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Have a Blessed Day.

My God Thank You.For Your Son, whose love for me is still beyond my understanding.For Rosemary, whose love for me for over 40 years is also beyond my understanding.For Allison, whose beauty, growth and energy, make me want to demand that she take a blood test to assure myself that I am her father.For Jason, whose time with me was limited and whom I miss.For Jessica, whose life is still new and whose potential is great.For Martha, whose view of life makes me look at things from new prespectives.For Nicholas, whose enthusiasm energizes me.For Samantha, who still thinks crawling on PawPaw’s lap is okay.For Kaydence, who is still young enough to think I’m pretty great.For Donna, who is old enough to know I’m really not.For brothers and sisters who I don’t see enough, but who, when I do,  still remind me of the wonderful years of my youth.For my church and its leaders who encourage, bless and strengthen me.For Kairos, for allowing me a place to minister where I can’t mess it up.For America, for reminding me if you want to be great you can’t rely on your past, you better work today to ensure your tomorrow.For a world […]

Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters . . . , so our eyes look to the Lord our God . . . —Psalm 123:2 A servant looks to his master’s hand for many things: direction, substance, correction; so should we look to the Lord our God. Like a servant we are unable to direct, sustain and make good use of our lives without our Master. But notice this about the verse, we are to look to Lord our God completely, not just at his hand like the servant does. We get more from God than the servant gets from the Master. We get every thing. We get love and eternal life. His claim on us is greater than a master’s. He made us. He sacrificed for us. He is our everything. To look anywhere else is folly. In the words of the hymn: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim. In the light of His glory and Grace. Be blessed. Nick

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt —Psalm 123:3 Holidays are tough for most of us. We get pulled in every year. We are bombarded with images of perfectly cooked turkeys, gifts that bring broad smiles, gatherings full of joy and good will. The reality never seems to live up to the images. Our past works the same. When it comes to memory, we stack the deck. In our minds, holidays of our childhood are recalled in a perfection that never existed. Face it, the good old days, weren’t always that good. We have to be careful that we not become jaded. We must guard our minds and our attitudes less we shake our faith in Our God and in each other. We must move forward in the proper state of mind with the best attitude. “Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously” (Malachi 2:16). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we […]

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God —1 Corinthians 10:31 We like to consider ourselves “deep” or “profound.” But much of life is lived on the “shallow” or “mundane” level, the simple things. Much of the deep life is not visible and the shallow is very much seen by others. We are often in danger of assuming another is shallow because that’s all we see. Even worse, we may fail to notice that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God.  Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby. To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, “A disciple is not above his teacher . . .” (Matthew 10:24).

I have finished the work which You have given Me to do —John 17:4 Folks love to say “God so loved the world” and forget the rest of the sentence “that He sent His only begotten Son.” God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. His love is not enough. Too much focus on the “love” leads some to conclude “God won’t send anyone to hell…. He is love” or “God loves the world; he’ll save everyone.” Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred. It is […]

In Him we have . . . the forgiveness of sins . . . —Ephesians 1:7 In my humble opinion, forgiveness may be the most difficult thing we are called to do. Maybe it’s just me. It goes against our sense of fairness and justice. “He did that to me.” “He doesn’t deserve my forgiveness.”  Holding on to the anger and resentment is so satisfying; even if we realize it’s so destructive.  And it’s much more destructive to us than the one we are called to forgive. Think about God. His sense of justice is perfect and we really DON’T deserve to be forgiven. Yet He forgives. It is crucial that we understand why. Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the […]

If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed —John 8:36 We are designed with a great capacity for God., but sin and individuality keeps us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin— we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality.Individuality is highly treasured in our society. We are taught to “be me” and that being “different” or “who we are” is a right. If it is a right, it is to be sacrificed to God. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20  when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ . . . .” His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “. . . you shall be free indeed”— free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.  When other see us they should see Him, and we can’t allow our personality and pride to get in the way. Consider all they energy we expend putting up the image […]