Show up and do the Work

God Gold of the day

After yesterday’s God Gold, I was pumped and excited to get to work today! I can’t begin to explain what took place today, I started my day by praying and surrendering completely to the power of the Holy Spirit. I lifted up all my problems to God fully, and I showed up and did the work. It’s crazy how I always show up and do the work but in this situation I can’t take any credit for showing up and doing the work today. There is no words to explain it but instead of trying to beat my circumstances on my own with my own strength and hard work, I just let go. I gave everything to God, i literally did nothing but stop trying so hard and trusting that the power of the Holy Spirit within me was more than enough to bring out the best of my work. I’ve never worked so hard in my life, I have never felt so confident and felt so much purpose to attack everything with all I had. Once again, I can’t take credit because it wasn’t me that did anything. It was God and God alone!!! I challenge you today to surrender yourself and give everything to God, and put faith to action by showing up, you’ll truly be amazed at how God moves through your life in so many powerful ways! It blows my mind and I’m just so excited for you too to experience the awesomeness of life that takes place when living in complete submission to the Holy Spirit!

I left this quote below that had been driving me lately and pushing me in this lesson! I pray it can be of encouragement to you and notice too how he mentions all the outside noise and tough circumstances you face in life. Something I prayed over constantly today was asking God to block out all the outside noise or only working as hard as the person next to me but to focus in on the work He has set before me and just GOOO!!! Full throttle!!!! It’s amazing how when we take things to God He answers and provides for us so faithfully! Dig into these lessons!!! Show up and do the work!!!

“No matter what anyone says, just show up and do the work.

If they praise you, show up and do the work. 

If they criticize you, show up and do the work.

If no one even notices you, just show up and do the work.

Just keep showing up, doing the work, and leading the way.

Lead with passion.

Fuel up with optimism.

Have faith.

Power up with love.

Maintain hope.

Be stubborn.

Fight the good fight.

Refuse to give up. 

Ignore the critics.

Believe in the impossible.

Show up.

Do the work.

You’ll be glad you did.

True grit leads to true success.“

-Jon Gordon (The Power of Positive Leadership)

Average Joe’s

God Gold of the Day

“There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.” The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.”

‭‭Acts of the Apostles‬ ‭4:12-13‬ ‭

Digging into Acts a little more! Gosh there is so much Gold in these scriptures!!! So to set the scene, Peter and John, two of Jesus’ main disciples were out working for the Lord. We saw in Acts 1:8 that Jesus gave us the power of the Holy Spirit living within us so that we would be able to continue His Ministry here on earth, being a witness for His name! Sharing Christ with others, living as examples of Christ, this is the purpose and mission that Jesus gave us all and here in these verses, Peter and John were out working in the power of Christ that flowed within them. Through the Holy Spirit, a lame man who wasn’t able to walk at all, was now walking, running and skipping with joy after a few moments spent with Peter and John. These men were fulfilling the purpose Christ has left for them by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within them.

Because of this great miracle, the religious officials didn’t like it very much so they put Peter and John in jail and arrested them. These verses are where Peter and John get the chance to talk to the Jewish council which were like the top of the top Religious leaders. These guys were Bible all-stars, they had spent their life studying God’s Word and felt as if they knew it all (except their pride getting in the way of believing in what Christ did.) Peter began speaking to them and you would think, if you’re in jail, already in a bunch of trouble and you’ve already seen through multiple people what these religious leaders are capable of doing to followers of Christ like death, you would think they’d be scared right? You would think that they would try their best to say whatever the council wanted to hear so they could get out of prison and escape their possible death.

But…..not so fast! Remember that Peter and John are filled with the Holy Spirit of God! They have the power that rose Christ from the grace flowing through them, and they’ve been given a mission from Christ to serve. They spoke truth to the council! Despite knowing it was almost certainly going to make the council mad and go against what they believe, they spoke the truth that their power comes from Christ, that salvation comes from Christ and CHRIST ALONE!!!

After seeing their boldness and the confidence in which these men spoke the truth, these extremely knowledgeable Jewish leaders couldn’t figure it out. They said, “they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures.” They were amazed because Peter and John were so NORMAL. They were average Joe’s, they were normal clothes, they didn’t look like guys who had spent years and years in study of the Bible like they did. How could they speak so boldly in witness for Christ?

It’s cool looking at this and looking at all the excuses we tend to make on why we can’t witness to others about Christ. “I don’t know enough, I’m not good enough, smart enough, I don’t look like someone who would do that.” That’s what’s so cool, you don’t have to be super smart, or be supremely knowledgeable of the Bible, you don’t have to have all the answers or look the part, you just have to be you and speak the TRUTH God has planted inside of you, speak the Gospel message that saved your life, and trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring up the power to be bold in witness! To be confident in your words, to carry yourself as a person who knows that nothing in this world, no person or their beliefs or a word of rejection can separate them from Christ and the truth that He has saved you and has done everything that’s needed to be done to save others also!

What qualifies you as a person to witness for Christ? Being a follower of Christ. Okay that’s it! You’re ready! Don’t look at horizontal lies to make you feel inadequate to attack the mission God has given us! Believe the vertical truth and the power of the Holy Spirit that lives within you! Then speak that truth!!! As followers of Christ the truth is that we are just ordinary men and women, with an extra-ordinary power within us that allows us to boldly do out of this world works for Christ!

Power Given. Purpose Driven.

God Gold of the Day

“8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

–Acts 1:8

Was going to keep going in Colossians like I promised but I’ve been learning some awesome Gold at church lately that I’m so excited to share! I’ll go ahead and warn you, as much as I’d love to plan out and script these messages for you. God doesn’t work on my time and His timing and intervention is always 100x better than anything I could ever create! Hope these next few messages from Acts brings some big time BOLDNESS to your lives and moves you from comfortable Christian to a follower of Christ who is on the move, living for the Gospel and the spread of it!

This verse from Acts is kind of like a foundation verse for the whole book of Acts! Beyond all the stories of men doing amazing things for God, how they show us examples of living this life with Christ and for Christ. Acts 1:8 shows us HOW these men do what they do and WHY they do what they do.

First we’ll look at the HOW?

The Holy Spirit. I could just leave it there but I’ll explain, so during this time Jesus had just died, raised from the grave and these disciples were sitting around looking at each other clueless as what to do next. Christ comes on the scene and speaks a life changing, power giving Promise to them. Yes, Jesus, who has died and been resurrected shows up to speak to these guys in person. Sounds crazy but it’s just Jesus! It shows how capable and loving He is to come back and give these guys some direction and a promise to hold onto while they sat in their cluelessness.

HOW do these believers do what they do throughout this book of Acts? Sharing the Good News of the Gospel, preaching and telling people about Christ, performing amazing miracles? The HOW is in the first part of this verse, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;.”

When one receives Christ into their lives, just as these disciples had, Jesus has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit living within us. The same Holy Spirit that worked through Christ during His earthly Ministry allowing Him to speak truth, love without limits and face a lot of persecution and turmoil surrounding Him. That same Holy Spirit lives within every born again believer!!!! The inflow of the Holy Spirit, the power of God at work within us, that inflow causes the outflow of our lives to change in a lot of big ways. Having the power of the Holy Spirit living within me is something I’ve overlooked throughout my life with Christ and overlooking the power we have, it makes it really hard to live FOR Christ.

The Holy Spirit enables us to do more than we could ever possibly do on our own. And we see in the second part of the verses after seeing the HOW in living this life not only with Christ but FOR Christ, we see the WHY?

Why would we need this power? Because without it, with out the power of God flowing within us, we are incapable of doing anything. In the second part of these verses we see the WHY, “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The inflow of the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives allows us to accomplish greater than we could ever do alone. With the inflow of Jesus’ power, comes the outflow of Jesus’s purpose in our lives.

Jesus says the HOW in the first half of verse 8, and in the second part He gives the WHY! He gives the disciples and us direction here on what to do, what the mission is, what the primary purpose is for this gift of power from the Holy Spirit. To WITNESS!!!

Jesus didn’t stop working after the resurrection, He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit so through us He can continue to do what He did in His Ministry here on earth, telling others of the Good News! The power of the Holy Spirit gives us help in so many areas, reading and understanding God’s Word, living more like Christ on the daily, the wisdom and discernment in that guides and controls our thoughts and actions. But in all those smaller things, which are all necessary to grow in, all that leads to the bigger overall specific purpose that Jesus has given us. To WITNESS.

To share Him and the Good News that He died, bled, and rose from the grave to give us! In the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus entrusts to live in this power for the lives around us. It’s the fact that Jesus has given us everything we need to do anything possible and the one, big thing He tells us to do, the grand, huge, ultimate life mission that He’s given us, be honest, how much do we really use this power for the purpose in which Jesus gave it??? I’ll be honest. Outside of these messages, I struggle in Witness. I may have a conversation about faith here and there but sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News that changed my life completely around in the most awesome of ways. I’ll be honest and tell you that I fail to witness 9 times out of 10 but seeing this truth, seeing HOW Jesus has given us this great gift of power from God Himself through the Holy Spirit and the mission to be BOLD in witness for Him, it makes me question everything that I say I stand for when I am really just laying down looking up at the awesome opportunity Jesus has set before me.

It’s convicting for sure but I don’t want it to just hit you in your or my gut and feel bad for a minute then go back to living this comfortable Christian life like we have been doing. I pray that God speaks His truth so powerfully through these next few messages on examples of living a life with Christ that changes lives for Christ, that we don’t just feel bad but we move. We move from conviction to application, from life to LIVING and showing, telling, and yelling to others the Good News that’s changed our lives and how Jesus’ love can do the same for theirs! Let’s take this in and get prepared to move in the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus has given us so we can live out the purpose that Jesus has left us with!!!