Words . . . Words . . . Words – do you ever think about them. I take my words for granted all the time. I speak a lot of words in a day, but rarely do I truly think about the power that they have. When I get my gun out of the closet I’m always aware of the power that I have in my hands and I’m always very careful with it, because I know there is great power in my gun. When I drive down the road in my 6000 lbs. truck, I’m aware that I need to be very careful, because one wrong move and I can hurt myself and others – I can kill people with my truck. I was an electrician for 20 years and I was always careful around electricity, because I knew there was power there that could kill me and others. But my words . . . I don’t think of them as having power. Guns, automobiles, and electricity – they can do incredible good and incredible harm, but my words . . .? Read the rest of this entry »

We’re in this series called next steps, and the first week we asked the question, “What is our purpose?” And we talked about all the things that we often unintentionally put at the center of our lives. Sometimes our primary purpose is to make money, or sometimes we put success at the top of our priorities, or maybe for some of us,we put pleasure as being highly significant in our lives, and for some of us, and I think this identifies me, often times, is that we don’t just put one thing as being the most important in our lives, instead we don’t really have a focus – we’ve never identified what our purpose is, so we just lump it all in the box together. I put money, and success, and pleasure, and Jesus all at the center of my life and I end up never really finding peace inside of me. I never really go anywhere in my life because I get stuck going in circles from one important purpose to the next, but I never end up getting closer to any of them. It’s like being in the woods without a compass and I just keep going in circles – lost really.

We all have cravings and a hungers, and appetites for all these things (point at the easel), but we find that they never satisfy that inner void inside of us, unless we put God at the center of our lives. That’s because that void can only be filled with God and his love, and joy and peace.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things (point at the easel) will be given to you as well.

When we put God and his kingdom – his goodness, first, then everything else just falls into place. When we put understanding and loving God in the box – these things become our primary purpose – that is a direction in life, and that leads somewhere – somewhere that brings you and I life.

The Greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. To love God with all that you are. To put God at the center. How do we do that? What’s the next step? Because there is always a next step, no matter how far along you are.

The step that we’re going to look at today is a real important Next Step. We’ve talked about it a little bit before, but I’d like to spend the rest of our time together looking at this idea of “Practicing the presence of God”-learning to see God, to be with God, as a real concrete thing in an ordinary day. Read the rest of this entry »