The Sweet Spot

I love the game of golf. I am not by any means a good golfer. As a matter of fact, I pretty much stink at golf, but that doesn’t stop me from going to the driving rang and it doesn’t keep me from playing a round of golf from time to time. I usually play golf with my wife as she isn’t much better.

In golf, when you hit the ball at the right spot on the club, they call that the sweet spot. Now several things have to happen all at once to accomplish this feat. You have to have your grip on the club the right way. Your stance needs to be right. You have to swing the club correctly and not too fast or too hard, but at the right speed. You can’t lift your head up too soon. You have to use your lower body moving in the right way.

All those things have to line up and occur for you to hit the ball on the sweet spot. And how do you know when you hit the ball on the sweet spot? Oh, you will know. You end up hitting the ball effortlessly, you will hear a high pitch “teek”, and the ball will travel much further and straighter than all of your other shots. For weekend hackers, it doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it feels very nice.

This is the same with your calling in life. I am reading Max Lucado’s book “The Cure for the Uncommon Life”. He talks about the two criteria you need to find your “sweet spot”. What is it you love to do and what do you do very well? As I said at the beginning, I love golf, but I don’t do this well. So, I know I won’t be on the PGA tour in this lifetime.

Can I be totally transparent with you? I love to talk in front of crowds. I often have dreamed of speaking/ preaching in front large crowds and people coming up afterwards telling me how I just inspired them or how what I told them changed their life. I know that is all pride talking there. The Lord keeps reminding me that He did not wire me that way. He wired me to work very well one-on-one or up to small groups. Whenever I get up in front of a large group, I find myself fumbling around and doing a mediocre job. But get me to meet with one person at a time and spend time with them, I shine! That’s not being boastful, because you that know me on a personal level will agree with that statement.

So that’s the question I have for you: What do you love to do and what do you do very well? Once you find out what that is, take it one step further. Whatever that one thing is, be the best at it. In Colossians 3:23, Paul writes: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

A few years ago, I was in New York at a pastor’s conference at The Brooklyn Tabernacle. I had to go to men’s room. In there I encountered a young man whose job was to clean the restrooms. While he was mopping, he was whistling the hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”. When I told him he had encouraged me, he got this huge smile on his face and told me he counted it a privilege to be cleaning the restrooms in the House of the Lord. This young man got it. He found what he loved to and did very well. And he did it with joy!

My prayer for you is that you find out how God wired you and how you put this into action. This will bring Him glory! Blessings.

I Am Not Ashamed

The other night I sat down and watched to Joel Osteen on TV for the first time in several years. As I listened to him, I was very impressed with the delivery of his message. It was very good. But if you scrape off the funny illustrations and analogies, he talked about you have to reach down inside of yourself and you have to keep going and you have to put on a smile, etc. It was all the things YOU had to do. Not one thing of leaning on the power of the Holy Spirit. He even used Scripture to make his points.

I had a hard time sleeping that night. I kept thinking of the arena being packed by people who are just being fooled by a modern day snake charmer. As I watched him that night, they had scrolling across the bottom different venues he will be at in the coming days.

The Bible is very clear warning us of the “tickling of the ear”. I am in a weekly study of 1Timothy right now. It is no coincidence the first verse we read of chapter four says: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” We have to be very careful who we are listening to and if they line up with Scripture. Paul warned the weak and the new Christian in 2Corinthians 11:3-4- "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough."

Preachers have an obligation to preach that –“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph.4:4-6)

I have no doubt nearly all of those in Osteen’s congregation; sincerely believe what they are listening to is truth. But Osteen has stated he will not preach on sin, the blood, and obviously will not preach about salvation. He is afraid of offending people. Well, brothers, the gospel is offensive to the non-believer. It is not now and never will be easy to be a true Christ follower. This is exactly why hundreds of Christians die every year across the world. Come to think of it, it is a complete insult to them when we shy away from the gospel. Paul says in Romans 1:16-17; “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

How do we know if the man preaching is right? You need to know your Bible. You also have to have a close relationship with the Lord. And lastly, you need the discernment from the Holy Spirit to guide you. Remember I told you it was not going to be easy. Just like the fashion designers can tell the knock offs from the real ones, the real Christ followers can spot a genuine from the false ones.

I know this entry has been a little longer than I usually like to go, but this one is very close to me right now. I pray you get closer to Him and that He reveals himself to you.

Blessings!!

A Huge Milestone

Well that day has arrived. Today, July 9, 2009, at 12:46am, I officially turn the Big 5-0! The funny part of this is I don’t feel fifty and I’ve been told by many of my friends that I don’t look it either. I have all my hair (& then some) and very little of it is gray. By the way, I don’t color my hair, either.

As I look back over the years, I see many good accomplishments and many mistakes I have made. All these have molded me into the person that I am today. I have been blessed to have had two great parents who loved me enough to discipline me on a very regular basis, because I really needed it. We’ll leave it at that. Okay, one thing about my dad. Let’s just say my dad played semi-pro baseball and he hit for distance. My parents also loved me enough not to only present to me the Gospel, but they lived it out.

Almost ten years ago, the Lord had to bring me to a painful place to set my path right. Looking back at this time turned out to be exactly what I needed. He restored me to be much better than I had ever been. My middle age crisis has been, “How can I get to know you better God?” He has been faithful and has revealed Himself more and more each day.

I have learned in the last ten years what it means to live under grace. Do I completely understand it? No, but I but I’m learning. It’s hard, because we live in a society where we believe we have to earn His grace, His mercy, and His love.

Many thoughts have been going thru my mind as I turn fifty, you that have know what I mean; you start really thinking of your mortality. You realize your days are numbered. But this time it’s a little more real. Especially for me in the past couple of weeks two famous people died at the age of 50, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays, the Oxy-Clean pitchman.

I find myself standing in awe of our God Almighty. I stand on awe, because in spite of my many short-comings and faults (and I’ve had more than most), He still wants to use me. He confirms each day that He has a calling on my life and I do not want to take that lightly. I want “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-4)

I also want you to strengthen your relationship with the Lord. I want to help you if I can. I am no Bible scholar, I know the One who wrote the Book, personally. I want you to experience the greatness and fullness of God the Father.

I hope you have a great day. Take time today to drink in the Word of God and press yourself into the Savior Jesus Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit to take you there.

Blessings!

The Holy Kiss

Several years ago, when my wife and I were courting, we would send little notes and cards to each other. Do you remember doing that with your wife? And as a Christian courting couple, every once in a while, she would throw a Scripture verse reference. I guess she knew I needed all the Scripture I could get. (I think she was trying to keep my mind as pure as possible.) Anyway, I would read her note and then run to get my Bible to look up the Bible passage. It never failed to encourage me and bring a joyful smile to my face. Until…

One day Stephanie sent me an encouragement card and at the bottom, she wrote: 2Peter 2:14. She meant to write down 1Peter 5:14, which reads: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” Instead imagine my surprise when I read 2Peter 2:14, which reads: “They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse.” I didn’t know how to take that verse. What was my future bride trying to tell me? Did she see me as a predator? It’s even worse in The Message: “These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end. Their evil will boomerang on them. They're so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight. They're obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they're experts at it. Dead souls!”

I later asked what she meant by that verse. Stephanie turned various shades of red when I read the passage to her. So the lesson here is to check and recheck the Scripture verse you send out to others. This has become an inside joke between my wife and me.

Blessings!