Dependable God

So it just so happens I have to write this post on a different computer than my own. That’s right, my computer has a virus! If you know anything about me, you know that for the past year my computer has caused me a lot of stress. I’m not here to start a debate about if Windows or a Mac is better, but I will say that my computer can be very unreliable at times. In fact so can all types of technology, all people, and basically anything of this world. Then God reminded me of something. He is always faithful and always with us as his Children.


“9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” JOSHUA 1:9


“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” JOHN 16:33


“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. Selah. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.” PSALM 46:1-3,7

He shows us and tells us all the time in our life and in his word that He has never left our side. We must seek to remain in Him, trusting in Jesus. If we focus on the outside or on our lives, we are surely seeking after the temporary.

God will never leave your side,

He has overcome the world in your life,

And he is our refuge!

He Will Rock You

So the other day I decided to go back through my Rocky DVD Set and watch them all again. I got to about Rocky 3 and didn’t have time to finish it yet. It’s funny how God moves and uses things you’d never think of. I was sitting with some friends talking about dying to the flesh and God spoke to me about something. In Rocky 3, if you can remember, Apollo decides he is going to train Rocky for his next fight with Mr. T. He takes Rocky back to his old gym and when he walks in the place he says something that struck me. he said, “Rocky, you see that look in their eyes. They’re hungry, Rock. That’s that look you had when you fought me. That’s the look we need to get back. That’s the eye of the tiger.” You see what I’m getting at here? There are people who are reading this blog today who have lost that Hunger, like Rocky did. That will to fight the fight.

Some of us need to ask god

To help us get back our

Spiritual eye of the tiger!

Get this, God’s Word says something amazing about this. Check it out!

“6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” MATTHEW 5:6

Did you catch that? When we Hunger for righteousness, we will be filled! When you ask God for that Eye Of The Tiger, JESUS WILL GIVE IT TO YOU AND FILL YOU WITH HIS HOLY SPIRIT! Think about that for a moment. We will be filled with His righteousness if we are truly hungry for it! WE WILL BE FILLED! I know there are some today that ask, “Bryan I want that, but I don’t know what steps to take. I don’t know what that looks like.” Let me show you something else.

“8 Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.” LUKE 7:8-9

This woman had ten coins. She lost one. Sounds kind of odd huh? She doesn’t want just Parts of her walk with the Lord, she wants every single bit of it! What does she do to get that, She does whatever it takes to find that coin. She does all she can in that moment to find it. Guess what? She finds it and SHE REJOICES AND SHARES IT WITH EVERYONE! She had that Spiritual Eye of the Tiger, and she found what was lost.

Let me challenge you today, if you have never realized the value of Christ in your life, take this moment to seek him with a sincere heart and you WILL find Him. If you have once had the Hunger for him, ask God to take you back to Your Spiritual roots and ask for that Eye Of The Tiger, that Hunger for righteousness! Today is the day that you don’t sit back and let The Kingdom pass you by!

I love you Beloved

What He Did

Today I had some free time while I was at school, so decided to go down to room where the ping-pong table and pool table is. While I was there I play pool against a guy I had never met before. Just from interacting with him, I found he was a very competitive person, more so than I am. This is a hard thing to do. I further noticed that he kept doing something else that would just not make sense to me. He would miss his shot and he would either say, “God D@!M” or “Jesus Christ.” In my opinion, this is an unnecessary thing to say. After he did it a few times, I said, “Why is He at fault?” again I added, “What did He ever do to deserve that?” he smiled, showing his apology, and stated, “Well, I guess He never really did do anything.” Now I know what he meant by that, but this opened the door in my heart to reflect on that today.

This is the perfect season to look at what He did for us. We’ve all heard the story. We’ve all seen the scene. The shepherds, the wise men, the animals, and…. The manger. We have gotten into the ritual of things in this case we sometimes don’t realize the sacrifice Jesus went through for us. Christmas isn’t just about the earthy birth of the God head. It’s about God’s ability to be trusted. It’s about God’s ability to Love the Unlovable, His ability to love us! Today I want you to think about what this season is all about. Lay your worries about gifts aside. Put away the thoughts of family gatherings. Think about the true meaning of Christmas.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” - John 10:14-15

This season is about the start of Jesus sacrifice. It’s time to look at the beginning with the end in mind! The Cross, The Freedom, The Love, The wrath poured out on the righteous Son of God.

I love you Beloved.

The Heavenly Seeking

I simply Love the book of Philippians. It’s quite small but so rich. Today I want to focus on something that God has been driving into my heart. I was talking with my blessing of a girlfriend the other night about Philippians 3 and we stumbled upon something that has been sticking with me.

“²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ…” PHILIPPIANS 3:20

Now most time I’ve heard this verse talked about it is brought into light in the setting that we are under a bigger authority and we are living in a higher kingdom. I totally agree. I want to, however, look at the latter part of the verse and pose a question God has been posing to me! 

Notice that we have citizenship in Heaven! That’s easy enough to tell, but look what come after. We are told that as Christians that we Eagerly await for a savior. Dictionary.com states that EAGER means to have an impatient longing for something. God asked me, “Bryan do you have an Impatient Longing for my Son?”  The great thing about it is that longing gets filled when we surrender our will to Christ’s!

Now pay attention to this next point. The verse says that that savior we long for is from THERE. From Heaven. God beat me up the other day. How many times do we seek a savior from this earth? To some it may be Alcohol. Some it may be Cocaine or Marijuana.  To some it may be Sex. And still to others it may Attention. Whatever it is, we as people seek an earthly Savior. My savior of choice used to be Alcohol and Sex. These things however never really help.

Instead of saving us,

They enslave us!

We have to start having the right focus! Christ is the Aim. Let us seek our Heavenly Savior and stop taking his name in Vain with our lives!

Lord Jesus I pray that you enter the heart of the reader and that you break their strongholds, there chains of bondage. Help them to seek you their HEAVENLY SAVIOR! Were your Holy Spirit is, there is freedom. We love you Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

God bless you Beloved

The Cost of Discipleship Part 3

How are my brothers and sisters? As you know, This the final blog of this three blog series on Discipleship with Christ. It's been good, and fun to dive into these verses with you Beloved! Let's look at the last section of this verse and dive into what God has to say. If you have just tuned into this blog, I challenge you two read the previous to posts: The Cost of Discipleship Part 1, The Cost of Discipleship Part 2.

"33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples." LUKE 14:33

Okay, small recap, Jesus said we first had to love him so much that to everyone else it seemed like we hated them. Second He said that we had to carry our cross and follow him. Lastly He says we have to give up all things to Him. Have we really ever thought about what this looks like? Jesus is saying that He wants Everything! This doesn't mean that we asked Jesus to come into our lives. It means that we gave our lives to Christ. Meaning that when we want something, we surrender it to the will of Christ. Now there are times where what we want is what Christ wants, but to be quite frank, that is a process. This is a process I even struggle with to this very day.

"⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. " MATTHEW 13:44

This verse is another example of what Jesus is talking about. Look at the heart of this man. Think of it this way. This man knew there was a treasure in this field. He took time to find it. He then hid it again, and then sold everything he had to buy this field. This is what Christ is asking us to do! We know there is a treasure in a relationship with Jesus. Christ wants us to find it for our on lives, hide it in our hearts, and give everything else away that our heart is seeking. These two verse show how Christ is asking you to be ALL IN, ALL DAY, ALL YEAR, and ALL HEART.

When is their last time you gave anything your all? See I know one thing, and you can ask anyone that knows me, since I started to give Christ my all; I have never once regretted it! So what if you can't drink anymore. So what if you can't watch porn anymore. So what if you can't bring others down to make yourself feel better. the list continues, but the fact remains those things only can help you stay afloat for a very very small amount of time. In fact, in most cases they only bring you into bondage and chains anyway. You start to let those thing run your life, instead of you making the choices. The bible says:

"8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." PSALM 34:8

"13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." JEREMIAH 29:13

I promise you Beloved, if you follow these verses you will not only become a Disciple of Christ, but you will be more alive then you have ever been! In fact, the bible says that without Christ we are dead. This means we are nothing. Our career, our family, our love, our hope, our dreams, and our lives are NOTHING. Christ is why I have purpose. I don't write these things in my fleshy desires. I write these post out of the love that Christ Himself implanted in my heart. I promise you beloved, if you spend time reading his word, ridding your life our your wants and your evil desires, and seeking after the Lord in prayer time that you will come Alive.

You don't know how to pray, GIVE THAT TO GOD, His Word say how to in Matthew 6. You don't know if you desires are evil, GIVE THAT TO GOD, His Word lists some thing in Galatians 5. You don't know how to get through this life with all it's stresses, GIVE THAT TO GOD, His Word shows us how to handle that in Matthew 5. I'm not here just to give you these verses, I'm here to tell you the truth. I'm here to say that This is what it takes to be his disciple.

I know you have what it takes! I also know that you need it as much as I do. Let me leave you with one last thing. This Christian walk is not a simple one time prayer that gives you heaven. The word Disciple in the Greek literally means "Learner." This walk is something we are constantly learning to walk. it's also something we constantly have to follow the steps of these three blogs. HAVE YOU COUNTED THE COST? Remember:

"8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." PSALM 34:8


I love you Beloved!

The Cost of Disciple Part 2

So I know it’s been a little longer than I had hoped for writing this blog, but I’m excited to share with you some things about the continuing verse of last blog’s passage. I ask that if you haven’t read the last blog, that you take a moment to do so that you can be up to speed with the series blog. Again, this is part two of a three part series on the cost of discipleship. Lord I pray that today you take us a step closer to truth in this walk, take us deeper into an intimate relationship with you!

“²⁷ And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” LUKE 14:27

In the previous verses Jesus says that our love for him should look like hatred to this world. Meaning we should love him, interact with him, and seek him so much that others think we don’t love them. That’s a hard challenge to follow sometimes. Even more than that, Jesus ends his though with the passage above. This statement always strikes me as interesting. We must remember that Jesus is saying we have to carry our cross, and he hasn’t even died on his cross yet! Jesus says a statement like this one much earlier than this in Luke:

“Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” LUKE 9:23

With these two passages we see some things that we should think about:

There is a cross we

are called to carry

So what does this cross look like? How much does it weigh? Are they square beams or are they round poles? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but what I do know is that you have a cross to carry for Christ. This means that when it comes to our faith that we should take on the weight of our faith. We should know what our faith entails, and what we are to do with that faith. I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t see that carrying a cross is easy. Our society has brought this verse down to a 2 oz metal cross that we wear on our necklace or a big ink tattoo on our arm. I don’t think this is what these verses are alluding too. I see this as sometimes being something we carry even if we don’t want to. I see this cross being something that is big enough for everyone to see. I see this cross being light enough for us to carry, but heavy enough for us to have some struggle. I feel this cross is the Gospel of Jesus. The story of what he did for us, what he did for others, and the story of what he still is doing right now for people around the world. Luke 9 takes it a step further and says we are called to carry this daily, NOT JUST SUNDAY, but daily. That means we carry this cross 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, and 60 seconds a minute! THAT’S DAILY!

 

After We take up our Cross,

We follow after the cross

What did Christ do with his cross? Last time I checked, he died on it. He did it for you and for me! In other words, these two verses are foreshadowing what he did for us on his cross. This is the part of the Blog some people like hearing, and some won’t. Jesus said to take us your cross and follow after him! He is asking you to put your fleshly desires, your wants, your will, and your plans to death. But let me show you the beauty of this! Jesus rose from the grave! Jesus was given new life!

“¹¹ And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” ROMANS 8:11

If you die to yourself, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, which gave him new life, WILL GIVE YOU NEW LIFE! Stay focused though brothers and sisters. We need to carry the cross first and then follow him. You can’t have the new life without carrying your cross first.

So here is the idea. Are you carrying your cross? Are you following Christ to the death of your will and rising and walking in his will? Or, are you just calling yourself Christian and never thinking there is a cost?

Think this one through Beloved! I love you all!