Bait and Switch - Part 3

We will wrap up our review of the lesson today by touching on the last areas of my message.  We finished off on Monday with a look at three characteristics of both God and Satan.  We will start with the bad dude.


1.  Satan is the "Father of Lies"


John 8:44 says in part: "He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.".


How can you tell when Satan is lying?  Whenever he opens his mouth!  Anything that is contrary to God's Word, or His leading is of Satan.


2.  Satan is a thief.


John 10:10a says: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy".


Nothing that Satan does is for your benefit!  He has a mission, and that mission is to bring you down.  To render you ineffective, to crush your spirit.  He wants to blind the eyes of nonbelievers.  He wants to make Christians fall and fail.  His sole purpose in life is to destroy you.  Why do we go along with him so often?  Why do we leave the protection of God?


3.  Satan is a roaring lion - who wants to eat you!


1 Peter 5:8 says: "Be self controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.".


I don't know about you, but I don't go and pet lions.  They are killers and that is what they do.  Yet far too often we all "cozy up to" sin and treat it like it is something that won't hurt us.  Mainly because Satan disguises the fact that he is a lion!  But the fact remains the same - his sole purpose is to bring you down.




We then looked on the other side and observed three characteristics of God.


1.  God is love


1 John 4:8 says: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."


Chapter 4 is a beautiful description of what God's love really looks like.  Take a minute and read it now.  We spent a LOT of time on God's love a couple of days ago, so I won't get super in depth today.


The only thing I want to touch on this is - God IS love.  It doesn't say God can love, or sometimes loves.  By definition God = love!  His picture should be in the dictionary!!!  If he IS love, and He loves us, that love will never change!  It is so foreign to us to experience total unconditional love here on earth - but that's what God gives to us!


2.  God disciplines us


Hebrews 12:7-12 (look it up!) 


Wait a second, discipline is a good thing???  It is in the fact that if He doesn't discipline us, then we aren't His sons and daughters!


Are you never convicted of sin?  Are you OK going along with the flow of this world?  If you never confront Satan, maybe it is because you are going in the same direction that he is!


God's discipline is a good thing!  It means that we are legitimate children.  Discipline also corrects little problems and steers us away from making big ones.


3.  God is a planner - with a great plan for you!


Jeremiah 29:11-14a (look it up!)


This is my life passage.  God has comforted me and blessed me with the assurance that He has a plan and purpose for my life.  And that plan is not just one of mulling around, or being a lifeless robot.  No! He has a plan that will give me hope and a future!  Also the promise is that He will be found by us if we seek him with all our heart.  If we make God a priority, and search for him like buried treasure - we will find Him!




SO WHAT???


If we really stop and think about the differences between God and Satan, they are laughable!  If we stepped back and unemotionally looked at the hard facts and data, you would have to be extremely foolish to choose Satan over God.


But we rarely look at things unemotionally don't we?  We also have two natures living inside of us - our old nature (sin) and our new nature (Holy Spirit).  


Just like a pet dog, if you feed the puppy - it will grow big and strong!  Which nature are you feeding?  Which one are you allowing to grow?  My challenge to you this week is to look at these verses and really ask yourself if the sin that you allow to grow in your life is really worth it.  To ask yourself if being 50% committed to God is enough.


Don't be fooled, my friends, Satan is a thief, killer, and destroyer - it's who he is and what he does.  Run from him, not to him.  Stop playing with sin like it's a little kitten, it's really a roaring lion that will eat you first chance it gets.

The sign says, "Free Cheese".  That might be true, but what you will get as well is the trap....


Remember, half truths are lies - and Satan is the Father of them all.

Bait and Switch - Part 2

So yesterday we really took a long look at God's love, and His love for us.  Today we are going to focus on a trick that Satan has used from, well Adam and Eve!

That trick is this: He will do whatever he can to twist God's words, cause doubt to creep into your mind, and make God out to be the bad guy.  Let's dig in!

In chapter 2 of Genesis starting at verse 15, God tells Adam that he is free to eat from any tree in the garden - any tree at all, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

We talked about how God probably had TONS of trees in the garden, all with amazing fruit.  Kind of like this bowl of Skittles!  If I told you that you could eat ANY Skittle, except for the white one on the bottom, wouldn't that be a good deal?  Isn't there a sufficient amount of Skittles there?  We always think that about Eve!  Really Eve!  Why did you have to test God and take that white Skittle?  The other 3,278 aren't good enough for you to eat?


But the truth of the matter is that if we were put in the same situation, we would probably have done the same thing!  It's the classic case of a parent telling a kid not to do something.  As soon as you say that, the kid want's to do it!  Don't play in the road - I wanna play in the road.  Don't eat that cookie - what do we want to do? 


Satan plays on this when he comes up to Eve in verse 1 of Chapter 3, "Did God really say that you must not eat from any tree in the garden?".  That's not what God said!  Satan is trying to twist God's words!


It apparently works, because Eve adds to God's words in verse 3 when she added the "fact" that she couldn't touch the tree.  She either wasn't listening, or Adam told her additional information.  The important point here is that we need to know that what we believe is ABSOLUTELY from God and His Word!  That way we won't end up like Eve did!

Then in verses 4 and 5 we see another trick that Satan uses in our lives - half truths. We spent some time on this one, so I won't really expound on it, but it is a very important aspect of life to understand.


Satan tells Eve that she "surely won't die" and "you'll be like God".  Were those TOTAL lies, no.  Were they the TOTAL truth, absolutely not!  When Eve heard that she surely wouldn't die, I believe that she might have thought that if she had eaten the fruit that she would croak on the spot!  Satan assures her that won't happen.  But the death that she experienced and that we all experience because of her is two fold.  We die an earthly death - that's pretty easy to understand!  But when she disobeyed God, that ushered a sin nature into humanity that will be around until we are in Heaven.


She also probably took the idea of being like God the wrong way.  If someone told me that I could be like God - I would imagine morphing into a Zeus type dude, able to shoot lightning bolts our of my eyeballs, etc.  Once again, Satan was kind of correct!  She did become like God in the area of knowledge between good and evil - but she definitely wasn't shooting lightning bolts anywhere!


This is one of the most important concepts for you young people to grasp a hold of.  To understand that Satan isn't going to come out and tell you exactly what he wants to do to you!  If he did, we would run away!!!  He won't tell you something that is completely against what you believe about God, because he knows that we would see it for what it is - a lie.  Rather, he twists and tweaks things so that they sound SORT OF true.  Not really a blatant lie, just a stretch.  


The ONLY way that we are going to be able to completely understand what he is trying to sell us is to be neck deep in God's Word, the Bible.  When we know the truth, the lies will be easy to spot.

Spotting Satan's lies aren't this easy!!!!

I've heard that when banks train new tellers, they don't study counterfeit money.  Rather, they study over and over again the real thing so that when a fake comes along, it is super easy to spot.  Do you know the Scriptures so well that when something fake comes along that you know it is not from God.  Eve didn't!  She allowed Satan to twist what she knew about God in a very negative way.  Does he do that in your life?


Be like the bank tellers - study the real thing!  Then the fakes will be easy to spot.  That way you won't get your hand caught in the cookie jar, so to speak.  Remember, God has given us SOOOOOO much!  Let us focus on that verses the one white Skittle that we can't have.


Also, remember that he commands us not to do things because of His love for us.  He is our Daddy!  He wan't the best for us, remember that!!!

Jeremiah 29:11-14a

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord

Bait and Switch - Part 1

Today we will do a recap of our lesson last night and touch on a few new areas.


We started off with the three examples of things that you wouldn't normally use to do the jobs that you needed done.


1. A shovel to eat cereal
2. A tweezers to vacuum the floor
3. A leaf blower to dust 


I hope that these examples made sense to you!  We wouldn't use these things to do the jobs that we needed to do (well maybe the leaf blower, cause it's cool).  But what I was trying to portray is how Satan will bend things so far and cover over the end result that we sometimes get tricked into either doing things we wouldn't or becoming ineffective in what we are really trying to do.


My main example was going to be using a banana split to play slip and slide soccer on (as we had planned to do).  Not exactly the intended purpose!  Satan will try and influence us to do things in a manner that God did not intend!!!


I thought that it was really well put in the two cigarette ads.  We spent a lot of time looking at why the first ad was so harmful (happy - catchy music, rebellion, adultery).  We then saw in the second ad how people who listen to Satan can be left holding the bag, so to speak.  Here are the two ads:

  
How do these two commercials represent how we can be tricked by Satan?  Please add your comment below on this one!


We then spent the rest of our time together talking about the first ever bait and switch - Adam and Eve in the Garden.


Here were the passages that we looked at: Genesis 2:4-25, and 3:1-24.  I would like you to re-read them and really look at what happened there.  For today I will look at a couple of the verses, and then we will build off of this for tomorrow.


We looked specifically how God made us, not just spoke us into existence.  His commands in chapter 1 were, "Let there be light", "Let dry ground appear", etc.  Those are awesome to think about!  That God has that much power that He just SPOKE and these things appeared!!!


But just as awesome, or even perhaps a bit more awesome (or awesomer) is the fact that in 2:7 we see how much time and care God took when creating Adam.  He could have spoke him into existence as well, but he chose not to!  He took the time and molded him out of the dust.  Not only that, but then he bent down and breathed the breath of life into Adam!  What a cool picture of how much God loves and cares for us.  Even in Genesis chapter 2 we see how much God wants a relationship with us!!!   


Just stop and think about that for a minute.  We all have earthly fathers who have messed up and scarred us in different ways.  Sometimes we view our Heavenly Father in the same light as our earthly father.  Realize that God is the PERFECT Father and that He created you!  He knit you together in your mother's womb.  He knows the number of hairs on your head.  He knows the exact number of your days. GOD LOVES YOU!  GOD CARES ABOUT YOU!!!


Why dwell on this so much here?  Because if you have in the back of your mind these thoughts, you won't question His leading!  You will want to run to God instead of away from Him!  You will see sin for what it is - SIN.  You will also be able to understand who it is coming from - Satan.


I'm going to stop here and pick up again tomorrow.  I would like you to watch this video and listen to the lyrics.  

How He Loves Us!!!!  What a beautiful thought, what a beautiful realization.  Close today's recap off by reading 1 John 4:7-21 and dwell on God's love.  What that means for us, and what He calls us to do with that love.




Then close with a prayer that echos this one:  "Dear God, thank you for your love for me.  Help me to understand even slightly HOW MUCH you love me.  Help me to never - ever forget this as I live my life.  And help me to obey your command to love others as I have been loved.  Help me to stay close to You for the rest of my earthly life! - Amen!"


Love you guys!  Please comment and let me know what this means to you.  Talk to you tomorrow!




In Christ,


Chris

You are better than me - no really!

A big thank you to all of you who have been checking these out!  It makes me excited to see that you are viewing them and I pray that God uses them to help you draw closer to him.

Today will be the last day that we build off the "Monkey see, monkey do" lesson that I gave on Monday.  I am excited and have already been preparing for this Monday night's lesson.

We have looked at several different areas of our Christian walk over the past few days.  There are uncountable others that I could have chosen, but these have been the main ones on my mind!  Just today I started responding in a conversation in a negative way and was reminded to not let any unwholesome talk come out of my mouth.  What a blessing not to go down that same old road again!!!  I pray that the Holy Spirit has been working in your lives as well.

The last passage that we covered on Monday night was from the book of Philippians, chapter 2.  We will look at three different aspects of this passage.

First, verse 1.  If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 

This is an interesting statement that Paul is making.  It is pretty much a rhetorical question!  Of course we have had encouragement from being united with Christ, etc.  When we accept Christ's free gift of salvation, we are united with Him!  We are enveloped by His love.  Paul's real reason for putting this verse in there was for verse 2.

 then make my joy complete by being like‑minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.


Here is where we get back into the monkey see, monkey do analogy.  As we follow Christ, and His plan for our lives (some of which we talked about in the first three recaps), we will be like minded - because we are following His commands!  We will have the same love because we are serving the same God, the God who IS Love!  And we will also have a common purpose and goals, because they are God's purposes - not our own.


But how do we do this?  How do people of different denominations, different races, and different social status' have a common purpose and become like minded?  Glad you asked!  Verses 3-8 tell us:


 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 

7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. 

8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death– 

even death on a cross!   




Jesus was the ONE person of all time that would have deserved to say, "I'm better than you".  He could have said that because HE WOULD HAVE BEEN CORRECT!!!  Who are we to say that we are better than anyone else?  We may not struggle with the same exact sin or areas of weakness, but we are all lost and hopeless without Christ!  


So in a way, I've saved the "best for last".  Although this one for me is not so much the best, but the hardest.  Probably because it goes directly against the "American Way".  You mean that I shouldn't stomp on that person to get where I need to go?  I shouldn't cheat to get ahead?  Etc, etc.


When you really get to the bottom of this passage it boils down to this: Jesus was/is/forever will be God, He didn't need to save us, we were hopelessly lost in our own sin, He humbled Himself, was crucified by HIS OWN CREATION, and paid MY debt for ME!!!  That is either the single dumbest thing that has ever been done in all eternity, or the absolute greatest show of love, mercy, and humility.  


We can't say - ever - that someone is "below" us.  Or that they don't deserve our time.  Praise God that Christ didn't say that about me, or about you!!!  Praise God that Jesus was obedient to the Father's will and suffered, bled, died, and rose again so that we might have life - eternal life!!!  

Monkey see, Monkey do.  It's more than a catch phrase, or a cute sermon title - it's what God desires us to do.  As we copy Him and His ways, we will be like minded, we will build others up, and most importantly - we will bring glory to God!

Monkey See, Monkey Do - Not!

Just to recap, the first day I asked you to really watch the words that come out of your mouth - keep doing that! Secondly, we talked yesterday about getting rid of bitterness, rage, and gossip - keep doing that as well!!!

Today we are going to look at Deuteronomy 18:9.  It says:

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

Why did God put such a high importance for the Israelites not to copy the people that were living in the land?  Because he knew the concept of monkey see, monkey do!!!  He knew that no matter how close they were to Him, if they started imitating the people that were in the land, they would eventually draw away from Him and choose the things of this world.

We have many examples of this in Scripture, but here is one that deals exactly with Deut. 18:9.  There were two Kings of Israel who took this command in very different ways!

In 2 Kings 21 we see the life of Manasseh.  He disobeyed directly this command of God.  He even went so far as to sacrifice his son!!!  Take a minute and read this chapter, you will also see that his son Amon followed in his footsteps.

Then, in 2 Kings 22 and 23 Josiah obeys God's command and tears down all the things that his father and grandfather put up! It is an awesome passage of Scripture.  I love how when Josiah is presented with the truth of God's Word, he tears his robe and immediately starts getting rid of all the "junk" in the kingdom.

My question to you is this: which king are you like?  Manasseh or Josiah?  Are you letting the junk in this world be a part of your life, or are you "tearing your robe" at the way our country is going?

What are the things in your life that you need to get rid of in order to draw closer to God?

Take a minute and ask God to show the areas of your life that have drifted away from Him.

Remember, who are you imitating - God, or this world?  Monkey see, monkey do.  It can be an awesome thing that brings glory to God, or a horrible thing that steals us away from Him.  It's your choice!

How was your "talk" yesterday???

So I see that some of you are at least checking this out - that's great!!!  So my question for you today is pretty simple, how was your "talk" yesterday?  Did you say anything that you wish you could take back?  Did you say anything that would make someone think that you weren't a Christian?

The main verse that we looked at was Ephesians 4:29 - Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths....

How did you do yesterday?

I had a pretty cool thing happen to me!  I was coaching football and we were almost done with the game.  I still get pretty animated on the sideline (cheering my guys on), but I made sure that I cut out anything that would tear down.  The score was 0-0 with 30 seconds remaining.  We were on our 2 yard line (needed 98 yards to score!) and the other coach called a time out.  We were on the sideline and one of my players said out of nowhere, "We should pray!".  To which I said, "Great idea!!!".  So I grabbed the two guys on either side of me and prayed for our last play.  God blessed our prayer - just not on the field.  We were sacked and the clock ran out, ending the game in a tie.  But the blessing was that I didn't do ANYTHING to ruin my witness to those guys and they saw it!  That is the first time that I've ever been asked to pray during a football game!

Here is today's challenge.  Continue to not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths!

But now we will build on that with this from our Ephesians passage: 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. 

For the next 24 hours, don't allow any bitterness, anger, or gossip to invade your life.  Pay extra attention to what's going on inside of you and how you are responding to the things around you.  The neat thing about this is that when you do that you will be able to follow verse 32 by default!  If you aren't bitter, it's a whole lot easier to be compassionate and to forgive!  

I love how Paul throws in at the end, "Just as in Christ God forgave you!".  We shouldn't hold back love and grace because God through Jesus has lavished it upon us!

So let me hear how your day went yesterday and if you need to work on anything!  Vote on the poll, click on the YouVersion link and read your Bible!!!

God bless,

Chris

Monkey See, Monkey Do

We looked last night at the term monkey see, monkey do.  We addressed the fact that we can both be the monkey and the soldiers (in the video).  We can be influenced by things in this world (as the monkey was), and we can also both positively and negatively influence people as well (as the soldiers did).

We were then able to take the example of the video to further build that point.  In the video that we made, all the actors influenced and were influenced negatively - or the opposite of being influenced in a Godly manner.  One fed off the next and it was a vicious cycle.

But when the actors were influenced by God, or responded in a Godly manner, the outcome was vastly different!!!

The dishes weren't such a huge bother because Emily was honoring her mother.  Jacob spilling the candy wasn't the end of the world either because Merci was actively pursuing God and His Word.  The football game wasn't worth freaking out about because it was viewed in the right perspective.  When I saw the coach flipping out on TV, I realized that show of emotion would negatively influence the way I played sports.  So when the reff blew the call, I was able to respond in a Godly manner.  I felt that it was important to not get up and skip around like I was glad that the call was blown!!!  We don't have to like when bad things happen to us - just view them in the right perspective.  Remember, I'm not asking anyone to be fake, or put on a front - that will actually turn people away.

The last thing that we looked at was the cross.  I asked you to copy the picture on the screen, then to trace it.

By far, it was easier to trace the design then to try and do it all by yourself!

Guys, it's the same way with God and the Bible!  We can try and be "good" or remember stories from Sunday School 8 years ago, or we can open the Bible and literally "trace" out what God wants us to do!!!

That's what we will be doing this week.  I apologize for saying that I won't do these if a whole bunch of you don't sign up!  If one of you does what I'm putting out here, then it would be worth it!  So here goes:

Our theme verse for this year is - 1 Timothy 4:12  here is the link www.youversion.com. I want all of us to memorize that verse for next Monday.

After you memorize it, start living it!!!  In the second half it says, "but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."

I don't want you to be overwhelmed by the enormity of all of those commands, so let's start with the first one. For the rest of today (or whenever you read this), and all day tomorrow let's work on our speech.

One of the passages that I used was Ephesians 4:29-5:2.  I want you to read that again and really focus on two areas.  Obviously verse 29 (speech), but also 5:1.  We should LITERALLY trace the picture that God has given us!!!  God is telling us to COPY HIM!  We get to cheat on the test!!!  We have an open book exam, and it starts today!

So the things I want you to do today/tomorrow are:

1.  Read and memorize 1 Timothy 4:12
2.  Read Ephesians 4:29-5:2
3.  Watch your mouth!!!!  Every time something unwholesome comes out of your mouth, put a penny or a quarter (or if you are rich $100!) in a bowl.  That way you can have a reminder and really focus on what you are trying to do.

Please, please, oh pretty please comment on this post!  Let me know if it has helped/stretched/etc. you!  I pray that we will keep this focus going into tomorrow!

God bless,

Chris