I woke up this morning to a blanket of pure white snow covering my little piece of the world. Everything looked clean, pure, white and peaceful.  The reality of the true condition of my little piece of the world was exposed when I began to shovel my way down the driveway.  All the dirt and deadness lay just beneath the surface. This was a cover-up.

Matthew 23:26 (NKJV) “Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.”

I began to think of the blood of Jesus. I had heard the old hymn many times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufgSSiEgDdY  The blood doesn't just cover-up our sins it actually washes our sins away.  Underneath the blood is not an old sinner saved by grace.  Underneath the blood is a brand new baby Christian.  Oh, he/she may still have the mind of the old man but as he/she stays in the word of God their mind will become new too. 

Romans 12:2 (NKJV) “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” 

No matter how many beautiful clothes and fragrant colognes and perfumes we might wear it will not hide a filthy dirty body. We need to take a bath.  We need to get in to the word of God and really soap up a bit. Who knows? There may be some old thought patterns that need dislodged and rinsed right out of our head. (Some of you will remember that old commercial and smile).

A clean and beautiful, peaceful life is a wonderful thing.  I don’t want to live a cover-up life but a covenant life washing myself daily in His word, before it’s too late.  How about you?

Revelation 7:14 (NKLV) “And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Now that I am in my last year of what I refer to as the 50’s I can honestly say I think I know some things. I certainly don’t know everything, in fact I know very few things but I have learned some things along my journey.  For example I know that in order to have friends you have to be a friend.

Galatians 6:7 (NKJV) “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”

It is a joy and a treasure that many of my friends I have had for over thirty years.  There have been times through the years we talked every day and there have been times that many months come and go and we fail to have shared even a phone call.  I have watched some divorce, some die and some fight battles that I pray I will never have to fight. 

Joshua 10:25 (NKJV)  “Then Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed; be strong and of good courage, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight." 

Through it all I have learned we need people in our life. Our creator said it best, “…it is not good for man to be alone.”  It is not good that we be alone. So what if our spouse dies or we find ourselves alone? Go do something for someone else.  Go visit a neighbor. Go take a meal to a new mother or a single parent. Go show yourself friendly to someone who needs something you can provide.  You will be amazed at how God can use it in the simplest ways.

Luke 6:31 (NKJV) “And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.”

Friends are friends forever if the Lord is the Lord of them. The best friends are the ones who we do life with. Do life with the ones that will make it count.  The One who laid down His life for us will lead the way.  All we need to do is follow Him…He really does know best.  Father knows best and wants the best for us which includes not wanting us to be alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ped1jYLFtkA

Yesterday was my birthday and I heard from family, friends and colleagues. At the close of my day I was reminiscing through all that had transpired and I realized I hadn't heard from my heavenly father. No I hadn't backslide but it was a packed day. I sat there for a moment thinking and I heard Him say, "I been with you all day long".  Now I knew that in my heart but in my flesh I needed to hear Him talk to me.  My relationship with Him is so real it was as though I hadn't heard from my father.  Perhaps the reason it was so strong this year is because it was the first birthday I have had without my biological father being alive.  I don't know how to put it in words but there was this emptiness and then like a wave the fullness came in and everything was okay.

Isaiah 59:19 (NKJV) "...When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him."

That comma above is in the wrong place folks.  It should read, "...when the enemy comes in, like a flood the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him".  Notice that is a small (h) on the word him.  The Spirit of the Lord is the one who controls the flood and it is a flood of good not destruction.

No one can fill the voids you have within you except the one that created you. All the cards, and sentiments, and cake cannot make you satisfied on the inside.  See you can have a party with no one around when you know you are loved and that no matter what it's gonna be okay--then the party is on.  He is the one who gave me my friends, put me with the people I work and do life with and brought me into this earth with.  

Psalm 68:6 (NKJV) "6 God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity;
But the rebellious dwell in a dry land."

When I took the time to seek Him He was found and finding Him made all the difference.  Today I encourage you to seek Him for whatever it is you need.  He will never fail you.

Psalm 22:26 (NKJV) "...Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever!"

Start overs and comb-overs have a lot in common, neither one of them last for long.  Today being a new day,  still rather early in the New Year, how many are still dieting, working out, and keeping with that New Year’s resolution?  Probably not everyone who started well will finish well.  Every hair may be in place on January 1st but with the winds of everyday life and the stresses of work, family and relationships the comb-over probably needs a touch up.

Psalm 51:10 (KJV) “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.”

We all get dirty from use. Life has a way of tousling our hair. With some daily routines and discipline we cannot just start well, but finish well.  This will require a grace beyond our own skill.  Grace meaning- God’s ability to do through you what you are unable of doing through yourself.

James 1:22-25 (KJV) “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Just like you wouldn’t comb your hair and never comb it again we can’t just have one start over a year.  If you have messed up-don’t quit. Don’t throw in the towel.  Begin again. Start over. Ask the Lord to help you begin again.  He is the God of start overs

I recently had the wonderful opportunity of attending an Encounter for business people.  I didn’t have any expectations.  I was totally rocked by one of the speakers. He spoke on getting out of our comfort zones. He used the analogy of driving ourselves home from work. You know what I mean, we can’t even remember how we got home but here we are.  We were on auto-pilot.  Our subconscious took over and we just did what we do every day—we drove home.

Our speaker shared how easy it is to do something the hundredth time, but how and more importantly why it was so significantly difficult to do it the first time. Remember the first time you drove? Panic and anxiety are a mild choice of words compared to the pounding of our hearts and shaking of our knees. Now we hop in our car, switch on the ignition and don’t give a thought about what we are doing.  The difference? Practice.  Repetition.  The first time we do something everything inside of us screams, “Find a safe place-find a safe place.”  Our speaker explained that our brains have two parts the conscious and the sub-conscious.  It is the conscious part of our brains that give us the problem.  Once the information is in our sub-conscious we are back into harmony-our “safe place”, and anxiety gone.

When we really have an encounter with God and get saved, renew our minds, and become God conscious that becomes our safe place.  We don’t think about how we are to “act saved” (drive home), we just drive and we safely arrive…home. So why do we fret so much over trying something new and doing something we’ve never done before? We are out of our comfort zone. Do it enough and we will become comfortable with what was once uncomfortable.

Fight the flesh.  It is part of our fallen nature. We are not just natural people. Once we have an encounter with Christ, we are supernatural. 

1 John 4:4 (KJV) “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 

So, when doing something new, learning something for the first time--drive on! Remind yourself that it may be difficult the first time,  but so was driving. Soon this “first time” experience will be part of who we are.

Have you ever picked up a book and started looking at the cover? Then turned it over and read the back. You opened the cover and read the forward and the endorsements.  Finally you began to read the first chapter, uninterested you flipped through and tossed it aside.  Only to pick the book up months or years later and couldn't put it down until you had absorbed every word from its pages.  What was the difference?  Why hadn’t you been able to read it through the first time? The reasons are probably as numerous as the stars. 

The same things happen with people.  We really want to meet them so we purposely purchase the book.  We get so excited and the first conversation makes us want to know more.  Then the relationship seems to die in midair. The next time we meet it’s as though we found a long lost friend.

Timing.  Good timing. Bad timing. Maybe we’ve changed? Maybe times have changed.  Regardless of the reason we need to learn that-our times are in God’s hands.  God is in control. He orders the steps of the righteous.  God has a plan for our life.  Nothing is by luck or happenstance.  If life is a song God is the conductor of the orchestra. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are in control for in reality it is God who is in control.  God however wants us to have a free will and serve Him because we want to.  More than anything God wants his children to want to serve Him willingly and obediently.  If we are lead from the inside out and trust God completely then in reality everything we do or don’t do is very important.

I want to challenge you this week to live from the inside out.  You often hear, “Go with your gut.”  Call it what you may.  I call it following the voice of God.  Whatever you call it—don’t ignore it.  That inside voice has saved lives and brought two strangers together to birth significant seed on the earth.

I want to pray over you today.  Fear not. Live by faith knowing that God has you in His hands and He desires that you rest, knowing He cares for you and He even cares what you read and who you meet.  He is a great conductor and the music we make in life as we follow Him, is sound that cannot be ignored.

Genesis 45:7 (KJV) “And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.”

All the Choleric/Leaders are shouting, “Lead or get out of my way”, the Melancholy’s are whispering, “Let them go ahead I will watch them and then make my decisions as I go.”   The rest of you are either a Sanguine off chasing something shiny or a Phlegmatic that is still thinking about whether they even want to go anywhere. Come on smile-you know you want to. Either way it got you thinking.  This is not about who is right and who is wrong; it is more about being able to make the right decision based on the situation.

Joel 3:14 (NKJV) “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.”

Here is the scenario.  You are headed down the Interstate and the passing lane is covered with snow.  The right hand lane is traveling a lot slower than you care to travel. Visibility is not good and already you have passed two Plow trucks that are also spreading salt.  What will it be? Follow your desire to speed over into the snow covered fast lane? Weigh the options and make an educated decision to take it slow.  For most of us that educated decision would out-weigh our desire to go fast.  Even I would decide to stay in pack and follow behind in the slow lane. (I know many of you are laughing because you know how I drive). 

Genesis 4:7 "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."

We all have decisions to make regardless of our temperaments.  Yes, our backgrounds, economic status, level of education, and financial condition all play a part in our ability to make decisions.  However, the greatest decision of our life is whether to follow Christ or not.  Do we take the easy lane, the fast lane, or do we follow others or lead the pack? Those decisions will change throughout the course of our lifetime. The Life-time decision of a life time should never change.  Do whatever it takes to follow Christ and enjoy the journey. Arrive safely at your destination.

Ps 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

Before heading out on any road trip I have a check list I go through before leaving.  Of course probably all of us have some routines we follow, right?  As I was turning on this light, turning off this appliance, checking to make sure nothing but the intended was left on, I heard the Lord speak.  He told me if all of us would put the same effort into seeking time with Him and journeying with Him as we do road trips, we would make a lot fewer wrong turns and a lot less needless detours.

Many care less about their relationship with the Lord than they do their next business trip or leisure getaway.  They plan for the next few days while failing to plan for eternity. Oh it’s easy to set the GPS in the vehicle but what about God’s GPS (God’s Plan of Salvation)?

Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV) “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”

The next time you set out for a road trip remember that no matter the length of the journey here on earth—eternity will last a lot longer and it too needs some planning for.

At twenty we worry about what others think of us. At forty we don’t care about what others think of us. At sixty we discover they haven’t been thinking about us at all. If I knew then, what I know now I could have enjoyed my life a whole lot more. When we are young we spend a lot of time thinking about things that really don’t matter on the back drop of eternity.  You know what I wish?  I wish an older wiser person would have sat me down and shared with me the important things in life.  I wonder if I would have heard. Could they have gotten my attention or would I have not been interested? Today I am. Today I realize the importance of having someone older and wiser to share with me what they know. So here is something I would have wanted someone to share with me; and now that I am the older wiser one, come sit for a spell. I have something to tell you.

Family matters.  No matter what you go through and how many differences you may have with them, they remain-family.  That being said, it is important to make memories together and do life together.  One of the greatest ways to do this is to have traditions.  Family vacations and photos that you take every year in the same place for example are great reminders and so much fun years down the road.  Rent a house with all your siblings and eat Thanksgiving together or rent a house at the beach with lots of bedrooms and let all the cousins stay up all night and make a tent and play with flashlights.  It is not so much what you do, but that you do it together and take lots of photos.

Time goes faster than you think it will.  Moments today become memories of tomorrow, in the blink of an eye. That’s one thing I would tell a young person. What about you, what would you tell them? Send me a comment and who knows you may find it posted right here.

Genesis 32:9 (NKJV)  “Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you:”

Probably most of us remember those shoe boxes we use to decorate in school for everyone to put our Valentines in. When the day was over with box in arms home we went. The night before I remember going through the entire box my parents purchased for us, looking for certain ones to give special friends which was hard because the selection was slim.  There were very few (special) cards in the box.  Perhaps you were one of the lucky ones whose mother purchased the ones with suckers on the cards.  In my day, most of us had to “get by” sharing the conversation hearts, rather than give out the (special) cards with candy already included.
I wanted to show (special) love to a select few. I’ve since learned there is a (special) love, and it doesn’t come with a Valentine card.  It comes with Christ.

There are four kinds of love. Agape love is the love one can only experience and give through the power of God.  It is a God kind of love. Agape is the highest form of love. Then we have Phileo or the type of love that the word Philadelphia comes from, meaning brotherly love or friendly love.  Philadelphia being known as the city of brotherly love and famous for its statue in Love Park.  Next is Storga love which is where we probably get the “Stork” story.  This is a family love. When we are born into a family we have this biological love for our parents and our siblings and relatives because we are related. Finally we have Eros which is where we get the word erotic. This is a physical love often referred to as the lowest form of love with the most powerful drawling power.  I heard one lady say, “Lust turns to rust quickly.”

So I guess we still give Valentine’s Day cards to people. We pick and choose who gets what kind of love. God the Father would have us love everyone with Agape love because that kind of love, never fails.

1st Corinthians 13:4 (NKJV) Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8 Love never fails…”

If your “Love Bank” is still a bit low and Valentine’s Day just didn’t seem to have what it takes this year.  May I suggest quit looking through the “Shoe Box” of life for a special love and start looking through the Bible? Maybe you will find someone really thinks your (special).