A Sheath With No Sword

I wanted to let you guys in on something I started almost 2 weeks ago. I had a conversation with a friend of mine where we were talking about life, the bible, etc. and at one point of the conversation I wanted to make a point using a specific quote from scripture to validate what I was trying to say. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quote the scripture and to make it worse, I didn’t even know what book of the Bible it was in…I just “knew” it was in the Bible somewhere. I left that conversation very frustrated with myself. So I began to think about the whole thing and play it back in my head and tried to think of all the scriptures that I knew by memory. The list of memorized verses was frighteningly short. At the next moment, by God’s providence, I began to recall everything that I knew, basically, by heart. I was very convicted by what I knew by heart in comparison to what I didn’t know. I could recall whole movies (Dumb and Dumber, Anchorman, etc.), whole songs (most of these should remain nameless), complete MLB lineups (past and present), and telephone numbers from my childhood, but no scripture!!

Here’s where God really grabbed my attention…The few verses I did know were all rooted in MY benefit. I knew what the Bible had to say when it came to MY salvation, but knew almost nothing outside of things that “pertained to ME’. Why do I care so much about MY salvation and don’t really pay much attention to the other parts of scripture?? It’s because I’m self-centered at the core and more concerned with ME rather than God and HIS glory. How hypocritical it is to say I love the God of my salvation, but not really care about what He’s said about Himself or any other part of scripture enough to know some of it by heart?? I know that “all scripture is God breathed and profitable…”, So I’m not knocking on the verses that I and many of you know, but we miss so much when all we know is John 3:16 and a verse or two out of Philippians.

How are we supposed to “meditate on His law day and night…” unless it’s known by heart?? There are lots of times where I don’t have my Bible handy. How am I supposed to fend off the devil with out a sword to fight with?? Satan is millions of times more powerful than we are…our only hope is when God’s word abides in us.

So what I have started is nothing fancy…I’ve simply started trying to memorize scripture. I started with Psalm 1 and 51…and for the first time in my life I have meditated on God’s word using memorized scripture. It is AMAZING the difference!! For those of you who do this already you understand…for those of you who don’t, TRY IT. God really does something supernatural through this…I can’t explain it. All I do is pray and seek God’s help with the memory and pray that He would help me delight in it’s truths…

So it’s my prayer that those of you who aren’t doing this that you would give it a shot…and for those who already do it, be encouraged!! Let’s be a people who craves knowing and understanding scripture…

- Nolan Gottlieb

Prayer Agenda

"And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him." Matthew 6:7-8 ESV

I find myself often feeling guilty about my prayer time. So at times I'll rush up some prayers and find myself after it feeling even worse. I guess I just get lazy, and that's convicting to even admit because when we pray God is right there. He doesn't sit prayers out! He already knows my needs so why am I so pressed to tell him right away? I gotta line up prayers with God's word. From finances to sex, what doesn't the Bible tell us!? It blows my mind how true and relevant it is. So here we go:

1. Confess Sins (pour it out)

2. Holy Spirit takes over (can't happen without #1... get the flesh to shut up)

3. Petitions of Praise

       -what God has done for me, and others

       -remind him to remind yourself all he's done for you (so many blessings we take for granite)

4. Petition of Needs

       -your last! Matt 6:7

Let's try to hold each other accountable on our prayer life. Prayer Warriors!!! Let's take it serious and "pray so much we need some knee pads." - Andre 3000 

E-Outreach

Spiritual Maturity

"For you know when your faith is being tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." -James 1:3-4

I just recently finished a commentary on the book of James. It was an easy read and was very informative to me and a good buddy of mine. The main theme throughout the book was maturity. Whether it be in relationships, prayer, trials, or the general church itself, James is a great "how to" guide in becoming spiritually mature. Good thing I read it because I have a long way to go!!! Praise God for that!!! I want to keep this email short today and hit you guys with 12 questions that the author asks you in the last chapter... Try and take some time to really think about each one.

1) Am I becoming more and more patient in the testings of life?

2) Do I play with temptation or resist it from the start?

3) Do I find joy in obeying the Word of God, or do I merely study it and learn it?

4) Are there any prejudices that shackle me?

5) Am I able to control my tongue?

6) Am I a peacemaker rather than a troublemaker? Do people come to me for spiritual wisdom?

7) Am i a friend of God or a friend of the world?

8) Do I make plans without considering the will of God?

9) Am I selfish when it comes to money? Am I unfaithful in paying my bills?

10) Do I naturally depend on prayer when I find myself in some kind of trouble?

11) Am I the kind of person others seek for prayer support?

12) What is my attitude toward the wandering brother? Do I criticize and gossip, or do I seek to restore him in love?

Pretty strong questions, and some pretty strong No's getting checked on my end. Thanks for your time.

Be Blessed,

Blake Hawksworth

Lets Make A Deal

I graduated from high school and entered into community college with everything in my life seeming to be heading on track for the story that I had written out for myself. I was going to be a Major League Baseball player and this community college thing was the next step towards achieving that dream. Education was secondary, and I was heading to college solely to pursue a degree in baseball. Middle Georgia College had a high reputation as a junior college baseball powerhouse and had sent many players on to bigger and better places. I wasn’t attending school for any other reason but to pursue my dream which just happened to be outside of any classroom. But why? Education is extremely important and beneficial, and yet, I cared so little about what was going on in the classroom. Why was I so set on being a Major League Baseball player that everything else didn’t seem to matter? What was my motivation? Sure, being a great professional athlete is every little boy’s dream, but I was no longer a little boy so there had to be more motivating me than just childhood fantasy. At the time, I never even considered to stop and ask myself this question but now, older and wiser, and with the gift of hindsight, I can better examine my intentions and motives, and I have discovered a most unpopular answer. You see, the more you allow God into your life, the more He brings to light what is hidden in darkness and exposes the true motives of your heart. Sure, I loved the game of baseball and therefore, I wanted to be successful at the very thing that I had dedicated so much of my time and energy towards, but I would be lying if I established the love of the game as my sole driving force. Truth is, I wanted GLORY. I wanted to be rich and famous and revered by everyone around me. I wanted to be exalted and have others look up to me in awe of my greatness, and I knew that playing in the big leagues could provide this high esteem. Now, real quick, before you start accusing me of over exaggerating or over analyzing here, allow me to try and explain myself. I am not saying that everyone who desires to be successful in life is guilty of this kind of self-seekingness. We are called to strive for greatness and to do great things with the different abilities that God has so graciously alloted to each and everyone one of us. Aspiring to be successful wasn’t my error. My error could be found in my motivation for gaining such success. I’m not speaking for anyone other than myself on this issue. God gave me a special ability, and I wanted to use that ability to promote myself rather than promoting the greatness of God. I know this to be true because of the way in which I pursued the emptiness of popularity and the applause of spectators.

I was no dummy, or perhaps, I was actually a full blown idiot depending on the way in which you look at it, but either way, I was aware of the greatness of God and His sovereignty and knew that He could help me pursue my dream. So what did I do? I attempted to make a deal with God. “Ok, here’s the deal God, if You will grant me success and get me to the big leagues then I can use my platform as a great professional athlete to proclaim Your name.” I knew God could help me, after all, ask and you shall receive, right? It sounded like a brilliant transaction at first that seemed to benefit both parties involved, but this was only because I couldn’t see the absolute wretchedness of this kind of thinking. How extremely arrogant and selfish to even conceive such a plot! Completely blinded by my own pride, I was in no way seeking God’s glory but rather my own. I was attempting to use God for selfish gain. I had exalted myself to a position that I was never intended to have and was attempting to snatch the pen out of God’s holy hand and write my own life story. I had forgotten or perhaps never understood who I really was in Christ.

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesian believers, he tells the Gentiles there to remember who you were before Christ saved you. Remember that you were looked down upon by the Jewish nation and considered unclean. Remember that you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. Remember that you were the mutts with no pedigree, but now by the grace of God through Jesus the Christ, you who once were far away have been given citizenship in God’s kingdom. This idea of remembering who we were before God saved us keeps us humble and halts the advancement of ourselves. Often times, we need to be put in our place and know our role. We need to remember that we are the creation and He is the Creator. We are the lump of clay and He is the Potter. If you think of yourself more highly than this then you are guilty of exalting yourself. And if we rise up against God then we are most certainly going to fall. This was that first great sin in the garden and ask yourself how that one has turned out. Now you may be quick to retort, “but we are the special creation made in the image of God”? Yes, I agree with you but remember, we were also made from dirt. Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought. Too often we get this crazy notion that we have some wisdom to offer God and can better help Him write His story. This is foolishness! God is the great Author of life and we are merely the characters in the play. We can no more change God’s plans and purposes than an actor can alter the writings of Shakespeare. We can give a bad performance but never alter the story.

- Terry

Praying On The Basis Of His Word

Let us continue our study of Psalm 119 and see what God has to teach us about praying on the basis of His word.
“I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.” Vs. 147
Consider a businessman facing a crisis in the business. Perhaps it is a cash flow crisis. (Have you ever had one?) Perhaps a key customer has gone elsewhere. Perhaps a key employee has left, or the bank has called the note. (Any of these sound familiar?) This passage tells us to first rise before dawn to cry for help. Why before dawn? How do we communicate to God that the issue is serious, and we desperately need His assistance and rescue? By focusing on Him and sacrificing the thing most important to us – our time. At dawn, there are no interruptions. Dawn is well before the business activities get underway (in most businesses). By meeting God at dawn, we are giving Him the best time of the day, and making our time with Him the foundation for the rest of the day.What is the basis for our cry for help? We cry because we have put our hope in God, through His word. It is not the Scriptures that save us. It is God working through His Scriptures. So we place our hope in His Word, because our hope is in Him. Our cry for help is a means for expressing our faith and trust in Him. If we trust Him, we will cry out for help. If we do not trust Him, but rather trust ourselves, then we will not pray and not cry out to Him. And He has no obligation to help us.
”Hear my voice in accordance with your love; preserve my life, O Lord, according to your laws.” Vs. 149
We remind Him of His incredible love for us, and ask Him to listen to us on the basis of that love. We claim His promises (such as Matt. 6.33 and James 1.5) and base our prayer for rescue on those promises. It is according to His laws (His Scriptures) that we are asking Him to preserve our lives. We need to know what His Scriptures promise, so we can claim those promises in our requests.So when trouble and difficulties strike (and they will), rise at dawn, before anything else gets underway. Have read His word, and know some promises -this know them well. Place your hope in them. Believe them to be true. Prepare for the meeting with God, as you would for any other important meeting. Put your hope in God through His word. Then cry out to Him. Ask Him to rescue you. Trust Him to do as He has said. Trust Him to hear you, in accordance with His incredible love for you. Cry out to Him. Expect (trust) Him to preserve you according to (consistent with) His word. Then meet Him the next day, and the next day, and the next. Make it a lifestyle, and come to know Him by experience in ways you never would have otherwise. Watch Him rescue you, and praise Him for it.

If I were the devil by Paul Harvey

Paul Harvey talking about the state of the world today

http://tinyurl.com/32kc3rb

Laminin (like sheep's wool?)

God's inside joke. You have probably seen this, but I came across it today. Not life altering, just thought it was a good example of God's humor

http://refreshingword.org/laminin.aspx

D.A. Carson "For Love Of God"

"People do not/ will not drift towards holiness apart from grace driven effort. People do not just gravitate towards prayer and obedience to scripture. Instead we drift towards disobedience and call it freedom, we drift toward superstition and call it faith, we cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation, we slouch into prayerlessness and delude ourselves with thinking we have escaped legalism, we slide away from Godliness and convince ourselves we're liberated."
D. A. Carson

Warship Turns To Worship

John 4:24 "God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and truth." -NKJ-

Psalm 34:9 "O fear the Lord, you His saints! For there is no want to those who truly revere and worship Him with godly fear." -Amplified Bible from biblegateway.com-

A year or 2 ago I shared my 1st worship experience that I had ever had with the King (Jesus). It had taken me years to warm up to the idea of actually enjoying the 30 minutes of songs and worship before my pastor would get into the message for the day. I often wondered why people were so weird (raising their hands and crying, etc...) at church. Years later I was at church during spring training and before we got to our seats Blake had warned me about a teammate who was there with us by saying "Jules, this dude lets loose during worship so be prepared." I knew this guy pretty well and had played with him and he had all of our respect regardless of what he did off the field. We were all believers who were sold out for Jesus in our own minds but when I saw this guy sing and cut it loose during worship I was very uncomfortable but it was a different type. I was feeling small, I felt like I had more to give and get (I was holding back) and that day it started to burn in me. Fast forward 2 years, I'm on a men's retreat crying because God had revealed to me that my sinful pride has been in the way from allowing me to experience another level of God's goodness. I cried my face off and shouted (in worship) at the top of my lungs out to God, hands to the sky"He (God) is mighty to save!". I felt God's presence like never before, the Holy Spirit running through my veins filling me up with such an intense sense of life, I'll never forget it. My relationship with the Lord would never be the same and I knew it, I was so pumped to have this gift.

Now, I get a smaller version of the Holy Spirit running through my veins in church, one that isn't as intense as the way I had been moved in those mountains (Sierra Nevada - Lake Arrowhead) that weekend. I occasionally wonder why and this morning it hit me, it hit me real hard. The reason I don't experience the Lord like I did that weekend on the retreat is because of my sin. I continue to make the choice not to press in on Sundays, I just go half way (give or take a few). I don't cut it loose, and it's my sinful pride or maybe laziness that keeps me at a distance when God is calling out to me with arms wide open "come closer my son, I have more for you"! I have been allowing myself to believe this lie that I can only dive deep when I'm in the mountains on a men's retreat and that is a ridiculous lie. It makes me wonder what other limiting beliefs I have in my life that need to be squashed. Bottom line is that's it's time we cut it loose in church and fight the war over worship. Our pride (or whatever it is for you) and God are at ends here and this battle is going on inside of us and we have the final say as to who wins this war. Are you willing to fight this battle are you strong enough to wage another war against sin and death? What limiting beliefs is the enemy telling you to keep you in the back of the bus and off the frontline? No more, no more....

Thanks for your time.

The Quest For Character

We're all chasing something. No question about it, if we unpack our desire and motivation it comes right down to a quest for some feeling we want to experience. John MacArthur wrote a small book "The Quest For Character", in which he references 2 Peter 1:5-8, the character of an effective disciple/saint.

2 Peter 1:5-8 "... make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you posses these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

If we make our primary goal to obtain all these characteristics, we'd be pretty well off in the peace, purpose, and fulfillment department. Reality is that we don't and I'm as guilty as any. It's hard, life happens and in a world where distraction is a battle every minute, how can we win? Think about how distracted we are, we will have in person conversations and check in coming text messages at the same time likes it's no big deal. How rude is that, how rude am I? What I want to challenge all of us on today is to stop at the end of each day (on the ride home or wherever) and ask yourself if you added or built any of these characteristics today. Make it a priority to grow in these areas and see what happens to your life and walk.

"Love is not a separate quality distinct from other virtues. ...it's the perfect expression of them combined."
Johnny Mac "The Quest For Character"

For you Waino

Lecrae, Flame, Tedashii, Thi'sl at Legacy Conference 2010 from Rapzilla.com on Vimeo.

Foreman Grill

Psalms 34:8 "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him."

I probably speak for many of us when I say that the Foreman Grill has been worth it's weight in gold. In my career as a consumer of cheap meats, frozen in a package, I have watched this device turn mud into magic. I love to watch the fat drip off the meat guaranteeing that my mouth will only experience the leanest of portions. Up until my recent meat smoking trials on the barby, the Foreman Grill was tough to beat, it was highly efficient. This morning my pal and I were in the Word and we both got hit with this picture of our lives (in Faith) being like a slab of meat on a Foreman Grill. We come to the grill (Jesus), take a leap to experience the heat (the Spirit or what everyone is talking about, "this Jesus thing"), and watch as the fat (sin) drips off and we become a more pure and enjoyable piece of meat (human being). Our desires change, our dependence on worldly recognition disappears, being stressed out by the things of the world fade away. We become more ready to meet the King.

I say all this in relation to the above verse because we have to take the step/leap or even chance on Jesus. Give God a try, taste a little bit of Jesus, pick up your dusty Bible and put your nose in it, smell it, feel it, hear it, but first of all like an infant who puts everything in it's mouth, taste it. Taste and see that the Lord is good! He is all we need, try it out one time.

New Trip Lee Album is out...

Why Do We Do What We Do?

"We try to manage behavior in the hope that it will change alienation (being apart from God) but the scriptures teach that alienation is handled (Christ's sacrifice) so that takes care of our evil deeds (sin)"
Matt Chandler

This really hit me today and reminded me of how my foundational instincts (which are sinful by nature) are to manage my behavior in order to draw closer to God or to reap blessings. It's crazy because I know better than to do this but yet the battle is still heavy. I keep trying to earn his love and blessings and it leads me to being depressed because my mind condemns me. But I know better because of Romans 8.

Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

We aleady have the victory so let's draw closer by not being strangers to His Word (reading, podcasts, church, fellowship, etc...)

I would love to hear some stories or other methods how people draw closer to the Lord.

For Freedom Has Come

Fellas on the day we celebrate our independence and freedom as a nation I can't help but think of also celebrating our freedom in Christ. Here is a short video of a benediction or poem by Jimmy Needham. It always hits home with me. Enjoy.

trying to die to myself,

-tmart