God....Likes...YOU!

I have enrolled at Mid-America Christian University and the following is my first submission for a class I'm taking.

SHINE!

       I'm not sure who the original author of the following is but a friend of mine sent this to me and I'm passing it on to you. Perhaps it will help you as it has helped me today!

       "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

       Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. 

       As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others!!"

Thank you to whoever the original author is!  This meant a lot to me!

Remember...Remember...Remember.....

     If we do not remember specifically how and why we got into a situation or lifestyle that makes a new beginning essential to repositioning our lives, then we are likely to find ourselves right back where we started before year’s end. If we take inventory of where we are and “remember from what we have fallen,” then we are ready to repent and begin again. It is not always easy to do the emotional heavy lifting required to intelligently determine what should be kept and what should be thrown away. Not everything that we thought or did, that got us into a painful situation from which we need to be delivered, is necessarily wrong. Frederick Buechner, in his book, A Room Called Remember, speaks of how we may not only choose the wrong road but can also choose the right road for the wrong reason. It is good to love, but Buechner speaks of how we can love too much for the good of either the lover or the beloved.

     If we can bear to sift through the actions and motives that got us to where we are, it is likely that with God’s help we can correct our course and get to where we want to be. I cannot tell you what to forget and what to remember, what to hold on to and what to turn loose. The specific details about our acts and motives are so highly individualized that you cannot depend on someone else to tell you what to do. There are things in our lives that no one else can remember. Others can support, love, and encourage, but we have to do our own heavy lifting.

     Have you ever heard someone say that they came so near death that their whole life flashed before them? Has that video ever played in your life? People who have had “near death experiences,” who have clinically died and been brought back to the land of the living, often speak of being in the presence of overwhelming love and acceptance in the form of a being of light. They say that their whole life is reviewed in the presence of that incredibly loving being and they not only saw and understood themselves but felt unconditionally loved. Most of those who have had the experience testify that it was so wonderful that they did not want to come back.

     Perhaps if we could bring ourselves to really remember our past in the presence of God in this life we would not only create the essential conditions for a new beginning but also get a foretaste of what it will be like when we “lay it all out” in the presence of God in the world that is to come.

Remember. Remember. Remember.

Written by  Thomas Lane Butts and posted on the website "www.ministrymatters.com" on December 20, 2011.

Thank you, Mr. Perry

Thank you, Mr. Perry, for this!

PRAY BOLD PRAYERS!!!!!!!

Steven Furtick: Don't Put Jesus First This Year--Seriously

I in NO WAY am laying claim to this article....it was written by Steven Furtick and I originally read it on Churchleaders.com   I still havn't really caught the hang of posting directly to my blog from other sites so here you go.......

***************

Steven Furtick: Don't Put Jesus First This Year--Seriously: Steven Furtick: "Yes, you read that correctly. Before you label me a heretic, let me explain."

I imagine that many of you are going through a similar process as me right now of setting and resetting your priorities. Personally, I love this time of year. I’m a very goal-oriented individual, and I’ve found that reprioritizing and recalibrating your life is an indispensable activity if you really want to actualize your potential.

And here’s what it usually looks like. We start by putting Jesus at the top. Then family. Then maybe career. And so on. So our priorities look something like this:

1. Jesus/God
2. Family
3. Career

Looks good. However, I’ve found that this isn’t very effective when you get down to the grind of everyday life.For example, what does it even mean to put Jesus before my family? Do I ignore my family to spend more time with Jesus? Or with your career, do you stop working to put Jesus first?

I don’t think this is the way it was ever supposed to work.  Colossians 1:15-20 repeatedly tells us that Jesus is first beforeand over everything. But it also says that all things were created through and for Him. That in Him all things hold together. That the goal of the cross was to reconcile all thingsto Himself.The essential problem with this approach is that it segregates the different priorities of life. You end up removing Jesus from where you spend the majority of your time and putting Him on an island by Himself. The biggest island maybe, but an island nonetheless.

So Jesus is first. He is first in order. He is first in importance.But He is so because He is the center of everything.

That’s what He should be in your life. And consequently, the thing that is at the center of your life is the thing that is ultimately first in your life.

This year, instead of worrying about putting Jesus first in your life, what if you concentrated on making Him the center of every area of your life? Not just the top priority in front of every other priority, but the top priority in every priority?

Not Jesus, then my family. But Jesus in my family.
Not Jesus, then my career. But Jesus in my career.

We’d probably be a lot more successful in actually keeping Jesus at the top spot on our list. And we’d be much more likely to do an exponentially greater job at accomplishing our other goals and maintaining our priorities. 

Steven Furtick is the Lead Pastor of Elevation Church, an incredible move of God in Charlotte, NC with more than 6,000 in attendance each week among three locations. He is the author of the book, Sun Stand Still. He lives in Charlotte with his wife Holly and their two sons, Elijah and Graham.

www.stevenfurtick.com