Just Do It!

By grace.........I will do today what others will not do, so that tomorrow, by grace.........I can do what others cannot do!

Why Are You Afraid?

Jesus posed this direct and probing question to his disciples in Matthew 8:26, when in the midst of a ferocious storm taking place all around them, he simply asks them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”

We live in a time of great fear. We live in a time when psychiatrists tell us that ordinary children are more fearful today than psychiatric patients were in the 1950s.

Fear has the ability to grip our hearts, to rob us of our joy, steal our happiness and take precious relationships away from us.

Fear however, never accomplished anything. It never composed a great symphony, it never built a great nation, it never pulled a family from the depths of despair and poverty. Courage and faith did that.

Jesus poses this very probing question in the midst of a storm that Matthew sought to describe as simply being “great”. It was no ordinary storm, it was epic, it was massive, and it was in the Greek described as “seismos”, meaning it was of earthquake proportions, it was a storm that was shaking them to their very core.

Yet Jesus had chosen this particular time to find a place to lay his weary head and take a nap! This wasn’t, at least in the eyes of his disciples, exactly the best time for the master to be laying down somewhere sleeping.

You see we all live lives, that at times causes situations and circumstances to conspire together and create the atmosphere for fear to seize our heart and grip our senses.

Jesus would warn us in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation”.

Life will cause you to question everything, life will cause you to question every circumstance, life can cause fear to overwhelm your heart, however it is not the absence of storms that sets us apart, it is who we discover in the storms of life, an unstirred Jesus Christ.

You see fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness. Fear creates spiritual amnesia. It dulls our memories of the past victories God has wrought. It tends to make us forget what God has done and how great he truly is.

Fear is dreadful. It sucks the very life out of your soul, causing one to curl up in a fetal position waiting on the proverbial shoe to drop, but Jesus responds to fear by simply saying, “Fear not”.

If Jesus had an oft-repeated phrase, it was “Fear not”. 

“Don’t be afraid. You are worth much more than many sparrows” Matt. 10:31 NCV

“Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” Matt. 9:2 NASB

“Don’t be afraid. Just believe, and your daughter will be well” Luke 8:50 NCV

“Take courage. I am here!” Matt. 14:27 NLT

I could go on and on, with passage after passage, but I think we get the point. 

Paul admonishes Timothy in 2 Tim. 1:7, "for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control."

The reason we don’t have to fear is he is near, and if he is near, he is still the master of the wind and the calmer of the seas!

Just a few ramblings from a pair of Cheeks in Owasso again!

Thanks for reading today!

Merry Christmas from 4 Cheeks!

We want to wish all of you 2 people that happen on our blog a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! We wish you and your family the happiest Christmas season, and a blessed New Year! May God richly bless you!

More Reasons to be Thankful!! God is good!

                                 Brother "Festus" and his wife ministering.

                                 God's wonderful people.... God is good!

                              Kids seeking God with all their heart! God is so good!!

                                More of God's wonderful people........God is so good!

                       A few of the children in church today to hear Brother "Festus"!

A Reason to Be Thankful

It is the end of the year.

This is always a time for reflection, a time for evaluation, a time we set aside to express thanksgiving and a time to celebrate the holidays with friends and family.

As I reflect back upon 2010, my mind is filled with thanksgiving for the wonderful blessings God has bestowed upon me and my family.

Time and space would not permit me to list each and every friend, colleague and family member who has meant so much this year, but suffice to say, I am an extremely blessed man.

Life and circumstances can, if allowed, rob you of a thankful heart.

The original sin in the Garden of Eden was un-thankfulness, so it is with a thankful heart that I write such seemingly insufficient words, a simple thank you.

You see, I have so many reasons to be thankful!

Thankfulness originates from the heart and then opens our eyes to the beauties of nature and the richness of friendships we hold most dear.

I am so thankful for every person God has allowed to walk into my life.

I am a blessed man and a thankful man for the many influences I have had.

I am blessed with a wonderful family, both immediate and extended, I am blessed with wonderful friendships and relationships, I am blessed to know God and to be allowed to walk with him, and I am blessed and overwhelmed by his mercy, by his grace and by his love.

You see, I really do have so many reasons to be thankful!

Do you have a reason to be thankful?

We ALL have so many reasons, more than can possibly be listed.
To every person in my life, I say thank you.

Thank you for being who you are, thank you for being what you are. Thank you most of all for being a part of my life and for allowing me to be a part of yours!

Thanks for reading the ramblings once again of a pair of Cheeks in Owasso! God bless!

3 Tough Words to Say

Lately my mind has been drawn to a passage of scripture in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” This passage is dealing with Joseph as he faces the brothers who had so cruelly betrayed him so many years before. This move of betrayal by his brothers had come as their response to Joseph having shared his dreams and visions with them as a young man. This move of betrayal by his brothers had set in motion a chain of events in Joseph’s life that would forever change him, his country, and his brothers.

I am sure that many times throughout the years of his new life in Egypt, Joseph had looked back with a plethora of emotions on that fateful day when his brothers sold him into slavery. I am sure that from his life as a slave in the house of Potiphar, to his being thrown into prison due to the false accusation of Potiphar’s wife, Joseph found many reasons and much time to get bitter. He had ample opportunity to reflect with emotions that must have at times ranged from regret, remorse, anger, hurt, bitterness and I am sure, cynicism and doubt both at God and man. Since Joseph was a man, just like you and I, I am confident, that many times he must have asked the question, “Why me God? Why did this happen to me?”

However the story thankfully does not end there! The Joseph we find meeting his brethren many years later in the 50^th chapter of Genesis, had somewhere along the twisting and winding road of life, brought himself to say, “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good”. He was able to bring himself to utter those three tough words we find sometimes so hard to say, “God did it”.

When we can look back over the difficult times in our life and say “God did it”, it changes our entire approach, response and attitude towards life. When we can see that, even in difficult times, even when we perhaps made poor decisions, God’s hand was directing and moving in our behalf to bring about a greater good, our faith in Him becomes that much stronger! Joseph had every opportunity to get bitter, to become resentful at his lot in life, but instead, God gave him the grace to say, “God meant it unto good!”

It is of course, much easier to say “God did it”, when life is going well and the seas of life are calm. Yet, we know that is not the way life always unfolds. Greater still it is to say “God did it” when life is throwing one storm after another at you, and you can’t seem to see your way out of it. God still did it!

When we are facing a mountain that seems too hard to climb or a valley you just can’t seem to get over, why not realize that maybe, just maybe, God is working to bring a greater cause to pass in your life and in the life of others. Maybe just maybe, has Job also found, “God did it”. He is the one that allowed life’s road to twist and turn in such a way, that at the end, we can all say together with great faith in him, those 3 tough words to utter, “God did it!” He did it, to save people alive. He did it, that HE might receive Glory!

Romans 8:28 “And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to HIS purpose”

Thanks for reading the ramblings of a pair of Cheeks in Owasso, OK!

God Bless!

To Keep it, You Must Give it Away

Lately I have focused a tremendous amount of study and prayer on Paul’s writing to the church in Galatia. Paul tells us in Galations 5: 22-26 (ESV), “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” Paul here is addressing the larger subject of the importance of being filled with the Spirit, and the impossibility of living a life pleasing to God without everything we do on the outside being driven by an inward filling of the Spirit of God. My thoughts on this passage have taken many twists and turns in the last few months, but as of late, I have found myself focused on the importance of GIVING away these “fruit of the Spirit” in order to KEEP them.

I have a dear friend who is heavily involved in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. I count this man as a dear friend and in many ways, a confidant and mentor. It was some time ago that this friend shared with me the famous AA statement, “To Keep it, You Must Give it Away”.  When I first heard the statement, I immediately liked it and began to use it in everyday conversation and apply it as a principle to my life. However it was not until recently while studying Paul’s writing in Galations that I felt like God spoke to me this thought as it relates DIRECTLY to the “fruit of the Spirit”.

The only way to have the fruit of the spirit (love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) in our life is to have the Spirit of God. The only way to keep them in our life is, obviously as Paul states, “be led by the Spirit” and “stay full of the Spirit”, but in addition, we must GIVE them away! It is the giving away of these “fruits” that enable us to keep a free flow of them coming to us. If we truly are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, we will also be giving them away!

You ask, what meaneth this?!

The only way to have love is to give it away and you cannot really love, except you have the Spirit of God which is love!

The only way to have joy is to give it away, and you cannot really have joy, except you have the Spirit of God which is joy!

The only way to have peace is to give it away, and you cannot really have peace, except you have the Spirit of God which is peace!

I think we get the point.

Jesus also famously echoed this sentiment in Matthew 5:7 in what is known as the beatitudes when he said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

      Of the many dangers and pitfalls of spiritual pride, probably one of the greatest, is the  thinking that by works of self righteousness, apart from the inward working of the Spirit of God, that one can produce the “fruit of the Spirit”. Not only is this impossible as Paul writes, this type of self righteousness is never something that one gives away, after all it is all about SELF!

TO KEEP IT, YOU MUST GIVE IT AWAY!

Thanks for reading today!