August 28, 2020

Yesterday, as part of the Morning Prayer Walk I posted the fourth of the Ten Commandments: “Father, help me to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.” I have to admit this is the one I have the most difficult time with. I am getting better, but am still far from where I need to be on taking time to rest. In addition, I am praying that I learn what it means to keep it holy in our context. I believe it’s about more than rest. It’s about honoring God.

Today, I posted the fifth of the Ten Commandments: “Father, help me to honor my parents well.” I realize this is more difficult for some than others. Each person has to determine what this looks like for them. My wife’s aunt modeled this to us so well. Her mom’s mind was ravaged by Alzheimer’s and she couldn’t live in her home next door any longer. After her mom moved into the nursing home, she drove 15 miles each day to fix her hair and put lotion on her skin, and missed very few days. This was a beautiful way to honor her mom.

May we bless God by honoring our parents well!

August 26, 2020

It is always dark when we take our prayer walk on Wednesday mornings because I have a prayer meeting at 7:00 with some area pastors. We are doing it on Zoom right now, but I have come to really appreciate the time I have with those guys. It’s amazing the bond you build with people when you get together for prayer like that. We are praying for a great awakening in our community.

This morning, I posted this part of the morning prayer from the third of the Ten Commandments, “Father, I will not use Your name in vain, but will revere Your name as holy.” Too many people refer to God as “The Big Guy,” or “The Man Upstairs.” Makes me cringe… Or, the number of times I hear or see OMG makes me ill. His Name is above all names. We should fall on our faces at the mention of His great name. He is the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and is deserving of our worship and reverence. Don’t get me wrong… I have been guilty and have had to repent. However, the more I know Him, the more His name means to me.

I was in Maine on vacation last October and one of my daughters dropped her debit card. A lady went to great lengths to find her on Facebook and then match her face to the pictures she found there! I thanked the lady and then asked if there was anything I could be praying for her about. She asked that I pray for her ministry called, “Revere the Name,” and she gave me a rubber bracelet with that phrase on it. I still pray for her and her ministry and think of that each morning when I pray this part of the prayer. Another great reminder that God’s name is above all others and shouldn’t be spoken with anything but reverence.

May we bless God by revering His holy name!

August 25, 2020

The early morning prayer walk is one of my favorite parts of the day. It is calm and peaceful and usually my head is still fairly clear at this point! I shared last time that I would be emphasizing the Ten Commandments for the next 10 days, as they are a part of my daily prayers.

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook and Instagram this prayer, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I acknowledge you as the one and only true and living God.” There is no other God. I don’t think that needs anymore explaining.

Today, I posted, “Father, I will not bow down to idols or worship anyone or anything other than You.” Sometimes, it is easy to dismiss this one and think, “We don’t have any household gods, idols, shrines or Buddha statues in the backyard so we are good.” I think this can be a bit dangerous. How often do we put people or things before God? He wants us to have a healthy view of relationships and people in general and of possessions. God wants to be our only focus of worship. He is the only one worthy. We can read through the Old Testament and get a really good picture about how God feels about false gods.

May we bless God by bowing down to Him only!

August 23, 2020

It has been a really great weekend. Typically when my wife and kids go out of town, I have a self-imposed list of things to do as long as my arm. I work to see how much I can possibly get done and am usually exhausted at the end of the weekend. I decided not to make that list this time, but to just relax and enjoy some time with God, mom, and my son. I really needed this time to re-calibrate! Last night we watched the movie, Overcomer, which goes right along with what God is teaching me right now. I highly recommend the movie!

I am really trying to focus more on intimacy with God and my passion for Him. One thing I have realized is that sometimes I need to do different things and get out of my ruts in order to do this. Being a person of routine, I can get into ruts of doing the same thing the same way for a very long time. This is ok with some things, but when it comes to my relationship with God, I want to keep it fresh and alive. I always walk Charlie around our neighborhood in the morning and at night (yes, part of that routine thing). Yesterday, I loaded him up in the truck (front seat of course) and we went to the park. It was a great place to have my prayer walk and gave Charlie some new sights to see and things to smell… One of the Scriptures I pray every morning is, “Father, help me to love You with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.” I want to love God with my whole being and I am learning more and more what this looks like. It involves my emotions, beliefs, thoughts, and actions. All of these should be working together to glorify Him.

Each morning, I also pray, “Father, help me to love others as Jesus loves.” We know that the commandment was for us to love others as ourselves. However, Jesus changed that and said He was giving us a new command to love others as He had loved them. We can’t do this unless we love God first, but we can’t love God unless we love people. It all goes hand in hand. Daren asked a great question this morning in the benediction time, “To whom does God want you to show love this week?” Pray and listen. Then, begin to pray for that person and ask God how He wants you to show that love. I would love to hear what God does with that!

These are known as the greatest commandments. Jesus said that on these two commandments depend the law and the prophets. He was basically boiling down the 10 commandments. This brings me to another thing that I pray each morning on the walk, and that is that I will observe the heart of the 10 commandments, so that I will love God and people well. So… over the next 10 days, this will be the emphasis of the blog.

May we bless God by loving Him with our whole being and loving others as Jesus loved!

August 21, 2020

I had a really great time tonight taking Mom to dinner. She wanted breakfast for dinner, which is also one of my favorites. Guess it runs in the genes… ewww… let’s hope not. Oh, that’s genes, not jeans… LOL.

On the Friday morning prayer walks, I emphasize the last part of the Lord’s Prayer. I understand that it isn’t in all the manuscripts, but I still pray it: “For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen!” This is a great reminder that this is God’s Kingdom and I am His servant, not the other way around. I have no kingdom and He doesn’t bow down to my every want and wish. I just get to be a part of His kingdom, for which I am so thankful. It is also a reminder that anything good I do is only because of His power. Apart from Him, I am nothing. I can only go in the power He provides. In my own strength, I always fall short. Lastly, it reminds me that everything I do should be for His glory, to magnify His awesome name. I don’t want to lift up my name, but instead want to make Him known. All of this requires humility. On this journey, I am more humble than I once was, but still not where I want to be. Only by the grace of God go I!

May we bless God by humbling ourselves and acknowledging Him as our King!

So… this ends our week long emphasis on the Lord’s Prayer. Stay tuned tomorrow to see what part of the morning prayer we go to next!

August 20, 2020

The girls are out of town for a few days so going to get some guy time with my son. He is growing into a pretty fun and amazing young man. Won’t be ready to take him on in basketball and probably should stay off the river for a week or so after the surgery, but we’ll find something fun to do. For now, I am going home earlier than expected and we’ll figure out what is for dinner. I’m having some of the fresh apple cake my sweet wife baked for me. I don’t know what he’s having… 😉

During the Thursday morning prayer walks, I pray the Lord’s Prayer, as I do each day, but emphasize, “Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil.” We have an enemy who wants to kill, steal, and destroy everything and everyone kingdom-related. He is the deceiver and the father of lies. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Yet, too often we don’t recognize his schemes. If we are not in the word to daily fill ourselves with truth, the lies of the enemy begin to sound more and more like truth because they sound like what we hear from the world. But take heart, he who is in you is SO much greater than he who is in the world. Jesus has won the war!

May we bless God by standing firm against the devil’s schemes, wearing the full armor of God!

August 19, 2020

On my Wednesday morning prayer walks, I pray the Lord’s Prayer, emphasizing, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Forgiveness is a huge key to peace and freedom. I have seen so many people stuck in their own prisons because they either can’t forgive someone else, they can’t forgive themselves, or they cannot believe they can receive God’s forgiveness. God wants us to live a life of forgiveness!

I went on a journey of forgiveness about 17 years ago that lasted about a year and a half. It was one of the most painful, yet wonderful and freeing things I have ever gone through. This included forgiving others, but also asking some people to forgive me. In addition, I began to be able to hear God’s truth about what He thought about me and was able to repent and receive His forgiveness, as well.

I have walked with people who couldn’t forgive someone who had done something to them. However, when they were able to release their anger with that person and when they realized that it wasn’t letting them off the hook or saying that what they did was okay, it was amazing to see the peace and freedom that overcame them.

I have had many people in my office who had repented and believed that God had forgiven them, but they couldn’t forgive themselves. They had such a wall of shame built up. God is in the business of knocking down these walls. We just need His truth to counteract our false beliefs that we are worthless, failures, or fill-in-the blank.

I have also talked to people who believed they did something so bad that God could never forgive them. As they learn the character of God and what repentance, grace, and mercy are, they light begins to come on. This is where hope begins to come into the picture and it is a beautiful thing!

God wants us to live lives of peace and freedom. This begins with forgiving others, forgiving ourselves, and receiving God’s forgiveness. Allow God to break down those prison walls and you’ll never be the same!

May we bless God by living a life of forgiveness!

August 18, 2020

During my prayer walk each Tuesday, as I include “the Lord’s Prayer,” I emphasize, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We depend upon God for our every need. We can count on Him to provide what we need when we need it.

Let’s also remember that when the enemy tempted Jesus to turn the stones into bread when He had been fasting 40 days and nights, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy and said, “Man cannot live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus is the Word of God and he also said in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” More important than any physical need is our spiritual need to have Jesus. Without Him, we are nothing!

May we bless God by depending on Him for all of our needs, including spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional!

August 17, 2020 – What? Me, stubborn? Yep!

On Monday mornings as I walk and pray, the portion of the Lord’s Prayer that I emphasize is “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” This is what Jesus prayed in the garden, “Not my will, but Your will be done, Father.” I pray for God’s will to be done in my life, marriage, children, home, church, city, county, state, country and world as it is in Heaven. I don’t pray this lightly but with some trepidation knowing what it could mean. God isn’t as interested in our happiness as He is our holiness.

I can be fairly strong willed and determined. At times, this has served me well. For instance, in college I had a group of friends who said their goal was to get me drunk. Well… translated in my mind… GAME ON. When someone tells me what they are going to make me do or get me to do and it isn’t something I agree with, my strong will kicks in and there is no way on God’s green earth I will allow it to happen. I basically told them it would only happen over my dead body. Just for the record, I have still never been drunk. 🙂

Last Sunday morning, God reminded me of a time where my strong will really showed up as stubborn pride. The company I was working for was “highly encouraging” us to all wear uniforms, but it was not required. The idea was to have everyone in the company all the way up to the CEO wearing the same uniform to show that everyone had equal value. I didn’t really let that sink in. I didn’t want to wear the uniform because, quite frankly, I didn’t like the way it looked. So I didn’t even order them. I look back and it was nothing but pride.

Later in the morning, our worship minister read from Exodus how God told Moses to remove his sandals for the ground he was standing on was holy. Then, we were asked to remove our shoes and acknowledge God as holy. At first, I didn’t want to. I don’t even go without some kind of shoes on my feet at home. Then, this still small voice encouraged me to engage in the practice of saying “yes,” instead of being resistant. So… I preached the sermon in my socks…

I often pick up a rock to remind me of what God is teaching me. As I was leaving the church building, there was a “random” rock in the parking lot and I picked it up. God is teaching me to surrender my will to His will. I need to be more open to change and to what He is doing. I do not want to be stiff-necked nor resistant to the Holy Spirit. I want to follow and be obedient.

May we bless God by surrendering our will to His will!

August 16, 2020

I have been awake since 2:15 this morning, so I will keep this short. Tomorrow is our day for praying 24 hours for the people of our county and my time begins at 5:15 a.m., so I’m about to give Charlie his evening walk and then crash. 🙂

On Sunday mornings, the part of the Lord’s Prayer that I emphasize is, “Your kingdom come…” I pray that God’s Kingdom will break into every aspect of my life, our marriage, our children, our family, our church, our city, our county, our state, our country, and our world. This goes along with seeking first God’s kingdom and His righteousness. Where do you need God’s kingdom to break through?

May God bless you as you allow His kingdom to take over every aspect of your life!