A Guarded Heart

Proverbs 4:23

Today I learned to make a stand and commit my thoughts and my heart to Christ. It is easy to commit my actions and my words to Him, but I honestly have never thought about committing my thoughts. I am excited to experience what it will be like once I have done this. I am now aware that if you refuse to let the negative thoughts even into your mind then Christ has the authority to trump those thoughts and fill you with good. It makes sense, just something that I have never even thought about. Thoughts and attitude are powerful things. And leveraged the right way, free from the junk that we sometimes allow to fill us, our hearts can beat like Jesus'.

A Heart With Integrity

John 8:12
2 Timothy 2:11-13

We see here why we should have a heart with integrity. We see why our words and actions should be those of honesty. Most people are willing to tell "little lies" or fudge the truth a little. But the truth is, a lie is a lie. Period. And we should live an honest life where we speak truth and live with integrity so that others will see in us a purity that is identifiable. If others can't believe us at all times, why should they believe us when we tell them the good news of Jesus Christ?

-"Perhaps the question shouldn't be "Why does God demand such honesty?" but rather "Why do we tolerate such dishonesty?"
-Perhaps the most tragic death that occurs from deceit is our witness.
-God says if we are faithful with the small things, he'll trust us with the greater things.

Honesty is sometimes considered a small character trait. I think sometimes we take for granted or minimize it if someone is always honest. But we all like to have those kind of friends. Honest ones. So we should see this as a stronghold of character. We should be honest every day so that others will associate us with integrity.

An Amazing Day

The Shiny Diamond

The Festivities

The Man

Halftime

The Game Winning Catch

The Crew

An Honest Heart

Ephesians 4:15-16

Powerful day. I love how the scriptures in this section painted a perfect picture of why we should have an honest heart and why we should only speak honest words. It all goes back to the title of the devotional, "Just Like Jesus." That is why I am reading it. Jesus spoke only honest words. And God also only speaks honest words, in fact scriptures says He can not speak dishonest words. He can't. Not that He chooses not to, He can not. Powerful. So we are to model ourselves the same way.
I believe that dishonest words come out of your mouth when your words don't reflect a heart, mind, and knowledge of the scriptures that are working in harmony, a harmony that I know will only happen when your life is right with God. Or when you choose to ignore that harmony. I think your words should be a window inside you so that others can see what happens when those things are in sync. We as Christians in speaking words of truth and honesty should see that as an opportunity to show others the potential of a life that is pleasing to God. We should be transparent through our words so that others have a clear view of the life change that happens when Jesus infiltrates your life. We should not cloud the view with words of dishonesty.

Game Time

Ever since I was a young boy I have been a Dallas Cowboys fan. There is no denying it. Everyone that knows me knows I love the Cowboys. And I share that love with my Grandad. He is even a bigger fan than I am. And tomorrow we are going to the Cowboys vs. Redskins game at Cowboys Stadium! I am more excited about that than words can express!!

4 Heart Questions

Jeremiah 17:9

The P.L.A.N.

Am I fitting into God's Plan?

What are my Longings?

What are my Abilities?

Am I serving God Now?

Acronyms are easy to remember. And they are often easy to apply. This may be one that needs some going over more than once. It might be something that needs to be gone over all the time. Any time I am at a pivotal point in life I hope this pops into my head. It is a good gauge of where you are and where you are heading. And most of all, is where you are and where you are heading in the right place with God? I think the one that is going to hit hard is the last question. Now. Now is a word that is pretty direct. There is no avoiding the now in life. And if you aren't capitalizing on now, there is no one to blame but you. So that part is going to get in my face.

The Heart on Target

Luke 19:10
Mark 10:45
John 19:30

I absolutely love the first paragraph of this day (Day 16, more than half way through):

"Life is tough enough as it is. It's even tougher when we're headed in the wrong direction"

That could be all that is said and it would make an impact. Simple and true. But the author expands with example of Christ's life and how we can see that a focused heart will help us be more like Him. Christ when He lived on Earth could have been many things. He had many talents and abilities that made him uniquely qualified to do many things. Things that would have been great, things that would have made him well know, things that He would have been excellent at, but things that would have deterred Him from His true purpose here. He did come to be served, He came to serve others. He came with a purpose and He stayed on target. And when He spoke his last words He spoke them knowing that His life's purpose was fulfilled. I would love to know that when I get to the end of the road and look back I can see a life that was lived on target.

Time Flies

Wow. It has almost been a week. Yikes.
I feel like I am totally missing out when I am not in the word. I used to think that doing a devotional would be like a chore, now I am finding that it is encouraging and something that I look forward to.
So back to it....

The Heart of Worship
Psalm 100:4

This is all about entering into worship with an open heart, a heart of thanksgiving. I think this day was chosen for me right now. It connects to this time in my life two ways. First is the obvious, Thanksgiving is next week. It is a time that we reflect on what we are thankful for. This shows us that we are to do this year round and be excited about showing it. The second is a story from this past weekend (see, if I would have not skipped a few days the timing wouldn't work with the next story) we had a few technical difficulties at church. The service went over, instead of 1 hour it was an hour of worship music and then Pastor Ed began to preach. And when he started preaching he brought the thunder! If you are curious about the end of the world and you want to know what is going to go down, check out fellowshipchurch.com and watch this weekends message. It rocked! When they announced that things were running behind a few people left, sorry they missed out, but thousands of people stayed. That's having a heart of worship, I wish I would have been able to hear our worship team rock out some music for an hour. So that's what today's scriptures are about, a heart of worship. And I know when our hearts are right we can worship to our fullest capabilities.

A Worship-Hungry Heart

2 Corinthians 3:18

This is about your face during worship. God wants to transform our faces during worship. It isn't a transformation that we can force but yet a transformation from the One who formed us in the first place. God wants our faces to glow when we are in worship. And He has proven through scriptures that those who see Him, there faces will glow. And that is what we are capable of. We can be changed so that when others see us they have no choice but to recognize that we are believers that are actively in worship of the Lord. We can be a radiant light in the world.

Our Anthem

Psalm 27:1

Psalm 27:13

These verses have been a constant in our home for the last few day. At any time you would be able to walk into our house and hear one, or both of these verses flow from our mouths. We have put them in our hearts and they have been with us through the past few days. We are even singing and saying them when we aren't thinking about it. They are a part of us. We are singing, humming, speaking, shouting, anything we can to let them be heard.

So today, as I get back into sharing my thoughts online, I looked up this Psalm and read it in its entirety. It is exactly what I needed to hear. The two verses where enough to give me strength, but the entire Psalm made it complete. And at the end is exactly what I needed it to say. It tied in with what I just learned in my devotional. Verse 14 says, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

Practicing Intimacy

Psalm 5:4

Today talks about how to get into an intimacy with God. It gives 4 ideas on how to start unpacking the intimacy that is in all of us. We have the capability to walk intimately with God, we just have to start practicing it and getting better at it daily.
The author suggests these ways to give your thoughts to God:

Give You Waking Thoughts

Give Your Waiting Thoughts

Give Your Whispering Thoughts

Give Your Waning Thoughts

Basically, give God ALL your thoughts. If we start to do any of these we will walk a little closer to Him. And when we know that feeling it will only come natural that we will start to do the others as well. We will desire to have that constant intimacy. There comes an intimacy when we are transparent with our lives. It is natural for us to want to keep something private, like our thoughts. But when we open it all up before God and let him infiltrate every aspect of our lives we will be forced to be intimate before Him.

I like the example that the author gives to illustrate Give God Your Waiting Thoughts, he tells of an interview when Dan Rather interviewed Mother Teresa.
Rather: "What do you say to God when you pray?"
Mother Teresa: "I listen."
Rather: "Well, then, what does God say?"
Mother Teresa: "He listens."

An Intimate Heart

Psalm 23:4

God envisions a relationship of intimacy with all of us. It is what He desires for us. To have that close walk and relationship that is forever strong. Today's writings show just three quick examples. We are to be like the branches on a vine. There should be no visible way to tell where one stops and the other starts. The second is the example of God always being present in the temple. God's presence is ALWAYS in the temple. And scriptures (1 Corinthians 6:19) tell us that our bodies are to be temples in which the Holy Spirit lives. Showing us that the presence of God is always with us. That is re-assuring. The third is we are to have a relationship that mimics a marriage. We are called to be the bride of Christ. And we should reflect the intimacy and the daily interactions of a marriage. The openness and communication of a marriage is what makes it strong, and that is how our relationship with God should be.

My Happy Place

Yes, this is my night stand.

This is what I see every day when I crawl into bed. It really does bring me joy every time I see it. That is why I am calling it my happy place. The figure is the church that Mandi and I got married in 5 years ago. My grandparents gave it to us, they were members of the small historical church when it was established. What a special gift. The poem in the picture frame was given to us on our wedding day by Mandi's grandparents. It is personalized with our names and the date. The cross (which is hard to see, it is a camera phone picture) was also a wedding present. When I look at this arrangement I am reminded of our wedding day and of the role that family plays in our lives. It's my happy place.

And this. This is Lillian's happy place:

God's Translator

Colossians 1:15

Over the past few weeks I have been learning about the characteristics of Jesus. Some of the roles that He took on. And some of the ways He conducted Himself on Earth.

Today is about a way of life. He is always a translator for God. He doesn't do or say anything unless it is spoken from God first. He lets God's words and ways flow right through him. Emotions, words, and actions. What a way to live. A perfect reflection of God on Earth. Everything that is happening through Jesus on Earth is a translation of what God is saying from Heaven. And this is what God desires for us. It is all about living like Jesus, so this is no exception, we should be living our life as a translation of the Word.

In this section the author writes about Romans 8:29. I have heard Romans 8:28 many times. It is a feel good verse. But when I read about verse 29 about being "predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son" it made me wonder how it all reads in context. So I opened my Bible. If you read 28 thru 39 it will have a different meaning to you. It isn't about everything being gumdrops and lollipops, it is about even the difficult things working to the greater good of God. I am glad I opened up the Word and got filled up this morning.