Life – Page 51

How To Survive a Shipwreck (review)

June 30, 2016 by Michael Wilson

Ever now and then there comes along a book that speaks to the deepest levels of the human spirit.

Jonathan Martin does just that in his newest book, How to Survive a Shipwreck. With the musings of a poet, the heart of a pastor and the insights of a prophet, Martin masterfully shares the story of his own shipwreck, his struggles to survive and the lessons learned about a loving God that never left his side.

The book is extremely well written. Martin is a top-notch communicator with a talent for poetic prose. The book explores the tragic, personal shipwreck of Martin’s life. He shares the deepest, most intimate details of his life as he shares what he went through as his life, marriage and ministry fall apart. It’s not very often that people get to look into the darkest parts of a pastor who has fallen. Martin holds nothing back, save the details of the shipwreck which are not anyone’s business. He lets it all hang out: the raw emotions, the self-doubts, the intense struggle to survive, to just breathe. Martin allows the reader a very honest look into his deepest struggles and questions.

What’s it truly like when you are in the limelight when you have so many people looking to you and you blow it? What happens when you fall and have to face your own music of destruction? Martin lets you in on this journey to see the devastating destruction and devastation of a personal shipwreck. You can feel his pain, his agony and his own self-loathing as he battles to stay alive in a sea of uncertainty. You witness his wrestling with God over who he is, who he thought he was and how God sees him. You come to a place of hope that there is redemption on the other side of the shipwreck.

I greatly identified with this book as I have been through my own shipwreck. Whereas Martin’s was one of his own doing, my shipwreck came at the hands of others. Regardless of fault, a shipwreck is a shipwreck and one must learn to survive the chaos of the seas if one hopes to make it to land. This book will give you a beacon of hope. As I read this book, I was reminded of my own journey, my own pain, and my own struggle. But in reading this book I discovered that I had survived my shipwreck, that I had made it to land and that I was completely dry and ready to move on. Martin survived his shipwreck and became a better man because of it. I did as well. I believe that anyone dealing with a personal shipwreck will greatly benefit from the insights in this book. For those that have never had a shipwreck, I believe you will benefit from the honest, raw story of how one can fall from great heights and be transformed by the love and grace of God.

Very few books would I consider a must read, or even a book that deserves to be read again and again, but this is one of those books.

Full Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Will You Let Love Be Your Primary Response?

June 15, 2016 by Michael Wilson

I read a book last year, recommended by a friend, entitled Love Does, by Bob Goff. It made a huge impact on me because the author lives his life with love being his primary response. Whenever someone is mean to him or treats him poorly he tries to imagine the best scenario as to why they are acting that way. In this manner of living, love has become his primary response.

That has become my prayer ever since I read that book. My prayer is, “Lord, let love be my primary response.” I wish I could say that God has totally answered this prayer above and beyond my wildest imagination. I would be lying if I said it was true. The reason is that this is a partnership prayer. What I mean by that is this: I can pray the prayer, God can do His part in helping me but there is a part that I must play.

I have to want to be loving.

I have to want to change.

I have to let go of every preconceived idea, pre-judgment and critical notion that I have of every person that I come in contact with.

I have to BE loving.

I have to SEE people as being worth the value that God places on them.

I have to BELIEVE that they are worth loving, that they were born to be loved.

I have to HOPE for the best in them.

And that, for me, has not always been easy. I tend to be a critical person. Ouch, that hurt just writing that sentence. But, it’s true and I cannot let love be my primary response if I am not first willing to come face to face with my own critical, judgmental, self-righteous self.

The good news is…..I am willing to come face to face with myself, deal with my junk and allow God to do in me what I cannot do in myself so that love is my primary response.

Jesus gave us a new command as He was preparing to die in our place. His command was that we were to love others as He loves us. His primary response to me has always been love. Therefore, I cannot withhold love from others, as my primary response, because of the grace that has been shown to me.

What would the world look like if we allowed love to be our primary response?

We would not allow road rage to be a part of our lives.

We would not speak unkind words.

We would not abuse or take advantage of anyone.

There would be a harmonious beauty in the world because love is beauty.

There would be unity within the church.

There would not be a needy one among us.

There would be no divorce, no absent parents, no dysfunctional families.

There would be true tolerance as we sought to live together in peace.

I can hear some of your thoughts now. There’s no way that this could happen because we live in a fallen world. If this can’t happen then Jesus came for nothing. If this can’t happen then love fails and sin always wins.

No, my friends, I dare say let’s bring the future into the now. We know that in the future God is going to restore all things, do away with sin and death, and love will reign supreme. Many of us are anxiously awaiting that day. But what about the now? What about today?

Jesus taught us to pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.” Well, if that is to be our prayer, then I believe God wants to answer it. His kingdom is love. So, when I allow love to be my primary response to everyone I meet, then I am bringing His kingdom into the earth.

When you decide to let love be your primary response then you are bringing His kingdom into the earth.

When the Church decides to let love be our primary response then she is bringing His kingdom into the earth.

When God’s children allow love to be their primary response, we will change the world. To borrow Rob Bell’s title, LOVE WINS! Love is what changes people. Love is what melts cold hearts and tears down walls. Why? Because we were born to be loved!

So, will you begin to pray this prayer with me?

“Lord, let love be my PRIMARY response.” I don’t want hatred, anger, a judgemental attitude, criticalness or bitterness to be my primary response. Even on the days that I am having my biggest struggles, I want love to be my primary response.

When you allow love to be your primary response, I promise you will see the world, you will see people, and you will see yourself in a whole different light.

Let love be your primary response.

Don’t Let Sin Be Your Master

April 19, 2016 by Michael Wilson

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:14)

This is such a freeing verse. Many Christians today believe that they will never get above sin. They believe that they are still sinners who are just saved by grace. But this is not the truth. We are not still sinners because sinners have sin as their master. Every born again person is the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). Sin is no longer our master. Jesus is our Lord and Master.

If you see sin as your master then you will always see yourself as a slave to obey sin. It will always be your focus. You will never truly live free. You are not under law. The Mosaic Law is no longer valid for a New Testament Christian. We are under grace. We do not live by a long set of “thou shalt nots”. We get to live under freedom which is relationship based, not rule based.

I know that many people still struggle with “sins”. They might be addicted to pornography, have anger issues, or gossip. They may live with incredible insecurities which cause them to do things to find security, rather than find their security in Christ. Does this make them a sinner? I don’t believe so. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Therefore, he can’t be a sinner if he is a new creation.

The issue here is how we see ourselves. Perspective is everything. Now, I am not saying that one can do whatever they want. Just because we live under grace doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want. May it never be!

What is does mean is that when we understand our standing in Jesus, that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God, we will not want to sin because sin is beneath us. It is not who we are anymore. We may struggle with it at times, but it is not our master!

Don’t allow the thought that you can’t conquer your vices, addictions, sins, bondages, etc. hold you back any more. You are under grace. God’s grace is sufficient. Will you mess up? Most likely, but you are not counted out because you messed up. Under grace, you are not guilty because you messed up. You are declared righteous because of your Lord and Savior. That is amazingly great news.

Don’t allow sin to have one more day as master over you. Begin to declare grace over every imperfection, weakness, addiction, and bondage you might be experiencing. You are free in Christ.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any area where you have allowed sin to master you. Then submit that area to the Lordship and the grace of Jesus. Declare you are free and live as a free person. The way you see yourself is the way that you will live!

What about you? How do you see yourself? Does it affect how you live?

The above blog was taken as part of a daily devotional page from my FREE 30 day devotional, Going Deeper in Grace! It’s yours free if you sign up to receive updates from this blog. Just fill out the form on the sidebar near the top on the right.

The Final Word Has Not Been Spoken!

March 30, 2016 by Michael Wilson

We just celebrated the apex of Christian beliefs – the resurrection of Jesus (Easter Sunday). On Good Friday, Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished.” From his perspective, everything that he came to do was now finished. He came to be sacrificed for the sins of the world and after unbelievable torture and crucifixion, his journey was now complete. He had accomplished what he came to do.

For the disciples and those that followed Jesus, his death was not just a death of a friend but a death of their hopes, dreams and aspirations. They had believed in Jesus, that he was going to set up a new kingdom and bring freedom to Israel. But his death struck a huge blow to those plans. All of Friday evening, and all day Saturday the disciples most likely replayed his words in their minds. They rehashed the events of the last three years. Broken hearts, broken dreams and unfinished business.

I believe that we have all been in places that felt like everything was finished, but not in a good way. When Jesus cried out, “it is finished,” it was one of the best things for humanity. Sometimes life happens to tell us the same thing, only from a different perspective.

Sometimes a spouse says, “it is finished,” and a marriage ends.

Sometimes a boss says, “it is finished,” and someone loses a job.

Sometimes a child says, “It is finished,” and they walk away from their parents to live a wild lifestyle.

Sometimes a doctor says, “It is finished,” and you are given a cancer death sentence.

It can be anything that destroys hopes and dreams. It can be a person, circumstance or an attitude.

The issue is that when life declares to you, “it is finished,” hope dies. When hope dies, a person dies inside. People cannot live without hope.

People without hope believe that the last word has been spoken over their situation. The disciples must have felt like that. If I were one of them, I would have taken Jesus’ statement, “It is finished” as his last word and the last word to all that we had believed for the last three years.

I have been in and am currently going through, a season where it feels, at times, that all hope is gone. Sometimes it feels like the light at the end of the tunnel is only a train coming full speed at me.

Have you ever been there?

Have you ever seen that train coming for you?

One of the best definitions of hope that I have heard comes from Anthony Chapman, a pastor from York, England. His definition is this: hope is the confident expectation that the final word has not yet been spoken. This is a powerful declaration.

When our dreams, goals, plans and even our lives have been given a death sentence, we can take comfort in the fact that God has the final word. He had the last word in Jesus’ life. The death of Jesus looked like the final word had been spoken but Resurrection Day was coming.

It is the same in our lives. Many times we are given a death sentence. Our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are lying in a tomb and we, like the disciples, are licking our wounds wondering what has happened. It’s a tough pill to swallow.

I have been living through my own “It is finished” season for a while now. At times, it seems overwhelming but I keep hanging onto my friend’s definition that hope is the confident expectation that the final word has not been spoken. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t have my moments of doubt, struggle and wonderings. I am very much like the disciples in that I often times want to hide and lick my wounds. I often retreat inside my own personal, emotional cave where I shut down and keep everyone at arm’s length.

What about you? Have you ever experienced an “It is finished” moment in your life? Have you ever had a “death sentence” given to you in an area of your life? If so, I just want to encourage you that God knows! He sees and He understands! He hasn’t spoken the final word in your life because you are still alive. You are still breathing. You are still here!

Your final word has not been spoken!

Spiritual Stretch Marks

February 24, 2016 by Michael Wilson

Stretch marks are unsightly. They occur on people who have either gained weight or on women during pregnancy because the body is gaining weight rapidly and the skin cannot keep up with the changes. They happen because the skin gets stretched due to growth. I don’t know anyone that likes them or even desires them.

Stretch marks represent growth. A body grows causing the skin to stretch and tug resulting in stretch marks. While it happens every day in the natural, it should be happening to us spiritually as well. If natural stretch marks represent growth, then spiritual stretch marks represent growth as well.

But in order to grow, we must be stretched. And that’s not always easy nor pleasant. But stretching is necessary if we are going to grow. I deeply believe that God is more interested in our growth of character than he is our comfort. And our growth of character is almost always painful. But it is necessary.

I want spiritual stretch marks. I want to have signs that I am being stretched and growing. Paul talked about the marks that he bore in his body because of the Gospel.

Galatians 6:17 “From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”

I know that he is not talking about spiritual stretch marks. He is talking about being physically beaten and stoned. While I doubt that I will ever be persecuted for my faith to the extent that I am physically beaten, I can bear on my body the marks of Jesus in becoming more like him.

We should always be growing. But, there are seasons in our life where the growth is difficult. We fight the changes that God wants to bring into our life. We resist change. We don’t want to give up things that He is asking us to give up. We don’t want to deal with character issues or sins that we may not want to be getting rid of. We fight His dealings with us over holding unforgiveness and bitterness towards another person. As we go through these struggles our “spiritual skin” is stretched resulting in spiritual stretch marks.

While they are certainly unsightly in the natural, for me my spiritual stretch marks represent all the areas I have grown in. They are a reminder of how hard change was, how I was stretched uncomfortably and how that I did manage to grow through the difficulty.

I wish that change was easy. I admire bodybuilders that have worked with weights and exercise to form their bodies where their muscles are ripped and bulging. That will never be me because I don’t want to put in the work and effort required to do that. I want six pack abs but don’t have the desire, nor the motivation, to bring mine out of hiding. But even body builders get stretch marks. It’s because their muscles are growing faster than their skin. It’s a sign of growth.

So, my point is try to not struggle with the growth that God wants to bring into your life. The past couple of years has been a major season of growing for me. It’s been a period of lots of stretching, tugging, challenging growth. Some days I fought it, falling into the muck and mire of self-pity. Other days I was embracing the change and the growth. I am glad that God has me where I am right now. There is no way that I would want to go through everything that I have been through, but I wouldn’t trade my stretch marks for anything.

The good news is that stretch marks can go away. Naturally, you can use creams and lotions. I believe that in the spiritual the Lord also helps us to get rid of spiritual stretch marks by rubbing in His healing balm. They are simply a short term reminder of our growth.

I know that the Bible doesn’t talk about spiritual stretch marks. I have taken some dramatic license here to illustrate my point. For me, the season that I have been in has resulted in some serious spiritual growth and I feel the marks. In the natural, people tend to hide their stretch marks. I think we do the same spiritually. Sometimes when we are going through tests, trials and circumstances that God uses for our growth, we can feel shame and embarrassment because we don’t have it all together. We feel “less than” because we are struggling with doubts and fears. So, we tend to hide, isolating ourselves from others.

But we need each other. We are called to bear one another’s burdens. The spiritually strong are called to support the spiritually weak, without judgment or condemnation. We all need someone to help us through our growth season. We all need someone to be an encourager and a support. The stretching time in our life is usually hard and we need the support of others.

What about you? Has God been stretching you in your character, thinking, gifting or spiritual maturity? Do you have any “spiritual stretch marks” to show?

Nothing is Wasted With God

February 18, 2016 by Michael Wilson

All of us have gone through hard times, suffered loss and tragedy, and at times even made some really costly mistakes. Many times we think that we have hit the end of the road. We wonder how things can be salvaged out of the mess that has been created.

What’s really frustrating, to me anyway, is when the mess I am in was created by someone else. It’s one thing to suffer at the hands of my own stupid decisions and choices. It’s another thing, and much more aggravating, to suffer due to someone else’s poor decisions and choices.

But, I serve a God that is able to make all things new, turn whatever mess I am in into a message of redemption and take every test and trial and turn them into a testimony of victory. I don’t know how He does it but He does.

With God, nothing is wasted. No trial, mess, tear, stupid decision or consequence is wasted with God. He can take everything good and bad in your life and use it for your benefit, the benefit of others and ultimately, His glory.

Right now, I am in a transitional season in my life. I have been going down a path that I did not choose for myself. Based on the decisions of others, I find myself in a place that I don’t really want to be. I have often wondered, “is this the best that it’s going to get?”

Have you ever been there? It’s so frustrating. Deep down I know that God is preparing me for something greater (or at least, most days, I am hoping so). Deep down I know that He is faithful and will not neglect me nor has He ever forgotten me. Deep down, I know these things to be true.

Unfortunately, there are days that I don’t live deep down! There are some days when I live in the shallow pit of my emotions. There are some days that I allow my thoughts to get carried away and I lose sight of the fact that NOTHING IS WASTED WITH GOD!

Everything that I have been through, God will use to grow me and to help me understand what others are going through. You cannot understand someone’s story unless you have a similar one. I will never know what it’s like to be addicted to drugs because I have never been addicted to drugs. For those that have, and have been delivered, God will use that to help someone else. It’s not been wasted.

Even though I don’t know what it’s like to be addicted, I have my own stories. I have my own issues. I have my own messes. On the days that I find myself swimming in the shallow end of self-pity and bad moods, I have to remind myself that nothing is wasted with God. Everything I am experiencing right now will be used for a greater purpose.

When I think about all the different characters in the Bible, I realize that 1) God can and will use anybody, and 2) our mistakes and messes don’t thwart Him a bit. Just reading the genealogy of Jesus shows us that God can and will use anyone. God’s not afraid of our messes or mistakes.

God uses the situations in our lives to mold us into better human beings that have greater empathy for those around us. That’s why I love Hebrews 4:15-16 so much.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Because Jesus knows the weaknesses and frailties of humanity, He gives us grace and mercy. He understands the messes that we get ourselves into. He gives us grace and mercy to get out of those messes with a message of hope, love and forgiveness.

He takes all of our issues, problems, mistakes, messes, tragedies, disappointments, and failures, runs them through His grace and somehow, some way, something amazingly beautiful comes out of it all. The scripture is true that declares, “He gives beauty for ashes.” (Isaiah 61:3)

I have a dear friend that has just started blogging. Her blog is about her life’s story. In her blog, she shares about a lot of the messes that she has found herself in. And yet, God, her loving Father, is taking every single one of those messes and is turning them into an amazing tapestry that others will look at and see as beautiful. My friend is just one shining example of how nothing is wasted with God.

What about you? Have you ever felt that some decisions you made in life were wasted? Have you ever felt insignificant? Have you ever felt that things were too bad for God to redeem? I know that I have had my fair share of seemingly hopeless issues. I have to always remind myself that, with God, nothing is wasted.

Three Consequences of Eating Forbidden Fruit

February 11, 2016 by Michael Wilson

Have you ever wanted something that you were told you couldn’t have? For some reason, it always seems to make us want it even more. Some would call that human nature. But I wonder what it must have been like for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They didn’t have a fallen, sinful nature. But they faced a very real and dangerous temptation.

I know for me that when I can’t have something, it seems that I want it all the more. I am working on my eating habits right now. I have been told to cut out salt, processed and fried food along with decreasing my intake of sugar. The problem: I like all these things. To be told that I can’t have them makes them all the more desirable.

If you have ever fasted, you know what I am talking about. When you can’t have food, you are all the more tempted by that food. When a child is told not to do something, it seems they become hell-bent on doing what they cannot do.

I call this forbidden fruit! We want the forbidden fruit. It seems that forbidden fruit seems so sweet.

When we look at the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (TKGE), we can come away with three lessons applicable to our lives today.

They bought into the lie that God was holding back on them and that what they needed would be provided by eating the forbidden fruit.

You and I do the same thing today. We often times feel that God is withholding something from us. We feel as if we need something that God is not providing. Maybe it’s love from a partner, a sense of value or worth, or we don’t feel accepted. We end up going to other people and things instead of trusting God. We end up eating forbidden fruit.

It looks good and tasty. It looks like what we need and what we are looking for, but in the end, it never accomplishes what we thought it would. Just ask someone who has gotten hooked on drugs, or gave their body away because they simply wanted to be loved. Ask someone who has gone after forbidden fruit. Better yet, take a look at your own life and examine every time you ate forbidden fruit. What was the outcome?

They believed that there would be no consequences to their eating the forbidden fruit.

God told them that if they ever ate from the TKGE that they would die. The serpent deceived Eve into believing that God was simply threatening them with death, but they would not really die. She bought the lie and ate the fruit.

They ended up dying that day. Not physically, that would come many, many years later. But they died to themselves, they died to each other. In dying, they died. Adam was willing to throw all the blame on God and Eve. Eve rightfully pointed to the serpent, but she wasn’t willing to accept her own responsibility. The cost was way higher than Eve could have imagined.

There are always consequences to our choices. Some choices have great consequences. Others, not so great. The problem we run into is when we think that our choices don’t have consequences. We think that it will never happen to us, that we are above it somehow. We think that we can handle whatever may come.

But we can’t.

We still fall for that same lie: “you really won’t suffer if you make this choice.” God just wants you happy. How many times, when someone eats the forbidden fruit, they justify it by saying, “God knows my heart.” They don’t believe they will suffer consequences because, after all, God must know that they are good in heart.

Even though Jesus has forgiven us of our sins, our sin still has consequences. The wages of sin is still death. Most of the time we are punished by our sin, not for our sin. Eating forbidden fruit always has negative consequences. God can, and does, bring good out of our faulty mistakes, but our mistakes still carry consequences.

Eating the forbidden fruit caused Adam and Eve to experience shame.

Every time I have eaten forbidden fruit I have experienced shame. I hated myself for making such a stupid decision. I had to battle being ashamed of myself for messing up. Thankfully, Jesus is all about taking shame off of people, but our choices often times still bring us to a place of shame.

When we are ashamed we tend to avoid others, it causes us to hide from those closest to us and from God. That’s what Adam and Eve did. They covered themselves, in essence, hiding from one another, and they hid from God. We do the same whenever we deal with shame.

God had provided them with a garden that had everything they needed to sustain their lives. Every tree in the garden was good to look at and was good for food. God wanted to be their source of wisdom and knowledge.

Eve fell for the deception of the serpent. She thought God was being stingy, holding back from her something that she needed. She didn’t think that the consequences would be what God said they would be. In the end, she suffered greatly because she trusted more in the serpent and in her own decision making than she did in the wisdom and love of God.

When we eat from forbidden fruit the same happens to us. We tend to think that God is holding back from us the things we think we need. So, we go looking for them in all the wrong places. We don’t believe that there will be negative consequences to our actions. In the end, when we eat from forbidden fruit, we end suffering and, most of the time will cause others around us to suffer as well.

Don’t fall for the lie! God has all that you need and will be all that you need. He is not stingy or holding back. He loves you more than you know and is generous and gracious to humanity.

What about you? Have you ever thought you needed something that God wasn’t supplying? Did you eat forbidden fruit? What was your experience like?

How to Overcome the Curse of Tomorrow

January 20, 2016 by Michael Wilson

Today will lead you into tomorrow but tomorrow will always lead you into today.

The meaning of the above statement is that tomorrow never comes. When you go to sleep at night thinking “I will do thus tomorrow” you wake up and it’s today. So tomorrow never really comes. It is always now. It is always today.

The promise of tomorrow is a curse! I don’t mean a curse in a really evil, demonic, evil-eye, a hex on you kind of curse. I am talking about the curse of procrastination.

I tend to procrastinate. I have the best of intentions and plans. I have my goals and plans written down. However, there are times when I know I need to do something today and I tell myself I will do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow becomes today and I use the same excuse again….tomorrow.

Procrastination is the enemy of getting things done. Take this blog for example. It’s my goal to write a post every week. I have even been so bold to plan to write 500 words a day. Putting 500 words on a page is not that difficult. The editing is the consuming part but writing is easy, providing I don’t put it off. Which I tend to do because something else grabs my attention. Or, worse, I just get plain ‘ole lazy.

How does one overcome the curse of tomorrow? One must learn to live in the now. Now is all that you have. This very moment is all I really have. I am not promised tomorrow. I am not promised a long life. I am not promised anything. All I have is the right now.

I wish I could go back in time and recapture certain moments that are precious to me. I also wish I could go back and do redo some things I would like to change. Mostly I wish I could recapture all the moments I wasted thinking that I would get it done tomorrow. Well, here it is . . . my tomorrow but it’s Today and I can’t go back.

Enjoy the moment right now. Embrace the time that you have. Don’t allow the curse of tomorrow to affect your today. Today is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to Him.

Recently a friend of mine and his wife welcomed their new daughter into the world. She is a beautiful creation of God with her whole life in front of her. Everyone’s dreams and well wishes for her future are grand and many. As I walked out of the hospital from my visit my thoughts turned to my mother who has stage 4 COPD and is dying.

What a contrast . . . a life beginning and a life ending. One has so many today’s ahead of her and the other is counting down her days. That is my point. Each of them only has today. While the new baby can’t really appreciate life, at this moment, as you and I do, my mom understands that value and importance of today. Each day for her is truly a gift.

Do not waste today. Most of us do waste a lot of time. I know I still do. It’s something I am working to overcome. Today counts, today matters, today is all you have. Enjoy the moment!

Today will lead you into tomorrow but tomorrow will always lead you into today.
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What about you? What is your biggest time waster? What do you put off until tomorrow?

How to Quit Being An Enemy to Yourself

January 7, 2016 by Michael Wilson

I am my own worst enemy! I can defeat myself faster than a speeding bullet. I can tear myself down quicker than a wrecking ball. I can condemn myself better than anyone. Yes, I am my own worst enemy.

But I can also be my greatest ally. It is all in the way that I think.

Years ago, I went through a discipleship session called Christ Life. It is now The Ultimate Journey. Through that intensive course, I learned that my brain will only believe what I tell it. I know that sounds strange so let me explain.

If 50 people told me I was smart, handsome and a great friend I may or may not believe them. The deciding factor is if I see myself that way. If my wife tells me I am handsome but I see myself as ugly, who do you think I am going to believe? I will always believe myself . . . and you will too.

Hence, your brain only believes what you tell it. Unfortunately, most of us walk around believing lies about ourselves. When you believe a lie, you empower that lie. You give it room to grow.

As I reflected on the last couple years of my life I realized that I was simply drifting through life. I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live mainly because of the way I was thinking about things. I have been allowing the circumstances of my past, and the hurt caused me by others, to determine how I was living.

I was empowering lies about myself that were limiting my quality of life. I have certainly been living lower that God intended for me to live. Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. I have been living below, in what I would call, the spiritual poverty line.

And it has all been because of my limiting beliefs, or what I have been telling myself.

I decided that 2016 was going to be different. I decided that 2016 has to be different. However, New Years Day is not a magical day. Just because you buy a new calendar and proclaim it’s a new year doesn’t mean that changes will come.

2016 will be not different than 2015 unless I make it different. I know that there will be traumas, tragedies, hurt, hard times and temptations that will come my way. But, it’s my beliefs and thoughts that will either sink me or allow me to soar. I decided I want to stop drifting and start designing my life my life again.

To do that, I had to start facing the limiting beliefs. I had to ask myself what was really holding me back. It all boiled down to the way I was looking at things, my circumstances and where I am at in life. It came down to what I was believing.

What I believe will either hold me back or cause me to soar. You see, for every limiting belief I have there is a liberating truth. Jesus said that He is the truth and His teaching is the truth. He said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. I believe that Jesus has something to say about every one of my limiting beliefs.

What He has to say is the truth . . . and I want to live in truth.

So I am dealing with my limiting beliefs this year. That’s not to say that they are magically gone. They are not. I have to reprogram my thinking. The Bible calls this renewing the mind. I have my limiting beliefs wrote out along with my set of liberating truths.

I have been my own worst enemy but that is about to change. 2016 shall see me as my best ally!

What about you? Are you allowing certain beliefs to hold you back?

Don’t Despise the Package!

December 24, 2015 by Michael Wilson

Gifts come in all shapes and sizes. My family Christmas tree is full of gifts in different colored wrapping paper, bows and ribbon. Some are big and some are small. Each of my children hopes that the biggest one goes to them. For some reason, we often get excited thinking that the bigger the gift the better it will be.

Do you remember the greatest gift you ever received at Christmas time?

Christmas is celebrated by Christians as the birthdate of Jesus. We consider Him to be the greatest gift of all. We believe that He is the Son of God that miraculously became a human, born of a virgin. We believe that He died on a cross for the sins of mankind that we could be restored to a rightful relationship with our Father in Heaven.

Truly, He is a great gift.

You would think such greatness would come in a great package. When we want to give someone we love and cherish a special gift we will go to great lengths to pick out the right wrapping paper and the perfect bow. We might even set up the surroundings to make everything perfect for when they open that gift.

But, He didn’t come wrapped up in a great package.

He was born around smelly animals. Truly not a place for a king, let alone the God of the Universe.

He didn’t look like royalty. He was born to commoner parents. No regal robes, no silver or gold plated rattles. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

His birth was made known by angels to shepherds and not to anyone else. He was born in a little, out of way town that didn’t have much significance.

His birth was low-key and was not something that you expect of a great King.

In other words, a gift came wrapped up in an unassuming package.

Throughout Jesus’ life, He was not received by many of His own. He didn’t come wrapped in the package they were expecting. They were expecting a mighty warrior King that would free them from Roman oppression. He came as the Suffering Servant. He did not look or act like they thought he should look or act.

They missed the gift because of the packaging.

Have you ever missed the gift of God because it didn’t come the way you thought it should? I have. I looked at the package (the person) and didn’t like what I saw so I was unable to receive the gift.

God wraps His gifts in the packaging of humanity.

He wants us to be able to see beyond the packaging. He wants us to see the gift inside.

The gifts under the tree are not really about the wrapping paper. It’s not even about the box that the gift comes packaged in. It’s the gift itself. It’s what is wrapped up in the paper and the box.

It’s the same with people. It’s not about what’s on the outside. It’s about the inside. Learn to look beyond the exterior to see the heart. This Christmas season, and throughout the coming year, learn to see beyond the exterior of every human being and see the gift that is on the inside.

When God Recalculates Your Journey

December 15, 2015 by Michael Wilson

Most of us have been there . . . in the car, going on a trip using a GPS to direct us where we are going. Maybe you missed a turn or didn’t want to follow directions. Then it happens, you make her mad and she starts in . . . recalculating! A GPS is great and very handy, especially when you come up to an accident or road construction and you have to take a detour. A GPS can help you find the shortest route.

But what do you do when life throws you a detour. What do you do when your life’s journey is going well and then all of sudden because of a wrong turn, a bad decision or someone else’s bad decision, you are suddenly lost, facing a dead-end, looking at a major detour or just simply broke down at the side of the road?

In a GPS, you can update the maps to stay current with new roads and shorter ways to get you to where you want to go. Life isn’t that easy. Sometimes, you might know exactly what to do in order to keep moving forward. Sometimes, there will be people who can give you directions. There are going to be some times that your journey is so overwhelming that you just want to sit and have a good cry.

It seems that I have been on a major detour for a couple of years now. My life was going along pretty good, and I was enjoying the journey. However, there was a major roadblock that required me to get off the fast lane and spend some time in the middle of nowhere trying to get things sorted out.

Every time I would seemingly get started again I would end up down another deserted road or dead end, for which my “life’s GPS” didn’t have a map for. Every other time in my life that I had faced adversity I usually knew what to do to keep moving and get out of the situation. This time, I didn’t. My “life’s GPS” just keep repeating over and over…..recalculating.

Have you ever been there? It sucks and it’s frustrating.

I remember many times crying out to God, “I’m so lost.” Finally, one day the Lord spoke back to me and said, “Michael, you are not lost. You are in Me and I know exactly where you are.” My response: “I am glad you know where I am but could you tell me where I am because I haven’t a clue.” My prayer changed to, “Lord, I know I am not lost, but I don’t know where I am.” While I chuckle at that, it can get frustrating at times because I want to be in control. I want to be able to chart my course. I want to know where I am going, how I am going to get there and how long it’s going to take.

But, if Jesus is going to be Lord of my life, then I have to yield control to Him and trust Him that everything is going to work out.

Sometimes, though, I struggle in my trust of God. I know that God loves me, that He is good and kind, and that He has a plan. It just feels that He went on vacation and won’t be back for a while and I can’t reach Him. I know that most Christians have felt that way before.

The good news is that God does know where we are, we are never lost to Him. He has a way of recalculating our lives and the journeys we are on in a way that will always work out for our good. It just seems that sometimes the GPS is always on recalculating while we are anxious to get back to the interstate so that we can zoom along again to our destination.

There are three things I’ve learned through my journey of constant recalculation.

1. Along life’s journey, there will always be times when you have to recalculate.

I think that’s been one of my biggest struggles. That is, what happened to me wasn’t supposed to happen to me! I was supposed to be exempt from that. It wasn’t fair, and I have let God know that on many occasions.

God knows the trials, bumps, detours and roadblocks that we are going to face. He knows when we are going to slam into an obstacle in the road while we are flying 70 miles an hour down life’s highway. He knows about everything that is going to jump out at us and the things that are going to blindside us.

He knows. And He has a way of recalculating our journey when needed.

2. God is not afraid of detours.

Many times we think that God is surprised by our detours. He always has a plan. He’s not afraid of our detours.

For most of my life, I have been too focused on the destination. I have been learning that God is focused on the journey. It’s how we handle ourselves on the journey that God is looking at. Remember the story of Jairus’ daughter in Matthew 9? Jairus asks Jesus to come heal his daughter. Jesus agrees but on the way, a women who had been hemorrhaging for many years touched his cloak and was healed. Jesus was on a mission to heal a girl but there was an interruption, and a woman was healed.

It was a detour and God was not messed up by it. And He isn’t messed up by your detours either. You never know when a miracle might take place in the midst of your detour.

3. The destination isn’t the goal . . . the journey is.

Growing up, I heard the word destiny a lot. It was all about reaching your destiny. We all had a destiny that God was going to get us to. For me, my destiny was to become a Senior Pastor. I remember my first day as a Senior Pastor. I had reached my destiny . . . now what?

I was so focused on my destiny that I wasn’t paying attention to the journey. And detours along the way were points of depression and frustration to me, not opportunities for miracles. It thought that each detour, roadblock, and dead-end was a hindrance to my destiny.

It’s in the journey of life that we find God. It’s in the detours of life that we discover his grace. It’s in the dead-ends of our journey that we find God’s redemption. God is more interested in our journey than He is in our destination. In reality, the journey is the destination.

Each moment is the destination because this moment is all we have. I am learning to live in the moment.

Although we may not like detours, dead-ends, and road blocks, they are a part of life. God’s not afraid of them. God will use them. God will recalculate your journey whenever you face a detour, dead-end or road block.

Recalculating . . . . . . .

The Shaming of Jesus

November 24, 2015 by Michael Wilson

Is there one moment in time that you wish you could go back and undo? Is there one embarrassing moment or one major mistake that you are now so ashamed of? Believe it or not, Jesus understands the whole issue of shame and how it can affect a person, sometimes for life.

Burden By Shame/John Hain/CC2.0

I remember sitting in a very intense group meeting as we were exploring our past to help us overcome present behaviors based upon those past experiences. I had one event in my life that I was terribly ashamed of. I was sitting in my chair begging God not to ask me to reveal THAT secret. Anything else but that one secret of shame. There was no way that I could ever confess what I did. Don’t we all have that one moment that we hope and pray no one finds out about because if they did, well, maybe they wouldn’t look at us the same anymore?

Jesus was born to a mother that most in her town supposed had been unfaithful to her fiance. Not to mention the incredible story that she gave about her pregnancy being a supernatural miracle from God. She claimed to still be a virgin, yet here she was pregnant. Growing up under the shadow of the rumors and gossip concerning his birth (and mother) certainly could have induced shame in Jesus . . . if he would have allowed it to.

Rumor mills and gossip seem to be a part of our human nature. We love to hear, and tell, the stories of other people whether they are true or not. Jesus’ birth was great fodder for the rumors and gossip to fly. The stigma that came to children either born out of wedlock, or affairs, was really bad in this time period. I believe that Jesus saw the stares of people, and most likely heard the rumors going around. Quite possibly he was ostracized by his peers and other adults in the community. The Bible doesn’t give us any information about this time in Jesus’ life. But knowing human nature as we all do, I am sure that shame was there, ready to label Jesus as being less than because he wasn’t born under the “right conditions.”

So, what lessons can we learn from Jesus living under the cloud of shame from others?

Jesus understands our shame because of the gossip that he endured.

Jesus knew what people thought of him. He knew what the rumors and gossip were. He knows what it’s like to have others form opinions of you that are not true, yet everyone takes them as being true. Jesus knows what it’s like to endure gossip and rumors and have your name slandered all over the place. He knows what it’s like to come from circumstances that aren’t the best. He knows what it’s like to live with people that are not full of grace but tend to look down their nose at you thinking they are better than you.

Jesus didn’t allow other people’s opinions of him to define him.

It’s easy to allow others to label us. It’s easy to give into the identity that the crowd puts upon us. Sometimes it just seems easier to live out what everyone believes rather than be true to ourselves. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to be worth the fight. But no one can define you but you! You cannot allow others to tell you who you are. Jesus didn’t. He was secure in who he was regardless of what others thought, said or implied. The beauty of God’s grace is that you are not defined by what you have done. You are defined by your creator and what He thinks of you.

Jesus doesn’t say “shame on you.” He declares, “shame OFF of you!”

Jesus isn’t looking to condemn people. He is looking to take condemnation off of people. While the world, and often times the church, is putting shame on people because of their actions and mistakes, Jesus is wanting to take shame off of people out of his love for them. Guilt is one thing and it is a good thing. It means that we have a conscience and we still can discern right from wrong. Shame is totally different. Shame makes us feel bad about ourselves, whereas guilt makes us feel bad for what we have done. Jesus did not shame anyone. He still doesn’t. He never says, “how could you?” He is always on our side, interceding and advocating on our behalf.

Shame is not from God. Shame will always make us feel less than. God is always trying to bring us up to the level of His love for us. If you are experiencing shame, ask God to deliver you from that, helping you to see the truth. The truth is always what He says about you, not what you say, or what others say. All Him to take the shame off of you so that you can live in true freedom.

Remember the story I started out with, the one where I was scared to share something I had done that I was so ashamed of? With the encouragement and help of the group, I was able to share my deep, dark, shameful secret and I found freedom. Jesus took the shame off of me and released me from the prison I had put myself in.

Do you struggle with shame? Do you feel there are things that God will not, or cannot, forgive? Do you allow the opinions of others to define who you are?