Listen

Sometimes I need to learn to be quiet.  I talk a lot.  I am a conversationalist! I enjoy being around people and having “conversations!”  But I talk too much.  How about you?  Are you a talker or do you keep to yourself?  I would probably drive you crazy.  It has been said of me by one of my professors at Bible College that, “James, he’s a great guy but bring a bag lunch with you because he doesn’t shut up.”  That’s a fair and accurate statement.  Know don’t get me wrong…I am also a good listener.  I will give you my undivided attention when you talk…and sometimes I’ll just listen to you and not respond.  But I could be a better listen.  I always need improvement!  My listening skills need some work.  You might as well as throw my patience skills in there too.  Now I say all of that to say this…God needs my undivided attention.    He has things He needs to say to me but I need to stop talking or I won’t hear Him.  I don’t know if you have ever done this but I have…when someone was speaking I was already thinking of what I was going to say in response to them having completely not listened to them.  Instead of giving that person my undivided attention, I am thinking of my retort.  Have you done this?  I have been awful about this at times.  I love praying to God.  I look forward to my time of communion with Him daily and often as I can.  How about you?  I realize I can’t have a relationship with Him without communication.  There are two sides to that.  My part which means I need to talk with God as well as doing His will…the other is me listening to Him.  Now I can do that by reading His Word and then meditating on it and allowing it to penetrate my soul.  I can also listen by being quiet.   David says in Psalms 143:8 that, “Let me hear Your loving-kindness in the morning; for I trust in You; teach me the way in which I should walk; for to You I lift up my soul.”  Now how can God teach me if I am talking?  In Psalm 46a it reads, “Cease striving and know that I am God…”  I believe it is “be still” in the NIV.  The Hebrew word I found in verse 10 was the word “urgo” and it means “let go” or “relax.”  God is sovereign and I am not.  Since that is the case, I need to “let go” of whatever it is that needs letting go of and let God be in control.  He is anyways whether I like or not.  Sometimes it necessary for me to “unload” on God or bring petitions before Him and other times…I need to be still and listen.  He is where patience comes back into play because sometimes being still means more than just 15 minutes.  I have a hard time being still.  Ask anyone that knows me…I move.  I can’t sit still nor stand still.  I drive people crazy.  But it is important for me to be still…because God wants to teach me and I need to listen and if I don’t shut up, I will miss out on God’s teachings.  I desire to do God’s will.  How about you?  When was the last time you just quieted your mouth, heart, soul, and mind…and just listened to God?   God has a lot to say through His Word.  God has a lot to say through His children.  God has a lot to say even through things and circumstances that might surprise you.  Are you listening to God?  Remember Job?  He was too busy talking at one point as were his friends…God was listening and when He answered Job…Job realized he needed to be quiet, that he was talking too much and listening enough.  You often read in the Old Testament that God’s people were “not listening” to Him and it got His children into trouble.  As parents don’t we have these same frustrations with our own children?  So tomorrow when you wake up…how will you start your day?  Will you just rise up and begin rushing out the door dealing with the day’s demands and become busy, doing the normal routine?  Or will you arise and begin your day with God listening to His word and His plan for your day?  Hey remember relax, He is God!  He is good!  He has an everlasting love for you!  Stop talking so much and listen.

Men...protect your marriage and family...

I want to have a heart to heart with men.  Men who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.  Men who love Jesus and their family.  Christian men!  In the last year I have seen too many of my brothers in Christ fall because of sin…particular sin of the sexual nature.  It breaks my heart.  Men who worked hard to be an example and lived their faith only to stop at some point with their walk and allow their darkest thoughts to become reality because the sin was too enticing.  In a few fleeting moments of physical pleasure; came destruction.   Wives, children, families, churches, relationships, character, and the like all destroyed because of selfishness; because of sin.   1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor…!”   Men why are you allowing the desires of the flesh to control you instead of the Spirit?  There are no excuses!  I am certainly not perfect, far from it.  I know my sin; I know the sin that crucified Jesus to the cross.  I am thankful for the grace of God.  I am glad I don’t have to live there in my sin any longer…nor do I ever want to again.  I know now that the reason for a lot of my sinful choices was because I chose not to have any accountability and I enjoyed what was going through my mind. I thought I could control myself.  I thought I could handle my situations.  I was wrong.  I didn’t allow the spirit to lead me and I didn’t have any accountability.  But most importantly I had abandoned my walk.  Men that I have counseled that have confessed their affairs, I remember them shaking and saying, “how’d this happen?”  I tell them that these affairs and sexual sin don’t happen overnight…at some point you had to abandon your walk to dwell on sin.  At some point you stopped protecting your marriage boundaries.  You allowed the temptations to overwhelm you when Paul tells us that, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  (1 Corinthians 10:13).    God is powerful and able to help us overcome any obstacle.  But we have to allow Him to do so.  The devil has used the same temptations from the beginning: greed, power, and sex.  He hasn’t needed to change them because mankind always seems to fall for them.  Jesus has defeated them so as married Christian men…what are we doing to protect ourselves from sexual sin.  1 Corinthians 6:18a says, “Flee from sexual immorality…!”  Are you?  Married Godly men, the Bible tells us, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4).  Are you protecting your marriage?  Do you need accountability?  Do you need accountability on your computer?  Do it!  Pornography should have no place in your life!  It leads to destruction!  Men stand firm in Jesus!  Don’t become a statistic…rise above it.  There are no excuses!  Get accountability…with trustworthy Godly men who will call you out and pray for you.  Up your prayer life, continually ask God for help with temptations.  Let scripture penetrate your heart, your soul…”Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”  (Psalms 119:11).  If you are having marital problems, you are not alone, seek help…the same goes for any addictions to pornography. Don’t put yourself in any dangerous situations such as counseling women alone or being alone with any women except that which your wife or that which related to you.  Men we have the Gospel of Jesus to preach and to teach…to disciple…don’t let the devil have any foothold.  Don’t abandon the Gospel for something that leads to destruction!  Don’t do it!   Remember the words of John, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1:9). Men keep your eyes on Jesus…”let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-3).  Men go spend some quality time with your beautiful bride and children…cherish God’s blessings on your life…protect them!

Be holy

Food for thought:

David asks a great question(s) of God when he says, “O LORD, who may abide in Your tent?  Who may dwell on Your holy hill?”   And then he’s able to answer his own question in the rest of the Psalm 15, “He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart.   He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; he swears to his own hurt and does not change; He does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent he who does these things will never be shaken.”  That is to the point!  As a Christian, does your walk reflect integrity, righteousness, and truth?  Do you despise evil…sin?  Why or why not?  I asked a Christian the other day a question.  The question was, “What defines you as a Christian?”  It wasn’t supposed to be a trick question.  The person said, “Grace.”  I love grace and it is crucial to our walk and our salvation but it wasn’t the answer I was looking for.  I asked others and I received answers like “mercy”, “love”, “forgiveness”, and the like.  All good answers and all critical to who we are in Christ…which was the answer I was looking for.  Let me explain.  As Christians, don’t neglect the obvious.  Jesus is the reason we are Christians.  His life gave us life.  David asked God who could dwell on His holy hill…Jesus is the model of integrity, righteousness, and truth.  He stood against evil.  His foundation was God.  Who are we to model?  Jesus!  Peter tells us, “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY." (1 Peter 1:13-16)  Are you being holy?  Another definition of holy is to be separate.  Are you living in such a way that your life is separate from that of the world?  I hope so.  Remember, “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (Romans 6:4-13)  Walk as Christ calls you to walk.  Be blessed.

Jesus' church

It's been a little bit since the last blog...our new edition has been added and she is beautiful.  All my kids are gift from God.  Anyways that is why this has been late in coming.  Here ya go:

“So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.  And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.  Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”  (Acts 2:41-47 NASB). 

“And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.  And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.”  (Acts 4:32-35 NASB)

I love reading the book of Acts and seeing how Jesus’ church became THE CHURCH.  Jesus’ boys, His apostles begin preaching with boldness and the church explodes (in a good way).  Even before all of this, when Jesus was walking the earth…people came all over to witness Him.  Everywhere He went, people wanted to see Him, hear Him, touch Him, and know Him.  This was without TV and the internet, people flocked to Jesus.  There is just something about Jesus that draws you near.  And here in the book of Acts we see the church coming together and because of Jesus, they were ONE.  People need Jesus!  Do you desire hope?  Jesus!  Do you have needs?  Jesus!  Do you have fear?  Jesus!  Are you broken?  Jesus!  Do you know your sin?  Jesus!  Do you desire grace and mercy?  Jesus!  The foundation of the church is Jesus.  It’s His church.  Why then, if it is His church…why is it so divided?  I saw a couple of guys the other day from the church arguing about philosophy.  It was heated!  They were angry at each other over their own opinions.  Really!  With all that is going on in the world today…there are so many that are broken, so many that are weighed down by their pain, weighed down by sin and all we can do is argue over nonsense…people need Jesus, not our philosophies!  James says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?”  (James 4:1 NASB)  Paul says to the church in Colossae, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”  (Colossians 2:8 NASB)  Paul tells Timothy to “avoid worldly and empty chatter” (2 Timothy 2:16) because it leads to nowhere.  People need Jesus!  As the church that belongs to Jesus, we have Him…are we giving Him away?  Can people see Jesus in us who are a part of the church?  If they can’t, fix it!  It’s time put away foolishness!  It’s time set aside stupid arguments!  It’s not about me or you…it has always been and always will be about Jesus!  You ready?  If you are one of God’s children, one that is a part of Jesus’ church…what do people see when they see you?  “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”  (Matthew 9:36-37 NASB) 

...the table

I love family time around the table.  I love to hear the stories.  I love to eat the food.  This morning I was thinking of my grandparents (McCrickard) and their kitchen.  I loved the smell of their kitchen.  I can still smell it.  I loved Grandma and Grandpa’s food.  They loved to cook…and watch people eat their food.  Grandpa was a tenant farmer and had a real garden in the back yard.  All the veggies on the table were from that garden and it was good.  A typical breakfast consisted of bacon, sausage, poached eggs, fried taters, fried apples.  Lunch consisted of a meat (fried chicken, meatloaf, steak, and the like), cabbage, green beans with salt pork, squash, greens, black eye peas or pinto beans, fried green tomatoes…oh and we had homemade biscuits and cornbread as well as fresh sliced tomatoes at every meal.  I am salivating at the mouth as I write this.  They cooked with love and they loved who they cooked for.  I remember Grandma and her pretty red hair telling stories.  Grandpa was usually sitting there in his Dickies telling stories.  Grandpa once told me to cut off all of the fat from my steak because the fat was bad for me…then I watched him eat all of the fat that I had just cut off because it was “bad.”  I miss them.  I miss their table.  I miss their food.  I miss the stories.  There is so much that can happen around the table. There are so many stories to hear and so many stories to share.  There is much love to give and to receive around the table…and good food to go with it.  Sometimes even hugs and kissed or maybe even some tears.   There is so much that happens around the table…are you so busy that you miss out on family time around the table?  Don’t do it!  Jesus loved to be around the table.  He did a lot around that table.  As you read in the New Testament, Jesus did some His teaching time around the food table.  “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:19.20).  We share at the table weekly now.  He also served His apostles by washing their feet (John 13:5-20), He talked about love and He encouraged them as well as talking about the importance of remaining in Him (John 15).  There is so much.  I wonder when John was writing his letter about Jesus, if he remembered the smell…I am sure he did.  He defiantly remembered the stories because he shared them with us.  If you are a parent, don’t rush dinner time (or breakfast time).  If you are a child (and we all are), don’t rush your table time.  If you are gathered around the table with friends, enjoy that moment.  God gave us table time for a reason.  Cook food out of love and share that food and spend time with your loved ones…tell stories.  Hey there are a lot of unloved ones outside around you that would love to be loved…invite them too.  I am thankful for the time around my grandparents table; I will never forget their food or their love.  Remember their is a big banquet table ready for us when this life is over...and Jesus waiting there for us.  There is so much God can do around your table, let Him.  Enjoy your time around the table.  Have a blessed day. 

Father

 

So I have to confess…I love being a daddy.  As of this writing I am waiting for my new daughter to arrive which will be any day (She is technically due in 3 weeks).  I have son, Evan, who is 8 and is ready to take on the world.  He has a heart of compassion.  My daughter Amber, who is 4, and who believes that she is a princess…and she is...she loves to sing.  I love getting up early and cuddling with them and talking to them.  Evan always tells me that, “God gave me a special daddy.”  Amber is never short of “Daddy kisses and hugs.”  I love being a daddy.  Unfortunately their daddy isn’t perfect.  I have so much room for improvement…I am constantly striving to be a better.  I always seem to have to ask my children for forgiveness.  I mess up.  He is what blows me away.  Evan not too long ago said, “Dad, I forgive you…I know that you aren’t perfect…only God is…and you always seem to love me even more when I mess up.”  I didn’t know how to respond to that.  I have to confess that I am embarrassed of what I have put on that the cross.  I feel like David who confesses to God, “I know my sin” (Psalm 51).  What blows me away is that there is a God, despite all of my failures and horrific choices that has a heart for me.  I don’t deserve love.  But I have a Father in heaven that won’t stop loving me.  What a Father!  Paul tells us that, “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” (Romans 8:38-39).  I am thankful for my Father in heaven.  When was the last time you, as a child of God, just told Him how much you loved Him?  If you are reading this and your relationship with your earthly father isn’t/wasn’t very good…in fact it didn’t exist…well I am sorry.  I feel for you because everyone should have that opportunity to have a relationship with their daddy.  But this is reality and reality is painful.  However, there is a Father that doesn’t fail and longs to have a relationship with you.  Believe it or not, He created you and has a plan for you existence.  “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalms 139:13). “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).  I have ranted long enough…I love being a daddy but I love my Father in heaven more.  He is the reason I am daddy, He is the reason for all the good in my life.  For all of the Christians reading this…give praise to your Father.  Adore Him!  Speak of His wonders and His love.  For those desiring to know their Father in Heaven, won’t you, “Taste and see that the LORD is good…” (Psalms 34:8a).  Have a blessed day!    

Behind the name...

I was asked about the meaning of my blog…I am a simple guy, I enjoy food and Jesus and it seems for I can accomplish both at the same time.  Dinner time at my home is important to my wife and I as our family comes together and we can discuss our day...and eat.  It’s an opportunity for my children see my wife and I model Jesus for them.  I am a bit old school and love to visit people but life seems busy for everyone and it tends to be easier to meet people for lunch...we can eat and talk about Jesus.  As an associate minister at West Orange Christian, I have been given the freedom to design events…and I always have the people together and it always involves food.  Jesus seemed to recline at the table quite bit and teach people.  He sat and at with sinners…something my good friend Arron Chambers talks about in his book “Eats With Sinners” (you can check it out here http://www.eatswithsinners.com/).  A lot can be accomplished when you minister to those that are lost, especially around the table.  We remember Jesus and what He did for us every week as we take the emblems from the table.  When I disciple someone, it usually involves food…in two ways.  I am a simple guy.  I love to cook.  I love to cook for my family and friends…for church functions.  And I love Jesus and what He has done for me.  I am His and He is mine.  He is my Savior and I am His servant.  I am a simple guy…I am not deep.   I enjoy food and Jesus…and chicken wings rhymed with Jesus things…there ya go.  Be blessed!