Holy Hottie

Instead of looking for the right person, become the right person.

In this week’s devo I reveal the most important thing you need to know in order to hook your holy hottie. Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and favor from the Lord.” We all want to find that good thing but how we look for it determines if we will find it. For many, the paradigm is to look for Mr. or Mrs. right, which actually makes it harder for you to find them. The answer is not to look for the right person but to become the right person. Ultimately, it boils down to looking to another person to complete you or looking to God to complete you. If you want to hook your holy hottie, you need to focus on become the person that your Mr. or Mrs. right will want to spend the rest of their life with.

 

 

Fast Food & Slow Growth

Instant gratification is your enemy not your friend. It promises much but delivers little.

In this week’s devo I talk about our culture’s desire for instant gratification and how that mentality is harmful when applied to our spiritual lives. The reality is that a desire for instant gratification actually causes us to grow slower spiritually. The best example of this is seen in Abraham and Sarah and their first child, Ishmael. Abraham and Sarah got tired of waiting for the Lord to fulfill his promise so they decided to make something happen on their own, which has caused long term problems for Israel that persist to this day. Psalm 40 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined to me, and heard my cry.” Patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit, it is one of the things that God desires to see in us, and it is what will help create the Christlike character that we need (Rom 5:4). For anyone that desires closeness with God, instant gratification is your enemy not your friend; it promises much but delivers little.

Identity in Christ

We shouldn’t get our identity from our brokenness but from our Savior.

In this week’s devo I talk about identity and brokenness. I had some difficulties growing up that caused me to see myself as broken even after I came to Christ. It took me a long time before I was able to get over my issues and see myself as God sees me; to get my identity in Christ. My story is not unique. Too many believers see themselves as broken; they get their sense of identity from their brokenness. But our identity shouldn’t be shaped by our brokenness but by our Savior.

Forgiveness

Does forgiving someone mean I have to let them keep hurting me?

In this week devo I talk forgiveness. Jesus tells his disciples that there should never be an end to our forgiveness for others. But forgiveness is not being a doormat and letting people constantly take advantage of you. Sometimes we confuse forgiveness with enabling, which is ultimately one of the worst things you can do for someone because it causes them to stay stuck where they are and not grow.

Also… yesterday I taught at IMPACT195 School of Ministry’s Friend Day. The topics were voted on via social media. The topic that was picked for me to teach on was spiritual warfare. I got a little crazy 🙂 The teaching was followed up with a time of Q&A with some of the other teachers. If you’d like to watch it you can visit the School’s YouTube page.

For more information on the School of Ministry that I oversee visit i195.org

Pray to be Heard

How do you pray to be heard by God?

There are two commonalities in all those in the Bible that are crying out to God and desperate for him to hear them. Add these two things to your prayers and you’ll pray to be heard by him.

You Are Chosen

What does it mean to be chosen? I’m used to getting mailers that tell me that I’ve been chosen at random and pre-approved for a special offer. But they aren’t really choosing me, I’m just a dollar sign to them. They “chose my wallet not me.”

Part of your identity in Christ is that you have been chosen, hand selected by God. That’s a big deal; to be chosen by God. In my last post about identity, I talked about how God has blessed us. Being chosen is one of the spiritual blessings God has given us and it will help change the identity cycle. 

What does being chosen mean? I’m personally mystified when I go the the grocery store and see people picking up melons, holding them to  their ear, thumping them, and listening to the sound they make. Whenever my wife sends me to buy a melon I always mimic what I’ve seen but I have no idea what sound I’m looking for. So after thumping a few melons that all sound the same to me, I’ll say loud enough for anyone who’s within ear shot, “perfect” just so I look like I know what I’m doing.

While I may be clueless, other melon thumpers aren’t. They know exactly what their looking for and they know when they find it and that’s the one they choose. In a similar way, God has hand selected you, minus the thumping (although it sometimes feels like it). Out of all of humanity, he looked at you and said, “perfect!”

Because God has chosen you, it also means that he wants you! You’re not a red headed stepchild in God’s family, unloved and unwanted. He didn’t choose you because your aunt Mable twisted his arm through her prayers. Your not the last kid picked for the team because no one else wanted you.

God desires you! He wants you! That’s why he chose you! You were just what he was looking for and he liked what he saw so much that he decided to bring you home and make you one of his privileged children.

Knowing this should cause you to feel loved, valued, and wanted. It should make you feel like you’re one of the most special people in the world- that God in his grace would set his unfailing love on you and call you his own.

Now as you read these truths you may experience the opposite feelings than I just described. You may feel worthless, inadequate, or you might doubt God’s choice in you, after all, you think to yourself, there are so many others that are so much better and more deserving than me. Here’s the deal: your feelings are not the barometer of truth. Think about how often your feelings have led you astray and gotten you into trouble.

The fact that you are chosen and wanted is a truth that often needs to be accepted by faith at first. So, tell your feelings to be quite and tell God that you are going to accept his truth by faith. Choose to believe it. If you need to, every morning when you brush your teeth tell yourself this truth until you believe it.

Weight of Glory

What we walk through can create something glorious in our lives if we choose the right attitude.

 

In this week’s devo I talk about 2 Corinthians where Paul says that our light afflictions are working an eternal weight of glory for us. The light afflictions he is talking about is persecutions, tribulations, and trials. Those things work something in our lives: an eternal weight of glory. What that means is that this life and the difficulties that God allows us to walk through actually prepare us for the future glory that we will receive from God. How should that change us? It should do two things. First, it should produce perseverance in us, the willingness to walk through the difficulty without throwing in the towel. Second, it should produce hope. Hope that you are not suffering for no reason. That what you go through will produce something glorious in your life if you choose the right attitude towards it. So, how are you handling your momentary and light afflictions? For more information on Scott or the School of Ministry visit i195.org.

Overcoming Lies

You can know that something is a lie and the lie can still have power over you.

In this week’s devo I talk about lies and how to get free of the power they have over us.

Daddy Issues

Learn to know God more accurately so you can experience him more fully.

In this week’s 95 Second To Impact I talk about how God as a father is hard for a lot of people to really understand. We live in what ahs been called a fatherless generation and we have learned some wrong things about fathers in general and about God as a father. Many of us have twisted perceptions of God. Perceptions that tell us that we can’t trust him, that he really doesn’t love us, or that he wants something from us. Our misconceptions affect how we interact with God. We end up having a subpar experience of God because we have misconceptions about who he is. IMPACT195 is having an Open House where you can come and learn to know God more accurately so you can experience him more fully. Click here for more event details.

Know Yourself

Discover how to truly know yourself and grow in your identity in Christ.

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