“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,” – Philippians 3:13

 

 

 

Have you ever messed up before? I know I have. I personally have made my fair share of mistakes in the past, and a lot of those mistakes I can blame on foolish pride or anger. That being said, I figured when I really buckled down as a Christian, those mistakes would go away. That didn’t happen. Then I thought to myself that when I follow my calling of becoming an ordained minister, I’ll be free from those sins once and for all. Nope. It turns out that I still sin, I just become more aware of my failings. However, over the years I’ve learned that it’s OK to fall now and then, we all do, just as long as you keep getting back up.

 

 

 

Whether you are a preacher, a politician, or a PH.D., you are going to screw up. Just because you have accepted Christ doesn’t mean you are immune to the sins of this world. You will have your momentary failings, but the trick is to keep looking forward. The more you set your sights on what is good, the more you become acutely aware of your own shortcomings. That’s ok though, because the first step to solving any problem is acknowledging there is one. The second step is not getting hung up on the first step.

 

 

 

To use a football analogy, there’s a thing called forward motion. The point is to keep the ball going downfield toward the goal. You don’t take the ball out of the fight though, it’s still right in there, but it’s on the way to the goal. Same goes for us. We aren’t free from evil, but we are on the way. As long as you breathe, you will have battles to fight. The key is to maintain that forward motion with yourself. Don’t get bogged down on what happened yesterday or ten years ago. Keep moving forward. You won’t always get it right, but you can always learn from the mistake and try not to make it again.

 

 

 

Don’t waste your time with worrying about things that happened in your past. Think about what lies ahead of you. If you get hung up on bad news or bad people from yesterday, you’ll never see what God has in store for your tomorrow. Imagine that you only have so much space in your head. You can either fill it with bad thoughts and memories or you can fill it with hope and the knowledge that you are loved by the Creator. Once you look more to God and His love, it becomes easier to overcome setbacks when they happen. The things that plagued you before, such as anger, envy, or pride become minor players in a much larger theater. You aren’t worried about lust, because you focus on pure things. You don’t get sidetracked by laziness, because you have God and other people to serve.

 

 

 

Make a promise today to focus less on your circumstances and focus more on Jesus. Don’t see a problem as a stop sign, see it as a yield sign. Yield to God, be humble about your failings, then press forward towards the goal of Heaven.

 

 

 

God’s blessings to you.

 

DH

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.” – Psalm 139:23

Do your good deeds outweigh your bad? Are you one of the few blissfully ignorant people that barely remembers ever doing a bad thing?Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to like who you are, but if you think you have earned a place in Heaven, think again. Only perfection gets into paradise and there’s only one perfect person; His name is Jesus. All the rest of us sin, and some more than others. That becomes a real problem when you don’t even recognize that there’s sin in your life. You may think you have sin beat all by yourself, but you aren’t looking at the whole picture. You may have conquered your lusts for instance, but are you still an angry or proud person? Then you have sin in your life.

You may not even recognize that you have that sin within you. It’s too easy in this world to become desensitized to the wrongs that you commit. You may try to justify them or think to yourself that your sins aren’t that bad when compared to a murderer or a thief. Even loved ones may eventually turn their heads and fail to recognize your sinful ways. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say, “My husband doesn’t believe in Christ, but he’s still a good man.” Being good doesn’t get you into Heaven, only accepting Jesus and His finished work on the cross will do it. You can’t be good enough. There is always some sin in you that you won’t be able to beat by yourself, but for God nothing is impossible.

No matter how our lives are going at the time, we all need to put Christ first place. If you hang out with hooligans, you will become a hooligan yourself. Conversely, the more time you spend with Jesus, the more you will recognize that you need Him in your life. I’ve tried running my own life and it has always led to disastrous results. I didn’t even realize that I was harboring such bad things inside of myself until they would come out, and usually at the worst possible time. It’s when I surrendered to Jesus, that’s when I truly started living. I am not perfected quite yet, but I’m on the way. God’s path is honestly better than anything I could have come up with.

God knows us through and through, whereas we only see just the surface sometimes. We all need to have God’s magnifying glass look over our lives. I want the best for my life and the lives of those I love, so please, search me, O God, and help me to become the better person you want me to be. Lord, search me and remind me that it is not my good deeds that will outweigh by bad ones, but the complete good works of Jesus that will make all the difference.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” – Mark 2:5

In Mark chapter two, we see Jesus preaching in a house with a huge crowd gathered around Him. Then came a paralyzed man carried by his friends. The crowd that had gathered was now so large that the friends could not get the paralyzed man to Jesus to be healed. They tried doors and windows and found them all to be blocked by the crowd. However, the friends cared so much that they tore a hole in the roof, then lowered the paralyzed man down through the hole to where Jesus was standing. Jesus saw their faith and healed the man of his paralysis.

There are a few things to keep in mind when reading this. First, the paralyzed man was so loved by his friends that they didn’t stop when they met some resistance. They carried the paralyzed man, which was hard enough, but then they went further. They kept trying normal ways to get him through the crowd to Jesus, but then they realized they still had more to do to get their friend saved. You don’t just decide to destroy the roof of a house, it had to come after quite a bit of pushing and shoving through the crowd to no avail. Those friends were willing to do whatever it took to save this man. They could have tried and stopped after a little while, still showing some love towards the paralyzed man, but that wasn’t enough. The friends didn’t quit. They showed the man the fullness of love; the kind of love that is straight from God Himself.

The second thing to think about here is that not only did they love their friend, but these people had such faith in Christ that they knew this was the right thing to do to help the paralyzed man. They knew only one could save their friend and Jesus was The One. The Scripture says because of their faith the man was healed. It didn’t say anything about the paralyzed man’s faith, it talked about the faith of his friends. Jesus forgave the man of his sins, then told him to arise and walk. It took the faith of his friends to bring the man there, but the man’s own faith was cultivated enough to listen and obey the Savior. That faith was first demonstrated by the friends, then acted out by the paralyzed man. They set the example for him to follow.

This story holds deep meaning for every one of us who has a friend, colleague, or family member that has been overtaken by sin in their life. Sin can absolutely paralyze people and that is exactly what the devil wants. Satan doesn’t want you to do good works for the Kingdom of God, he wants you to fall into the same sins that you normally fall into. It’s honestly tough to break free of habits by yourself; you just can’t do it alone. You need to surround yourself with good people that will pray for you and help lift you up when the going gets tough. You need friends and family to love you enough to pray and keep praying for you, no matter what. I stand here today as a perfect example of that. I went down some wrong paths in my life, but by the God’s grace I’m alive and able to now help others. I didn’t pull myself out, I had some good people lifting me up in prayer. Without them, who knows where I would be right now.

You, too, have some people on your side. Even if you don’t have a friend in the world, you have people praying for you. If you are hearing this sermon or reading it right now, I’m personally praying for your salvation and prosperity. You have people in generations that have long since passed that have prayed for you and others in your same circumstance that you don’t even know about. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The best thing of all is that the Lord and Savior has been praying for you. The Bible says He had you in mind before the creation of the world and that He wants you to be with Him in glory. Read John 17:20-27.  The Savior prayed for you! Now it is your turn to also pray for those who find it hard to pray.  It’s your turn to lift up people who can’t or won’t lift themselves up to Jesus. We see our Lord as the example, then it is our time to be the example for others.

There’s a Beatles song that says we get by with a little help from our friends. There is no bigger or better friend than Jesus. Please know that you are not alone in your struggles and that you don’t have to be paralyzed by sin any longer. Look to the cross of Jesus, then arise and walk. Your sins have been forgiven.  You are healed.  You are loved.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” – Romans 8:31

I have my fair share of problems, but don’t we all? There isn’t a person among us that hasn’t tasted pain or heartache. But instead of talking about how big my problems are, I want to tell you about how big my God is.

For Moses and the Israelites, my God brought plagues against their foes and parted the Red Sea so they could escape and be led into their promised land. For the profit Gideon, God blessed him so he could command a small group of 300 fighters to defeat an army of over 130,000. For Daniel, God sent an angel to close the mouths of the lions and also protect Daniel’s friends through a fiery furnace.

Notice in all of those situations, God didn’t just take away the problems. Instead, God protected and strengthened his people so they could come through their problems and glorify God in the process. God doesn’t create the problems, but as the Bible says, God will use all things for the good of those who love Him.

Jesus Himself said during a prayer that He doesn’t want us taken out of the world, but instead asks the Father to strengthen us during our trials. Each of those trials is a life lesson, and not just for us, but for everyone around us. When hard times come, we can either shrink into our own little corner and die or we can stand up, fight, and show this world what a mighty and awesome Father we have in Heaven.

Jesus prayed for our strength. Do you think Jesus ever prayed a prayer that wasn’t answered?

There is more to life than just what we see. We can either focus on the temporary or we can set our sights on the eternal. God is more than just a God of the right now, He is God of the forever. This problem you are facing, no mater how big it seems, is no match for how big our God is. That same God who is Father over all of creation is your Father as well and He loves you. Trust in the Father’s love and let Him take you farther than you could possibly imagine.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16

With the upcoming year upon us, I wanted this sermon to be the gospel in a nutshell. I wanted to make this sermon brief, but bold, in order to keep Christ at the front of your mind this next year.

In the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth, and everything in between. I know that because I’m here too. You and I are not here because of some one-in-a-zillion random chance. You and I live because God wants to be loved. And because of that need for love, He gave us the freedom to choose Him or reject Him. Love is a gift, and a gift that is forced is no gift at all.

As ignorant humans, we often pull away from God’s desires for our lives. We do bad things, called sins. Those sins can’t just disappear, or else what have we learned from them? The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Plain and simple, if you commit evil, you can’t get into Heaven. That’s why there is Jesus.

Jesus is God in human form. God lowered Himself from His heavenly throne and was born of the Virgin Mary. She needed to be an untouched virgin to let there be no doubt that it wasn’t of human means, but God’s. Jesus was born to not only experience what God’s children experience, but to show us a better way to live the life He’s blessed us with. However, remember earlier when I said that the wages of sin is death. We deserve punishment because of our bad choices, but Jesus took that punishment for you and I on the cross. Then, just to show that God has power even over death, Jesus rose from the grave. Life, death, and eternity; nothing is too far out of God’s reach because it’s all His.

When we accept Jesus and His finished work on the cross, we are telling Him yes, please take our sins away. He can have them all. All of the sins we’ve done and all we will ever do, He has washed them away by His blood. In dying, Jesus destroyed our death. In rising, Jesus restored our life.

This upcoming year, keep Christ first in your life. Let Him go before you in all that you do so that you may prosper in every area. His promise to you is that He will work all things for the good for those who love Him. Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, because if you do, you will be forgiven of your sins and experience a love so complete and wonderful that it will take all of eternity to show you just how much God truly loves His children.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“Where no oxen are, the crib is clean; but much increase is by the strength of the ox.” – Proverbs 14:4

There are times where people can be harsh or overly critical of your actions, your ideas, or even you as a person. I have experienced this at different jobs or stages of my life and it always got me down, until a good friend and mentor of mine said, “If they aren’t talking about you, you aren’t doing anything.”

People, for the most part, fear change. They like the status quo and they don’t like to make waves. One thing I hear in business is, “That’s how we’ve been doing it for twenty years.” To which I reply, “Well, you may have been doing it wrong for twenty years.” Just because somebody did something along time ago doesn’t mean that it was the best way of doing it.

My point is that you have to challenge the status quo now and then. Question the answers. Go for what matters to you with gusto and drive. Some people won’t like that, but that’s ok. In short, you have to want better and believe it with everything you’ve got. For instance, I preach about Jesus whenever I can. Some people come to me afterwards with questions and some even with distain or spite, but if you can make me not believe in my Lord and Savior just by asking a few questions, then the Holy Spirit isn’t really what is driving me. Whatever matters to you, get fired up about it and like the Nike commercial says, “Just do it.”

It was once unprecedented for a runner to break the 4 minute mile, but everything is unprecedented until somebody does it. The impossible can be achieved, but it takes hard work and dedication to something bigger than yourself. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that everything is possible for God. He created it all and has it all within His power. God will definitely help you fight the good fight, but you can’t just sit idle hoping that something is going to change. You can’t let people’s talk stop you from achieving the greatness God has planned for your life. If you want better, you need the courage to do something about it. You can’t just think your way to a better life, you need to put forth some effort and break through some barriers. You need to do what, in legal terms, is called an “act in furtherance.” You have to show and prove that you really mean what you say.

Don’t just talk about it, BE about it or you’ll live without it.

It’s true that you could avoid many mistakes by never trying anything new and that you could make fewer waves with people if you just follow the status quo. You won’t get your hands dirty if you go with the flow, but remember, dead bodies always float downstream. You are not dead; you are alive and reading this right now, which means you have opportunity to change something for the better. God placed you in this exact moment at this exact time. The Bible says that you are wonderfully made, you have a purpose, and that God is always with you. You can achieve anything that God is pushing you towards, because He will always give you the strength and resources to accomplish His divine will.

Failing hurts and gossip hurts, but I promise it will hurt worse to never accomplish your dreams and look back wondering, “What if…” Don’t worry about what people will say or think, worry about what God will think. When this life is over and you stand before Christ, don’t be sorry about a life spent letting opportunities and blessings pass you by.  Instead, be joyful when he says to you, “You have been wise in using what I gave you. Well done my good and faithful servant. Now at last, enter into the joy of your Master’s house.”

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” – Psalm 23:1

 

Psalm 23 is a commonly read scripture. It goes, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters…” If you are not familiar with this verse, I encourage you to please read this. It is beautiful.

 
There is one part that many people read, but don’t clue in on. “You prepare a table in the presence of my enemies.” This is saying that God isn’t going to take your troubles and your enemies away from you completely. Instead, God is going to bless you in the midst of your troubles. Food is meant to sustain you so you can keep up fighting the good fight.

 
Don’t worry when troubles come your way. We all are given problems to fight through. Just know the old saying that if God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. This is one of many scriptures that make that promise.
 

God is for you and not against you. He will not only sustain you, but will make you a champion. Don’t avoid the enemies, because they need to be present for you to eat the banquet that the Lord has in store for you.

 

 

God’s blessings to you.

 

DH

“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Job 33:4

 

 

When you walk into a buffet, do the waitresses put on riot helmets? Are you out of breath after putting on socks? Do you put something into your shirt pocket and realize you aren’t wearing a shirt? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have the same problem as millions of Americans, myself included. Of course these are jokes, but after middle age crept in for me – a while ago – I haven’t exactly stayed in the best shape. Most of it has to do with me not keeping my body moving. I’m relatively sedentary most of the day and just don’t get going. This has led to me being out of breath after doing relatively simple things, which annoys me; so I’m going to do something about it and start exercising my body.

 

 

There’s more to life than the body though. Many of us exercise our bodies, but don’t take care of what’s inside. The fact is that you are more than just a body; you are a soul as well. Your soul, your spirit of life within you, was literally God breathed. In the Bible, the Hebrew word used for spirit actually means breath or wind. And just as our bodies can be out of breath when we don’t exercise, our souls can lack as well when we don’t exercise them. When you lift weights, you gain power. When we spend time with Jesus in prayer and the scriptures, we are gaining His mighty power. It’s more than just power to pick up weights, it is power to handle the weight that this stressful world places on you daily.

 

 

Unfortunately, in this life you will have your fair share of battles. One of those battles is finding and making time for Jesus and prayer. I’ve always been a big advocate for a “holy hour” in the morning to start your day. Even if it’s just fifteen minutes or whatever you can give, that time with Christ is time very well spent. It helps you to face those tough times throughout the rest of your day. You know where you stand with the Lord and you know that He will always be near, even if the rest of the world and the rest of your day goes badly.

 

 

When I was young, it was easy to keep healthy because I was always on the move. I was very physically active in my work and play lives. I didn’t have to think about it, I just was fit. Now that I have a physically easier life, it has been easy for me to forget that I need to keep moving. The same goes for many of us in our spiritual lives. When times are hard, it is a common thing for a Christian to pray and read the Bible. We turn to God and we praise Him all the way. However, when times are easy, we often forget to keep giving God the glory and keep moving in our spiritual lives. There gets to be more dust on our Bibles, and a closed Bible is just an open door for the devil to get at you.

 

 

You may be winded and out of breath when you face some stressful activities, but when the stresses of life hit you, don’t be caught without the breath of God strengthening you. The biggest battle you will have is keeping your daily time spent with God, but if you lose that battle, every other battle you face will become a much harder fight.

 

 

God’s blessings to you.

 

DH

 

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.” Luke 21:3-4

In Luke 21, Jesus saw the wealthy donating some of their surplus money, then he marveled at a poor widow who gave just two coins. Those two coins weren’t much, but they represented her entire livelihood. Jesus was proud of that poor widow because she gave Him all she had out of love.

The fact is that God is God. He created everything and needs for nothing, but He completes His heavenly works through us. We are to be extensions of his guiding and caring hands here on earth. We are to serve Him with all we are, not just what we have materially.

Take a tip from the saints. Most of us can’t do big things for God, so do small things, but with great love. Those small things can include everything you do when you offer them up to God. The Apostle Paul said in the book of Romans to “Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice.” That’s a common theme you’ll see through the Bible. When we are living and acting with God in mind, even when we fall short of our best, it still endears us to God’s heart.

Don’t think for a second that you in your own life can’t do great things for the Lord. For instance, being an attentive and caring mom is one of the most noble tasks in His kingdom. Offer it up to God. Working hard day in and day out can also be a great task when it’s done to help your family or to help others. Offer it up. Even simply giving someone a sincere compliment or a kind word is a blessing that will reap great rewards. Offer it up. Those things may seem small or average to you, but they resonate in the minds and hearts of those you do them for.

One good thing to remember is that your blessings will be magnified if you do them when it’s not convenient or when you don’t really feel like doing them. Jesus didn’t feel like going to the cross, but He did it for the good of everyone. He offered Himself as a sacrifice. Consider your good deeds as a living sacrifice. And like the Nike commercial says, “Just do it.”

And lastly, a passage from 1 Peter 4:12-13 says, “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad, for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”

How many of us go through tough times or rough patches in our lives and ask God why? The fact is that there will be suffering in your life. If you haven’t suffered loss or pain yet, just stay tuned. However, it is much better to suffer for the right reasons than the wrong reasons. Don’t give yourself over to sin and suffer for your failings. Instead, give your heart to God and suffer for doing what’s right. Stand up for those who can’t fight for themselves. Speak against evil in all of its forms. Preach the good news of Jesus Christ to this fallen world. Help people at every opportunity, even if they don’t know or don’t care. In the end, it’s really not between you and them anyway. It’s between you and God, so offer it up. Christ offered His work up for those people too, whether they know it, like it, or acknowledge it. He did it out of love and what better reason is there for anything we do?

So when you do anything for the good of others, offer up your heart and all you do to God. I promise that God sees your secret intentions and will reward you for them openly.

God’s blessings to you.

DH