Pride steals your joy, wrecks your peace, drains your patience, keeps you from being kind or gentle (or at least thinking those things), and pride makes excuses for your lack of self-control. Our sin nature- pride- will give us other things to blame for a fruitless walk with Christ. That is why we need to make the humility of Christ our one desire. We need to be abiding in Christ and then we will bear much fruit.
In a culture where it feels like everyone wants to be a YouTube star, Insta famous, or make a viral video/ blog post, it is easy to see that humility is not the hallmark of our culture today. So how can we even figure out what humility looks like on a daily basis?
God doesn’t just move mountains, He builds pavilions too. He doesn’t let you keep your surface level faith. He is not happy with a faith that sings songs, but tries to do it all on your own. He wants your ALL and sometimes puts you in the situation where your faith is forced to grow.
God showed up today and a whole bunch of people did too. At one point, we had over 30 people at the pavilion working, serving, and watching God move. The neighborhood saw God move too. Too many times over the past year, the unfinished pavilion has been a site of disappointment to me; that unfinished … Continue reading Pavilion Update
My mountain is a pavilion; an incomplete pavilion for the community garden.
This past Sunday at Journey Church Joplin, Pastor Matt spoke about our willingness to follow Christ. He took his message from the passage of scripture about where Jesus calls his first disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Matthew 4:18-22 captures this moment when Christ’s upside-down kingdom begins. You see, these four fishermen were working and … Continue reading How Did Zebedee Feel?
It seems to me today that people take pictures of everything: the beautiful sunset, the delicious meal, the bad haircut, and the many other trivial things like what color shoes and dresses appear to be. I am one of those people who don’t take pictures regularly. Honestly, there would be no pictures of my … Continue reading When I Didn’t Take Pictures
"The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."Isaiah 58:11 (NIV) Those words, "The Lord will guide you always..." have been going through my mind the last month as I … Continue reading The Worst Decision I Ever Made
Growing Hope 