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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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468 Cry At A Wedding

When my father died many years ago I could not stop myself from crying … And then I encountered a vision of him in church one Sunday.  He was in heaven, he was happy, and he was where he wanted to be.  From that moment, the STING of losing him was gone.

There will be many times where we will legitimately cry tears of pain and anguish and despair.

Surely God has something more … In fact, we know that He has more … And so I say:

“Cry At A Wedding”

In both of these verses, God’s elect cry in joy for who He is or what He has given them:

Jeremiah 31 9 They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son. 

Luke 7 38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. 

What I recommending is not just to cry tears when we are sad … but to never forget to cry tears of joy:

As I watched Caden Wach tearfully await his soon-to-be bride come down the aisle, I was prompted by God to “cry at a wedding”.

I knew exactly what God wanted me to share out on my 2 minute warning.

When I drop my kids at the airport, I cray all the way to I-25.  I am so proud of them and I love them so much.

When my daughter Jordan came around the corner for her last 4×400 relay and she “displayed incredible courage and unselfishness”, I was proud of her beyond what I could possibly say, and I cried on the corner at Jeffco Stadium.

When Teagan Malcom, the 300 meter hurdler that I “got to coach”, ran the greatest race I have ever seen, I cried at the finish line, again, at Jeffco Stadium.

For me, it happens in locker rooms, on football fields, at track stadiums, when I am with my family, and in worship of our living King.

God has given us tears for a reason … and not always for when we are sad …

And so I say … 

Cry At A Wedding

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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463 A Game You Can Never Win

Since 1993, I have had the pleasure of dealing cards at After Prom, the all night event at the school to give our kids something to do that can add to their prom experience.

It isn’t perfect, but it is amazing.  And it is something that is very fun to be a part of.

As a Blackjack dealer I have a great view of how the game works.  Though some students stack and win and restack and can break the bank, they don’t realize that even this move is impossible in a real casino.  They put a min and a max on each table with the numbers in mind.  In order to win a lot, they have set up the table so that you have to lose a lot.  No one can win and restack because they simply won’t allow it.

And the rest of the time?  It is a bludgeoning.  As the dealer, I deal and hit hands that break them and then square off against the survivors.  They win half of those encounters and I slowly move around the table and collect the money.

It is a “A Game You Can Never Win”.

Viewing his life, I have to wonder if this very thought went to the mind of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.

Luke 15 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 

Sometimes we rebel because we are just wild.  And sometimes we do it so that we can get that BIG WIN.  And in doing so, we devalue our very being and squander our lives.

The perspective that “we can never win” is a real one.  The enemy has us trapped in a world where our future is painted in gloom.

No amount of money or fame or success or luck will change it.  Our future is sealed.  And all of us can see it.

But with Jesus?

We have the greatest future we could ever dream of.

Our lack of understanding does not change the reality of heaven:

  • Heaven will make this world the “dream state”.  It will be more real than anything that we see here.
  • Our senses will be heightened … tastes and smells … beauty … music … love … nothing will be comparable.
  • The government?  It will be ruled by the Savior of our soul and He will rule without rival or question — not because He is all powerful, but because He would be elected even if we did vote.
  • Money, Fame, Victory … all of these will be given to us in the highest measure–and yet no one will be on the losing side of them.

These things are known by Don Piper, who died and spent forty five minutes in the kingdom, only to return and tell his wife and kids that he “wished he was dead”.

Although I am glad that I have not told those I love that, I have to think that Don Piper experienced just a taste of what God has prepared for those who love Him.  

Do not entertain the thought that you are playing a game that you can’t win.  This is not how God has called you to live.

He also has not called you to live on the other side of that, conquering and winning in every arena … that leads to the same outcome.

The enemy has a plan for our lives.  And it is easy to get sucked into it.  His realm is a place where sons take inheritances while other sons sit at home bitter.  It is a place where living beneath ourselves is encouraged and then condemned.  It is a place where friends disappear when the money is gone and loyalty is replaced by comradery and an “us against them” mentality.

Let’s purpose not to do it.

It is a game we can never win.

Jesus said that He was the Way and the Truth and the Life.  Let’s do that.  It puts the ownership of winning on Him.

And He only loses when it redeems those He loves.

That’s a King I can follow.

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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462 Seeing It Before It Is (Part 2)

I can remember when my doctor, at 16, told me that “I probably would not have children.”  Looking at it today, it makes me laugh.  Five of them with two that we miscarried and all of them incredible testimonies to the God of the universe.

God decides the path of our lives.

He alone.

And He does it in a way that blesses us to the core of our being.

But we must have faith.

As far as a title, I guess I will call this “Seeing It Before It Is Part 2”.

The spring has humbled me in many ways.  There are new challenges and new disappointments.  There are new misunderstandings and new mountains to climb.

The hills and valleys of life can be very discouraging.

But I again reach back to Faith.

Hebrews 1 1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 

And this is just it.  We must be sure of what we hope for … and sometimes hope is so removed that we can’t even get half way to faith.  And so the word for today is to:  Be SURE of what you hope for.  It is to be sure of it until Jesus removes it from your dashboard and tells you to go for something else.

This is a simple word but an important one.

David knew this in his prayers and times with God.  His prayer in Psalm 18 is one that I say repeatedly.  It is hope for the day.

Psalm 18 1 I love you, O LORD , my strength.  

2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.  He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.  3 I call to the LORD , who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.

Go forward in hope.  Go forward in faith.  Go forward with Jesus.  And be sure of what you hope for “it” until He moves you on to something else.    

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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459 You Belong To Something Bigger

As I watched college basketball last night, I saw a commercial that convicted me.  Mike Krzyzewski said:

“You Belong To Something Bigger”

How prophetic.

I think that is the theme today.  “You Belong To Something Bigger”

We are sometimes trapped in a rat race that never ends.

We strive to complete our daily tasks and make our daily wage.

We chase after a security that will never come.

We desire to be immortal only to discover that we are brittle and broken.

Take a minute today and rest in the fact that “You Belong To Something Bigger”.  You belong to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  

This Jesus, the Jesus who carried His own cross to the hill on Calvary, He did it for you.

This Jesus, the Jesus who forgave the broken, He did it for you.

This Jesus, the Jesus who challenged the privileged in front of the broken, He did it for you.

And it was this Jesus who gave us these words:  “In this world, you will have trouble.  But take heart … I have overcome the world.”

Not long after this, He was betrayed, abandoned, brought before a mockery of a trial, beaten, sentenced, and executed as His clothes were gambled over by two Roman soldiers.  It was hardly the “overcome the world” that we wanted to see.  But it was the only thing that could possibly save us.

And He made it possible … So that we could Belong To Something Bigger.

As you read this verse today:

Revelation 19 11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Remember:  this was written by John after an ugly exile to Patmos.  It wasn’t the ending that he wanted for his life.

But he belonged to something bigger.

Bow before the Father today.

Commit your life to Him.

Let go of your thoughts and your theories and your vision for the way that you think life ought to be … and begin to press into what it truly is … a broken world that could never be right on its own accord, with people who could never be right on their own accord, ruled over by a God who made it right on His own accord.

Thank God that …

You Belong To Something Bigger

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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