If you don’t meticulously monitor and maintain your mental health, your mind will make many messes & much misery for yourself & others! A mind is a terrible thing to wrap with waste. Be kind to your mind–wrap it with faith, hope, love, joy, peace, forgiveness, & compassion!
How’s your mind wrapped?
M — Mental monitoring
I — Is vitally
N — Necessary.
D — Demolish destructive thinking with:
W — Wisdom (I understand)
R — Revelation (I see)
A — And
P — Power (I can).
Right Stuff? Or Real Deal?
You don’t have to
Shop 4 the right stuff
When you know that
Christ is the real deal!
Give the gift of your testimony — show and tell what God has done!
Christmas present — the living, resurrected Jesus Christ living in your heart and flowing out of you like rivers of living water in the 21st Century!
(Christmas past — Christ born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.)
What is the real cost of Christmas? +++
–Christ “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!”
Good man? Or God with us?
–Some people say that Jesus was a good man. But would a “good man” say this: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”?
–Jesus wasn’t a “good man.” He was and is God with us (Emmanuel)!
Our cold culture continually cyber attacks & tries to hack human hearts! However, if you make your heart a Son-room and allow the living, resurrected Jesus Christ to be your 24/7/365 IT guy; your heart will be safe from society’s identity theft!
Some people’s hearts are like a vault — all locked up and shut down by mental, emotional, & spiritual hackers.
Other people’s hearts are like a sunroom — radiating Christ the Son — securely online with Him!
Which is your heart? (On cold days, God can protect & keep your heart hot!)
A Sonny (Christ-filled) heart won’t get hacked like Sony did!
Don’t let them hack your heart!
Why Is There So Much Good In The World?
Where did good come from? Why does the world contain so much compassion and kindness and altruism and self-sacrifice and love and honesty and purity and mercy and faithfulness?
–Why do so many human beings sincerely want to be good and to do good? Why do almost all people want to be thought of as good rather than as evil?
–Evolutionary theory is based on the concept of cut-throat competition for self-preservation — the survival of the fittest — dog eat dog. Good would not develop from such a process.
–So how did good get into the human race?
Good God!
“Goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.” –Leo Tolstoy
“Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.” –Leo Tolstoy
“How good life is when one does something good and just!” –Fydor Dostoyevsky
“When something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more.” –Banana Yoshimot
“It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a tremendous cost.” –Stephen King
“When you believe you reflect what is holy and good, you can see more that is good in every stage of your life. ” –Victoria Moran
“The goodness you do might fail; but keep doing it, because the real failure is never doing goodness!” –Mehmet Maurat ildan
“Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.” –Michel de Montaigne
Good man? Or God with us?
–Some people say that Jesus was a good man. But would a “good man” say this: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”?
–Jesus wasn’t a “good man.” He was and is God with us (Emmanuel)!
Pastor Challenge 2015 #1
(Please share this with your pastor and/or pastor friends.)
—Every Week Let A Different Person Share A 5 to 10 Minute Salvation Testimony During Sunday Worship—
* This is extremely powerful as ordinary people share from the heart how they first encountered the living Christ and how He is working in their life.
* It clearly demonstrates that Jesus is working in 21st Century people.
* It creates a contagious excitement in the congregation.
Dare U try it, preacher?
Go ahead, give it a go!
If you do, God will show up and show out!
Here’s a testimony to the effectiveness of this challenge: In 2008, my wife and I were asked to start a church for The Salvation Army. From the beginning we implemented this challenge. Every week we asked a different person to give a 10-minute testimony by sharing 1) what their life was like before they met Jesus; 2) how they met Jesus; and 3) how their life is different since meeting Jesus. In the first year-and-a-half we had about 70 different people share their testimony. We invited all of our born again friends to come and give their testimony, as well as people recommended to us by others. Some of them stayed to become part of the church.
Every testimony was different, but powerful. Hearing so many people tell how they got saved released a great excitement among us. We highly recommend this challenge! (It’s more powerful than the Ice Bucket Challenge.)
Check out Pastor Challenge For 2015 (#2).
Matter is Mist-ticle — Reality is Mystical!
–Everything around you is made of tiny, empty energy balls (called atoms) spinning at the speed of light. Scientists say that the content of all the atoms in the universe is about the size of a walnut. Everything else is energy and empty space.
–The vastness and grandeur of the entire physical universe is a charade that could fit in a human hand. (Get a hold of that!)
–So what is real? Not the material world. Matter is mist-ticle! Reality is mystical.
–Thoughts, ideas, rationality, love, emotion, principles, proofs, meaning, concepts, justice, intellect, consciousness, insights, comprehension, and ideals contain no atoms, no mass, no mist-ticle material “reality”. All of those things are intangible — mystical. However, almost all humans accept and/or live like those things are real.
–One day the universe will dissolve like snow, But the mystical behind the material, remains! What is it?
–Atheists deny it. Agnostics doubt it. Buddhists and other pantheists believe that it is an impersonal force or intelligence. Hindus and other polytheists believe it is a symphony of intelligent, supernatural beings. Muslims, Jews, and other theists believe that it isn’t an “it” at all, but rather, is an intelligent, personal being who created the universe.
–Christians believe that this personal being has joyously revealed Himself by clocking Himself with atoms; becoming a human being; restoring our ability to know and relate to Him; conquering death; giving us the power to love, follow, and obey Him until our atomic earth-suits die; and preserving forever those who live for Him.
–That’s what Christ*mas is all about!
When church is a symphony–glory falls!
The Gospel of Jesus is a symphony!
One man can’t play a symphony,
No matter how smart or anointed he may be.
Fully communicating God’s Gospel symphony
Requires members of the body of Christ
Functioning in harmony together,
Each one hearing and obeying the living Jesus Christ.
One has a song, one has a testimony,
One has a prayer; we’re all God’s symphony!
(Read the sheet music @ 1 Corinthians 14:26.)
Merry ChristNU! Christ wants to be born in U this Christ*mas! (The New Testament calls Him “Emmanuel” which means “God with us.”
Some people leave Christ out of Christmas and spell it
Xmas.)
I think I will leave mas out of Christmas and spell it
ChristNU!
Is Christ living in U? (“Christ in you; the hope of glory.”)
So many people think and/or hope that the Christmas holiday will make their life better. The living, resurrected Jesus can and will make your life better if you let Him!
Christmas is the season for Christaholics to spread the intoxication of God’s “new wine”!
Check out 21 blogs about Christmas.
