Friday, March 15, 2013

Stop Making Excuses and Go For It!

Since I'm doing a series of posts of sermon notes, I would be remiss not to include current notes from the church I'm attending now. This past Sunday we had an amazing service at Crossroads Vineyard. We launched our first church plant, Skyline Vineyard in Falls Church, VA. Jeff and Diane Wright are the pastors of this plant. Jeff was one of our pastors at Crossroads for several years. He is an amazingly intelligent man and a deep thinker who cares very deeply about people and evangelizing the lost. The motto for Skyline is, "Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly." What a difference the Church would make in the world if we truly lived this way! This is what he shared for his last sermon at Crossroads (though I'm sure he'll be back as a visiting speaker!):

Acts 20:17-24
  • There is a God who adores you and desires your life to be transformed by His grace. He wants to bring you from where you are to where He is. He desires you to have a life of worship--a love walk with Him.
  • Mediocrity is not a spiritual gift. Pursue excellence.
  • What are you compelled to do that you are ignoring?
    • What's stopping you?
  • When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? A loser?
    • When Jesus looks at you, He sees a son or daughter.
    • When God looks at you, He sees Jesus.
    • Learn to see yourself as God sees you!
  • There's no change you can make for Jesus to love you more, but there's a lot of change you need to do to love Him back.
    • Where are you wasting you time, money, and talent? 
    • What are you doing instead of loving Him?
    • Are you trading toilet water for living water?
  • What is He calling you to do now?
    • God is more interested in your call and your life than you are.
    • What excuses are keeping you from action?
    • Don't worry about the details! Let God handle them.
GO ALL IN!


My thoughts: Man, God just keeps hitting me with this stuff! Again, this confirms to me that I'm on the path that He has laid out for me. It's time for me to stop making excuses and start acting! (And by "acting," I'm not talking about joining a theatrical troop.) Faith without works is dead. It's time to starting putting my faith to work by building God's Kingdom. He's been filling my heart with so much new and renewed vision recently, and there are some things I feel compelled to do. Going to India is definitely one of those things. The other is something that God has been growing in my heart for some time. I will share it soon. My prayer is that in an effort to become equipped I don't get side-tracked by the act of preparation. For me it's easy to allow what I perceive as my limitations to stop me from doing what God has called me to. I've also let fear and feelings of inadequacy paralyze me. And there's my tendency to pursue momentary desires instead of delaying gratification. I'm determined to consider each choice in the light of whether it builds my kingdom or His. I want to surrender my ideal of personal security and live by faith. I definitely want to go all in! Dear God, empower me to fulfill Your call on my life!


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