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2 MINUTE WARNING

WITH DOUG JOHNSON

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481 Hope AND A Future

As I turned on Chris Tomlin this morning, I was taken aback.  What a song … and what a moment … a whole crowd crying out to Jesus.  His mighty hand on our lives is ALL THAT WE HAVE.

Perhaps you might listen to it as you read this word?

Let me say this again:  He is ALL THAT WE HAVE.

The verse on my heart yesterday and today is no cliche’.  It’s not a guide … or a map … or some lucky word.

God is not lucky.  He is not our rabbit’s foot.  And He isn’t passively waiting for us to “get through it”.  Our God, in all forms, is all about being for us.

Jeremiah 29 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 

The choices He gives us have lead to our demise.  They lead to Adam’s demise and EVERYONE else’s.  But this is not a mistake.  Without a choice, without our ability to say yes or to say no, there can be no love.

Our trials are not on Him.  They are not Him trying to test us or to punish us or to paint us into a corner.  Our trials are the result of choice and the sin we live in.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

And for us to think that the world will somehow fill us is a lie from the pits of hell.

And to this conundrum there is no human answer:  We have made a mess.

And when we fall into that mess it is, simply, what happens.  And so it goes.

Thank God for the gospel.

When we wallow and sit in our hole with no hope … Here comes Jesus.  And He comes in the form of the Holy Spirit or another believer who would dare tell us what we sometimes won’t hear from God.

He has a plan

He wants to bless us … and give us a future

He wants us to thrive

This is not easy … but we must FIGHT both for ourselves and for each other.  When the mountain before us is too big …

We must ask God to resurrect HOPE inside of us, get up, and walk forward.

This is not easy.

It requires us to stand up and to move forward.

It might require us to change our situation.

We might have to change our mindset.

It might be an act of faith that God is simply moving us to a new season of life.

“For I know the plans I have for you,”

But whatever it is, we must grab on to this Jeremiah 29 word and get up.

If you are in this place, cry out for HOPE, because HOPE is the rocket fuel for Faith, and Faith is the rocket fuel for walking up that mountain that we see in front of us.

Because without Him, we can never ascend.

And ascending to worship Jesus is the only thing that can truly make us whole again.

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

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480 Honesty, Entitlement, And Responsibility

All of us have choices before us.  And as we make those choices we must understand that we are being watched by God Almighty … and when God watches us, He knows not only what we did but what we were thinking when we did it.

I have read Genesis 4 many times.  Today, as I read it, I am convicted by three things:  Honesty, Entitlement, and Responsibility.

Genesis 4 2 … Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord . 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.  So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” 8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.  9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 

Cain’s offering was not good enough.  And it was not received.  In that moment, he had a choice to make.  This situation made me wonder:  How often have I laid down an offering thinking that it was “all I had” when in reality, it was not.  How often has my sacrifice been no sacrifice at all?  If God is honest with us … we must be honest with ourselves.  And if we are to be honest, we must know that what we give God does not amount to very much.  He tells us in Isaiah 64 that even our good works are like “dirty rags”.  The Honesty required in the Bible is something that is very difficult.  We must be honest with … OURSELVES.

Genesis 4 also contains Entitlement.  And God was merciful with Cain … even trying to warn him.  But Cain thought that he was somehow entitled to something more.  And because of that, he was taken captive by sin to the point of murder.  The reality is that Cain was not Entitled to anything … and neither are we.  We are sitting ducks for Hell that bring nothing before God.  And He owes us nothing.  He chooses to offer us a chance to have Him.

My last thought from Genesis 4 is that of Responsibility.  Cain’s very question:  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is easily answered.  Yes.  Yes you are your brother’s keeper.  This means that if your enemy hurts you, if your friend overlooks you, if your trusted colleague makes you look bad … no matter the situation … you are the keeper.  Not just of the person … but of the gospel.  What Jesus did, and what God did in sending Him, can not be brought down to the level of our individual grievances.  Ever.  And so … YES … YOU are your brother’s keeper.  ALWAYS.

This gospel is the ticket to eternal life.

It is a scandalous event that allows us to know God in spite of our unpayable debt.

It is the hope of the world … and it is our only hope.

Jesus’ blood is the key.  The cost He paid is beyond anything we could ever come up with.  It is not to be undervalued or overlooked.  And it certainly can’t be compared to anything that any man has done …

But isn’t that the reason that we needed Him to show up some 2000 years ago?

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

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479 The Heart Of The Gospel

In the last post, I talked about the Heart Of His Ministry, and today I would like to address the Heart Of The Gospel.

At no time in history is this message more important than today.

John 3 16 “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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

And so it is.

God loves the world.

God loves you.

And God has no condemnation for those who believe in Him.

How can this be rejected?

It is the only thing we really need to step forward.

We trade our mortality for an eternal existence to be lived out today.

I often wonder …

How will I afford that?

How can I get through this …. ?

Where am I going next?

What is in store for my kids in their future?

The reality is that all of these questions do not matter compared to the one that really does … and that is:

WHO do you believe in for your eternal existence?

And once you answer that you can build your day, and your life, around 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

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476 The Choice

Growing up in the Presbyterian church, I seemed to offend people with one comment.  I told those who asked me that I was NOT a Presbyterian, but a follower of Jesus.

That ruffled feathers … some even in my own family.

But I have never been more convicted on this very topic.

I want to preface what I write today to say that I am absolutely not against the church, any church.  I have no agenda against religion as I believe that it has benefited our communities greatly.

But my allegiance is to Jesus … and Jesus alone.  If that fits in to a church—great.  And if it doesn’t, so be it.

John has done a great deal to influence this — or should I say God’s influence on John has influenced this.  I do not believe that John could have written his incredible literary masterpiece without the help of God alone.

And so I say today … Jesus alone.

This conviction does not belong to an individual church … or religion.  After writing books in the New Testament, John was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching about Jesus and the word of God.  On Patmos, John had some incredibly hard to understand visions but continued to preach the same message.  In the book Revelation, he claims he was convicted by God to write this:

Revelation 3 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.  

This is a strange statement to me … but it implies that God has given us the choice.  And that choice is to receive Him or to not receive Him.

It doesn’t say become a Presbyterian, or a Catholic, or a Lutheran, or a Methodist, or really, ANY other religion.  In fact, John tells us in John 1 that

John 1 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

To THOSE who received Him.

To read those words is to realize … we have a choice.

Because Jesus’ life was not political … as a politician, he failed miserably (thank God).  He successfully drove away BOTH SIDES.

His life wasn’t a military pursuit.  But He drove back soldiers at the temple and stood up for the broken—no matter what the law might have been.

He could not be put in the religious category—after all, He was driven out of the synagogue and crucified for claiming to be God.  After His execution and stories of His resurrection, the church not only disliked His followers, they pursued them, imprisoned them, and killed them.  Saul lead the charge.  And only after an encounter on the road into Syria did he change his mind and become a follower.  The greatest champion of the new testament tried to squash out the followers of Jesus.  And then … he changed teams.

Jesus could not be put in the category of rich.  He had nothing but the clothes on His back at His execution.

He could not be put in the category of powerful.  He chose not to push anyone back NOR force anyone to follow.

So what can we say?

In one of the most difficult texts to understand, He meets a religious leader at night:

John 3 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night.  3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. ” 

He tells all of us:

John 3 16 “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. 

After saying that He was “Jacob’s ladder”, that anyone who wanted to follow Him must “eat His flesh and drink His blood”, and after claiming that HE was the living water, He then declared:

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

These are not the words of a prophet.  They aren’t the words of a nice guy.  These are the words of a lunatic, or a liar, or a man telling the truth.

But that being said, they are words that are worth reading.

I don’t think Jesus was crazy.

I don’t think that He was a liar.

I don’t think that He didn’t know what He was doing.

I think that Jesus knows exactly who He is … and exactly who we are.

I think Jesus loves Muslims, and atheists, and political leaders, and army generals, and prostitutes, and corporate raiders, and homeless addicts.

And, if I am reading His gospels correctly, I think that He is giving EVERYONE the same choice.

CHOOSE HIM

or 

REJECT HIM

But, as He said, “weigh the cost”.  It’s the most financial decision that you will ever make.

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

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471 The Mountain In Front Of Us

If you are like me, you have some decisions in front of you that are INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT.

This is not a heavy word.  It is an encouragement.

To remind you … “What You Have To Gain Is FAR GREATER Than What You Have To Lose”

So as you walk into the mountain in front of you … I have 4 pieces of advise.

1.  Decide To Be Great … (Not Your Position, Your Posture)

As the disciples jostled for position in a very unbalanced time, Jesus reminded them what being great truly was.

Mark 10 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

2.  Pick A Team (Loyalty Means Everything)

Our God is not a neutral decision.  I know which side I am declaring … and Joshua showed us how to do it.

Joshua 24 14 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord . 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord .” 16 Then the people answered, “Fa

3.  Love Your Enemies (YOU Are The Lion!)

As I reminded one of my athletes this past spring — YOU are the lion.  Often we see lions showing themselves in the middle of the plain … and the animals scatter.  As we approach the mountain, we must remember that WE are the lion — not the scattering zebras.  And as a member of the winning team, it should never burden us to pray for, and love, our enemies.

Matthew 5 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you …

4.  Remember Who You Belong To (My Father Loves Me!)

Probably our most important verse in the entire Bible … our belonging to God and His love of us.  This is exemplified in in Zephaniah and we would do well to plant this verse on our hearts.

Zephaniah 3 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.”

So go forward to the mountain.

And climb with Faith, Hope, and Alacrity.

To Him Be The Glory And The Kingdom And The Power … For Ever And Ever.

Amen.

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

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470 God Does Not Manipulate Or Shame

As I was talking to Angie this morning, she said something that convicted me so much.  I thought that I would share it.

In reference to something that we were conversing about, she said:

“God Does Not Manipulate Or Shame”

That’s a good word.

Sometimes we don’t know what God is leading us to.

Sometimes the decisions in front of us can stall us out and we are not sure of the direction where we should go.

And sometimes we need to start by eliminating.  And her phrase to me was a GREAT place to start:

“God Does Not Manipulate Or Shame”

As you go through your day and make decisions, you can count on those words.

Romans 8 1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 

And Paul tells us this in Romans 8 because he is being true to the gospel of Jesus, and says so in Romans 8.  “God Does Not Manipulate Or Shame”

Although I hear those words, I am always in need of a reminder.

And chances are … so do you.

God is so good.

And so patient.

And so ready to forgive.

Let’s celebrate Him and the fact that nothing can undo or distort what Jesus did.

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

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469 Build Your House On Solid Rock

The sandstone at Lake Powell is an amazing and beautiful picture of the absolutely awe-inspiring creation of God.

But it is an incredible testimony to what Jesus said in Matthew 7.

Matthew 7 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 

25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

In the time that we have docked our boat this week, rocks have been covered and they quickly erode into the water and fall away.  Even some of the ground that is walked on goes from stone to sand in the snap of a finger.

Why does no one have a house on the edge of this incredible body of water?  Simple answer.  The sandstone.  The foundation could be gone as quickly as the rising and falling water.  What looks to be stable and solid is simply able to fall and sink into the water so quickly that it is absolutely humbling.

And so it is with each of us … AND … with all of us.  

For each of us is it true as we, as individuals, must stay in alignment with the rocks of where we go and what we do and what we think and who we are … without these rocks we can lose our footing so quickly.

For all of us it is much the same.  In our groups both great and small it is easy to divide the group if we are not following the principles that will unite us.

Jesus modeled this in every way.

He modeled our individual situations as well as our group ones.

He modeled our lives in celebration and in absolute sorrow.

He modeled how to react and how to stay silent.

This is no easy word.

The storms of life can so easily sway us and knock us off course.

And finding the truth in the daily life can be difficult.

The truth, however, in the big things, is in your Bible, and your spirit connected to God, and in the counsel of a friend who will tell you the truth and not “support you just to steer free of the conflict”.

Build your house on solid ground.

Jesus is solid.  He is the rock.  He is the Living Water.  He is the Ladder that connects heaven to earth.  And He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

You can’t pick a better foundation.

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

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466 In The Blink Of An Eye

Anyone who is celebrating graduation today understands how fast it truly goes … 

1 Corinthians 15 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 

We understand that life is before us … and then an era ends.  The door closes and can never be opened again.  And it ends so suddenly.

If this stings you, I want to convict you that this … is the what many call “the curse of Adam”.  We can define that in so many ways, but it is the true nature of what we live in when we are frustrated.  This curse makes work difficult, it makes marriage difficult, it makes parenting difficult, it makes dying and even birth difficult.  It is the ugly side of the coin and never to be confused with “how can a loving God do that to us?”.  It is not a loving God who turned His back on us … it was our penchant to choose and truly lives in the fact that we turned our backs on a loving God.

And, the enemy stirs up in us the desire to blame someone else, to which I would reply:  

Do not think that you didn’t do the same thing!  You too turned your back on God and wanted to do things of your own accord.  It is the reality of every man but one.

But God.

But God has given us an option.  And it is the only deal we’re going to get.  It is the offer of Jesus.  And the Jesus offer is the deal of the millennium.  It is the hope of all men.

Take it.

As Jesus told His disciples:  Follow Me.

Take that deal.  Follow Him.

He … is worthy of our surrender

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

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464 The Biggest Lie Of This Age

I am shocked at the new movement that calls out the “hatred” in Christians.  

  • It attacks purity
  • It mocks obedience
  • It calls love hate and hate love
  • It is anti family and anti marriage

It is a shocking display of claiming to be the victim while acting as a perpetrator.

But it will never work.

Surrendering to Jesus is not a prison.  It is the release from that prison.

Surrendering to Jesus is not slavery.  It is the release into freedom.

Surrendering to Jesus is not without rules and convictions and structure.  But those are the very things that protect us.

We are God’s children.

Created in His image.

Living out a call that is so genuinely freeing that it is like winning the lottery.

Matthew 8 1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. 

 

Love … IS Jesus.

And this love will make us desire to make no demands of Him because we will want to follow.

He loves us in a way that no one can and releases us into a freedom that can never be substituted for a false narrative or a half truth.

It is the greatest love in the universe and the only hope for our survival.

This love is not to be taken for granted or perverted.

It is not to be changed or manipulated.

It is not to be distorted or compromised.

On the cross, on Calvary, 2000 years ago, He took the nails so that He could defeat the accuser of all mankind.  His accusations, his lies, and his hideous agenda will all be turned back upon him.  And there will be a day when he shames you no more.  The lion of the tribe of Judah guards his brethren … and He never forsakes them.

Don’t undersell or undervalue this love.

It is your only hope.

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

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