Includes...
The other day when we did the communion meditation on "Smitten by God," I was reminded that Jesus was smitten by God so that God can fight for us. If you have been following along with the communion videos, we have inserted a time of gratitude that Jesus was smitten by God so that God can fight for us into our Daily Prayer as something we remember each day. Personally, I have found that there is a level of peace and rest that comes from thanking God for this every day that is hard to put into words.
The New Testament tells us that God always causes us to triumph and always gives us the victory in Christ Jesus. In the Old Testament, it says over and over is the time of year when kings go to war. This time of year is a reminder that God is fighting for us.
Here are a couple of scriptures to meditate on about God fighting for us. We are not fighting against people but against spiritual forces...
Exodus 14:13-14 - “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and...
Multiple times in the gospels Jesus talks about binding the strong man. For example, in Matthew 3:27 he says, "No one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house."
But, who is the strong man?
I had always read these verses under the impression that Satan was the strong man and we are binding him, but recently I feel like God is showing me that we are the strong man now and Satan is trying to bind us.
As I was thinking about this I asked my wife what she thought of when I mentioned the phrase, "binding the strongman."
Her immediate response was the story of Samson.
In the story of Samson, he had supernatural strength from God, and the Philistine leaders were trying to figure out how to bind him.
In Judges 16:5 the Philistines say to the Delilah the woman that Samson loves, "See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so...
I once heard a sermon on a promise in Deuteronomy 28 that God will smite our enemies. These enemies aren’t people. They are strongholds and forces of evil—forces that are keeping people bound in darkness and in a struggle. In Isaiah 53 it says that Jesus was struck down or smitten by God for us. He was smitten so that God could smite our enemies.
When God led the people into the promised land, he led them into a land of giants and into a battle they could not win on their own. They needed God to smite their enemies. For us to step into all God has for our lives we also need him to smite our enemies.
In today's communion we are asking God to smite our enemies and give us peace and rest on every side, and then we are going to thank him for it regularly. There are giants God wants to slay.
Take a piece of paper and write out a petition asking God to smite your enemies and give you peace and rest on every...
In Genesis 15:1 God tells Abraham...
Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
The word for very great reward is the Hebrew word sakar which means wages, pay, or in your service.
God promised Abraham that he would be in his service or working for him. When Jesus was on the Earth he told his disciples that if they had seen him they had seen the Father, and he was among them as one who served. The way we become great in the kingdom is by serving and we have a great king who serves us.
Today's communion is a time of gratitude that God is our wages, pay, and in our service and that he is always working.
Today's Workout/Health Tip
A great habit to develop is stretching before bed. Stretching is about the ability to relax. To be more flexible means allowing the muscles to relax more. And when the body can relax and open to a greater level it leads to less pain and stiffness, while improving strength, power, and endurance....
Here is this week's Yearly Cycle Update.
Balance is a critical part of life. In fact, in the area of health I would say that balance is one of the most important keys to success. I once had an engineering friend say that anything in nature that is unbalanced blows up.
When most people think of life balance, they think of balancing areas like work, money, and family, but I believe there is a much higher level of life balance that we must get in place first before those areas can effectively be balanced.
These are the three areas to start with:
When these three areas are balanced, it becomes much easier to create balance across our lives.
For a long time, cultivating the spiritual aspect was, by far, my biggest weakness. I used to have zero spiritual life, but then I began to make it a priority to grow in this area....
Recently I was reminded that one big decision changes all of the little decisions we make throughout the day. The other day after watching wrestling I decided that I was going to cut my bodyweight down to 184lbs. Immediately, when I made this decision, it began to impact all of the little decisions I would make throughout the day about food and exercise. The one big decision became the filter for all of the other decisions. Think of this like setting a destination into a GPS. Once the destination is entered all of the little steps on the path show up.
This principle comes from the one big decision we have... To make Jesus the Lord of our life.
To make him Lord means we do what he says. The one big decision becomes the filter for our thoughts, words, and all of the little decisions we make. This now means forgiving and loving others, giving other people grace, being generous, and walking out his plan and purpose rather than our own. But until we come to a...
Lately I have been thinking about what I call " Pockets of Prosperity," which are small areas or communities of people that are thriving. For example, I was talking with my daughter the other day about Silicon Valley, because that is where I grew up. Why is it that several of the biggest businesses in the world are all in one place? I was also thinking about our local wrestling program. We have a high number of really good wrestlers that come from our area. If you study this concept, you will find swim clubs, tennis clubs, weightlifting clubs, music academies, etc that all produce a very high number of really skilled people from small areas.
When I wrote my book " Pockets of Prosperity," the main theme was not just prosperity for ourselves, but for the entire community of people around us. An entire community that is thriving. How do we create Pockets of Prosperity? This is something I have studied quite a bit and it usually starts with one person. One...
One of the amazing things about God is that he is always the same and never changes. Today we will be looking at one passage from the Old Testament and another from the New Testament that both tell us the same thing.
In the book of Genesis, Jacob steals his brother Esau's birthright and blessing, so his parents send Jacob off to find a wife because Esau wants to kill him. On his way God appears to Jacob and tells him that he will be with him and watch over him. Over the course of 20 years Jacob grows very prosperous and has 2 wives, 12 sons, flocks, herds, and servants. Eventually God tells him it is time to go back, but Jacob is fearful of seeing his brother Esau again. In preparation of meeting Esau, Jacob sends a huge amount of presents to Esau in order to pacify Esau's wrath. But to Jacob's delight Esau is actually excited to see Jacob and he tells Jacob that he doesn't need all the gifts.
Jacob responds in Genesis 33:11 with "Please accept my...
Something I have learned about time is that it's relative. The way we experience time can change and it can feel like it's moving either faster or slower. On God's Yearly Cycle the Spring is the time of year when time accelerates. You may have been experiencing this lately where it seems like the days are going by faster. And it is going to continue to accelerate until we get to the day of Pentecost (June 4th). When we get past Pentecost time begins to slow down again. As the pressure increases during the heat of the summer time will feel like it is slowing down in late August and September.
The accelerated time we are in right now is a good thing, because it's a reminder that God is trying to accelerate us into his plans and purposes for our life. But, if it feels like time is going too fast one of the best ways to slow it down is by setting deadlines. We can set mini-deadlines during the day of working on a project for certain period of time or a deadline...
Our local high school has one of the best wrestling programs around and one of their coaches used to be a trainer in my gym so we would often have the whole wrestling team training in our gym. This last weekend a few of those kids were wrestling in the NCAA Championships so I spent some time watching wrestling over the weekend. While I was watching a few of the matches the commentators kept talking about one wrestler trying to get his opponent out of position. Part of our walk with God is being a good wrestler and maintaining our position in Christ.
When I woke up yesterday morning my bookmark just happened to be on Genesis 32 where Jacob wrestles with God and a few other scriptures about wrestling also came to mind. Here are some of the scriptures.
Wrestling With God - Genesis 32:22-32
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them...
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