Prayer - First Step

How do you pray?

Most prayers are like mine....help me, bless me, keep me, lead me, strengthen me, oh yeah take care of my family, but mostly me..me...me. What if we went our whole adult life and missed the point of prayer?

In Matthew 6, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray! These men were good Jewish boys they had been praying all their life...why did they need to be taught? Because maybe they had done wrong. Could be they had went their whole life and missed the point of prayer?

What is the point of prayer? What if prayer was not about my needs and wishes? What if we prayed all our life and missed...Him.

In Matthew 6, Jesus said the FIRST step in learning to pray...is to go in your room and close the door. Location is important. Jesus said if you want to take the next step in prayer, and really learn what prayer is all about than go in your room and close the door. We also learned this passage that Prayer is not about HOW you say it, or HOW WELL you said it...prayers are not about being eloquent. It also does not matter how long you pray. And here is the major issue...this is key...Jesus said that he already knows what we need before we ask.

So if I go in my room and close the door and He already knows what I need, than what am I supposed to say in there? If you are thinking that, than you are ready to truly understand what prayer is all about.

REMEMBER THIS WEEK

• Go in your room and close the door.
• Don't worry about how eloquent your words are.
• It does not matter how long or how short your prayer are.
• Don't worry about telling God what you need, He already knows.

Next time....will talk about how to pray! What do you say behind close doors to God?

I Long for Jesus...

I look out the blinds, waiting...
I find myself rolling down the window, looking out...
I find myself as I walk looking up, wondering when...
I long for Jesus.

I look to others and see, busyness....
I look at people in their cars as they travel, careless...
I look at people as they move about, with their heads down...
Where is their longing for Jesus...

Where is the anticipation...
Where is the longing...
Why are people not getting ready, prepared...
Have we forgotten that He's coming again...

A Better Day is Coming...
A Happier Day is Coming...
A Day of Healing is Coming..
What a Day it will be!

I look to the sky...and I long for Him!

What is it going to take?

What will it take for Christians to realize that if we are not reaching our communities for Jesus Christ that we will cease to exist, not to mention the important factor that we are ignoring the very mission we were given by Christ. (Matt. 28:18-20)

As Southern Baptists we have been trained to believe that the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board do "missions" for the local church. So we sit back and give to the Cooperative Program and expect them to do the work of missions.

What will it take to change that perception? Christians need to realize that we are missionaries called to reach the community around us.

We need to become:

• incarnational missionaries in our communities,
• learn the language and culture around us,
• engage the culture with the transforming message of the Gospel, &
• actively participate in contextualizing the methods that we use to reach people.

This is what missionaries have been doing in Africa, in South America, and all over the world for years, and we need to teach our people that every Christian is a missionary called to reach the people around them. Every Christan has a circle of influence at work, in their neighborhood, and in their home, and they need to begin to look at their co-workers and their neighbors as the mission field.

What is it going to take? We still have time to reach people, but it is going to take every Christian fulfilling the role of a missionary and for some that will be a radical life change, to realize that you are NOT just at that job to make money or to provide for your family, but that you are there placed by a Holy God in order to reach those co-workers. It is a drastic change of thinking, but it has to be done in order to reach people with life changing message of Jesus Christ.

What is it going to take?

First Year as Pastor

Here are some random thoughts and lessons I've learned my first year. These are not original thoughts but thoughts that I had to originally learn on my own!

• Let God lead and guide me, not any committee or any person.
• Do whatever you can to get momentum and then fight, kick, and scream NOT to lose it.
• It is easy to get comfortable. Don’t let that happen.
• You quickly learn the darkside of leadership in yourself and those who are in leadership around you- wow can it change people!
• Developing leaders around you is easier said than done
• Keep it fresh or you will leave.
• Take Sundays off. It is good to reengerize your batteries and I am not doing well at this. Learning that church will be fine and not exploding when your gone is a hard lesson to learn.
• Take off during the week.
• Stay flexible.
• Creativity and innovation is key to survival in church
• Making time to love God is essential to daily living
• Learning to not be scared to preach on giving or to preach the difficult issues even when it steps on peoples toes.
• It is about Jesus and people. Nothing else.
• Don't take advice from someone who hasn't been where you are wanting to go!
• If you lose your church, God might give you another one. You lose your family, you’re done.
• Push your people to live lives that reflect the Bible.
• Go after the unwanted people. You CAN build a church with those no one else wants.
• Other Churches in our area are NOT our competition.
• When it quits being fun, step back and figure out why.
• Lead as God tells you, not as others think you ought too.
• There are times you have to do what others think is crazy and do it standing alone. That is called being a leader.
• Loving people even the ones that you drive you nuts.
• You need friends in the ministry. They have been there, done that, got the T-Shirt to prove it.
• If you can do anything else and be happy then do it. I can’t. I love this thing.
• Don’t be afraid of shaking it up.
• Seeking to save the world one life at a time is essential for the church or it dies.
• Hire ahead of your growth.
• If you wait until you can afford to hire, you will never do it.
• Know the vision God has given you and let nothing or no one change it.
• I am never 100% about any decision I make. If I can get to about 85%, I’m good.
• Small groups that work are an amazing and powerful thing.
• Find one or two mentors then shut up and learn from them.
• Enjoy the ride. Far too many guys miss out the awesomeness of the ride.
• There is nothing sweeter then a changed life.
• I’m as excited and sold out to this thing as I was the day when I preached my first sermon
• I am the MOST blessed person in the world to pastor this church.

Great Love!

Is it not GREAT that we have love!

This gift was made possible by God giving us freedom. The freedom of choice, to choose what is good or choose what is evil. He could have made us into robots without freedom, and made us to do whatever he pleased, but he didn't. God wanted us to love him freely, and forced love is never love!

Is it not GREAT that we have love!