Lead The Lost

Over the past few days I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of learning. When I say reading, I don't only mean the Bible, and when I say learning, I'm not only speaking about the things that I find in text. No, over the past week I guess we'll say, I've been learning a lot about God in general, who He is, what He really  wants from us, and many things regarding me personally; which I will gladly share with you all to hopefully shine some light into your lives as well. A week and a half ago, I walked into the office of the care pastor at my church and told him that my relationship with God was not where I wanted it to be, "I desire to be able to hear from God the way He hears from me." Now, before I go any further, many of you may or may not believe in this kind of thing, but I can promise you this, it is  real and available to every person who genuinely seeks it. He suggested a book to me called, 'Drawing Near' by John Bevere, and from abou...

"So you're just going to walk out on me?!" I asked. "That's not what I'm doing, I told you that when I have enough money, I'm moving out, and I would like for you to come with me." responded my wife. "That's not the way you made things seem like last night, you said that you would be leaving because you just couldn't take it here anymore." "Well, I can't take it here anymore, I need my own place, but I never meant that I would just leave without having a plan; you're the one that said you wouldn't be coming with me if I left!" "That was before you made it clear that you weren't just gonna walk out the door without a plan, of course I'd like to get back out on our own, but that's only if the money is there to support it." This is the argument I had with my wife the other night, all revolving around the fact that my wife is no longer satisfied with simply living with my parents while I...

Aaron, What's up? How're things on the inside? Everything out here is the same as always, nothing ever really changes. You're right though, taking Mom and Dad out for lunch was good, we had a great time; even paid for the bill. We also bought them each a $25 iTunes card for their birthday presents, we ended up spending quite a bit overall, but it was all worth it. I've been serving up at Lifepoint quite a bit lately, Monday through Thursday, from about 10am to 5pm or so. They don't really have any opening at the moment, but it feels good to get out of the house and go help out. It feels good to be a part of something that matters, like what I'm doing is important. They've had me doing all kinds of stuff, life: taking out all the trash, configuring/wiping computers, stocking, inventory, cleaning up around the building, running errands, and a lot more. I talked to the care pastor there, about communicating with God, he hooked me up with a link to some r...

We all know what sheep are, at least I hope we do, the white fluffy looking things that frolic around in grassy fields; which are also very docile, gentle, and easily frightened creatures. But what exactly is a shepherd, well, the Bible defines it as the caretaker of the sheep; meaning that a shepherd watches over and protects his flock. For those of you who have already given your life to Jesus Christ, you know that he is our shepherd, and we are his flock of sheep; correct? We are meant to follow the teachings, lifestyle, and example Jesus laid out for us, but, what if I told you that we are meant to do so  much more than that? What if I told you that we weren't meant to live as sheep alone, that we were meant to go on to become shepherds ourselves; in a manner of speaking. I was reading out of the Gospel of Matthew today, chapter 10 specifically, where Jesus instructs his disciples on what they should teach, what to expect, and who to teach to. First, Jesus blessed them...

For the past couple of months, since September of 2011 to be exact, I've been out of work and unable to find a job. I'm sure that many of you are going through the same thing right now, perhaps you've been looking even longer than I have, yet your endeavors leave you wanting and with a feeling of disappointment. Perhaps some of you have faced a lot of financial problems due to your lack of work, maybe you didn't qualify for unemployment benefits or they have already run out; luckily this hasn't happened to me yet, but I do have my concerns at times. However, there is a person whom I've come to know and place my trust in, someone who will provide for me when times are tough and I know He'll never leave me all alone; this person's name is God. At the beginning of this year, I realized that my life was in the crapper and that I was completely unhappy with how my life had turned out; it was time that things changed, for the better, and high time that I beg...

WHAM! "Stupid alarm clock, waking me up on Sunday morning; why is my alarm clock even on? Oh.. that's right, I forgot, it's Easter Sunday; we always  go to church today as a tradition. Alright, it's time to get up honey, we've gotta get the kids up too so they can get dressed up and ready for church." Rolling out of bed you rush around the room getting your clothes ready, you begin to put on one piece at a time as your spouse heads to the children's rooms. About an hour later, a little behind schedule as usual, you skid into the church parking lot. As the dust settles from the abrupt stop, everyone piles out of the minivan and heads to the church entrance. Quietly opening the door, you usher your children in ahead of you and instruct them to find a pew in the back; where hopefully nobody will notice you sneaking in and sitting down. Luckily everyone is still singing their hymn and doesn't notice your family tip toeing into the last pew; score, now y...

Looking back over the course of the last year, I can't remember being sick or having poor health for more than a day. Take a moment, pause and think to yourself, when was the last time that you got sick? Was it serious or just something minor? Did you have to miss a day of work because of it or could you manage the symptoms while at your job? Did you have to visit a doctor or could you just throw back some Tylenol and ride it out? The reason I ask is that today my wife isn't feeling well, she's facing a severe headache and possibly a low grade fever, yet she has decided to stick out her day at work; what a trooper. But I remember a time, not too terribly long ago, when she was laid up on the couch and didn't want to do anything except rest and watch television; ahh, haven't we all experienced that at some point and time? When you're facing these kinds of symptoms, such as a fever and body aches, what's one of the things that you desire above all other thi...

When it comes to our relationship with God, are we patient, or do we expect immediate results from Him? With our requests, do we expect to receive right away or in God's timing? Are we humble in our position or do we sort of treat God like a goody basket; always expecting something when we ourselves do nothing? In all honesty, how many times have we prayed for something from God, whether it be: healing, strength, love, needs, desires; then lost faith in Him when we didn't receive it in a timely fashion? I'm reminded of the story of Jonah, a man who was thrown overboard from a ship, then swallowed by a giant fish. Can you imagine the horror of that experience on him; feeling that you would never escape and die a slow death of starvation and thirst?! Put yourself in his position, what would you do? I'm not sure about you, but I would pray, and earnestly at that; I would probably also go into shock or panic. Now after the first day or possibly even the second of serio...

Who is Jesus Christ? The way this question is often asked is done so in the correct way, instead the opposite wording of who was  Jesus Christ? But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, the fact that you're here seeking an answer to this question shows that you're on the correct path to a better life; but again, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself and need to slow down a bit. To answer this question in short, Jesus Christ, was the Son of God and also the Son of man. Well how can that be possible you might ask, how can someone be God's Son and  man's Son? God chose a woman, Mary, who was a virgin, to give birth to a baby boy who would be named Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus was not conceived through the normal method of conception, which needs a woman and  a man; instead, the Holy Spirit placed Jesus in Mary's womb to be born through a miracle. In this way, he was given birth to by a human, making him the Son of man; but since he was placed in Mary's womb by t...

Faith, there are so many questions about it. What is faith? What is faith in God? What is Christian  faith? What is the meaning of faith? What is faith according to the Bible? These five questions alone are asked over 5,000 times a month in Google, but does each question get answered effectively? Each time someone looks up a question revolving around faith, do they find an article written by someone who genuinely cares about them and where their headed; or do they find someone who seeks to lead them astray? Those last two questions are the ones that I contemplate on a daily basis, I ask myself, are people being reached effectively; this is my goal, this is why I write, this is my calling, to lead the lost. Instead of answering these five or six questions simply, I'm going to go far beyond giving you a simple definition; I'm going to give you examples from the Bible, as well as from my own life, and end with how you  can have faith as well. So just what is this faith that ...

Have you ever reached a point in your spiritual walk that you kind of feel like you've hit a brick wall? Whereas you used to feel that you were growing on a daily basis, you sort of feel like you're not making any further progress towards spiritual maturity? If you're anything like me, more likely than not, you have or may at some point in your relationship with God. I'll give you an example from my life to show you exactly what I'm talking about, just so it's a little clearer in your mind. For the past four months I've been spending time in the Word, praying, searching for areas I can change, and just desiring to be used by God. Well, up to this point, I've had pretty visible progress, I've dropped most if not all of the things which were sinful in my life, I haven't found any areas in my life which I can hand over to God, I also don't feel like I've heard from Him in a while, and it just really feels like I've hit a brick wall. W...

"Dear heavenly Father," I pray, "I come before you again today with the same request I ask you each day, please bless me with an idea or topic which I can write about and reach out to others with. God I just ask that you use me as your tool and that you speak through me instead of allowing me to simply sit down at the computer and just pounding away at the keys grasping at ideas. Please just take control and guide me to say whatever it is that you would have me to speak on for the day. I ask and have full faith that this will be done in Jesus name, amen." As I've openly stated on this site many times, I don't enjoy sitting down and writing without an idea or some kind of topic in which I can run with. Today is no different, except that as I'm praying this prayer, I realize that God has already provided me with a topic for today; it's not exactly under the greatest of circumstances that I came by it, but it's an idea and a way to witness noneth...

My wife mentioned something to me not too long ago which is just now sticking out, she mentioned that at the church we attend there isn't much fellowship after the service or anything. Now, one of the reasons may be that many of the members are younger people, such as my wife and I, and do not enjoy sticking around after the service is over; everyone has other things they like to do before the day is over. Another reason could be that for six years this church has been mobile, meeting out of schools every week, meaning they have to begin tearing down everything after each service; people standing around talking after the service would get in their way and hinder their progress, but that's beside the point. At the same time, as soon as the service is over, we don't stick around to try and meet anyone, we head straight to the car and leave. So it seems kind of pointless to complain or point this out when we don't even make an attempt to meet new members or build up new...

As a writer it's sometimes very hard to come up with a topic to write about, this is what we call writers block, which is pretty much the a writer's worst nightmare; I know it certainly is for me. There are days when I can't wait to get home from a great workout after being inspired by an event or thought that I can't wait to hammer out into a post, then you have those days that you can't think of a single thing; which pretty much describes what I've been facing this entire week, being a writer is not always as easy as you would imagine. For reasons which are currently unknown to me, I haven't been hearing or getting any feedback from God lately, which sort of depresses me to a certain extent. Up until the beginning of this week, God was providing me with some great topics, viewpoints, inspiration, and just pushing me along in my writing; but this week, He's been entirely silent. It could be that I've done something to build up a barrier in my hea...

Often times I wonder how many of us have fallen into the belief that miracles are a thing of the past, they happened back in the time that Jesus was alive and he provided his disciples with the same gifts; but it no longer happens in our era. I myself fell into the same mindset for a long time, I just kind of thought that these things must have been so cool to witness back when Jesus was around and I don't ever hear of miracles happening in the world we live in today. I was in my car praying the other day, praying that God would use me however he saw fit, whether it was performing miracles on the street, writing a blog, or just teaching those around me; when it hit me. You know, I've always just assumed that miracles no longer happen, but I've never actually taken the time to look it up and see if they do or not. So, I made a mental note that after I got out of the gym and was waiting for my car to be inspected that I would look into it on my phone; yes I have one of tho...