“Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.”
-1 Samuel 17:40
When David stood before Goliath, he didn’t come with years of battle experience, or with the armor Saul had offered to him, instead he did was came naturally. David selected five smooth stones from the riverbed and he brought his sling – these were tools he used frequently while shepherding. 
It is interesting that God usually works with things that are already in existence or innate within us. David used a sling to slay a giant and it was already a learned discipline. God does that same with us as well. The challenges that we face in life might seem daunting at times. Perhaps it is rather telling if the only thing we experience is peace – something might be wrong, or perhaps we aren’t challenging ourselves anymore. When this happens, we should be asking ourselves questions like – “What am I afraid of?” or “Why am I not pushing myself as I once did?” Sometimes we’re tired from the fight and so we avoid the next challenge that comes our way.
King Saul and the people of Israel were afraid of the challenges of the giant. They didn’t respond to his calls to fight – how could they? He was HUGE and his weapons looked fearsome. They feared they wouldn’t stand a chance against him in a fight. David showed up to drop off home baked goods and get a report for his father, only to discover God’s people quaking in their boots…so David stepped up.
Sometimes we don’t get a choice with which giants we have to face. We have to press onward and actually face them, because if we don’t they won’t just go away and we will be powerless and frozen in our fears. Facing the giants also means reliance on a strength that isn’t our own. God will provide you the strength that you need, but it also requires us to admit that we need help and that we cannot do it on our own. When we let go of this nothing of going it alone, we are freed from the shackles of self-doubt and self-reliance.
So how about it?
What sort of giants are you facing right now?
Have you lived in fear for far too long?
Perhaps it’s time to stop hiding in fear and doubt and instead live in victory and strength!
God will be there each step of the way, but will you trust Him?
Prayer: Dear Lord, I place before you these fears that I have in my life right now. There are giants that I am facing and I don’t know how to combat them alone. Help me dear Lord. Protect me in these battles. Lead me to victory. Use me Lord for your glory, not mine. In your name I pray all of these things. -Amen.
Don’t let hate rule you.
I would imagine most of us would say “no”.
this transformation to take place within our minds – change happens. We check the box to follow God again. We are then able to filter what we allow into our minds which bleeds over into our actions. Without this transformation of the mind and the inclusion and fellowship of God into our lives, we will live but live unfulfilled, empty lives. This sounds stark and cold, but the reality is that we were created with this very relationship in mind. If we either consciously or subconsciously unfollow God, we break this relationship and in our hearts we acknowledge that there is something missing, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. If you’re there right now, perhaps its time to reconnect with God. Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge the many distractions that have taken His place. We can try and try to fill that void with other things, but nothing will fill that God-shaped hole. 
There are many other places in scripture where people have left their landmarks so that others who came after them would know of this great God. Some landmarks commemorated great grief and loss, while others commemorated great victory and joy. All of these served to provide a means of safer passage to the next generation. This makes me wonder what sort of landmarks we are constructing in our own lives. How are we paving the way for our children and our grandchildren? What sort of legacy are we leaving behind for others to follow? Will they commemorate an honorable holy disciple of Christ through the testimony of our lives, or will they use our story us as a warning? I pray that we desire to pave the way through a life of godly living and in so doing, leave legacy that others wish to follow as they ascend this path of holiness.
most important things to pray for. Our families are brought to mind. Our personal concerns and our stressors are also brought to the forefront. When we pray these things are important and good to pray for. We also should remember that we are Kingdom people, and as Kingdom people, our priority to Christ and His Kingdom should also be high on that list. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray the spirit of humility and servanthood were spoke: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…”
Okay, I confess, I made the above disorder up, but it does accurately describe our prayers sometimes doesn’t it? We pray like a kitten plays with yarn…its great until something more interesting comes along. We have so many distractions in our world today. The sounds outside. Our cell phones. Checking our social media feed on various platforms. We live in a very distracting world. How can we even focus on concentrated prayers when we have all of this distraction around us? We need quiet. We must find spaces of solitude so that we can converse with God. It doesn’t have to be long winded prayers full of “Thees” and “Thous”. We don’t have to have all of the right things to say either. Just take five minutes of concentrated time (with no distractions) today and pray. Start off by praying for your needs (not wants). Give God thanks for answered prayers. Then focus on your immediate family…you friends…your coworkers…your boss…your neighbor…and so on. If it helps put a timer on so that you know when to stop praying. But commit to just five minutes of prayer each day this week. At first it may seem very hard to focus in on five minutes. For some of us, it might seem like an eternity. But pray and inquire of God what you should pray for too…His Holy Presence with inform and guide you in your conversations. It will take practice, so do not become frustrated when you don’t accomplish this discipline at first. Keep trying. We need more persistent prayer warriors now more than ever in our churches and in our world. He is calling you and me to be such people of prayer!
troubling is that holiness is not being lived out or made into something real and tangible for the world to see. The notion of being set-apart is both vital and necessary for the purpose of entire sanctification. Being set-apart means that we wash the feet of those who have only experienced religion with strings attached. For we are not a religion, we are a movement that preaches about this holy relationship we can have with the Almighty! We are a movement (or at least we used to be) that lived out holiness and preached it from our pulpits. If this is missing in our corps and in our witness then perhaps we have lost a step and are no longer a moving, passionate movement…but instead could it be that we are static and floundering about trying to define our identity apart from Holiness?
General Frederick Coutts once said: “To pray together is to be shielded from evil, not only from the perils which beset the body, but also the dangers that assail the soul”
I believe that if that we are to experience a revival again as a movement, it will only come when we begin to take our prayer lives more seriously. This spiritual discipline is vital to both the corporate worship setting as well as the personal one done in those private moments. Let me ask you this, how often to you pray for your fellow soldiers and officers? How often do we lift up our concerns before the Almighty and continue to wait on Him? In our fast paced lifestyles we have grown impatient and we lack attention to prayer. We need more prayer warriors in our Army and less prayer worriers. We need authentic, vulnerable moments in our pews as much as we need real, genuine times of solitude in our homes devoted to prayer.
Somewhere along the line did we get ahead of Christ?
This intimate moment with Jesus, Nicodemus comes face to face with the Messiah – God’s chosen one who has come to deliver not just the Jews but the whole world. Nicodemus sought out Jesus for himself. He was curious, and he asked wanted to know more. This conversation was done one on one, a conversation that begged for answers, and Jesus gave them to Nicodemus. It doesn’t say in the scriptures if Nicodemus became a follower of Christ, but he was present after the crucifixion, and many have speculated that He did indeed become a member of the early Christian church…but it all started here at night with a conversation with a very personal Jesus.
Some of us only know Jesus when we are in large groups while at church. Some find worship to be the only encounter they have with Jesus in their week. But Jesus comes to each of us and longs for us to have that one on one time with Him. He wants to hear from us, and even longs for us to ask the hard questions of life. He comes to us willing to pour out His love upon us and to partake in this life with us. This is a very personal relationship. The corporate setting at church is wonderful, and we mustn’t discount that by any means, but we ought to crave those intimate moments with Jesus too. This is where we can begin to thrive as followers of Christ. This is where the conversation starts – in our silence and our prayers to Him. This is where life becomes transformed and renewed. Something mysterious and wondrous that words cannot even explain takes place when we specifically and intentionally set aside time to commune with Jesus. Oh that each of us encounter Jesus this way today! Find that time, set it aside…and seek your own personal Jesus.
Today is what they call “Ground Hog’s Day”. It’s a rather silly tradition here in the United States that commemorates a rodent and makes this ground hog a meteorologist for the day. It is said that if this rodent sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. It’s a big thing in Punxsutawney PA, as they celebrate and put cameras on this animal that looks somewhat shocked at the attention it is getting. But the real hope in this celebration is that we as people will finally see light at the end of this tunnel that is the season of winter. Many people struggle with winter blues and most just hate the cold weather typically found in the winter months, and so they place their hopes on this silly event known as Ground Hog’s day. All for a little bit of light and a whole lot more warmth.
In reality we all want more light. Winters are okay, even great for many winter recreational sports people, but these months often serve to remind us of dormancy and the hope of new life in the spring. In a very real sense, Christ came so that we could come out of the darkness of sin and death and into the light and warmth of new life! Once we have accepted this new life and light, our calling then is to become that very light for others, who are still in the dark, to see. Our light can shine, but we have to be willing to carry this flame of hope to those around us. The words we choose to say, the actions we choose to do – it all matters! How we conduct ourselves matters! We do not need Christians who only utter truths of the gospel, we need Christians who will live them and practice them. We are called to BE holy, and then do that holiness. It begins by embracing the light, coming out of the shadows and becoming a vessel of peace, love, grace and compassion. Our world needs less hate and judgment and more peace, compassion and love! Can we shine so that the world around us no longer lives in the shadows? Perhaps like Punxsutawney Phil (as silly as it is) we can shine so that others might not see their shadows anymore. The shadows of sin and hurt have held many for ransom for far too long! May we shine and do these good things so that others might find this hope that we all embrace.
Pastor's Ponderings 