WM - The Cleaning Aisle

Last Tuesday I had to make a Wal-Mart run to pick up a few things for Holly. As I was walking in, I stopped and watched people going in and out of the store. As I watched them I realized the reason why I was there was probably the same reason why everyone else was at Wal-Mart, they were there out of necessity. We all were at Wal-Mart because we all needed something. Then I felt God saying to me, “What if these people came to church like they come to Wal-Mart, out of a need?” Then the church would be full of people.

Well the Lord didn’t stop there. As I walked around Wal-Mart getting the things on my list, I realized how you can buy just about anything from Wal-Mart. It is a one stop shop! People go to Wal-Mart to get groceries, things for the car, medicine, and clothes. Then he showed me that Wal-Mart isn’t the only one stop shop. In reality, the only true ONE STOP SHOP is Jesus Christ Himself. The verse that came to my mind is found in Philippians 4:19. Paul writes to the Philippians saying: “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” In the Greek, the original language, all means ALL, nothing lacking. Just as we go to Wal-Mart, we can go to Christ to meet our needs.

This inspired the new series that I started preaching on Sunday. “Wal-Mart isn’t the Only One Stop Shop!” As I looked around, I saw all the departments in Wal-Mart. I saw how we can relate going to Wal-Mart to Jesus Christ in meeting our needs. So over the next several weeks I will be going to different departments of Wal-Mart and showing how Christ can meet our needs even more than Wal-Mart can!

The first message in the series was: “Wal-Mart isn’t the Only One Stop: Hitting the Cleaning Aisle!” If you are anything like me, you are really good at making messes! I know I am. Holly and I have done our fair share of remodeling houses in the past three years. We have painted, laid hardwood flooring, built a deck, tore a hot tub out of a gazebo and have added crown molding to our house. Every time we begin a job to our house there is usually a big mess that has to be cleaned up. There was sawdust, paint on places that didn’t need to be painted, and trash that needed to be thrown out. The sense of accomplishment that one has when the project is finished is overshadowed by the task of cleaning up the mess that was created! After tons of trash bags, Windex, and a few Magic Erasers along with some elbow grease, we got everything cleaned up.

You know, life is a lot like the messes we make around our homes. We seem to make a mess out of our lives. We do things in our lives that cause problems for us and our lives become a big mess. The big mess is a result of our sins. There are so many things that are ruining our lives. Drugs, alcohol, and sex outside of marriage are just a few. Sometimes we get so bogged down in our sins that we see no hope and we give up. We try so many times to clean up our lives to no avail, and when you seem to get nowhere with cleaning up your life, your life becomes miserable. Isaiah 64:4 says: “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” The sins we commit leave deep stains in our lives. The longer the filth, grime and dirt are on the rag, the deeper the stain gets. Sin is the same way, the more we keep on sinning the deeper the stain gets and the mess gets bigger which pulls us from God the Father. Truth be known, there is nothing we can do to clean up the sin in our lives.

However, there is some AWESOME and GREAT news! 1 John 1:9 says, “But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” (NLT). WOW! How awesome is that! Jesus wants to cleanse our lives! Notice that John says when we go before Jesus and confess our sins to Him, that He is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us. That doesn’t mean that He is willing to forgive us when He feels like it or not. You can count on it! He is going to cleanse you when you humble yourself before Him, tell Him what you have done wrong, and ask Him to forgive you. His cleansing is so deep and thorough that it does not leave a stain. Jesus did more work than anyone else in order to cleanse us of our sin, He went to the cross. There are no more stains and the lost hope that you once had has been restored. All the sins you have committed are gone! You have a peace and a new life in Him! See Jesus is the ultimate Magic Eraser! There is no sin or stain that He cannot clean up! Jesus Christ is in the cleansing business. He is willing and waiting to cleanse our lives of the nasty, grime, and the filth in our lives!

Every time I will walk down the cleaning aisle at Wal-Mart, I will be reminded how Jesus cleansed me of all my sins and wants to cleanse people of the sin in their lives. I thought of a commercial that someone should produce: “You want an ultimate cleaner? You have sin and stains that you can’t seem to get out yourself? Come to Jesus, He’s more powerful and mightier than Mr. Clean himself! Nothing can clean like the cleansing power of Jesus Christ!”

Listen to this sermon click here: The Cleaning Aisle

Loving the Father!

I just love it when God shows up in different areas of my life to just show me that He loves me! Yesterday as I was driving home from work, I was listening to Crazy Love by Francis Chan. In Crazy Love, Chan was talking about how much the Father loves us and used an illustration that really hit home with me. If you have kids you might connect with this. He was talking about how when he comes home that his daughter Rachel sometime runs out to meet him at his car and loves to give him big hugs. He talked about how she comes up to him out of nowhere while he is reading a book and gives him the biggest bear hug and the biggest kiss! Chan explains how he loves when it happens because it makes him feel like he is king of the world. He looks forward to those times and so do I! Last night was one of those moments I look forward to, one of those God moments. I had to meet my dad late last night so he can get my car repaired, so it was really late when I got home. The kids were in bed and Holly was waiting on me to get home so we could go to bed. As we were getting ready for bed, I heard Caitlyn. The next thing I knew she was standing up in her bed saying “Da” with her arms reaching up towards me. I reached down and she gave me the biggest hug and then kissed me on my cheek. Afterwards she lay back down and went to sleep. It was like she had waited up for me! I felt like I was king of the world! Chan goes on to tell about times when he comes home and she isn’t there to meet him. Then when he goes inside and sees her she might be on the computer or hanging out with a friend, but doesn’t seem to have time to acknowledge him or even to say hi. He said that in a way, it hurts when this happens. I can relate to this very well. There are times when I will call Caitlyn over to me so I can give her a hug or something and she is busy playing and seems to ignore me, granted she is 17 months old and she might not completely understand what I am saying. It does make me feel hurt in a way. Hopefully these times are very limited and I pray they don’t happen very often. There is just something very special when your children express their love to you!

Now here is the part that really hits home for me… Chan describes these time in a different view. He uses the times with his daughter to show that this is the way God wants us to be with Him! He can’t wait for us to come running to Him just because we love Him. Not just during the times when we “need” Him, but because we “want” to be with Him. Imagine how it makes God feel when we are excited to be in His arms! So many times we are too busy hanging out with others, doing our own things and we don’t have the time to even acknowledge Him in our day, not even to say Hi. As a dad I can relate to both of these times! I can understand that God wants to have those times with me that I can’t wait to see Him, to spend time with Him talking to Him and in His word. I wonder how sad it makes Him feel when I just seem to ignore Him or when we are just too busy for Him, except for the times when we “need” him. I guess the question really is “How much do I really love the Father?” How am I showing Abba Father my love for Him? I know my little girl loves me a whole lot! She expresses that love by her actions and the way she wants to spend time with me and the love she gives me. Last night I realized how I need to show my love for my heavenly Father! I cried out to the Lord last night on my way home from meeting my dad, just telling Him that I want more of Him and that I wanted to have that excitement to just be with Him. This morning I woke up with a great anticipation to just meet with God!

And to top it off, God showed me I was on the right track! God showed this to me in Ezekiel 23. In Ezekiel 23, the Lord gave Ezekiel a message concerning Samaria and Jerusalem which He says they were sisters. He refers to Samaria as Oholah and Jerusalem as Oholibah. In the last part of verse 4 God says, “I married them…” Marriage is a powerful analogy for the kind of relationship that God wants with us. He wants an intimate relationship with us, see Ephesians 5:22-33. (Ephesians 5:32 explains that God is using the marriage of man and wife to illustrates the relationship that He wants with us.) Now let’s go back to Ezekiel. He said the two sisters were living in adultery. The Lord said that they prostitutes because they were in love with others instead of Him. In verse 5 it says: “Then Oholah lusted after other lovers instead of me, and gave her love to the Assyrians, her neighbors.” And in verse 11, “Yet even though Oholibah saw what had happened to her sister, she followed right in her footstep.” God’s people turned their backs on Him. They were too busy for the Father; they were hanging out with others instead of Him. Calling them prostitutes may seem pretty harsh; however, God is showing how serious He takes His relationship with us! As I read this passage I could feel and hear the hurt in the Father’s voice. God did bring judgment on them, however, my point is that God loved them and wanted an intimate relationship with them, but they turned from Him. I think about how many times I have been too busy to spend time with my Father. I even said something to my wife about how I can get up at 5 AM in the morning to go hunting but I can’t get up 10 or 15 minutes early in the morning to spend time with Him. I know this has to hurt my heavenly Father! It really convicted me to think about these questions, “How much do I really love the Father?” and “How am I showing Him that I love Him?” It is my desire to grow in my relationship with Him.

The biggest question I could ask right now of anyone is this: “How much do you love the Father?” It is my prayer that everyone asks this question of themselves, and that you run excitingly into your Father's arms just to be with Him and tell Him that you love Him with all of your heart, mind and soul.

May you be “In His Grip” and never leave it!

Friends are like "Rare" Coins

As a kid I remember sitting in class at Amboy Elementary waiting for my prize for selling candy or some other contest at school. The teacher called my name and I got up and walked towards her with anticipation. With great excitement I reached out and received my prize. I looked down and I saw something that was round and silver with a lady on the front of it. I knew it was some kind of coin, but this coin was unlike the quarters, dimes, nickels or even the silver half-dollars that I had seen before. I later found out that it was a Susan B. Anthony dollar. As a young boy I thought I had something very rare, and I started looking for other types of coins. I found more Susan B’s along with some silver dollars and a couple of half-dollars with Kennedy on the front of them. However, at some point in my life I did come across a very rare coin and that coin was an Indian Head Nickel or sometimes called a buffalo nickel. The date, where the coin was made, and the condition of the coin will determine its value. Some coins that are in really great condition could be worth up to thousands of dollars, which is great since the value of the coin is only five cents. The Indian Head Nickel that I own isn’t worth all that much, but I can say I own one!

In 2003 I was going through one of the darkest times of my life. I had just moved back to Little Rock from Oklahoma City. The first night I was back in Arkansas a good friend of mine, Jason, who I have known since 6th grade, came over to see how I was doing and to hang out. We talked about many different things and he told me that if I needed anything to let him know. The next day as I began to unpack and sort through my things I found a box that contained my old “rare” coins. As begin to look at them, esp. the Indian Head Nickel, something came to my mind. Jason was just like that Indian Head Nickel. He is a rare friend, the kind of friend that would walk with you through the darkest times in your life. The kind of friend who encourages you when you are down, and gives you advice when need it. The kind of friend who tells you the truth when no one else will, and no matter how bad you mess up, they are still there for you! I remember saying to myself, “Great friends are like rare coins, hard to find, but once you find them hold on to them, they are very valuable.” I have been lucky over the years to have picked up several of these “rare” friends.

What made me think about writing on the subject of friends was a passage of Scripture. I was reading in 1 Samuel 20 when I began to think about friendships. David and Jonathan had a very good friendship during a very dark time in David’s life. King Saul, who happened to be Jonathan’s father, was very jealous of David and made plans to kill him. David was on the run trying to figure out what to do. In chapter 20, David and Jonathan made a covenant with each other to be there for each other and to watch each other’s back. Jonathan even went and pleaded David’s case to King Saul. He went to bat for David during a time when it could have meant death for Jonathan. See that is what those “rare” friends do for one another.

Having valuable “rare” friends is very important in a person’s life. God places these friends in our lives for a reason. Solomon wrote Proverbs 27:17 which says: “As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend.” Then again Solomon echoes this in the Book of Ecclesiastes by saying: “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, then other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.” (Ecc 4:8&9 NLT) I think Solomon knew what he was talking about. Besides, he is known as the wisest man to ever live, right? Everyone everywhere needs someone to help them get through a hard time in life every once in awhile. I thank my Heavenly Father for sending me three very close friends that will always be there for me when I need them. So if you do not have a friend like that; ask the Father to help you find those “rare” and “valuable” friends and remember, “Great friends are like rare coins, hard to find, but once you find them hold on to them, they are very valuable.”

Why Stop At The Door? Mark 2:1-12

Have you ever felt like you are standing a door but are afraid to go through it because of the unknown? Or that God wants you to do something for Him but you were afraid to do it? God wants to bless us in so many ways. But sometime we must go through the door that is infront of us in order to receive His blessings. So if you are at this point, here is a sermon I preached at The Church at Waterbrook on August 23, 2009. So my question to you is "Why Stop at the Door?" Listen to what the Word of God says about how to go through the door!

Click the Following to listen. Why Stop at the Door? MP3