Wait for It!

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“You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.” Luke 1:45. Because you heard from God and waited for it to manifest and believed you are blessed…
The book of Daniel gives us glimpses into the future.  This prophecy would take place throughout Daniels life and many things he spoke of happened hundreds of year after they were spoken by Daniel.  Daniel never got to see them manifest…In the ninth chapter of Daniel says, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.” “Daniel 9:24.  What we should know as a beginning to the correctly understanding this prophecy, that in Daniel’s view, those weeks represented years, so the 70 weeks of Daniel represent 490 years -70 times 7 years- that ended with the death of Jesus the Christ. jesus Daniel spoke these things around 457 B.C.  If we extract this number to 490 (490-457=33) so, here we see that the 70 weeks of Daniel were completed with the death by crucifixion of Jesus around the year 33 A.D.  Continuing on in that chapter, “Yet shall he confirm the covenant with many for one week.” Daniel 9.27.  Did Jesus confirm His covenant of love and mercy with Daniel’s people for 7 years? There was a 7 year period between the death of Christ and the time the Gospel was sent out to the Gentiles at the calling of Cornelius. This is the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy.

Later in DANIEL 11:3 it says, “Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.”  After the military defeat of Xerxes by the Greeks, a number of additional Persian kings ruled the empire. But Xerxes had set the stage for a strong Greek ruler to arise. This ruler was the Macedonian Alexander the Great, who defeated Persian King Darius III Codomannus in 333 BCE at the battle of Issus (located on the Mediterranean coast in what is now southeast Turkey). This defeat signaled the beginning of the end of the Persian Empire.

At the height of his power, Alexander conquered and ruled an empire that stretched from southern Europe to North Africa to central Asia.great But the Greek empire of Alexander was not destined to endure. He fell ill and died on June 10, 323 BCE in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.

So throughout the life of Daniel there are some compelling things that God spoke to Daniel that Daniel himself did not even have a chance to see fulfilled… The question that pops into my head then is what is God telling you that you think is never going to be fulfilled?  Do you think that it is impossible for it to happen?  Well when God speaks something into your life sometimes you have to give it time to manifest into reality and not give up so easily because you do not see anything happening right now!

After all when you plant a seed you do not see it pop out of the ground the moment you cover it with dirt, it takes time for the seed to sprout and mature then it bears fruit!

God is Greater Than All My Unanswered Questions

I don’t have all the ANSWERS! And I don’t CARE!

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“You are worthy, O Lord our God,

To receive glory and honor and power.

For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you please.” (Revelation 4:11).

            I never really thought or saw this before but, it is important to realize that from the beginning of the Bible (Genesis) to the end of the Bible (Revelations) God is telling us that He created the world.  It is also worthy of pointing out that this is one of the hardest topics to witness and prove to people.  With the world today teaching our kids evolution and everything else besides intelligent design it is harder and harder to get people to believe in a God they cannot see.  Not only that it is hard for them to get them to believe that God spoke something into nothing and from nothing came everything that we currently see.  The facts are that while we may not know what to say when someone asks us about these tough questions, the truth is always the same.  God did indeed create something from nothing and we are not God’s sales person who needs to convince people of the facts we know are true.  God is His own salesman and we are just called to do what we can to be His hands and feet.  A hammer does not look at a house and say, “Look at what I just built!”  The hammer without the Carpenter is nothing… We are the hammer and as

Genesis 1:1, 2 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.     galaxies

           God created it whether we believe it or not that does not change the fact that He is who He is… God is not made smaller by our small view of Him.  He is the God who created something out of nothing and gave us the honor to be made in His image.  I am challenged every day to see the world God created and see Him in all of it and so should you…

God is bigger than our explanations of Him and I find it refreshing when people do not act like they have all the answers, because we don’t… If I had all the answers to the questions of God then the God you and I serve would not be a Big enough God to serve.  I am glad I don’t have all the answers because in that He keeps me coming back to know Him better.

beginend          From the beginning to the end of the Bible it tells us the same story God is the creature that’s the “start and finish of it”

Take the bull by the horns

“Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”-Matthew 26:39
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In the Orient young bulls are tested for the fight arena in a certain manner . Each is brought to the ring and allowed to attack a picador who pricks them with a lance. The bravery of each bull is then rated with care according to the number of times he demonstrates his willingness to charge in spite of the sting of the blade. Henceforth recognize that each day you are tested by life in like manner. If you persist, if you continue to charge forward, you will succeed.

Sometimes you have to feel the sting of the blade to get to the ultimate goal…

Think about Jesus in the garden right before He was betrayed by one of His very own followers. Jesus knew the sting that was about to come even to the point that He asked His Father to take that cup from His hands. Jesus knew that to suffer ment He would succeed in His mission to save you and me. Yet in spite of the sting of the nails He preceded to charge forward…

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to us to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach our goal. Failure you may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will you know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.

Sometimes you have to suffer a little to succeed… pain brings on change! Take the bull by the horns and

BRING ON THE PAIN OF CHANGE!

William A Horton

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DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP…

            Last night in church we started a new small group that really gets you to think about where you are with Christ.  It is based off the book by Kyle Idleman called Not a Fan.  Define your relationship with God?   This is not for us to judge others based off of our relationship with God but to take a good self-evaluation of where we truly are with our creature… Are you a fan our are you a follower?  Most fans would say they are followers… the Pharisees would have said they were followers and yet they killed Jesus.  A fan is an enthusiastic admirer, you may know all the scripture in the world but do you have a true relationship with God.  Followers are devoted and sacrifice is required to be a follower.

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

As Uncle Ben would say, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  God has empowered us with the Holy Spirit now we are responsible to do something with that daily!  In the Gospels Jesus says believe in me something like five times but He says follow me twenty!  We are to follow Him!  Being a committed follower of Jesus means that He has an all access pass to your life.  Is there rooms that you are trying to keep Jesus out of?

So have you DEFINED THE RELATIONSHIP with God yet… or did you just say a prayer of salvation and left it at that?  God does not want a causal relationship with you where you come to church and put your two dollars in the tithe plate then forget about Him the rest of the week…

JESUS WANTS TO GIVE YOU A COMPLETE OVERHAUL NOT JUST A TUNE UP!

SO ARE YOU A FAN OR A FOLLOWER?

Are We Just Glorified Slaves?

Are you locked up and don’t even know it…  Are you just a glorified slave?  IMG_20150401_194008

Romans 1:25, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.

 

We live in a world that is full of technology that is supposed to make life easier, but instead we all know that it just makes our lives more complicated.  The fact that we can sit with our heads buried in our phones and not even recognize that there is someone next to you struggling is proof of that.  This web of technology does entangle us in a never ending web of busyness and hurry, which makes us forget about the fact that there are real people hurting around us.  Having our cell phones with us everywhere we go including the bathroom makes us forget the importance of human contact and even takes away time from God.  When we wake up and the first thing that we do is look to see how many likes we have on a post or maybe you check to see your Twitter numbers… When we do these things there is something completely wrong with our thought process!  The first thing that we should do in the morning is not to check social media but it should be to connect with God!  Have a real heart to heart with our creature.  We are too busy with the created things that we phase out the one who made them all possible.  Imagine if you spent as much time with God as you do on Facebook, I have to be totally honest with all of you if I did that my relationship with God would be much, much stronger than it is now.  It is sad to think that we have all this technology to get things at a moment’s notice yet we forget that God just wants a little of that precious time that we are trying to save.  Today I will look at my life and see how I can truly give myself a way to God…

So what will keep you from God…?

Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

I am convinced that in this modern world that we live in we could add to this list; neither cell phone or tablet, computer nor job…

Whom are you a slave to?  We can be a slave to technology or we can be a slave to God… The choose is yours!

Here is to NEW beginnings!

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BE PREPARED TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE…

            “Therefore, If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away behold all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

The renewed man acts upon new principles, by new rules, with new ends, and in new company. The believer is created anew; his heart is not merely set right, but a new heart is given to him. But sometimes you have to crash and burn first…

Evil Knievel attempted more than 75 ramp to ramp jumps in his life time. A failed jump over Snake River Canyon left him with 433 broken bones.  He had to crash and burn to become what most people call one of the greatest American Icons.  In the Silicon Valley fortune 500 companies won’t hire you until you have lost a million dollars first.  Why you may ask?  They want to see what you do after you crash and burn… Our lives are full of testimonies but until we come to Christ we do not see them as such.  Like the Phoenix that rises from the ashes we are also new creations in Christ and everything that we go through is the uncomfortable things that we need to grow closer to God.

BE PREPARED TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE!

If you want to grow you better be prepared to live outside your comfort zone…

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).

The cross that Jesus was hung on weighed over 400 pounds to be on the conservative side.  Jesus told us to deny ourselves and carry that cross… Talk about out of your comfort zone.  Anyone that has lifted weights knows that after a few reps of shoulder presses you feel the burn, but it is not until you push past that burn that you get to the next level. Sometimes crashing and burning draws you closer to God.

So… “Let us not grow tired of doing what is right, for after a while you will reap a harvest of blessings if you don’t get discouraged and give up” (Gal. 6:9).

So when you crash and burn and feel uncomfortable remember that you are a new creation, and diamonds are forged out of pressure… Metals are forged in the fire 🔥
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).
This includes the crash and burns of life!

BUT IN THE END BEAUTIFUL THINGS COME FROM THAT PRESSURE AND FORGING!

Humble yet Hungry

“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Therefore humble yourself under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6).

There is something about being humble yet hungry… We should be happy with where we are but not content to stay there.  Humble that God has brought us this far but we should also realize that God has so much more for us than just this…

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20)

God wants to do more than you are I can think or imagine in our lives, and let’s be honest we can all think of great things we would want to happen in our lives.  But the kicker is that we have to stay humble… you have to have your heart in the right place and your motives have to be true…

“And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong–you want only what will give you pleasure” (James 4:3)

So to stay humble yet hungry is the key!

We are not static in our nature we are dynamic and always changing.  You will wake up tomorrow and you will be a little different than you were the day before.  Soon your tomorrow becomes your yesterday that shapes your future, and what did you do with it?

Are you Humble yet Hungry?

God resists the proud because they have no room for Him in their lives, you or I would not be alive without God first.  He knew us before we were knitted together in our mother’s womb and He has a plan for us to prosper, but are we to proud to give Him time.

“…Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.”  (James 4:4)

So if you want to be proud and fed by the worlds standards you make yourself an enemy of God, but if you stay HUMBLE YET HUNGRY God will feed you with the living bread and water.

Don’t be satisfied to stay where you are in your relationship with God but be Humble enough to know that God has you VERY best interest at heart.

STAY HUMBLE YET HUNGRY!

We need a Savoir

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Let’s be honest in the world today people see right and wrong in totally different ways. There is slowly becoming no absolute truths. Know one wants to be wrong and every ones opinions count and matter…which I respect in some ways but there is an absolute truth that is still alive today in our beliefs that God lays out for us in the Bible. We are not people that make mistakes in need of correction.We are sinners in need of a Savior.We need more than a second chance.We need a Savoir!

William A Horton