2 MINUTE WARNING

Daniel 3  16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand.18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Three men stood up to a nation……and it is worth reading about what happened to them after they did…..it not only honored them—but it honored the LORD!  The same is true in the world today.

Abraham Lincoln stood up to slavery.

Martin Luther King stood up to racism.

Our forefathers stood up to the British and unfair taxation.

Martin Luther stood up to the Roman Catholic Church.

All of these men did something great because they were willing to stand up to what everyone else was doing.  None of them were applauded when they first did this very thing…..and the reality is that many of us are not rewarded when we do so.

But we must remember that if we:  “don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything.”  A line must be drawn and we must, ultimately, set the standard over our own lives.  Where should we look in doing so?  The Word of God…..He has written us a playbook and we need to follow it not only for the now….but for the eternity.

This is hard in today’s world……but I want to encourage you in three things:

1. If someone has a standard that is higher than yours…..applaud them for it!  That is not a bad thing.  We could use a few great influences.  And the Lord might be using them to speak to you.
2. Seek to please the Lord in all that you do.  Most of the time, he simply wants you to reach out and love people where they are at and show them His enormous grace and power over their lives.
3. When He asks you to stand for something, do not be afraid.  Do you know how many times in the Word it says:  “Do not be afraid?”  I would encourage you to look into that.  Because when He convicts you not to be afraid….hold your ground and stand.  It will reward someone—-you.

Several examples of this from scripture:

• 2 Kings 6  17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
• Matthew 28  20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
• Exodus 33  17 And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

We are NEVER alone with the Lord.  So, if you must be afraid….Fear the Lord.  He is the Alpha and the Omega.

In The Name of The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

John 1:45-51

45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote -Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”46 Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”49 Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”51 And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Nathanael is a normal guy, living a normal life, who goes about his business as a benefit to society.  He is honest and hardworking and true to his faith.

But this is not enough.

It is not enough for others.  And, more importantly, it is not enough for him.

Without Jesus, life simply will never measure up.  We can have seasons of fun, seasons of work, seasons of success.  But ultimately, without Him, we begin to lose our way.

As Peter will later tell Jesus:  “You and You alone, hold the keys to eternal life”.  This is not just a statement for later….it is a statement for now.  Jesus is the only anchor that we can truly hold onto.  He speaks into our lives just like He did Nathanael’s.  You see….Nathanael was a broken man.  A sinner.  A man who was destined for Hell.  His sin had infected and broken him.  It had tainted his views of what life was and what the Lord had in store for him.  It had made him a sitting duck for Hell.  And his destiny was to lead a ruined life into a ruined eternity.  Nathanael was broken.

We are no different.  We are broken from the inside and when we begin to look at what the issue is in our broken way, we soon begin to discover the problem.  It is US.  We are the problem.  I once told my team that we were not playing well and that they needed to “Take a Look Inside and Make It Right”.  This is because the Lord wants us to come to the end of ourselves, as Peter did, and confess our absolute and unadulterated need for Him to come in and complete us.  The beauty of this partnership is unequaled.  Not only does He make it whole and beautiful, He makes it right.  The Lord warns us in scripture to not partner with others.  It has never been more clear why He says that than it is today:  He wants us to partner with no one but Him.  You see, when you have the keys to a perfect plan, you don’t bring in something that contradicts that.

What will you choose this day?  Where will you choose to be in your life?  He sees you just as He saw Nathanael.  And the beauty of that sight is He sees good in you!  He loves you for who you are.  And He wants to come and join you in your walk and bring meaning and wholeness to it.  It is a deal breaker.  He breaks off the deal with the enemy, the deal with darkness, the deal with your mortal enemy.  He brings a Kingdom to you that can change the brokenness of others.

Your Hope is in Him and Him alone.

Your Faith is in Him and Him alone.

Your Love is in Him and Him alone.

Realign your hopes.

Refocus your vision.

Rejuvenate your soul.

Reassemble your desires.

Redeem your losses.

Request your dreams.

Refine your plan.

Remake your life.

The Lord of the universe has a different plan than what you might have….but it is so much better than the one you will attempt on your own.

In The Name of The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

LIFE is meant to be lived.  And it is meant to be lived with great passion and joy.  I think all of us would say that.  I mean what good is it to just get up each day and go through the motions?

I think all of us face this reality each and every day……and there is a battle being waged on how we can do just that…..

You see, where I live, we have legalized marijuana.  And while we can go back and forth on legal and political issues, I am going to argue in the arena of the spiritual and say:  Just because something is legal doesn’t make it what we need to do.

You see, we live in a society where we have a pill, or a cure, for everything.  Even in the medical field we sometimes try to stop the symptoms and leave out the root of the problem.

I urge you:  Don’t Do It.

Solomon gave us this message 3000 years ago in Ecclesiastes 2:

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;

I refused my heart no pleasure.

My heart took delight in all my work,

and this was the reward for all my labor.

11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done

and what I had toiled to achieve,

everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;

nothing was gained under the sun.

And it is the same today.  If we truly “deny ourselves nothing” and chase after all that we could ever have…..it won’t solve the problem or be the cure for the issue.

And that’s because the we don’t get to have the answers, we get to have the Answer.

And that Answer is Jesus.

Don’t take a pill….say a prayer

Don’t numb the pain…cry

Don’t avoid the work…grind it out

Don’t duck out on the problem and run away…fix it

The Lord came down here to give His life to be with us…..and when I get mad and say:

“Why don’t you come down here and feel what it is like to be on this earth?”

“Why don’t you go through this pain so you know what it feels like?”

“Why don’t you come and FIX THIS?”

I am here to testify today–that in the person of Jesus:  

He Did.  He Has.  And He Will.

I pray that He will come and help you deal with all that burdens you……because the harder things are…..the more that we truly need to have Him……

So cry out and ask for help…….He’s Got You.

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Saul’s Conversion:  Acts 9
¹Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest ²and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. ³As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
⁵“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
⁶“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

I was thinking about this today as I drove home from our basketball game….and it still amazes me.

This man, Paul, is a Roman citizen.  He is educated in the greatest situation with the most reputable religious scholar.  He is honored and revered by the Jews and yet has nothing to fear from the Roman iron fist because of his citizenship.  He is rich, he is liked, he is respected, he is literally “LIVING THE DREAM”.

And on his way in to tell others that they are wrong…..He comes to the realization that he is the one who is, in fact, wrong.  How does he find out?  He has an encounter with Jesus.

So what does he do?  He throws everything he has IN THE TRASH and becomes a follower of what he calls “The Way”…..a follower of:  Jesus.

This is all the testimony I need to hear!  This guy who wrote so many New Testament Books gives up everything so that he can be:

Beaten

Imprisoned

Shipwrecked

Stoned

Mocked

Ridiculed

This must have been an INCREDIBLE ENCOUNTER!!  I want that ENCOUNTER!

So Lord….come meet with me today….come meet with me and change my heart that I would consider all other things, well, trash, compared to what I can receive from you.

Change me and transform me.  Let Your Spirit convict me and revive me.  Make me one of your servants.

For You, and You alone, Jesus, hold the keys to eternal life.

Amen.  Amen.  And Amen.

Zephaniah 3:17    ¹⁷ The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Our nature is to have the wrong mindset–and our enemy loves to keep us walking in that.  I often find myself angry or mad at the wrong things….when I really should be realigning my thoughts to the Lord.

Remember what is in His Book and begin to apply it today as you walk through the day.

1.  He is FOR you.
2. He is quick to forgive to redeem and to restore.
3. He not only wants to save you AND others….He DELIGHTS in you AND others!
4. He rejoices over your successes and cries with you in your pains.

What if we walked out our days knowing that we were loved in this way by the King of the universe?

May He bless your day.  May He bring hope to your areas where you have no hope.  May He bring joy to your successes.  May He bring peace to your areas of strife.

Let His victory reign over your life!  And remember—-in Jesus—-we are citizens of heaven…..

1 Samuel 30:6  David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him;  each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters.  But David found strength in the LORD his God.

David makes a dramatic comeback thanks to his faith.  He gathers a group, pursues the enemy, transforms an enemy soldier, fights a battle, and brings back the plunder which he demands to be SHARED BY ALL.  He then goes to the elders and honors them over his great move of courage.  He honors THEM!  When we look at this story without God’s grace over it it is hard to swallow…..but it is God’s grace that fills David with the strength to do what he did–and he knows it!

Life is not easy, and we must remember a few things if we are to find the Lord working in us and through us.

• LOYALTY Is Not Relative

You can not claim to be a loyal person if you don’t stick around in the hard times.  Loyalty is REVEALED when someone is down.  It doesn’t run away, it doesn’t judge, and it doesn’t throw someone who fails under the bus.  We must understand that we simply can not throw someone away when they fail–otherwise, we can not claim to be loyal.

• VICTORY Is Not Individual

You’re not better, you’re blessed.  I always like to say this to individuals and teams who have experienced success.  You’re not better, you’re blessed.  Think about it.  There is no reason to get a big head when things go your way, because you must realize that they will not always be in your favor.  It is very important to humbly receive victory and compliments and favor by giving credit and gratitude and loyalty to those around you who have helped–and maybe even some who didn’t.

• LEADERSHIP Is Not Easy

The world is full of alignments between people who are too afraid to walk into something alone.  I saw a picture of the two little girls who grab hands as they walk together into a new place or a new situation.  We all need the help of someone else (at least we think we do) to face the new day.  But David had no choice.  He had no one but the Lord.  What a tough thing it must have been to sit in that place with not only no friends, but with men who claimed to be friends who decided to turn on you.  We must all face up to the reality that we will ALL be in that situation sooner or later.  And we must realize that if we are going to do ANYTHING worthwhile with the life that we are given, we must sometimes walk alone.  It is not okay to follow along and do the wrong thing.  And history has proven, again and again, that there is great power of evil that can well up within large throngs of people…..people who have the courage to walk alone have proven time and again to have great eternal impact.