuel Vasquez, co-author of "Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas." "There is a sense now that you have to go international to expand your reach if you want to be a player." By 2025, seven of 10 Christians will live in Africa, Latin America and Asia, according to Philip Jenkins, author of "The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity." In Africa, Christians make up nearly half of the continent’s population, up from about 10% in 1900.

You can read the full article here

This review of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Einstein inspired me to pick it up on Audible….

The last two sentences of Walter Isaacson’s recent book on Einstein summarize the thread that struck me the most in this masterful and well-researched biography by the former Managing Editor of Newsweek:

"He was a loner with an intimate bond to humanity, a rebel who was suffused with reverence.  And thus it was that an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe" (p. 551). 

Einstein saw faith as profoundly foundational to the entire project of science:  "The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research" (p. 390).   He envisioned a mutual dependence of science and religion as illustrated when the physicist famously said, "…science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" (p. 390). 

(via leadership network)

photo by ifmuth

I was reading through John chapter 5 when I noticed this…

Joh 5:5-10 ESV
(5)  One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
(6)  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?"
(7)  The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me."
(8)  Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk."
(9)  And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.
(10)  So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed."

The religious leaders didn’t really care that a man who had been crippled for 38 years had just been made whole and could now walk! Their only concern was with their interpretation of the rules.

You may been an angry preacher if your more interested in maintaining the necessary standard than meeting the needs of people.

Joh 5:13-15 ESV
(13)  Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
(14)  Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you."
(15)  The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

Of all the bad things a preacher can be accused of doing I’m thinking that actually healing somebody wouldn’t be on the top of the list, but this act seemed to drive them into a murderous rage.

You may be an angry preacher if God touching people lives and meeting their needs in a way that may be different than the way you would do it makes you mad.

Joh 5:16-20 ESV
(16)  And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
(17)  But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am working."
(18)  This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
(19)  So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
(20)  For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.

The final straw was when Jesus claimed to have a personal intimate relationship with God.

You may be an angry preacher if you resent peoples claims of an intimate relationship with God when it’s different from your own relationship with God.

The really sad part about the whole situation described in John chapter 5 is that these men who had dedicated their lives to serving God actually missed the greatest move of God  because of offence. They couldn’t get pass the personality and methods of Jesus to see who He really was…

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Psalm 127:3-5 (King James Version)

3Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

4As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

5Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.