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In more than 40 nations around the world today Christians are being persecuted for their faith. In some of these nations it is illegal to own a Bible, to share your faith Christ, change your faith or teach your children about Jesus. Those who boldly follow Christ—in spite of government edict or radical opposition—can face harassment, arrest, torture and even death. Yet Christians continue to meet for worship and to witness for Christ, and the church in restricted nations is growing. In America we are too timid to mention Jesus, freeze at the idea of sharing our faith, and turn a blind eye to growing hostility toward Christianity in our society. Be willing to stand out and speak up for Jesus in all areas of your life, and with whoever you meet. Take a strong public stand for the uniqueness of who Jesus is; for the truth of the entire Bible; and for the necessity of living a life of integrity, purity, and humility in order to please God. Rather than living a lifestyle that simply blends in with that of non-believers, show people the difference that your relationship with Jesus makes in your attitudes and actions. Pray for […]

I love my great grand daughter. She’s easy to love, most of the time. I don’t get any “brownie points” for that. Our challenge is to love those who are difficult to love: the person who gets under our skin at work, the ones who believe differently than we do, the smelly, dirty, and obnoxious, and, of course, our family. In case you raised your eyebrows at that last one, think about it. Those closest to us are often the most difficult to love just because they are closest to us. We are always near them; there’s no getting away from them. We know them too well. We know every little irritating thing about them. Finally, no one can hurt us like those we love.  For these special love challenges we need help. We can’t love them on our own. We need more of Jesus to love these hard cases. As you give Jesus more of your heart, He will fill it with more of His love, and that will overflow into the lives of the people with whom you interact each day.  This concept of love is far more than modern concepts of love. This love is not […]

Yesterday we consider that more of Jesus’ dirt in our hands, more service, is yet another way of getting more Jesus in our lives.  What if we serve, but see no fruit? That’s a vine problem. It won’t help to try harder, pray harder or extend our service borders. Fruit is the product of a healthy vine. Spiritual fruit is produced by a good connection, read that as relationship, with Jesus.  Fruit is produced by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. A vine produces well if it is consistently expertly pruned, buried in good soil, with proper sun and water. We need to be willing for God to prune those things from our lives that sap energy from our fruit-producing function, that could be anything but our relationship with Jesus. God is the great vine tender. He knows what needs to be pruned. Be careful about trusting your own judgment or those of others on this point. Listen for His word and yield to His pruning touch.  As the branch spends more time grafted into the vine, the branch begins to look more like the vine and produce richer and sweeter fruit. If […]

For most of us, nothing is less appealing as a way to get more of Jesus than getting our hands dirty. Jesus came as a servant, not the head servant but the lowest servant. Cleaning the feet of visitors was, and still is, the job of the lowest ranked slave in a household. So when Jesus performed this task, it was a startling example to the disciples. One of my favorite stories is about the seminary student who was considered by his classmates as “least likely to succeed.” He had a speech impediment. He was last in most of his classes. It took him months after graduation to get his first job. At the first meeting at his new tiny church, he couldn’t be found until someone located him in the back of the room, feeding a quadriplegic by hand.  He’s a great pastor today. We need to live with a service attitude. We need to wake each morning considering whom and how we can serve. If we are honest, this is completely contrary to the way we live. If we consider service, we think of it as something we do when we complete everything we have to do […]

Our society doesn’t handle death very well. We don’t talk about it. We have a youth culture. We don’t honor and respect the aged. We don’t see death as part of the process of life. It’s little wonder than when we consider that we need to “die” to self to get more of Jesus we resist the idea. But death precedes new life. A seed falls to the ground and dies before a new plant sprouts. We are happy to consider new birth, but are uncomfortable with the death of the old that new life implies. We can never achieve the full power of the new life if we are hanging on to aspects of the old man. We don’t have all aspects of the old man die at once; parts of him are put to death bit by bit.  The goal is to have Christ inside seen in our lives; the old man filters and dims that light. The bottom line is that if we want to have more of Jesus; there needs to be less of us. Suffer a little death and  Be blessed. Nick

 Praise You in the Storm. As we consider ways of getting more of Jesus into our lives, we move to more praise on our lips.  It’s easy to praise Jesus when life is going well, but Jesus is still worthy of praise whether the sun is shining or a storm is howling.  Praise isn’t great music or terriffic atmosphere. It doesn’t require raised hands or loud voices. It’s a deliberate choice to thank Jesus for who He is. We can start with considering what He’s done; but we really want to move on to who He is. You see we may not “feel” that He is doing anything at any particular time. And memory fades as to what He has done for us in the past. Yes, even with Jesus we can get a “What have you done for me lately?” attitude. But who He is doesn’t change. His unchanging character is our rock, our harbor in stormy times. Knowing His character and acknowledging it with our praise, helps us remember He’s still there. He still loves us. He’s still ready to take control of the parts of our life we have tried to wrestle from Him, with the resulting disaster we’re facing. […]

We continue to consider ways to get more of Jesus in our lives as suggested  by Anne Graham Lotz’s in, Pursuing More of Jesus, (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2009). Pursue more of His tears on your face.  We generally believe, especially us guys, that tears are to be avoided. Jesus didn’t think so. He wept and he wept publicly. Actually, failing to cry, keeping our pain and sorrow inside is dangerous to both our physical and mental help. In his new book, Through My Eyes, Tim Tebow Denver Bronco quarterback talks without embarrassment about his emotions. He has been videoed several times crying: the last time he ran into the stadium at the University of Florida, and when the Gators lost to Alabama in his senior year, for example. When we have passion about something, we’re going to get emotional, and shed tears, when we have significant setbacks. Jesus understands and cares when we’re crying tears of pain. We draw closer to Him. We get more of Him when we mourn over the things Jesus cared about: the pain of His people, lost souls, rejection of God, failure to trust and follow. It’s foolish to cry over “spilt milk” but not […]

Today we look at the second way to get more of Jesus suggested by Anne Graham Lotz’s in, Pursuing More of Jesus, (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2009).  Pursue more of His voice in your ear. Every Christian knows that we should be listening to the voice of Jesus. But how do we filter His voice out of the all the noise that fills our lives. Jesus’ voice has characteristics that set it apart. If we keep these in mind we will know when it’s really God speaking. God’s voice is biblical. When we think we are hearing from God our first move should be to check it against scripture. God’s word is never contrary to God’s Word. That seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? But often we hear Christians claiming to be acting on God’s word in doing things which are clearly not biblical. God’s voice is personal. God know where we are better than we know ourselves. Unlike other voices which try lead us, God’s voice speaks to the precise need in our lives. We miss God sometimes in this area since we are often confused about where we really are and what is really important. God cuts through all that and […]