Remind yourself who God is today

Nehemiah 1:5 And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

Staying focused on your priorities is a very important part of leadership. If you are a leader, you are busy. Your calendar gets full fast, you have many to do lists, you are ambitious, and you want to accomplish great things…you are a leader! With this drive in my own life, I have many things going on all at once and this is why I love my smart phone. It helps me schedule, send email, listen to podcasts, make notes, and the million other apps I love to use including social media. The biggest help on the phone is the reminder. I often fill my calendar full and tend to forget the little details so I have the calendar alert me of my next appointments and my priorities. I find myself looking at my calendar often so I can see how I should spend my time next and what to make a priority. This helps me focus. This will help you. 

Just as I look to my calendar to remind myself of my priorities, I must also look to God’s Word and spend time praying to remind myself of His plan. This can be hard when there are long to do lists, people to get back to, projects to finish and the million other urgent things pressing on me for the day; but I find myself actually leading better if I stay focused and putting my priorities first. Just because something is urgent and pressing doesn’t necessarily mean it is the most important thing at that moment. Nehemiah just received the urgent information about Israel and how the walls where broken. He could have done a million things to just start the process to fix the situation, but we see Him praying and reminding Himself of who God is. 

I don’t want to lose sight of God in my life for the “urgent” things that consume my day. I tend to be so caught up in a situation that it consumes me, and I try to get things done. Although this can be helpful at times, God want us to make sure we have perspective. To base our life on His Word and promises (2 Pet 1:3-4) so that way we can prioritize the way we spend our time. I have to be reminded often of what really is important. I don’t want to lose sight that their is a God who made the Heavens. That nothing is impossible with Him. That He calls me to do great things for His kingdom and has good plans for me. That He keeps His covenants and is faithful. That He is for me and loves me. And that He loves you. 

I find the most important part of my day as a leader is not spending my time on the urgent matters of the day or even checking my to do list off BUT the part where I spend time with God. When I am able to do this, I am reminded of His truth and He helps me focus on my priorities, my time, and my life. When I remind myself of who He is and His love for me, it helps me. When I can spend time with Him, I find myself handling whatever pressing issue that comes up for the day a lot more graciously because I have persecutive. His perspective. I even go back through the day reminding myself that this great and amazing God is with me. This helps me lead better. This will help you lead better. I must continually remind myself of who God is. When do you remind yourself of who God is?

You Can Pray

Nehemiah 1:4 As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

BURDEN: A duty or misfortune that causes hardship, anxiety, or grief. A load, especially a heavy one

Nehemiah had known all of his life that the city of his father was in ruins. The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem’s walls, gates and temple in 586 B.C. (2 Kings 25:1-21). There was a little glimpse of hope throughout the years as 50,000 Jews had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city. Sadly, the temple took twenty years alone to build because Gentiles had hindered the work (Ezra 1-6), and the city and walls were still ruined. Nehemiah was going about his normal life as  the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes in the year 444BC, nowhere near Jerusalem even though He was a Jew. That was when he sparked a conversation with his brother who was with some men of Judah and received some news that wrecked his ordinary day.

Although Nehemiah may have known about the situation before, he never HEARD about it. It never really gripped his heart and caused him to be anxious. He was familiar with the situation, the status quo, and life as usual, but on this ordinary day God changed the way he viewed the situation so he could be burdened by it. When God gives you fresh revelation, it is for a reason even when you may not know how to process it; and for Nehemiah, this revelation caused him to pray.

I can relate to Nehemiah because often as a leader, I plan my day, but then have to deal with unexpected crisis. Things come up all the time that you cannot anticipate or prepare for, and it is a great responsibility to lead though these times as well. The weight of a leader is great and often times we can get crippled when we think about all the things we can’t plan for, but God has given us a tool for every situation. He gives us prayer. We must continue to live our lives not in fear, but in the truth that no matter what comes our way, we can pray. 

Often, our hearts are heavy and we feel worthless because the load of information is too much for us to bear because we feel like we can’t do anything to relieve the heavy load. We must remember that we can pray. God lets us HEAR and SEE certain situations for a reason. The Bible declares that we were meant to be alive at this moment and have specific tasks to accomplish to bring God glory. If you see a problem, often times that may be God giving you the burden to actually do something about the problem. As God’s beloved children, He desires for us to pray about these burdens and cast our cares upon Him for He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). It may take some tears, mourning, fasting and even days for you to process some of your burdens, but God doesn’t want to crush us with these helpless situations. Rather, He wants us to draw near to Him through prayer and allow Him to be God as only He can be. God may have recently given you some new insight, news, or burden that may have crushed your ordinary day, and you still may not know exactly what you can do about it. Nehemiah show us that you can start with prayer.

Don’t forget about the people

Nehemiah 1:3 And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”

Nehemiah is a great leadership book! We see amazing leadership principles throughout the book of Nehemiah and see God use him to accomplish the great task of rebuilding the broken down walls of Jerusalem. Leaders like to get things done, but don’t miss that this book is something bigger then just a construction project…it is a book about people! What makes Nehemiah such a great leader is that his heart broke for the people, and that drove him to action. The people were in “great trouble and shame,” and if we ask God to open our eyes and look around, we will see that there are still many people today all around us that are in “great trouble and shame”. 

If you have been in leadership for any amount of time, you have probably felt the pressure to put the priority of a project over people’s needs to try to accomplish the task at hand. I can often be so task driven that I forget that I am doing certain projects for people to serve and love them. We must remember, as servants of Jesus, that He wants us to love and serve people. This is part of the great task God calls us to do. Leaders want to get stuff done, but we should never put aside the greatest project of all: loving people and leading them to Jesus who can restore and redeem all things.

How can you love some of the people you lead today? 

Fletcher CD For Free Download

Merry ChristMas from Fletcher! We hope you enjoy our live album we recorded, we're giving it away for free download.

CLICK ON EACH SONG BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THE SONG:

Colossians 3 | Ups and Downs

Narrow Road | Imagine That

Cover | Who You Are

Scissors | Best Time

Moments | Symphony

CHRISTMAS & the miracle of prophecy

I love Christmas. It brings so much joy to be around those you love, celebrating the miracle of Jesus’s birth. It always is a wonderful time of reflection for me. One of the things I find myself thinking about a lot during this season is the miracle of prophecy. It truly leaves me in awe at times as I remember the miraculous ways that God prepared His people for the arrival of His Son, using prophecy as a wonderful and remarkable sign of His coming.

So, what exactly is PROPHECY?

In the Bible, we see that prophecy is the prediction of something to take place in the future. It affirms the truth and trustworthiness of God’s Word to us when we see His words come true as they were predicted many years before, and the Bible is full of prophecy! The Bible contains approximately 1,000 prophecies of which approximately     two thirds have already been fulfilled. The remaining prophecies will be fulfilled during the end times, the days when Jesus returns for the second time!

Why is PROPHECY important?

It is exciting that God chose to use prophecy to show us that He is God. He tells us in the book of Isaiah that He proves Himself to us in this unique way. It is an amazing evidence to us that God is who He says He is, and it is a foundation for our trust in Jesus and the Bible! 

Isa 46:9-11 says, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’…I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”

So, as we examine a few of the prophecies fulfilled by the birth of Jesus, I pray that this will give you a greater view of the magnificence of our God and the gift of His Son!

Here are 8 prophecies fulfilled in the birth of Jesus: 

 1.  That the Messiah the son of God would be born of a woman (Gen 3:15, Gal 4:4-5)

 2. That the Messiah would be from the line of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3, Gal 3:16, Matt1:1-17)

 3. That the Messiah would be from the house of David (2 Sam 7:12-13, Rom 1:1-6, Matt 1:1-17)

4. That the Messiah would be born of a virgin and be called Emmanuel (Isa 7:14, Matt 1:22-23)

5. That the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2, Matt 2:3-6)

6. That the Messiah would be worshipped by wise men and presented gifts (Ps 72:10, Isa 60:6, Matt 2:1;11)

7. That the Messiah birthplace would suffer a massacre of infants (Jer 31:15, Matt 2:16-18)  

8. That the Messiah would be in Egypt for a season (Num 24:8, Hosea 11:1, Matt 2:13-15)

Why did God give PROPHECY about JESUS?

God wanted us to know that Jesus was the Messiah! He demonstrated this by giving us so many unmistakable prophecies about the coming of His Son. The undeniable odds of all of these prophecies being fulfilled in the life of one man, Jesus, are almost incomprehensible. It is truly amazing that God did give such specific details about the nature of Jesus’s birth so that we could recognize Him upon His coming.

In the article, “Jesus is the Greatest Gift ever Foretold,” Jim Muelhausen puts this miracle in perspective in a tangible analogy: 

“There are so many prophecies which are fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ that it is difficult to fathom how extraordinary their fulfillment is. To help conceptualize the remoteness of the probability that one man could fulfill the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Dr. Peter Stoner, a renowned professor of mathematics, calculated the probability to be 1 in 10 to the 17th power that a person would fulfill 8 of the prophecies which were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ.

To better understand 1 in 10 to the 17th power, imagine that the state of Texas was covered with 1,000,000,000,000,000 silver dollars — this would bury the entire state of Texas 2 feet deep in silver dollars. Now assume that an “x” is placed upon one silver dollar and that it is mixed together with all the other silver dollars covering the state of Texas. The probability that one man would fulfill just eight of the prophecies which were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ is equal to the probability that a blindfolded man would randomly select the silver dollar marked with the “x” from the two foot thick mass of silver dollars covering the state of Texas. As if that isn’t impossible enough, Jesus fulfilled more than 300 Old Testament prophecies, not just 8.”

Isn’t that incredible? God wants you to know and worship Jesus as the Messiah, and that is why He gave us such an amazing gift to let us know that He is God! Our God is gracious and the giver of all good gifts. Let this gift of prophecy cause you to be grateful and have an attitude of thankfulness. God want us to know His power and grace this Christmas season. 

May we enjoy His grace this season by worshipping His Son.

-Pastor Daniel 

Leadership Nugget: A Leader Passionately Prayers

A LEADER PASSIONATELY PRAYS

Nehemiah 1:11c For I was the king’s cupbearer.

Every great story has a beginning. The book of Nehemiah is a great story full of amazing leadership principles and great accomplishments….but it all started with Nehemiah praying. Don’t overlook this. Nehemiah passionately prayed. Before the great accomplishment of a wall being built, the restoration of a ancient city, families being restored to their homeland and the rise of a great leader, it started with prayer. It started with God. 

Prayer is simply talking and listening to God. As we pray to God, we are aligning our hearts to His will, and we get to know Him in a closer way. This is why Jesus prayed, “not my will, but your will be done,” before he endured the cross. So we also pray according to God’s will. Many even say the words “in Jesus name,” which is another way of saying “according to your nature and will.” We take all sort of circumstances, situations, and emotions to God through prayer and allow His will to be done and pray for His plan to succeed. 

Often, when we hear successful stories of leaders, we want to learn from them so we can succeed as well. We learn that Nehemiah wasn’t a great commander or leader in the nation of Israel, he wasn’t even living in the Jewish nation at the time. He was simply working as the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes in a foreign land. Although he didn’t seem like the greatest candidate to lead the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, God had great plans for Him to accomplish this great task. We see His journey start with him praying passionately to God for the nation of Israel, and as he prays, God starts to align his heart to His plan to restore His people, the city and rebuild the wall through Nehemiah. I believe Nehemiah’s success started with the secret Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:6 “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” 

Don’t miss how this book starts off. In Nehemiah chapter 1 we see Nehemiah passionately praying. If you want to lead well, it will be good for you to pray to God as well. 

Luke 14:11 ”For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Be blessed,

Pastor Daniel 

The Holy Spirit is God and we shouldn’t neglect Him

As we are studying this week, Jesus promised His disciples that He would send His Spirit to give them power and comfort. Jesus said in John 16:7, “it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” It’s amazing that He would say that it was to their (and our) advantage that He was leaving so that the Holy Spirit could come into our lives! He is a person sent to us with numerous promises about all that He is able to do in and through us. It is so vital that we embrace the Spirit of God as the person He is and do not simply ignore His presence in our lives. When we do allow ourselves to forget Him, we can also forget the role He plays in our lives every single day. I’m including a non-exhaustive list of what the Bible says is the role of the Holy Spirit—read these verses and pray through them! Ask the Holy Spirit to do these things in your own life.

He creates and gives life (Job 33:4; Gen 1:26)

He appoints and commissions ministers (Isaiah 48:16; Acts 13:2;20:28)

He directs people where to preach (Acts 8:29;10:19-20)

He directs people where not to preach (Acts 16:6-7)

He instructs people what to preach (1 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Tim 3:16)

He spoke in, and by, the prophets (Acts 1:16; 1 Peter 1:11,12; 2 Peter 1:21)

He convicts people of sin (John 16:8)

He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30; Isaiah 63:10)

He comforts (Acts 9:31)

He helps our infirmities and helps us pray (Romans 8:26, Eph 6:18)

He teaches ( John 14:26; 1 Corinthians 2:10)

He guides ( John 16:13)

He gives gifts to believers (1 Cor 12:4-11)

He sanctifies (Romans 15:16; 1 Corinthians 6:11)

He testifies of Christ ( John 15:26, 1 Cor 12:3)

He glorifies Christ ( John 16:14)

He has a power of his own (Romans 15:13; 2 Tim 1:7)

He empowers believers to do His work (Zechariah 4:7; Acts 1:8; 1 Tim 1:12)

He searches all things (Romans 11:33-34; 1 Corinthians 2:10-11)

He works according to his own will (1 Corinthians 12:11)

He dwells with saints ( John 14:17; Rom 8:9; 2 Tim 1:14)

.

.

May you be filled and empowered with God’s Spirit!

Pastor Daniel

Practical Ways To Share Your Faith (Pt 3)

As the final segment in this three part series on sharing our faith, I wanted to address the final practical step that we can engage in as we pray for and pursue those people that are in our lives and need Jesus. This third topic is one that may bring out a negative response from you at first, but give me a couple of minutes to explore this idea with you. Our last topic is: PERSUADE! 

PERSUADE

Perhaps you are thinking…Three P’s is a cute thing to remember but I should have picked a different word than persuade. Persuade is a strong word, and when I first considered this as a means of sharing our faith in Jesus, it didn’t seem quite right.  This is because when I think persuading, I think of “arguing.” But let me give you a few other synonyms for persuade: influence, convince, plead your case, win over, or change somebody’s mind. I literally want you to think of persuading as pleading your case about Christ to someone, or influencing your friend in such a way that it leads them to Christ, or convincing your friend that God is real in your life and loves them, or changing your friend’s mind about the way they are living and submitting their lives to Christ. Persuading is not arguing at all in this context, but influencing people in their thoughts about Jesus.  The ultimate goal of persuading someone is to change their mind about a certain subject. We as ambassadors of Christ, want to share who God says He is and what He has done to reveal Himself to the world and to us personally.

We can persuade many people about God by how we live.

Are we practicing what we preach at work, at home, at church, or wherever we go? We are told in by the apostle Matthew that we are to live in such a way that unsaved people will glorify God and submit their lives to Him just by looking at our lives (Matt 5:13-16). A practical way you can persuade someone to follow Christ is by living for Jesus in the choices you make and the way you live. You can invite them to spend time with some of your Christian friends to see what people who follow Jesus are really like. The Bible says that when two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name, He is there. Are your friendships a place where unsaved people can come and see Jesus living? You can invite some of your unsaved friends to church or community group. As a pastor, I want you to know that I WANT UNSAVED PEOPLE TO COME TO CHURCH!!! Why wouldn’t we want people to come to church and hear the word taught and have a chance to worship God and have an opportunity to pray with people and even accept Christ?

We can also persuade people to understand the truth about Jesus by clearly explaining who He is and what has done.

The apostle Peter said “in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).” We as Christians are told to be able to explain the gospel to people and what we believe with love and respect. Paul asked the Roman church, “How will unsaved people know how to have a relationship with God unless you tell them (Rom 10:14-15)?”  Paul also lived out this principle and “reasoned” with the people of Athens and clearly explained the Gospel to them (Acts 17:16-34). Sadly, God has been misrepresented to a lot of unsaved people, and we, as Christians, are told to share the truth with these people so they can get a clear and accurate picture of our Savior. So we need to know what we believe and why!!! Can you clearly explain the gospel to someone? Will you allow God to use you to share with people that God loves them and wants to have fellowship with them?

So, as we continue to do the work of the ministry, I want to encourage you to make the most of every opportunity you have to share the love of Christ with people. I hope this series of blogs has helped you see that you can reach people in wherever you are. Remember that God wants to use you and has empowered you with His Spirit and will give you the words to say (John 14:26-27). These are just some practical tips and principles and nothing here is set in stone. The reason why I wrote these blogs was to get you thinking about sharing your faith with others! Hopefully you can think of other ways as well. This is great because my heart is that people would come to know and love Jesus Christ, and I believe that God wants to use EVERY Christian to share His love with as many people as possible.

Could you imagine if every Christian in our community began to PRAY for at least one friend, PURSUE bringing God up in conversations, and PERSUADE them to come to Christ by clearing explaining the gospel to them and THEN made disciples for Christ?

Matt 28:19-20

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” 

Be blessed,

Pastor Daniel

Practical Ways To Share Your Faith (Pt 2)

Last time, I wrote on the necessity of prayer being the first step in practical ways to share your faith. I hope you were able to take that to heart and have begun to lift up your friends and people you know who need to come to Christ. We will now move on to the second very practical step in sharing your faith in Jesus with those around you, and that is: PURSUE!

PURSUE

We must pursue those relationships we have on a deeper spiritual level. This means we need to actually bring Jesus into our conversations. This can be done in a very natural way and we need to understand that there are many opportunities to talk about God in normal conversation, but we have to be willing to do so. There are many different ways that you talk about Jesus in your conversations, and here are three examples for you: 1. Asking questions, 2. Sharing what God has been doing in your life, and 3.Using relevant issues.

Practical Ways To Share Your Faith (Pt 2) By Pastor Daniel
Last time, I wrote on the necessity of prayer being the first step in practical ways to share your faith. I hope you were able to take that to heart and have begun to lift up your friends and people you know who need to come to Christ. We will now move on to the second very practical step in sharing your faith in Jesus with those around you, and that is: PURSUE!

PURSUE

We must pursue those relationships we have on a deeper spiritual level. This means we need to actually bring Jesus into our conversations. This can be done in a very natural way and we need to understand that there are many opportunities to talk about God in normal conversation, but we have to be willing to do so. There are many different ways that you talk about Jesus in your conversations, and here are three examples for you: 1. Asking questions, 2. Sharing what God has been doing in your life, and 3.Using relevant issues.

1. Asking questions. 

Whether you know this or not, people like to talk…especially about themselves. So a great way to bring God into conversations is to ask questions. Ask your unsaved friends what their spiritual beliefs are? If they were to die today would they make it to heaven? Are they afraid of death? Who do they think Jesus is? Now when you ask these questions, remember to actually listen. Love your friends and don’t get ready to attack them and say that they are wrong. The point of a question is to find out information and learn more about the person you are talking to—many times, this will you give you a direct opportunity to share about Jesus. So if you respond respectfully and lovingly, they might even ask you some of the same question back.

2. Sharing what God has been doing in your life. 

We talk with our friends about our relationships with our family, our spouse, our kids, and so on, so what is so weird about talking about our relationship with Jesus? If we have a relationship with Jesus it should be easy and natural for us to explain what He has been teaching us or how He loves you or what you have been doing with Him or whatever. An easy way to bring God up in your conversation is when your unsaved friends ask you what you did over the weekend. Rather than just talking about how you mowed the lawn, went to the mall, and updated your facebook, you could also mention that you went to church, read your Bible, or prayed to God about a certain situation. Just talk about God like He is a real person, and don’t always try to hide Him and what He is doing in your life with your unsaved friends.

3. Using relevant issues. 

Did you know that Christians watch movies, listen to music, ride skateboards, read books, play X-Box 360, play sports, read the newspaper, go to the mall, and even have a facebook page? I know it is hard to believe, but you are a culturally relevant person just like most people in your life. So, that means you can probably talk about a lot of relevant topics that happen in your job, your town, and even in the world. You can talk to your friends about Whitney Houston’s recent death. Then explain that nothing has satisfied your soul like having a relationship with God, and you don’t need to be rich and popular to have joy. Or maybe you can talk to your friends about the Grammy Awards, and explain that you agree with the mentality of rewarding someone for a good job, and that God promises to reward those of us who diligently seek HIM! And you can’t get there by your own good works but by faith in Jesus. You can totally talk about many relevant issues without approving of them and still point people to Christ. Paul used this principle when he went to Athens. He “perceived” that the city was given over to idols and “considered” their objects of worship. Basically he found out a little about their culture and used the relevant topics of their many gods to preach about Christ the true and living God (Acts 17:16-34).

I pray that you will take the time to consider and act on some of these ideas as you’ve read this blog and will begin to pursue people in your life in Jesus’s name!

Whether you know this or not, people like to talk…especially about themselves. So a great way to bring God into conversations is to ask questions. Ask your unsaved friends what their spiritual beliefs are? If they were to die today would they make it to heaven? Are they afraid of death? Who do they think Jesus is? Now when you ask these questions, remember to actually listen. Love your friends and don’t get ready to attack them and say that they are wrong. The point of a question is to find out information and learn more about the person you are talking to—many times, this will you give you a direct opportunity to share about Jesus. So if you respond respectfully and lovingly, they might even ask you some of the same question back.

Practical Ways To Share Your Faith (Pt 2) By Pastor Daniel
Last time, I wrote on the necessity of prayer being the first step in practical ways to share your faith. I hope you were able to take that to heart and have begun to lift up your friends and people you know who need to come to Christ. We will now move on to the second very practical step in sharing your faith in Jesus with those around you, and that is: PURSUE!

PURSUE

We must pursue those relationships we have on a deeper spiritual level. This means we need to actually bring Jesus into our conversations. This can be done in a very natural way and we need to understand that there are many opportunities to talk about God in normal conversation, but we have to be willing to do so. There are many different ways that you talk about Jesus in your conversations, and here are three examples for you: 1. Asking questions, 2. Sharing what God has been doing in your life, and 3.Using relevant issues.

1. Asking questions. 

Whether you know this or not, people like to talk…especially about themselves. So a great way to bring God into conversations is to ask questions. Ask your unsaved friends what their spiritual beliefs are? If they were to die today would they make it to heaven? Are they afraid of death? Who do they think Jesus is? Now when you ask these questions, remember to actually listen. Love your friends and don’t get ready to attack them and say that they are wrong. The point of a question is to find out information and learn more about the person you are talking to—many times, this will you give you a direct opportunity to share about Jesus. So if you respond respectfully and lovingly, they might even ask you some of the same question back.

2. Sharing what God has been doing in your life. 

We talk with our friends about our relationships with our family, our spouse, our kids, and so on, so what is so weird about talking about our relationship with Jesus? If we have a relationship with Jesus it should be easy and natural for us to explain what He has been teaching us or how He loves you or what you have been doing with Him or whatever. An easy way to bring God up in your conversation is when your unsaved friends ask you what you did over the weekend. Rather than just talking about how you mowed the lawn, went to the mall, and updated your facebook, you could also mention that you went to church, read your Bible, or prayed to God about a certain situation. Just talk about God like He is a real person, and don’t always try to hide Him and what He is doing in your life with your unsaved friends.

3. Using relevant issues. 

Did you know that Christians watch movies, listen to music, ride skateboards, read books, play X-Box 360, play sports, read the newspaper, go to the mall, and even have a facebook page? I know it is hard to believe, but you are a culturally relevant person just like most people in your life. So, that means you can probably talk about a lot of relevant topics that happen in your job, your town, and even in the world. You can talk to your friends about Whitney Houston’s recent death. Then explain that nothing has satisfied your soul like having a relationship with God, and you don’t need to be rich and popular to have joy. Or maybe you can talk to your friends about the Grammy Awards, and explain that you agree with the mentality of rewarding someone for a good job, and that God promises to reward those of us who diligently seek HIM! And you can’t get there by your own good works but by faith in Jesus. You can totally talk about many relevant issues without approving of them and still point people to Christ. Paul used this principle when he went to Athens. He “perceived” that the city was given over to idols and “considered” their objects of worship. Basically he found out a little about their culture and used the relevant topics of their many gods to preach about Christ the true and living God (Acts 17:16-34).

I pray that you will take the time to consider and act on some of these ideas as you’ve read this blog and will begin to pursue people in your life in Jesus’s name!

We talk with our friends about our relationships with our family, our spouse, our kids, and so on, so what is so weird about talking about our relationship with Jesus? If we have a relationship with Jesus it should be easy and natural for us to explain what He has been teaching us or how He loves you or what you have been doing with Him or whatever. An easy way to bring God up in your conversation is when your unsaved friends ask you what you did over the weekend. Rather than just talking about how you mowed the lawn, went to the mall, and updated your facebook, you could also mention that you went to church, read your Bible, or prayed to God about a certain situation. Just talk about God like He is a real person, and don’t always try to hide Him and what He is doing in your life with your unsaved friends.

3. Using relevant issues. 

Did you know that Christians watch movies, listen to music, ride skateboards, read books, play X-Box 360, play sports, read the newspaper, go to the mall, and even have a facebook page? I know it is hard to believe, but you are a culturally relevant person just like most people in your life. So, that means you can probably talk about a lot of relevant topics that happen in your job, your town, and even in the world. You can talk to your friends about Whitney Houston’s recent death. Then explain that nothing has satisfied your soul like having a relationship with God, and you don’t need to be rich and popular to have joy. Or maybe you can talk to your friends about the Grammy Awards, and explain that you agree with the mentality of rewarding someone for a good job, and that God promises to reward those of us who diligently seek HIM! And you can’t get there by your own good works but by faith in Jesus. You can totally talk about many relevant issues without approving of them and still point people to Christ. Paul used this principle when he went to Athens. He “perceived” that the city was given over to idols and “considered” their objects of worship. Basically he found out a little about their culture and used the relevant topics of their many gods to preach about Christ the true and living God (Acts 17:16-34).

I pray that you will take the time to consider and act on some of these ideas as you’ve read this blog and will begin to pursue people in your life in Jesus’s name!

Practical Ways To Share Your Faith (Part 1)

Colossians 4:2-6 

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

As we are joining together as a new church plant, I want to encourage you to make the most of every opportunity you have to share the love of Christ with people. There are going to be many opportunities to share your faith and tell others about the glorious good news of Jesus Christ. But for many of us these conversations that occur in the grocery check out or local coffee shop about God do not feel like opportunities at all—they become more like panic attacks! Many of us want to share our faith with our unsaved friends and people we meet, but have aren’t quite sure how to go about it.  So I want to share with you a practical strategy that I just found a while back from dare2share.org on how to be an ambassador for Christ and share the gospel with your unsaved friends in a very practical way. There are three steps to this strategy: 1.Pray, 2.Pursue, and 3.Persuade. This first segment will address the first topic: PRAY!

PRAY

This makes sense doesn’t it? There are so many promises from God’s Word (Matt 7:7-11; John 15:7; Phil 4:6-7; Luke 18:1; 1 Thes 5:17; James 5:15-18) that confirm the power of prayer, yet it seems that many of us (including myself) forget to go to God first about our situations and try to take control of them ourselves. We will try to talk to people about God without talking to Him first. In Romans 10:1 Paul said that his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.” The word in this verse literally means begged. Paul wanted so desperately for his friends and brothers to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior that he begged God to save them from their sin. When was the last time you begged God to save one of your unsaved friends?

There was a study done to find out what made an effective student evangelist. After studying, they discovered that the most effective student evangelist (meaning that the student reached the most of their unsaved friends for Christ) prayed every single day for his unsaved friends to come to know Christ. We are not all students, but we can see the same principle at work in our lives whether we are professionals, parents, or students. Paul said to the Colossian Church to devote themselves to prayer and to pray for him to have an opportunity to share Christ clearly with those that have not received Him. Before we start sharing with our unsaved friends, we need to start praying for them! Andrew Murray, South African minister and author, wrote, “Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is very good, but it won’t teach you to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice. I might listen for a year to a professor of music playing the most beautiful music, but that won’t teach me to play an instrument.” So even as I write this article now and am praying that you might receive it and apply it, it is up to you how you respond and make your request known to God. I challenge you to pray for at least one of your unsaved friends every day and wait to see how God answers your prayers!