it is unnatural…

in matthew 6.26 (tniv) JESUS says, look at the birds of the air.  they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly FATHER feeds them.  are you not much more valuable than they?

JESUS says first don’t worry because it’s unreasonable.  and then, don’t worry because it’s unnatural.  HE says, look at the birds. if anybody was on GOD’s welfare role, it’s the birds.  all they do is eat, fly around, and sing a little bit.  HE says, look at the birds.  GOD takes care of them.  then in verses 28 & 29 (tniv), HE gives us a botany lesson. and why do you worry about clothes?  see how the flowers of the field grow.  they do not labor or spin.  yet i tell you that not even solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  HE says, look at the flowers, look at the intricate design and the complex beauty.  GOD takes care of the flowers.  so don’t worry.

the fact of the matter is, animals don’t worry, plants don’t worry.  there’s only one thing in all of GOD’s creation that worries – human beings.  everything else trusts GOD.  everything else trusts GOD to care for them. 

worry is not natural.  you weren’t born worrying.  it’s something you learn.  you have to work at it, practice at it to get good at it.  some of you have been getting a lot of practice.  it’s something you have to develop.  that’s good because if it’s something you learned, it’s something that can be unlearned. 

just a thought from the front porch…

learn to let it go…

now JESUS tells a story in matthew 18 (niv).  it’s called the parable of the unforgiving servant.  in this story HE illustrates why we must learn to forgive, learn to let go.

verse 23, therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  as he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.”  

the king calls up and says, everybody who owes me any money, bring them all in and we’re going to settle the accounts right now.  and they bring in this one guy who owes ten thousand talents to the king.  that is about twelve million dollars.  there’s no way he’s ever going to get out of it.

in those days bankruptcy was a whole lot simpler than it is today.  you would take the man, throw him in prison and take his wife and children and sell them into slavery.  i’m glad that isn’t true today. 

next verse, since he was not able to pay the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 

notice the servant’s response:  the servant fell on his knees before him.  “be patient with me,” he begged, “and i will pay everything back.”  he says, “just give me a few more days.” 

now there’s no way he’s going to pay this back.  if he paid back $1000 a day for thirty years that still wouldn’t equal twelve million bucks. 

the king’s response: so the servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.  he said, “we’ll just write it off. you are forgiven.” 

listen, i don’t know what grudge you’re carrying.  i don’t know who has hurt you in the past, what memory haunts you today. 

some of you are thinking, “i could never forgive that or that person.  they hurt me.  they hurt me bad.  i don’t want to let it go.  i don’t want to forget it.  i want to hold on to that hurt and i want to hold on to my anger and resentment against them.  but you’ve got to let it go.

just a thought from the front porch…

learn to tame your tongue…

here are some statistics on the average american.  you have 30 conversations a day and you will spend 1/5 of your life talking. in one year your conversations will fill 66 books of 800 pages a book.  if you’re a man you speak an average of 20,000 words a day, if you’re a woman you speak 30,000 words a day.

now some of us are born with a silver foot in our mouth.  we have the natural ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.  nothing is opened more wrongly at the wrong time than our mouths.

like the stock boy at the grocery store, lady asked him, “can i buy a half a lettuce?”  he walked back to the manager to ask, not realizing she was walking right behind him.  he said, “you’re not going to believe this, there’s an old bag out there who wants to buy half a head of lettuce.”  he turned around and saw her standing there and said, “and this fine lady would like to buy the other half.”

our mouths get us into a lot of trouble.  james talks more about the tongue than anybody else in the new testament.  every chapter in book of james says something about managing your mouth. 

verse 2 of chapter 3 (niv), we all stumble in many ways.  if anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.

james says, if you can control your mouth, you’re perfect.  now he’s not talking about sinless.  the word “perfection” in greek literally means “mature, healthy.”

when you go to the doctor and say, “i’m not feeling good,” the first thing he says is, “stick out your tongue.”  your tongue reveals what’s going on inside of you, not just physically but spiritually.  james says, you’ve got to learn to mange your mouth.  you’ve got to learn to tame your tongue.  you’ve got to get your tongue under control. 

just a thought from the front porch…

learning to survive the setbacks...

in waiting out your GOD given dream, joseph in genesis the first book in the old testament shows us to learn to survive the setbacks.

they’re going to happen.  you’re on this one button elevator.  you’re on your way down.  you’ve reached the bottom.  you’re in potiphar’s house.  you’re leading slaves.  you’re facing temptations.  you’re saying no to temptations.  but then look what happens.

genesis 39.11 (niv), one day he went into the house to attend his duties and none of the household servants were inside.  she caught him by his cloak in her hand and said, “come to bed with me.”  he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house in his undergarments.  when she saw that he’d left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house she called the household servants.  “look!  this hebrew has been brought in to make sport of us.  he came in here to sleep with me and i screamed and when he heard me scream for help he left his cloak beside me and he ran out of the house.”  she kept his cloak beside her until the master came home and she told him this story.  when the master heard the story saying, “this is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger.

some people think that he burned with anger as much at his wife as with joseph.  just an interpretation.  but the law back in egypt said that joseph could have been killed for this and the fact that he was just thrown into prison may mean that potiphar was just as mad at her as he was at joseph.  he really knew what was going on.  that’s a thought about what might have happened.

joseph's master took him and he put him in prison where the king’s prisoners were confined. 

he’s at the bottom already.  he’s a slave.  now he’s a prisoner-slave.  would you call that a setback?  a setback when you’re at the top and you go a little notch down but you can still see the top of the mountain that’s a little bit of a setback.  but when somebody knocks you all the way to the bottom of the mountain and then they dig a hole for you and they throw you down.  that’s a setback! 

and that’s what happened to joseph.  now he’s a prisoner.  and in this chapter genesis 39 there’s  a key truth that show us how joseph was able to survive the setback.

-again and again we see that the LORD was with joseph.  in 39.2 (niv) as a slave, the LORD was with joseph and he prospered even in the house of his egyptian master. 

joseph is thrown into prison at the end of the chapter, 39.21 (niv), but while joseph was there in prison the LORD was with him and HE showed him kindness and HE granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.  the warden put joseph in charge of all of those he held in prison.

here he is leading in a prison.  he keeps fulfilling the dream wherever he is. 

and the warden paid no attention to anything under joseph's care because the LORD was with joseph. 

GOD wants to make sure we get this one.  whether it’s in a slave’s house, in a prison, GOD is with joseph.  so you can survive the setbacks, no matter where you are. 

just a thought from the front porch…