Archive for February, 2008

Not to sound like a Shakespearean play, but every morning I wake up and say, “Devotion-To do or Not To do- that is the question”. As if it’s something I should debate.

I am a pretty routine kind of guy. I get up the same time every morning, I get showered, I get my coffee and I go to my office. I have conditioned myself to this type of routine for 5 days of the week and the other 2 days I do all the above except go to the office. But I have yet to consistently place a Daily devotion in that routine. And I don’t know why.

I am a firm believer that we should spend time with God daily. I preach about spending time with God daily. But I sometimes fail to practice what I preach. Many people as well as myself, struggle in this part of their Christian walk and it is hard to pinpoint the many reasons why. But I think the main reason is Satan.

Ephesians 6:10-17 (NASB95)
¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
¹³ Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
¹⁴ Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS,
¹⁵ and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE;
¹⁶ in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
¹⁷ And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Paul tells us here in Ephesians the best way to defend against the attacks of Satan and world forces of his darkness, is to put on the Armor of God. The Armor of God begins with the belt of truth, God’s truth that we find in the bible. Without that belt we cannot defend ourselves from Satan. If you think of the Armor of God as getting ready in the morning, none of us leave home with getting dressed. We put on our under garment, then our pants and shirts, then our socks and shoes and we leave ready for the day. The Armor of God is the same thing, except with much more importance. If you don’t start with the belt of truth, you can’t use the rest of the armor that God gives you.

You and I need to start our day off with a daily reading of the truth. You should dress yourself spiritually before starting your day. Start a routine of 5 minutes a day. Just get in a few scriptures and pray on those scriptures. You will see that won’t be enough time as you begin a good habit of ready and devoting time to God. Don’t go out into the world without the FULL armor of God. Don’t let Satan get you to belive the truths of the world instead, read the truths of God before you enter the world.

God Bless and Read your Bible,

Pastor Jody Burkeen

It is always an awesome thing when God pulls something out of thin air to make things work.  As I was working on my sermon for this coming Sunday night….cough, cough…This coming Sunday night, the 17th of February, ha ha ha.  Sorry had to get a plug in there.  All joking aside, as I was working on the topic that God gave me to preach on I began to write it out and work on my little particulars that I like to do and I had a hole that I could not fill…I have an area that I just could figure out what was going there.  And then today I was reading a blog that one of my friends writes (it is in the links…check it out it is awesome) and it sparked a “pet-piv” of mine and I responded just a real short little blurb back to his posting ;o).  But it started a process in my brain that lead me to what God wanted in the last little portion of my sermon that had the hole.  It is always amazing to me how God works…and as frustrating as it can be for the flesh to have to go through activities without knowing where you are going to end up, it is awesome to be able to look back and go wow that is how we got here.  I guess the School House Rock ending to this blog is that putting your trust in God is the only way to arrive exactly where you don’t know your supposed to be at the right time that you didn’t know!

God Bless ~ Tyler

If you ever travel Hwy 44, anywhere between 8-9 am in the morning or 4-5 in the afternoon and you see a guy in a Dodge who looks like he is screaming at the top of his lungs and in another world just keep on going no need to stare…I am just cleansing my soul and heart with a little worship. As I was driving in this morning I had a lady stay beside me for (well to be honest I am not sure how long) but she just starred and very unsafely ;o) I might add watched in confusion as to what I was doing. But to those of you “carshippers” (car+worship) I challenge you to sing on. I am currently learning a new song and there is a line in the song that states:

“Let my love be loud, A sweet joyful noise, Only for You I lift up my voice”

I love that. Let my love be loud. I love the image of that, not necessarily that my voice could be loud but my love is loud, that my love for Christ is so great that it cannot be contained that it burst from me and that it can be loud so all can hear. I mean really is that not the magnitude that we are commanded to love our God, but how often do we do that. I challenge all of those who frequent this site as well as any newbies to do that love your God with all your heart to the point that it is LOUD!!

God Bless ~ Tyler

Have you ever been confronted with a situation where your failures resulted in an obvious question. What do you say when the question is so direct that you know the person already knows the answer?  What do you say when you know the answer will break that persons heart?

Luke 6:46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

Malachi 1:6
A son honors his father, and a servant his master Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you…

These are 2 of the hardest questions that I have read lately.   All that I can picture in my head is Jesus looking me in the eye and asking me these questions.  And He already knows the disappointing answers that I must give.  This has been a great perspective changer for me,  this is no longer about playing “Church” or doing what is right in the eyes of your friends, fellow brothers/sisters in Christ, family or anybody else.  This is about doing what at the end of the day makes Jesus smile.  Those of you that know me well know I love analogies and pictures/videos because it creates a sense of understanding that sometimes you might not get from reading something in text.  So the actual visualization of Jesus asking me these questions especially at the moments that I have felt Him instruct me to speak to someone, or to tell me the decision that I should make about a situation, or simply “GO and DO”, has begun to change my evaluation process of my actions.  I want to get to a place in my life where I know that my actions and decisions make Jesus smile.
Now the flip side of this is that I know I am going to fail sometimes.  We all are going to fail at different times and in different ways, we are human.  But what I feel is the most important is that our heart is in the proper place and proper perspective.  There are many examples in the Bible where during Jesus’ time on this earth He reminds people it is about your heart and its condition.  If the heart is in the right place the action will follow as maturity is gained.  For example:

Mark 7:18-19
18 And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?”… 20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. 21 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

Here Jesus is using the example of food to teach the disciples that the food that you put into your body does not defile your heart because it goes into your stomach and then is eliminated.  He then goes on to say that it is what comes from your heart that determines where you are spiritually.  So in this example we learn that we must do the things that will keep us protected and keep our hearts guarded from becoming defiled.  We must study God’s word, we must spend time with Him daily, we must try as hard as possible to follow His commands and most importantly we must keep Him in our hearts.  So back to my original question, What do you Say?

Well I guess my answer for now is “Lord forgive me!”  I can only be thankful for the grace that my Savior bestowed upon us by His death on the cross.