In the Zone

For a lot of believers, "prayer" is a four-letter word. What should come easy to believers, often time becomes a struggle or burden.  I don't know if that's due to time management or intimidation or a lack of understanding, but I know many believers in Jesus struggle with prayer. God never intended prayer to be so hard.  That's why Jesus includes the Lord's Prayer in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6.  It's meant to be a guide for us - a way to make prayer easier and God more accessible. Prayer is actually rather simple.  It's a conversation with God.  He wants us to worship and praise him in prayer.  He wants us to seek forgiveness so we can have a right heart to speak to him.  He wants us to pray for things according to His will and not ours.  He also wants us to seek advice, because he's willing to provide.  (After all, God knows more about everyone and everything than we do.) Basically, God just wants to talk to us and He wants us to

I am an alien. I don't have green skin, antenna on my head and I don't fly a space ship.  Nonetheless, I am an alien to planet earth.  Earth is not my home. As a believer in Jesus, I know that he is perparing a place for me so that I may join him also.  I also know I will live eternally - that means forever and ever and ever. My home is in heaven.  I'm just passing through on earth. That's hard to understand sometimes.  We are linear beings - that means everything has a beginning and end.  We start school and we graduate school.  We begin a new job and evenutally leave that job.  We're born and we die.  Everything we do has a starting point and an ending point.  Everything we do revolves around time. God created time, and therefore, is not bound by it.  He exists outside of space and time and one day, we too will spend eternity with God, not limited by time.  I can't seem to wrap my mind around that concept, because I'm linear.  Everything I've

I can't help myself.  I'm glued to the TV and Internet watching images and news from Japan amidst the devestation of an earthquake and a tsunami and now the potential nuclear disaster. My heart goes out to the Japanese people.  Estimates put the death toll at 10,000.  Who knows what the property damage will be.  And if the nuclear plants meltdown, I can't think of what that would do to the country and the world. Yet, amidst that destruction and chaos and fear, I know there are miraculous stories of survival.  It reminds me, once again, that God specializes in miracles. This past Sunday, we studied Sarah and Abraham.  God provided them a miracle in the form of a son, Isaac, when both of them were in their 90s and way past child bearing years.  Both of them laughed when God said they would have a son.  Yet, God did just as he promised.  He provided them a miracle child. God still deals in miracles today.  Whether its a tale of survival in Japan or a healing from cance

I see it on the news all the time.  This Celebrity raises awareness for this disease or this war-torn country.  That Celebrity couple goes to a foreign country, with cameras in tow, to adopt some poor orphan.  This band plays a charity concert for some cause. We are in a culture and society where we are eager to tell everyone how much we're helping the less fortunate, the environment or even the local animal shelter.  My daughter watches the Disney Channel.  Everyday I see their "Friends for Change" campaign to promote a healthier environment.  Every commercial for it is filled with Disney celebrities. And I don't blame them for taking credit.  It feels good to be patted on the back.  It feels awesome to help someone in need.  It's fun to be apart of a life-changing event. As believers in Christ, we have to be careful about that.  Why?  Because we serve Christ and not our own egos or pleasure. Ephesians 2:10 - "For we are God's workmanship, crea