All In A Days Grace

  Many times, during the Lenten season we talk about giving things up. We try to go through a time of penitence. The different things that are often sacrificed for the sake of discomfort this time of year are things like; chocolate, desserts, carbs, coffee and social media. Our goal is to feel the sting of sacrifice. I think if we’re honest though, in this day and age, there’s not a whole lot we can do to put ourselves in a completely sacrificial posture. Let’s get real with each other for a second Western world…..we’ve got it pretty good. The main purpose of “giving up” things in Lent, is to bring us closer to God; to prioritize God; to put God in the center of our minds and lives; to make God the focal point. So, when we give something up, we need to ask “Will this bring me closer to God?” I think though, if we’re going to approach the angle of sacrifice even a little, it’s to “take something on”. Every conversation these days seems to either begin or end with how bus...

  Since last week there has been revival lighting up the campus of my seminary in Wilmore Kentucky. Asbury University and Asbury Seminary are presently dealing with an influx of people from around the country and world traveling to their campus to get a taste of this beautiful revival taking place. I’ve heard it said over and over. “It all started with a regular Wednesday chapel service and just evolved into something so much more.”   Words like awakening and revival have been used. Some choose to not call it anything, as not to put this holy time in a box with a name. With or without a label, what is happening there is nothing less than incredible and beautiful. People repenting, worshiping, praying and healing.   People want to “come and see” and others don’t want to leave this amazing out-pouring of the Holy Spirit. As this event in time continues the question arises ….”how long will it last?” In the hospital when someone passes out, you grab the smelling salts...

  We underutilize ourselves as Christians. Often times we cling to the scriptures that validate our feelings of smallness and insecurities while completely ignoring the scriptures that validate our strengths. Did you know that you have God given strengths or have you been so busy focused on your shortcomings to even notice? God is, and will always be, supremely seated on His Heavenly Throne. We are to be humbled by that fact and live a life knowing that He is God..and we are not. Yet… in His undeniable sovereignty and strength is His desire to impart and bless us with gifts through the power of The Holy Spirit. Last week I spoke about the importance of humility in our faith walk. It’s important that we don’t get too caught up in the things that we deem as strengths, while forgetting that we live by the Grace of God. But there’s a balance going on. God gives us His gifts of strength and asks us to allow those strengths to move through us in order to bless those around us....

  People misunderstand what it means to be humble. Humility is not self deprecation. In the true sense of the word, humility is really self-appreciation; but not just in the human way that we appreciate. It’s seeing ourselves as God see’s us. Who are we in the light of the ascension of Christ? We are reflections of Gods Spirit into the world.  We are the light of Jesus into the darkness through the power of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, since the deception of the serpent in the Garden of Eden we tend to default to a lie. What is the lie? That we can be like God. When we allow that lie to reign true in our life, we push God off His thrown and try to take His place. He is God…we are not. So there is this fine balance between thinking too much of ourselves, and dismissing the power within us. Paul said it so well when he said “Don’t think more highly of yourself then you ought to think, but think with sober judgment.”-Romans 12:3 Through the blood of Christ and His ...