Kidsfest 2015 (photo essay)

What It Takes For A Miracle by Alesha Sinks

“In order for God to do miracles in our lives, we have to be in a place where we need a miracle."Pastor Daniel Williams

We all want to live by faith, but no one wants to feel completely overwhelmed and unsure of how things could possibly work out.

We all want to step out for God and do whatever He asks, but no one wants to obey when God only shows them the first step down a long and scary path.

We all want a miracle, but no one wants to be in the place of desperate need that necessitates a miracle.

We all want to see miracles. But no one wants to be in the place that makes a miracle possible.

Because you can’t have a miracle without the need for one. Because miracles aren’t normal or expected or natural or easy.

So if you are finding yourself in a hard place today, a desperate place, an overwhelmed place, or a seemingly hopeless place, remember...you are in a place where a miracle can happen. And we serve a God of power. We serve a God of miracles.

It won’t be easy. It won’t be normal. It won’t be expected. It won’t be planned. It won’t be on your time schedule. It won’t be in your control. It won’t be the way you thought it would be. But God can work miracles in your hopeless situation.

Sometimes His miracles may look incredibly natural, like using people to help provide for you. Sometimes His miracles may be very intangible, like giving you salvation. Sometimes His miracles may not seem like miracles, like stripping away things you think you need. Sometimes His miracles won’t come when you need them, because the real miracle is happening on the other side of the tragedy.

But I believe in a God of miracles. So let’s not be afraid of the hard places, the scary places, the places where we don’t have control of what happens. But let’s begin to look at those places as opportunities for God to show His power...for Him to do a miracle.

Let's reset our perspectives with the truth that God can show up in the midst of our desperate situations. Let's remind ourselves that He is powerful and that He desires to show Himself strong in our weaknesses. Let's preach the power of the Almighty God to our frightened and anxious hearts remembering that He is a God of miracles.

The Best Trick To Wake Up Earlier by Travis Sinks

Sleep Is Necessary.

I was so disappointed when I realized this. I held onto the hope, even through early college, that there must be a way to sleep less. Although I enjoy the benefits of sleep, it's always felt like such a waste of time.

I've wondered for a while how much sleep is really needed/appropriate. That's obviously a question that will be answered different for each individual, which makes it even harder to answer. I've seen endless posts from entrepreneurs and church leaders on how much sleep is needed. I read an article recently covering the range of sleeping patterns of a variety of famous leaders: from Winston Churchill, to Benjamin Franklin, and even Barrack Obama. The conclusion was that you have to sleep whatever is best for you (again, not helpful). Some of these people slept 4 hours a day, while others 9 hours. Some went to bed at 9pm and others at 2am. There was no perfect system - just a perfect system  for each person.

THE SITUATION

Sleep will always be a blessing and a vice. The Bible warns people of sleeping too much, and too little. Proverbs 6:10 and 24:33 both teach that if you sleep and rest too often, then you'll fall into poverty. Your life will be a wreck. On the other hand, Psalm 127:2 reminds us that it is in vain that we rise early and stay up late because we are anxiously working, and it ends by reminding us that God is good, and He desires to give us the good gift of sleep and rest.

The balance is found in resting, but not being lazy.

THE FIX

As mentioned above, there is no perfect system - but if you've read this far, then you probably want to shift your schedule and wake up earlier. I can't remember where I heard this, but this is the best advice for waking up earlier that I've ever heard:

"If you want to wake up earlier, you have to go to bed earlier.”

As much as this seems not helpful, this truth is GOLD. The issue isn't a discipline to wake up early, but a discipline to go to bed earlier. You can be disciplined to wake up earlier all you want, but that will only last so long before your natural need for sleep catches up with you.

It's as simple at that. If you individually need 7 hours of sleep and you want to wake up at 5am - then you need to be asleep at 10pm. You have to work backwards and choose your bedtime to get the rising time that you want.

NOTE: I've also heard that one of the best things you can do is have the time you wake up be consistently the same. This doesn't work for some lifestyles in the service industry, or others, but it does work well with the above mentioned tip of choosing your bedtime to reflect your rising time.

THE BEST TRICK TO WAKE UP EARLIER

However, we are blessed in a couple weeks with a once a year opportunity. If you're wanting to change your sleep pattern, it can be fairly difficult. It can take a week of extra discipline to wake up an hour earlier until your body's clock follows in suit. However, I heard this great tip from Chad Brooks over at The Productive Pastor where he suggested utilizing Daylight Savings Time when you are wanting to wake up earlier.

It's as simple as this: when daylight savings time ends on Sunday, November 1st this year - wake up at the new time you want to wake up. If that's half an hour earlier that normal, it'll actually feel like half an hour LATER because of the time change!

Usually, Daylight Savings Time Ending is just a wasted time change where we enjoy 1 day of sleeping in, and then complain the rest of the year about wanting to wake up earlier, so don't make that same mistake this year!

If you're wanting to wake up earlier: take advantage of the opportunity coming up, and enjoy the benefits all year long.

Worship | In Song by Travis Sinks

Worship is what we were made to do, and it is the most fulfilling, and long lasting joy we can find on earth. As covered in the previous post, worship is an “expression of reverence” which comes from every part of our life. This series will touch on multiple areas of life reminding us that we truly can worship God in every area of our life.

Starting off these areas is the one that seems most obvious: Worshiping God in Song.

The Bible is full of singing. In the Psalms alone the word sing or singing is found 76 times, and song or songs is found 118 times (in the ESV version). That is a lot of calls for singing! Later in scriptures Paul even writes that we should be singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs together with thankfulness to God (Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 5:19).

The reality is, singing is meant to be a big part of our worship to God, and there are many benefits to worshipping through song. This article (http://www.unlockingthebible.org/why-singing-matters) gave 7 great Biblical reasons why singing matters, and I’ll summarize each point below.

Obedience

There are many times we are told to do things in God's Word, and one of these is to sing in worship to Him (see verses above). God knows best and the reality is that we are blessed when we obey Him. James 1:25 says that the person who follows and obeys God "will be blessed in his doing.” Although the blessings of God don’t always come in the form of a job we enjoy, a pay raise, popularity, or even the things we pray for - God’s blessings do come in a way that is best for us. God, being God, knows our needs and is a loving Father who desires not only for us to enjoy good things, but to have our character built to be more like Him.

All of these subsequent blessings listed flow from this first one. When we obey God we are blessed. Below are 6 blessings we receive from obeying God by worshiping in song.

A Focus on God’s Word

Many worship songs are written with the intent to speak the truth of God through the voices of His people. This truth comes from and points back to Scripture. As Colossians 3:16 reminds us to have the "Word of Christ dwell in you richly” we are given one way to do that through “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."

Encouragement

Singing truth about God solidifies it inside of our hearts and will remind us of the truth as we go about our day. We all have experienced having a song stuck in our heads, why not have the words to those songs be uplifting, truthful, and God focused?

Spiritual Warfare & Spiritual Strength

When we’re focusing on God’s Word, we will naturally be spiritually strengthened. In addition, God has wired us in such a way that we are built up by song. When we combine these two things, we enjoy a spiritual strengthening from God. We see a perfect example in Acts 16:25 when Paul and Silas were in jail. It says that they sang! Singing to God refocuses our attitudes and hearts and prepares our spirit for the spiritual warfare right in front of us.

A Pathway to Joy

In the Bible we oftentimes see joy and singing hand-in-hand. Sometimes joy leads to singing, while other times singing leads us to joy. The most obvious of these calls is found in James 5:13: “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.” It doesn’t get any simpler than that. However, if you’re struggling with finding joy, sing to God the truth of His Word and preach/sing God’s truth to your own heart as well (Psalm 42 is a great example).

Gives Glory to God

Last, but certainly not least, singing gives glory to God. This brings us back to the purpose of these posts on worship: We are called to worship God, to give an "expression of reverence” to Him. Singing is a large part of worship both now and forever. In Revelation, John has a vision of heaven and in chapter 7 verses 9-10, He writes a scene in heaven when everyone is gathered around the throne of God and singing to Him. This is what singing is about. Singing to God on earth is, and will be, one of the most intimate forms of worship and we’ll get to enjoy it for eternity.

Joanna & Nicole's Baptism (10-17-15)

PERSPECTIVE RESET (Psalm 32) by Alesha Sinks

{This post is an excerpt from my devotional ebook Perspective Reset: 28 readings and meditations from the Psalms. The devotional is FREE to all of my newsletter subscribers and I would love for you to download it. Click HERE to subscribe and download the ebook.}

Psalm 32:1-11

I often turn to the Psalms when I’m feeling broken, when the weight of my sin is heavy on my heart. As I’ve walked through times of life where condemnation is crushing me and I can’t seem to fathom God’s forgiveness, the Psalms of David, like this one, are particularly comforting.

David knew what it was like to sin greatly. He was an adulterer, who then ordered a murder to cover up his adultery. Yet another time he decided to number his armies to see how great his power had grown, ignoring the warnings God sent him to not do it. In this latter case, God brought a plague on the people David ruled as punishment. Because of David’s sin, hundreds of innocent people died. Can you imagine the weight of that sin? The shame? The pain?

In these verses (v 3-4), David described the pain of living with unconfessed sin. God knows all of our actions, including our sins, so there is no use in acting like we are hiding them from Him. Too often I find myself refusing to confess under the excuse that God knows my sin anyways, because the act of confessing is often incredibly painful.

And yet David, this great sinner, was also known as the "man after God’s own heart". No one else in the Bible had this glorious title bestowed on them. How?

His secret is found in these verses. David proclaims the blessings of being forgiven by God, and the beauty of confessing our sins to Him.

Even though God already knows our sins, He wants us confess them to Him. There is an incredible power in speaking or writing a confession of sin to God. It brings a clarity and gravity to the sin and allows us to feel the full weight of it.

Feeling the full weight of our sin initially seems like a bad thing, but instead, it actually allows us to then experience the full freedom from it that God desires to give us.

Will we walk in the "sorrows of the wicked” who try to hide their sin? Or will we stand with David, baring the ugliest parts our hearts to God, and surrounded in His “steadfast love”? The difference is confession. Honest, simple confession to God will bring us the ability to experience full freedom from our sins.

{Verse to Meditate On Today}

"I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah"
Psalm 32:5

{Take some time to write a confession to God today for whatever sins might be weighing on your heart, trusting that the God who forgave David will forgive you.}

4 Ways To Handle Rejection by Pilgrim Benham

Have you heard of the “Rejection Hotline”? Apparently it’s no longer active, but for over 10 years, up until 2013, if someone asked you for your phone number but you didn’t have the gusto to say, “I really don’t want to give you my number, but thank you”, you had the option of giving someone an actual phone number to call. And if they indeed called it, this is what they would hear as the phone picked up:

“Hello, this is in not the person you were trying to reach. You have reached the Rejection Hotline! The person who gave you this number did not want you to have their real number. I know this sucks, but don’t be too devastated. So, why were you given the Rejection Hotline number? Maybe you’re just not this person’s type. Note: This could mean short, fat, ugly, dumb, annoying, arrogant or just a general loser. Maybe you suffer from bad breath, body odor, or a nasty combination of the two. Maybe you just gave off that creepy overbearing, psycho-stalker vibe…Regardless of the reasons, please take the hint. Accept the fact you were rejected, then get over it. And please, do your best to forget about the person who gave you this number, because trust us, they have already forgotten about you.”

At their height, the Rejection Hotline was a 2.5 million dollar annual company with over 60 million callers being rejected or at least calling the number to get in on the joke.

Rejection is a terrible thing, isn’t it??

Maybe you’ve been rejected by someone you thought would be a perfect future husband or wife. Maybe you had a business proposal that was turned down. There’s no doubt that someone reading this has been fired because you weren’t what the boss was looking for.

We have all faced rejection at some point. Especially those of us who survived middle school.

Even though rejection is very difficult and can be discouraging, rejection can also be the catalyst to redirection.

Jesus, in Mark 6, went back to His hometown of Nazareth. However, the reaction of the people Jesus grew up with was worse than indifference. It was rejection. Can you imagine? Jesus was rejected by the very people who should have known Him best. So how did Jesus handle the rejection? There are 4 things that Jesus does in that moment that are very instructive for us:

1. Shake it off.

Jesus says to His disciples as He sends them out: “And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them” (v.11).  Jesus is equipping His disciples to go and do what He was doing. If Peter and James went into a town and the people rejected them, they were merely to shake the dust off their feet and go to the next village.

Isn’t there a popular song recently about shaking off the haters? Jesus is saying that dust represents their rejection and shouldn’t even stay on your feet. Have you been rejected by someone you cared about? Did a potential spouse or business partner or company turn you down? Do what Jesus did! Leave their rejection with them and move on.

2. Go where you’re received.

Jesus immediately turns from Nazareth, and Mark 6:6 says, “He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.” Jesus departed from the places that rejected Him and continued to minister, this time in places that would welcome Him. If you’ve been avoided for a job offer, don’t sit and sulk. Go and apply at another company that will pay attention to your resume! It’s important that we don’t waste time kicking doors that simply will not open. Does that friend not call you back? Keep persevering; but also look for relationships where you are valued and accepted, and where your friendship is reciprocated. And if you’re really really bold, just unfriend them. It’s hard, but so worth it.

3. Focus on your gifts and strengths.

Jesus doesn’t look at what their criticism was: “He’s just the carpenter. We know His family. We know His history. He won’t amount to anything. His past will define His future.” Criticism can be very instructive, even from those who are our enemies. But if we dwell unnecessarily on the critique, rather than our strengths and gifts, we will stay unproductive and bound. Jesus moved on to do what He did best: teach. So should we.

4. Use your energy to equip others.

Jesus could have sat in a corner lamenting His rejection. But He immediately begins teaching and then equipping His disciples to go and minister. I’ve found the greatest way to escape discouragement is to pour into others. At King David’s most desperate moment, as he was hiding out in the cave of Adullum, running from Saul and other adversaries, he begins to realize he is overwhelmed and in despair. Psalm 142 was the song David wrote while in the cave, and he feels completely alone. However, right after that, a large band of troubled men went to join him:

1 Samuel 22:1-2

David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. 2And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him.

David began to lead these men, becoming ‘captain over them’, and then begins to rebound from his discouragement. If you’ve been rejected, find some people who receive your ministry and begin to pour into their lives. Rejection isn’t easy to handle, but we can follow Jesus’ example and allow rejection to become redirection in our lives and ministries!

Pete & Corrina's Baptism (9-11-15)

Worship | A Summary by Travis Sinks

What do you think of when you hear the word: Worship?

Many of us quickly think of the time in church where we sing “worship” songs, or times where the Bible says that people "fell down" and "worshiped" God. But this is such a small view of worship. Worship is meant to be an all-encompassing lifestyle not only an action done before an altar.

The dictionary’s first definition of worship is: “The acts or rites that make up a formal expression of reverence for a deity.” The Bible clearly teaches that people can give an “expression of reverence” to God in formal settings such as church, but also in every moment of our informal and normal lives. In fact, God often rebuked people in the Bible who had “expressions of reverence” formally, but did not live out their belief in God in their everyday life.

There will be 5 followup posts to this one that will touch on a different areas of life and how we can worship God in them, but as a guideline to live by, we need to ask ourselves:

Am I expressing reverence to God in my daily life?

Everything comes back to that question. Are my actions, speech, thoughts, dreams, and hopes all reflecting the truth that God is real, and that He is truly God, not me? The litmus test for whether our lives are worshipful to God is if we would continue to do, say, and think everything we just the same if God Himself was right beside us. If not, we need to repent and ask God to grow our worship for Him in our daily lives.

I hope this, and the subsequent posts on worship will be both convicting, and freeing. That you will have a sense of lack in your current worship, but that you will realize the grace and freedom in Jesus to be able to worship God in every area of life with joy. Worshiping God is not putting on the bondage of boring, instead, it is life giving because it is truly what each of us was designed by God to do.

Here are links to the followup posts on this subject:

WORSHIP | IN SONG

WORSHIP | IN PRAYER

WORSHIP | IN ACTION

WORSHIP IN SPEECH

WORSHIP IN WORK

Promising Freedom by Alesha Sinks

I've been studying through 1st and 2nd Peter for awhile now. Too long, probably, but I'm pressing on slow anyways. And a few days ago, these words seemed to hang out in front of me in the air, waiting for me to grasp their significance. "They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved." 2 Peter 2:19

Peter is discussing false teachers: their lives, their deceptions, and their destinies. He was warning the church against listening to or being led astray by false teachers.

The defining feature of false teachers in this passage was...

They promise freedom, but they themselves are not free.

As I read, I paused to think on this...that we can't offer to others what we ourselves don't have. And it struck me that this is exactly what our adversary the devil tries to do.

He offers peace, but he has no peace to offer. He offers power, but he knows that his power will be taken away. He offers riches, but he will ultimately be stripped of all he has. He offers happiness, but he is fueled by rage and envy. He offers freedom, but he himself is bound to earth and destined for eternal death.

All the promises of this world, all the riches and fame and joy and peace promised are simply lies of the deceiver himself, just reshaped and repackaged by those who have unknowingly fallen for his lies.

And I wonder what we’re listening to and what we’re preaching…

Because you can’t offer what you don’t have, and if you try then you’re following in the steps of the deceiver, the Father of Lies.

Pastor Daniel has said over and over, “If I’m not filling up on Jesus, then the best I can give people is myself.”

And I once again find myself looking deep inside and asking... What do I have to offer? What do I promise to others? What has overcome my life? What am I filling up on?

I don’t want to be a false teacher. I don’t want to resemble a false teacher even for a moment. I don’t want to promise freedom if I myself am in bondage. And I don’t want to give anything other than Jesus.

...because, in Jesus I am alive and can offer life to the dying. In Jesus I am forgiven and can offer forgiveness to others. In Jesus I have peace and can offer peace to a broken world. In Jesus I’ve been given freedom and can offer freedom.

We are free and can offer the freedom that is in Jesus to a broken and bondaged world.

This post is full of more questions than answers, because only you know your answers to these questions. I’m unsettled in writing this because it doesn’t feel tidy. But sometimes we need to simply be left with messy questions…messy because they dig into the messiness of our own hearts and lives.

So I’m not leaving you with a tidy post today...just the mess of questions that I’m asking myself. And I'm inviting you to join me in asking them. Will you?