Pastor Dan Stevenson is Mission Pastor of New Heights fellowship in East Toledo, Ohio. This blog will be packed with thoughts and experience arising out of his life for Christ, his experiences as a father, his efforts to grow a family and a church.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Excel at life
ON fire
Living your life without absolute on-fire commitment is like reading a book to yourself without saying the words out loud. There's something missing.
Oh, I know, it's the way people usually do it. It's quiet and they read. They like the quiet, even grow used to it. But the characters grow pail and the sound of someone’s emotions leaves the story. The words flow by. Especially the ones that you don't know all that well and mistakes become tolerable.
In a way, I think it's because the desired outcome has changed. Were reading to see what it says and to determine where the story goes rather for the experience of the journey. Public speakers are warned to try speaking the written speech out loud and or practicing before they actually do it in front of people because when you simply read it in your head you overlook the mistakes and don't really improve your potential delivery.
Read out loud
That's what life without being on-fire for Christ is like. It just sort of slides by... It is somehow less vivid, even less real and some become very comfortable with that lack of depth-I remember an old song with the lyric-Drown me in the shallow water before I get too deep..."
Self examination
Ask yourself- Is that me? Have I begun to grow comfortable with a shallow life? That's not what God wants for you. He came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly. I'm telling you that God knows that we have a tendency to accept something less than the powerful life that He intends for us. People have been doing it since the garden...
I will excel
Don't. Say to God today, I will excel for you. I know that through Christ I could settle for something less than the life you intend for me just the same as I could shoot for excellence but I will not settle for less. I will apply the gifts you have made me steward of and I will follow you wherever you lead.
Excel prayer for you
May your story be out loud and in your face. May you experience life to the fullest. With powerful sorrow and even more powerful joy. God has made you more incredible than you will ever know but He knows and He has a plan...
Labels:
born again,
dull life,
excel,
excellence,
God,
living,
more to life,
reading,
reading out loud,
reading to yourself,
shallow life
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