What if you can actually do it?

We push ourselves to do what we really want to do. At times, when we are sick, when our kids are sick, when some project or another requires us to go without sleep to meet a deadline... We get done what we really want to get done at the expense of sleep, rest, recreating, or whatever. 

So, why can't following God, doing the things that we are supposed to do for Him, be like that? Break the bank, trap the well, scrape the bottom of the barrel, do it at all costs, and never quit until He authorizes another course. 

Seriously, are we afraid we will snap? Is it unhealthy of us to push ourself to the limit to be obedient? Maybe. Maybe it's unhealthy of us to need to push that hard to be found doing what we should have been doing all along. However, that is exactly what we do when we really want something. 

Maybe it's because we procrastinated, failed to plan or prepare, or because we don't have the necessary skill or clarity of thought that someone else has to do what we need to. But it has fallen to us to do anyway. Then, we do it, that thing that we have that much passion about...

So, if you are not going to take steps to get better and better at following Christ, then that is exactly how you are going to have to do it. You are going to have to spend the resources you do have because your didn't prepare. 

So, get tired. Spend on obedience as you would on a Christmas gift you just have to have or on a project you simply must see completed. Don't convince yourself that living for Jesus can be done later. The deadline is exactly every minute. It must be done now and now and be done now as long as now is now. 

Urgency, passion, determination- these things translate into diligence. They arise out of faith in a God who is pleased to bless those who seek Him. He is your prize Pearl hidden in a field just as you are His. He did not pull up short on His passion to reach you and you should not go at it half-heartedly or in truth maybe you are not going at it all. 

Love Him with the kind of love He loves us with and we can actually do whatever He has called us to do. If we are not faithful it might hurt us to work at it this hard so prepare. Read, study, pray, love, give, serve, meditate, witness, and more until you get good at it and God can call on you as a skilled disciple and you can answer confidently, "I can do it."

P. Daniel Stevenson

Reaching New Heights in Jesus

Overcoming evil with good. 

The Moment: Blood Bowl

New Friends

Resting Alone I rest with mixed emotions tonight. It's been an incredible two weeks. We spent the last two weeks serving with mission teams from Mississippi. We were literally all over the city serving and spreading God's influence. We saw over fifty people make first time professions of faith between the two weeks, baptized ten this week and thirteen last week. We gave away thousands of expressions of God's love, looked evil in the eye and triumphed in many ways. We packed up our church's belongings and prepared to move out of our Main Street location, we built walls at the Heffner building and did a dozen other construction projects there including an awesome sign out front. New Friends But here's what's hard. I met people I really like. When you meet new people you really like and then they leave you, it's really sad. I met people with a heart that beats with the same beat mine does. 

This seemed to be one of the constants the last two weeks. New Friends leaving Now it's over and we are praising God for all He did. Still, some of these people I will not see again until we are worshipping God together at the tree in heaven. We may cast our crowns down together. We will give Him praise and in some amazing way that begins now, fifteen hours apart, our praises are united because of the character of the one we praise. Just the same as I sometimes feel inadequate to praise Him and He helps me, I now feel inadequate to let them go, go back home to their families, to their sports teams, to their jobs, to their friends back in Mississippi, back home. New Friends lost to time... This hurt runs deep. In a way that I can not explain it makes me feel lonely. However, in my loneliness I always find comfort.

 I am comforted by my family that stands by/with me. I am comforted by my church which is small in number but powerful in God's power. I am comforted by the ache in my butt muscle that came back while I was running my home run in my last regular season at-bat in our last regular season game, which we lost, by the way. I am comforted by the thought of the rainbow that stretched across East Toledo seemingly from the Heffner area to the Northwood Baptist Church Building area where we will be meeting for a couple of months. It appeared in the sky just as we were finishing cleaning up the block party that was our last official event on Main Street. I am comforted by the thought of a future slightly more populated with professing Christians and Christians actually living for Christ as they should. 

Comforted Most of all, I am comforted that I am not alone at all. I know in whom I have believed and I know that He is able to keep until that day, that which I have entrusted to Him. Jesus is with me although it does not appear that He will do the miracle of freeing me from using the spell checker and who cares anyway. 

The spellchecker works fine. To the mission teams: To the mission teams that are leaving to go back to normal, if, I hope, changed lives, we will miss you more than you can imagine. God be with you every step of the way and reach for New Heights in Christ every day! Don't worry about me I'll be alright. See ya at the tree! Dan Stevenson newheightsfellowshipchurch.org Think Again (A book to buy...)