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454 Ask The Right Questions

When you are sharing the gospel, encourage your friends to ask the right questions.

When I researched about Patton growing up, I read about him in books, watched the movie, and studied history. I very well could have asked 3 questions:

Who was Patton?
Why was he killed?
What happened afterwards?

Patton was a general in the United States army who was a key figure in World War 2. His men fought hard for him. It seemed that they related to him. And it is certain that he had much success in the war.

I do not know why he was killed. But I do know that it was a suspicious car accident.

One theory was that he was killed because of his dislike for Russia and communism. He was very outspoken about it.

After he was killed, we signed a treaty that ended the war. We were able to work with Russia to divide Germany and come to a resolution.

What more do I know? Not much.

But I am confident that I know a good bit about Patton based on history books.

I could now ask the same things about Jesus:

Who was Jesus?
Why was He killed?
What happened afterwards?

These questions I can more easily answer.

He was killed for saying things like this:

John 10 ⁹ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.

Jesus, by historical accounts, was a “magician or prophet” who many followed. He was killed because of what He said: He claimed, as in this verse, that He was God–that He … was the Messiah.

Both Jesus and Patton were killed for things that they said. Patton, while successful among his men, was not a politician and upset many with his beliefs and comments.

Jesus was much the same in that His words angered many—especially in the upper class of wealth, power, and social status.

So what are we to do with this?

My recommendation to those I talk to is this:

When someone comes and claims to be God and we have much of our current culture, traditions, dates, and beliefs based on Him, we should consider research.

It is my belief that, while we do not do a good job in basing our lives upon Him, there is great reason to research who He was and make a WHOLE-HEARTED decision based on what we discover.

And so my question to someone who may not be a Christian is this:

If someone stands at a door that gives entrance to the greatest place you could ever go in terms of protection, wealth, happiness, and well being, would you want to know how to get in?

I want to know how to get in.

If what Jesus said is true … you might want to surrender to Him.

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

February 27, 2024 0

453 The Open Door

What a Word God put on my heart on Friday.

God is for us.

I know that this is a simple phrase, but with God it is an amazing thing.

Revelation 3 ⁸ … See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

God knows our deeds. But He has given us an offer. “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The message that is trying to take over is that Jesus allows us to think and do whatever we want. Nothing could be a bigger lie.

The Truth is: God offers us a way out from our sin by Loving Him, by being Born Again, by Surrendering to Him.

The devil doesn’t want us to do that so he has gone open season on standards. While we will never meet the standard I will say this: Everyone I know who ATTACKS Standards and the way people think has not surrendered to God. They would know better. He is the Lion from the Tribe of Judah and He is the one who tore up the temple.

And so I go back to the above verse. He knows our deeds. Even so, He has placed before us an Open Door that no one can shut. You should choose to walk through it. And when you do, you get three things.

He Knows You. Revelation 3 ⁸ I know your deeds. Even though you are broken and full of hideous sin—He accepts you. The one who KNOWS YOU BEST is the one who LOVES YOU MOST.
He Calls You To Overcome. Revelation 3 ²¹ To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne. He isn’t asking us to overcome, He is COMMANDING us to overcome. Stand up, Be accountable, and walk out the call.
You are a son or a daughter. Galatians 3 ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. This is the greatest deal that you will ever get. BECAUSE Jesus died and paid for your sin, you get to be a son or daughter of the King. All the rights. All the privileges. All the blessings. You will never get a better deal than this.

God has placed before you:

An open door … And no one can shut it.

Stand up and walk through it.

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

February 12, 2024 0

452 Stand Up To The Angry Mob

How did a homeless itinerant preacher change world history?

He stood up to an angry mob.

He had followers that were willing to stand up to an angry mob. And He also had people in that angry mob “change teams”.

I am not often drawn to read about the stoning of Stephen. But Stephen is quite a story. While on trial, he calls out the very men who are accusing him:

Acts 7 ⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

⁵² Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— ⁵³ you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”

Stephen called the leaders Stubborn, Unfaithful, Disloyal, and Disobedient.

Not long after that, he was dead on the ground and his soul was enroute to heaven.

This is hard to read … and probably even harder to interpret.

What are we, as people, to do with this?

My answer, today, is I don’t know.

But here is what I do know at this small moment in time:

I know that Stephen stood up to an angry mob.
I know that one of the men in that mob who responded in anger had a RADICAL transformation, repented, and ended up writing books in the New Testament and advancing the gospel. (Paul)
I know that because of this domino affect we are reading this Bible that we have today.
I know that we have moments in our lives that we might also be surrounded by an angry mob that calls for, and pushes people to, the very injustice that God has come to save us from.

Don’t buy it and don’t bow to it.

The God we serve died under this so that we would not have to be punished eternally by it.

And thank God for His grace.

John 3:16 “For God SO LOVED the world that He sent His ONE AND ONLY SON that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

So I finish with this:

Angry mobs are fueled and influenced by Satan himself.

So …….

Stand Up To The Angry Mob.

Don’t bow down to their philosophy or join them in their judgment.

Do not adopt their philosophies or entertain their temptations.

And do not judge others that they might be pointing the finger at.

They have no more right to judge than you do.

Judgment and Justice and Revenge …

They belong to God … not man.

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

February 2, 2024 0

451 Recover What The Enemy Has Stolen

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.

It didn’t take David very long to lose the support of people. The very people that he had rescued were turning on him discussing executing him! This, to me, is unfathomable and yet it makes perfect sense. People want all of it. We are never satisfied with what we have … we always want more. And, we probably don’t see it until we have been on the side where David sat in this verse.

Thank God … this is not the end of David’s story, or ours.

Our God is on an eternal quest to Recover What The Enemy Has Stolen.

And He has done so from the beginning, and on our behalf.

But how can this be done? How can you make a covenant when someone continually and consistently breaks it?

God knows.

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with a sleeping Abram. And why not? You can not “cut a covenant” when the person that you cut it with can not and will not meet up to his end of the bargain. So God cut a blood covenant with man through the only One strong enough to keep it.

God cut His blood covenant with man through Jesus.

And Jesus lived up to His end of the deal by dying on His end of the deal.

By His blood we are healed.

By His life we have life.

By His resurrection we can have eternal life.

By His perfection we can be sons … and daughters.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

The enemy will always try to steal from us. Sometimes he will win the battle. Most of the time, he will lose. And He can not win the war. The battle belongs to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

And it is on Him that I stake my life.

He … is MORE than enough.

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

January 31, 2024 0

450 By For Before Held

By For Before Held …

As I read this verse a couple of days ago and thought about it and as I read it again this morning, I am compelled to ask myself:

What is the most valuable thing in my life?

As I answer that question, I am compelled to apply it to this verse:

Colossians 1 ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

To sum this up in the only way that I know how, I would say this:

If MONEY is the most important thing in my life, what does that verse say about money?

MONEY was made by Him

MONEY was made for Him

He comes before MONEY

He is the only one that can hold our MONEY together

The purpose of MONEY, or anything else that we might have chosen, is Him!

And we need to realize this and get our life to match with that … because if we do, He will set us free from so many things!

What did you choose?

Fill in the blanks!

___ was made by Him

___ was made for Him

He comes before ___

He is the only one that can hold our ___ together

Have a great day!

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

January 26, 2024 0

449 What Lies Within Us

The gospel is truly given to set us free.

And today, I found yet another reason as we sat and talked about mental health as a group of coaches.

Why are we seemingly dealing with this MORE today than at any time in history? Why is it a bigger deal now than it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago? What can we do for these amazing kids that we get to coach?

As we sat and discussed, I simply had no answers. But my reality is simple: When I have NO answers it pushes me to turn to THE Answer. And, He, is THE Answer.

As I reflected, I was drawn to what Paul said and so I looked it up and found it in Romans 7.

Romans 7 ¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Paul was VERY, VERY intelligent. A politician and a lawyer who discovered Jesus—Paul underwent a transformation of Biblical proportions. And he wrote this God-inspired verse for us on this very day.

This verse is not an excuse for us to live at the lowest common denominator.

It isn’t an accusation to put us into a guilt-inspired tailspin.

And it isn’t a “Well, why would I try anything then if I can’t succeed at any of it?” verse.

Paul is letting us all know the reality of our situation:

We aren’t the center of the world or the universe
We aren’t the most important person at our company, or in our family, or on our team
We aren’t the superstar NFL player that crowds gather to see … and those NFL guys aren’t either.

We ARE broken, and we fall short, and we are full of things that make us broken. It is PART of us. And even in that state, we don’t even see most of the things that others could point out to us without hesitation.

We are broken and we fall short of the Glory of God. Period.

And this can’t be fixed by self help guru, a pill, money, or an enormous amount of work.

It CAN ONLY BE FIXED by Jesus.

It CAN ONLY BE FIXED by our confession that we “don’t measure up”.

It CAN ONLY BE FIXED by a Father who loves us too much to leave us the way we are.

Thank You so much Jesus

When I arose today, I felt so much that was heavy in front of me

And I thought of that quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”

If by “what lies within us” he meant Jesus–Amen.

And if he didn’t–I could not disagree with him more.

We are sitting ducks for Hell without Jesus Christ and what He did not the cross.

Gavel Down. End of story.

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

January 23, 2024 1

448 How Can It Be?

Many might question Jesus choice for disciples.

But His choice to spread the gospel was even more radical.

Could Jesus have planned to have a demon possessed crazy (blog 447) and a town prostitute (this blog, 448) to take His good news to the world?

The fact that they did, the fact that the gospel even survived, and the fact that He predicted His death and resurrection say that it was much deeper than we could even surmise.

In the middle of daytime heat, in a place “inconvenient” to where the disciples might have chosen to go, Jesus began changing the world.

And his methods were radical.

As the disciples attempted to steer Him in the wrong direction, He told them:

John 4 ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Our pursuit of Jesus often includes are thoughts as to what He is and who He is.

But who He is runs contrary to all that we sometimes think.

We think that His conversation with the woman at the well was necessary for Him to save “them”. But what we can not fathom was that it was necessary to save us.

WE are the broken ones. ALL of us.

John 4 ³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

The gospel of Jesus has the ability to enrage the rich, the privileged, the well-behaved, and the reliable. And this is because in our very narrow vision of who we are, we believe that we are somehow worthy.

But the reality is that we are not worthy.

The reality is that He has made us worthy.

In reality, we are no different than the woman or even the crazy man from the graveyard.

We are so in need of His everlasting grace.

Without it, we are sitting ducks for Hell.

Growing up, my beautiful daughter Jenna would listen to Lauren Daigle. I grew to love her music because Jenna did. And her words in this song could not be more true.

Thank You, Jesus. How Can It Be?

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

January 21, 2024 0

447 Jesus Is Not Afraid

The battle between good and evil has been going on since the beginning of time. And it should be of no surprise to us.

I was captivated by the first movie of Wonder Woman as it paints the gospel picture so perfectly clearly.

The man, Jesus, takes the death of mankind on a poison loaded plane into the atmosphere.

The evil Ares who is the god of war, Satan, celebrates the demise of humanity.

The heroine Wonder Woman, God, faces off with Satan in a final battle.

The poison making woman, man, sits on the ground waiting for God to punish her. But the heroine does not, instead focusing all of her attention on Ares, the god of war.

In their final showdown, Ares says:

“They do not deserve your protection.”

To which, Wonder Woman replies:

“It is not about deserve–it’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.”

A compelling story that represents the gospel. If you would like to watch it, here it is:

The horror story in Mark 5 is also right out of a movie.

This demon possessed man came came from the graveyard.

Chains could not hold him, even if they shackled his hands and feet.

He cut himself with stones.

I am quite positive that everyone feared him greatly and stayed well away from that graveyard.

And I have to think that Jesus approached without, worry, fear, or even a second thought. He was going to break a foothold and fight the most powerful force of evil the world has ever seen.

But the drama ends there.

This man sprinted to Jesus and was at His feet on two knees begging for help.

Jesus is not afraid of your sin.

He is not afraid of your tempting and evil thoughts.

And He is not afraid if you carried out some, or all, of them.

He isn’t afraid of a man who could break chains, or the evil in the graveyard, death, or the devil himself. In the horror movie, He is the Savior, and He walks into the teeth of death to meet the most evil presence we could conjure.

Demons begged.

Pigs died.

A man was freed.

Read it in Mark 5.

Mark 5 ¹⁸ As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. ¹⁹ Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

The ten cities in Greece were saved because of a demon possessed crazy man’s testimony. And it expanded out from there.

As you go into your weekend, I want to leave you with three thoughts:

1. If you are going to the graveyard, take God with you. He is good for opening caskets, driving out demons, raising the dead, and redeeming your broken life.

2. The Physical, Mental, and Emotional are all controlled by the Spiritual. And the Spiritual has a King that will not be sharing with anyone else (thank God). Beware of anything that will challenge His reign on your spiritual health. And remember, filling up your emotional, or your physical, or your mental needs will work for a while … but it won’t be long until you have come to the end of this pursuit and feel empty. Fill up your Spiritual tank. Daily. With Jesus.

3. Weigh The Cost. We worry, with our faith, about how it looks, about what we fear, about how much it might cost us, and, certainly, about what it would do for us (what’s in this for ME?). Let me just say: You can’t afford NOT to do it.

So enjoy the weekend.

And if Jesus wants to go to the graveyard to face up with the scariest person you could imagine, go with Him. He is not afraid.

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

January 20, 2024 0

446 Deny Yourself

Matthew 16 ²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

Right after telling Peter, “Get behind me Satan”, Jesus said these words.

And we must always remind ourselves of them.

It is not our job to tell God what we will do and where we will go and what will happen when we get there … It is His job to tell us.

Our lives are not forever. They are temporary and quickly fading. Our time is short and our days are numbered … and that’s the bad news.

Even worse news is what the enemy has in store for us as his days are numbered at an even higher degree. God has not yet dealt with him, and he has ruined the lives of many. As Jesus said to Peter: “Satan wants to sift you as wheat … but I will pray for you.” And so it is with us: Satan wishes to STEAL, KILL, and DESTROY … no easy words to fathom.

But this is not about bad news … this is about returning to the castle. It is about kneeling before the King. It is about the Eutopia that we all seek to have but have not fully grasped. It is about the Kingdom of God.

Jesus has our back.

He holds us in high regard.

He fights on our behalf.

And He has prepared a place for us … on earth and in heaven.

So:

Deny yourself.

Pick up your cross.

And follow Him.

Thy Kingdom Come (Jesus, You Are King)

Thy Will Be Done (Jesus, Your Way Is Better Than Mine)

On Earth As It Is In Heaven (Not Just Later, But NOW)

In The Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Know anyone who might like these? Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

January 17, 2024 0

2 MINUTE WARNING

WITH DOUG JOHNSON

Author