Life Or Death

In my last blog, I mentioned Proverbs 18:21 which says, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." When you think about life and death, rarely you think about the power our words and conversations have not only on our own life but also on the lives of others. For me, this is my biggest struggle. I often times find myself in a position that could have been avoided had I thought a little longer on what I really wanted to say. I am quick and witty and can turn any joking conversation into jokes with daggers that hurt other people. I speak my mind and I don't filter my thoughts as often as I should. I cross lines and don't realize many times the impact my words have on other people because I'll cover them with the classic line, "I was only joking." In reality, I do joke a lot and I don't really mean a lot of what I say. I just hope people know that I am only joking around. But then God gave me Proverbs 26:18-19, "Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, "I was only joking!" Wow...there's that word death again. There's one way to joke and then there is a totally different way that is deceiving or disguising the truth. Those who joke in that kind of way might as well just be shooting people with flaming arrows. Our jokes can cut deep into someone without us even realizing it. This is such a convicting thought for me, lets take a good look at what Scripture says about our words...

Proverbs 4:24 "Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you."

Proverbs 6:12-14 "A worthless person, a wicked man, Is the one who walks with a perverse mouth, who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, who points with his fingers; who with perversity in his heart continually devises evil"

Proverbs 8:13 "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate."

Proverbs 10:9, 31 "He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out. The mouth of the righteous flows with wisdom, but the perverted tongue will be cut out"

Proverbs 21:23 "He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity"

Matthew 12:34, 36 "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks…But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they will give an accounting for it in the day of judgment."

Matthew 15:11 "But what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man."

Ephesians 4:29 "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

Ephesians 5:4 "And there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks."

Colossians 4:6 "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

2 Timothy 2:16-17 "But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus." (…whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme – 1 Timothy 1:20)

James 1:26 "If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless."

James 3:5-6, 8-10 "Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be."

1 Peter 4:11 "If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God."

There are many more verses in the Bible about our words. They are so important that they can give life or death to a person's day. Proverbs 16:24 says, "Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." You have two options: life or death; how will your words impact others? I hope this has challenged you as much as it has challenged me. Father, let my words be used to speak life rather than death...

Finish The Devil's Sermons

Bluntly speaking, I used to not be the first person to throw out words of encouragement. I struggled with affirming others and I first realized it on a mission trip to Guatemala my Junior year in High School. We had these large cement blocks that each weighed about 300 pounds that we had to remove from a truck and put them in place on this large road we were building. It took about 2-3 guys to unload each block and the heat was killer. I like doing hard manual work, especially when it benefits others but I remember this girl just standing there doing nothing, encouraging us to 'keep it up'.  This particular girl bugged me and didn't do much of anything, even in the labor that didn't require much strength. In that moment, I remember being extremely annoyed by her that I wanted to accidentally drop the block on her foot. From that moment on, I didn't want to be the annoying person just encouraging people while they did all the work. I had a poor attitude toward encouragement that affected me in a negative way all together, so I just stayed away from encouraging people even when it was appropriate and necessary.

Yes, I still find some encouragement annoying. Sometimes, I just do things because I feel like God wants me to do them and I don't want to be encouraged because of it. But in most cases, encouragement is a must. It is apart of the process as a believer. In my personal experience, the devil likes to preach in half-truths. He will twist Scripture out of context, like he did while tempting Jesus in the desert in Matthew 4. The way we counter the devil's sermons is through the power of Jesus Christ given to us through His Word. We must respond in the full truth of Christ. We must never lay down and take a beating of discouragement from the devil. In fact, Pastor Steven explained this concept to our 'Generation' students and it totally changed my perspective on discouragement. He explained that every time the devil discouraged him, he would go and encourage 5 people. "That'll cost you devil," is how he said it. He went on to say that the devil doesn't discourage him as much anymore because he knows it'll cost him 5 encouraging comments to other people. It's such an easy concept yet how often do we think to do that? In this particular moment, I was actually feeling discouraged (it's funny how God works sometimes). I was moping around feeling all bad for myself...like most of us do when we are being bombarded by discouragement. When I got off work that day, I called 5 people just to encourage them. 3 of the 5 guys said it was exactly what they needed to hear and in turn, it ended up encouraging me and getting me out of my funk. Weird how that works...

I wonder what my life would be like if I just encouraged others more. I wonder what this world would be like if we all loved each other more like Christ intended. I wonder how much easier it would be to go through trials if those around us spoke life with their words...rather than death (Proverbs 18:21). I hope the next time you feel discouraged, you pick up the phone and encourage 5 people. 

Waiting - By Reggi Beasley

It’s so important to finish strong. My main focus now must be to finish strong. We have a tendency, at the end of things, to let our passion wane and our commitment decrease. Now I am trying to live out of a biblical principle I’ve known for a while: The way you finish one season is the way you begin another.

Year after year farmers hope for a better crop than the year before. This is because every time they harvest, they take the best seed from the crop to use for the next years sowing. The danger is that we get so focused on this current harvest that we often fail to set ourselves up for the next season- which is always sowing.

Everything that God does, He does through seed, time and harvest. All three seasons have challenges that come along with them. Sowing has hard physical labor; tilling, plowing, fertilizing, watering, But all of this is made tolerable because of the pending satisfaction of the harvest season. Harvest has difficulty as well. Often you have to weed out bad crop. It’s work collecting and managing your yield, but your excitement in the harvest outweighs your frustration from those difficulties.

But, by far, the most frustrating season for a believer, (or farmer), is the season of time. One of the most challenging questions every believer must answer- and it seems to be often for me- is, ‘What do I do with the waiting?’.

The reason that this question is so hard is that this difficulty was never meant for humans to deal with. We were never meant to deal with waiting. We understand collecting and harvesting- the bible say to ‘be fruitful’. We understand work- the bible say ‘multiply.’ But the waiting was never part of our original intent.

Imagine in the Garden of Eden- a perfect world removed of the dimension of time. As soon as you plucked a grape from a vine, another one immediately grew in it’s place. There was no process of wondering whether provisions would be made for you. There was only trust.

Now that we live in a fallen world, the longing for each believer is to get back to our original intent. Even though we now have to play by the rules or human condition- with all it’s limitations- we can live totally out of the spirit. We can live in faith-expectation that God is wholly good, and that He is our sole source of satisfaction.

What if we were fully convinced that provision would always be there? What faith steps would you be taking if you were persuaded that if you stepped out of the boat, you could walk on water? What mountains in your life would be removed if only you believed?

I said it before: The way you end one season is the way you begin another. What if we begin and end every season in faith? And then, even more, what if we endured every season in faith?

Now, faith is being sure of what you hope for…

Deliverance vs. Development

I heard something from our Creative Pastor, Larry Hubatka that I just wanted to share and elaborate on. I think it is something that most of us have gone through during some point in our lives. It is this concept of Deliverance vs. Development. Often times we find ourselves going through some kind of struggle, time of discipline, uncertainty, abandonment, and/or anxiety. It becomes difficult to have a positive attitude and you just don't understand the purpose of what you are going through. We start to pray to God that He will remove the thing that we call a "burden" but in reality this burden is a blessing in disguise. What we want God to deliver us from God wants to use to develop us. Hosea 2:14-15 says, "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt." God will take you out into the wilderness...out into the desert but he will speak tenderly to us. He will take us through the Valley of "Trouble" with a door of hope. God must develop us in order to use us. Graham Cook says "The desert is about discovery." God will take us through the desert over and over again until we figure it out. We never go through something that God is not going to use for His purpose and plan. Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good for those who love Him. Be encouraged because the very thing that you are going through right now is by design from your Maker. He doesn't want us to miss the purpose of His development process. 

Is Jesus Enough?

I was reading a little John Piper a couple days ago and he said something that made me drop the book immediately and re-evaluate my life and love for Christ. He said, "If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?" Wow. Do I really love Jesus the way I claim too? Is my life a reflection of what He has done in and through me? When people look at me, do they see Jesus? Is my goal to make my name great or to make Jesus famous? Pastor Judah Smith closed the Newspring Leadership Conference last month with this one question..."When did Jesus become not enough?"

Often times I find myself thinking things like, well if I had his gifts or if I had that opportunity...but why don't I just pick up Jesus more? Pastor Steven says, "Somebody could win with the hand that you've been dealt." Meaning, use what God has given you because God has given you everything you need to be successful. I lack no good thing for everything I need comes from the Father. Philippians 4:19 says that God will give you all your needs according to His riches. Then you have 2 Timothy 4:16-18 where Paul explains that everyone has deserted him. But then he says something that many of us today seem to just read over and not really take literally. Verse 17, "But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength." Paul had nobody, literally. He was in prison and yet he can write Philippians 4:4, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice!" He writes this and leaves his life as an example of one sold out for Christ because Jesus was all he needed. The great thing about God is we get to have a loving relationship with Him. Even in all my troubles, struggles, hardships, and persecutions I get God and that is enough. Are you trying to find joy, purpose, and meaning in things other than seeking to be with God? Now is a good time to evaluate. Now is a good time to fall in love with Jesus because He is all you need. Is He enough for you?