Decoys

"You can look like a duck, but if you don't waddle and quack, you are a decoy."
-Kenny Luck

What is your signature today? If I am to be a "man of faith in God", the main characteristic of my life needs to be faith expressed through obedience. If we are known for anything today it should be our willingness to respond to God's direction no matter what the risk. I read a line this morning that said loss for the sake of loss is stupidity. But suffering loss, real or imagined, for obedience to Christ is faith at its very best. God loves prompt obedience. I don't want God waiting for me to decide if I am going to obey. God has patience, but I hope He doesn't need to be using it constantly on me.

I've read Revelation 22 (The end of the Book), We Win!!!!!!

Monday Cultivation

After a full weekend of classes and powerful church services Monday morning is a good time to work on heart development. I need an honoring heart reestablishing my view of God’s supremacy, an obedient heart that is transparent with God concerning struggles, failures and desires and a thankful heart because God is deserving of great praise. I have learned that time spent cultivating that kind of heart is time well spent. No other agenda for my day matters as much as shoring up my relationship with God. Pursuit of God is and must remain as my greatest priority. My ultimate expression of honor to God is worship. It must permeate my every activity. The result will be clarity of focus. That’s good Monday morning thinking.

Just do it!

In the book, “Wild Goose Chase” by Mark Batterson there is a section that gives advice about things we do not need to pray about. Things such as whether or not we should love our neighbor or whether we should give generously. There are some things that God has clearly spoken about and we need to act on it. I really like the quote from Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate:

“I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it, began reading again? There are aspects of the Gospel that are puzzling and difficult to understand. But our problems are not centered around the things we don’t understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand. Our problem is not so much that we don’t know what we should do. We know perfectly well, but we don’t want to do it.”

I am convinced that nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing is too difficult for God. It’s my job to find out what God tells me is not too difficult for me and then Just do it. I am reading through the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament this week. This really blessed me this morning:

Jeremiah 32:17 17 "O Sovereign LORD! You made the heavens and earth by your strong hand and powerful arm. Nothing is too hard for you!

God is 100% faithful

The Bible tells us that God’s love is made complete in us as we obey His word. At the heart of the gospel is obedience. It is said in scripture to be better than sacrifice. As we think about that, we find:

God means what He says
God does what He says
God is able to accomplish whatever He commits to doing

Kenny Luck, Author of “Risk” says, “Obedience is the evidence that convinces the world that we are indeed grateful” Our grateful obedience brings joy to God.

One more quote this morning about risk:

“We risk for Him to the degree that we know we are loved by Him.”
-Brennan Manning