2. {ACCURACY} How accurate are you in following God’s orders?
Are you…..?
~Excellent
~Good
~Fair
~Poor
>Scripture: ““If you love me, obey my commandments.”/John 14:15
3. {SERVICE} What’s the quality of your service?
Is it……?
~Excellent
~Good
~Fair
~Poor
>Scripture: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.””/Mark 10:45
4. {Cleanliness} How clean are you living?
Are you…..?
~Excellent
~Good
~Fair
~Poor
>Scripture: “You are battered from head to foot— covered with bruises, welts, and infected wounds— without any soothing ointments or bandages.”/Isaiah 1:6
5. {Overall Satisfaction} What’s God’s overall satisfaction with you?
Is it…….?
~Excellent
~Good
~Fair
~Poor
>Scripture: ““I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!”/Revelation 3:15-16
6. Rate and compare yourself from now, to how you used to be?
~ How has God grown you?
~ How has your relationship with God grown?
~ Were you on fire for God and now you’ve cooled off? Where do you want to be?
Yep….you read that right! I meant to say urinal just in case you’re wondering! Today’s God Gold comes from the one place I doubt any of us would expect to find it….at the daggum bathroom urinal!!
The other day one of my good friends texted me this picture and said, “dude, I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom, when I walked up to the urinal this is what I saw on top of it! God’s Gold on the urinal!” Hahah how wild is that to think you’re taking another regular trip to the bathroom then out of nowhere, BOOM!!!GOLD!!!!! Pretty wild to say the least but to the man who left this on a urinal of all places, thanks to you for being an example of getting Gods Gold out not just in the nice and clean corners of this world but even the dirtiest and nastiest place you could ever find! God has no limits on where and when He shows Himself in our lives, He is always there all the time, yes, even in the routine everyday tasks we have in our lives. God is there and His Gold is always present, keep your eyes open so you don’t miss it!
You never know, next time you use the restroom you may have a golden situation that comes up, and I don’t mean the kind that’s in liquid form! Have a great day and hope you enjoy this awesome piece of urinal Gold!!!
“But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.” At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?” “Twelve,” they said. “And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?” “Seven,” they said. “Don’t you understand yet?” he asked them.”
Mark 8:14-21
The disciples only had one loaf of bread, we don’t have much of anything, we’re incapable of producing anything. These questions Christ ask, sit on these today, think about what He’s saying. Without Christ we have nothing but with Christ we have more than enough, He supplies us with everything thing we need and then comes in with leftovers. We don’t have to try harder, to do anything more, we’ll always have little to nothing, the only thing we need is Christ, chase your need of Him and you’ll have more than you could ever ask for!
“And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.””
Mark 2:1-5
Ran across this passage in my quiet time this morning. Quiet time is something I’ve told you time and time again how I have spent more time away from it than in it. I’ll be honest, I really struggle with taking time out of my busy days to spend quiet, intentional time with the Lord. It always seems to me that there are these huge boundaries of either busyness or selfish desires and things I would rather do that get in the way. No matter what the reason, none of them amount to a hill of beans because the truth is, that time with the Lord, in His Word and just talking to Him, sitting still before Him. There is no time that is more valuable or brings more fulfillment and life to us than in those moments. There are simply no excuses, even though I’ve made many myself, I want to challenge you today to see the truth in these verses and RUN TO THE FATHER, AGAIN and AGAIN!!!!
There is so much in this situation happening here in Mark that screams impossible to the chances of getting this paralyzed man before Jesus. These four friends who are going literally above and beyond to get there friend in need to the only One who can meet his needs are facing a problem. That problem is boundaries. The house is too crowded, the front door is blocked off, there is no way in right?
How many times do we use those same boundaries as excuses in our lives to follow Jesus and come to Him. “I don’t feel very good, I don’t really feel like it, I have all of this important stuff to do, my schedule is too busy, I don’t have time.” The list of excuses go on, and yes we face real life boundaries every day but no boundary is too great, too big, or too much that the route to Jesus is impossible. That’s the beautiful thing about the boundaries we face when trying to get to Jesus, they make us work, push and be devoted if we are ever going to get past them.
In this scenario, these four men didn’t see the impossible situation or make excuses, give up and go back home, their mission was to see Jesus and no boundary was going to hold them back from that. It says they came in through the roof and lowered the man down to Jesus. They went around the boundaries, even if it wasn’t convenient for them, they worked through it anyways. This life following Jesus is the farthest thing from convenient, but it’s the only way to LIFE so whatever the cost, being close to Jesus is WORTH IT!!!!
I challenge you and myself in the days to come to put self aside, put convenience aside because that’s not going to happen, put the excuses we make from seeing the “boundaries” between us and Jesus. Put all of that to the side and each day prioritize your time with Jesus, not just saying you’re going to do it, but pray about it, commit to it and whatever comes up in the moment that might make you want to give up, continue pursuing and running to this priority of being with the Father and spending time with him. Not just one day, but AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!!
“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
Mark 8:34-35
These verses have sat on me heavy lately and I’m so thankful I get to share the experience of my weaknesses and the strength in God’s powerful Word. Jesus taught many important truths to the disciples but this is a big one, it’s a foundation truth or a starting point into life with Christ. I’ve heard this verse a ton and every time I’m like, “yep, deny yourself, take up your cross, okay I got it.” I may have heard it and think I got it but the truth is I don’t got it. We can’t truly know what God’s Word means or how powerful it really is until we actually apply it to our lives. It’s extremely hard to admit that we don’t have a clue or that we’re weak, to deny ourselves because our pride usually gets in the way and that truth stinkin hurts. I like to think I know best a lot of the time and my way feels like the way to go but nobody knows what’s right or knows what the best way to go is more than Jesus Christ! Sometimes I’m influenced by others opinions or beliefs on what’s right and wrong about which way leads to the fullness of life but only Christ and Christ alone can tell us and show us God’s truth, only He can lead us into the fullness of life that God has planned for us and wants to give us for eternity. And on top of our pride, we know if we deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, that means we put Christ first in our lives, that means we have to follow His example, embrace suffering in this life just like Jesus did on the cross and keep our eyes on the heavenly prize. We may not get everything we want, we may have to go against the devils lies saying, “c’mon, you can do this one little thing, yeah it’s a sin but you know you’ll enjoy it, God has plenty of grace and mercy to forgive you.” By taking up our cross daily, we are to embrace suffering, going against what we want like temporary pleasures and being comfortable in our lives, making excuses and justifying stuff telling ourselves it’s not that bad, trying to save our lives which only leads to losing our lives. Suffering comes in denying ourselves, its hard and it gets even harder when we have to deny our want to fit in with everyone else. This is one of the hardest parts for me. Why should I have to deny myself from all the fun and cool things everybody else is doing? It’s so hard to go against the current when all the fish are swimming easily downstream and you have to swim as hard as you can to swim upstream. I guess the big lesson for me is realizing I don’t have a clue what I’m doing and I’m too weak to swim upstream by myself and from the times I’ve followed Jesus instead of myself and my wants, put following myself and anything, anyone else to the side, through Christ I can deny myself, He gives me the strength to look past my pride, my desires and want to be comfortable and only through Him as the Shepherd and me as a sheep can I live in His gift of freedom and life. I know this isn’t the most popular thing to talk about and prob makes ya a little uncomfortable, I know I feel that way but it’s Gods truth given to us for our salvation and our instruction. Once you realize you’re just a dumb sheep and see Christ, my leader, my Shepherd, as the only way to truly have life, it gets a little easier to deny yourself, to embrace putting your wants of comfortability to the side and get uncomfortable in the suffering by taking up your cross. It gets a little easier to lose your life when we see the importance of the stakes at hand and the love of a Savior for coming down to teach us this truth, for suffering a death that we should’ve died so that we could have salvation and life, the importance of every moment following ourselves, anything, or anyone else instead of putting our self to the side and chasing after Christ as hard as we can with our eyes set on the prize He has for us, those are wasted moments for ourselves but more importantly for everyone around us getting a chance to see an example of Jesus’ truth and light flowing from us into them. Its hard but it’s so daggum awesome at the same time! I’ve continuously struggled to apply this truth to my life and I’m not trying to be hard on myself, that’s real talk cause I know God made me for more than what I’m capable of, God made us all for more because if He’s at the lead, He’s capable of anything!!! Please pray for me that I can embrace this truth and live it out! I’ll be praying for you too!
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