It was a special and unpredicted night. I was invited by good friend and mentor Dave Gibbons to go to his home to meet with some key leaders in finance, media/entertainment & social innovation. I thought it would be a dinner with maybe two other parties, instead when we got there it was a living room full of high powered movers and shakers that all had one thing in common… pain.No one had a clue why we were there specifically, who we were going to meet, but a room full of strangers by the end of the night became knitted at the heart and connected in the spirit. Dave had everyone after dinner share a little bit about themselves, and what was supposed to be a personal and general introduction turned into each person sharing their life story, their personal struggles, how they have failed and how they have also overcome different challenges in their lives. To be honest, I was shocked as one by one each person bared all. Normally, the kind of people in this room would be those in our society whom the normal public would think would have it all together, the fame, the fortune and the influence, instead what became a common thread throughout each person’s sharing was how meaningless, without purpose and empty is a life full of material wealth, but no spiritual wealth.Tears began to flow as each person shared. When it came time for me to share, instead of sharing from a place of power, I also shared from a place of honest pain. I shared how I mentally, physically and spiritually broke down about 4 years ago, how I almost gave up on being a pastor, gave up on my calling and had so many inner struggles that I could not overcome. I could have shared all my achievements, instead, I’ve learned achievements mean nothing in this life if you don’t have God, if you don’t have friends, if you don’t have peace.When it came time to pray, the Spirit of God came in power into the room. So many in that place felt like they weren’t good enough for God, or God had forgotten them, or they didn’t even know if God exists, my heart went out to each of them. I was moved with love to pray for each of them and give to each one a prophetic word from God… one man, probably twice my age, broke down into tears and just began to hug me as I prayed for me. He wouldn’t let go, it lasted for more than 20 minutes and I realized all this man needed was God’s love, a hug from his Heavenly Father, in the worlds terms he had everything, but in his soul he was empty and crying out for love and acceptance. In that moment, as we hugged I knew that God was pouring His unconditional love into his heart, after the night was over he was beaming and overjoyed with his wife. God heals.So many other things happened tonight, but what stood out to me was this… that it’s not in our pride, nor or power that we experience love. But it’s in our pain and our struggle. See, without pain we can’t experience love. When we embrace pain, we can experience compassion. Whether you are rich or poor, everyone is hungry for love and all it takes is someone to be humble, honest and willing to give it.365 Days of Love: Share with others your pain, be honest with who you really are, empathize with others and love will overcome!
Why Go To Church?
A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs by giving all those sermons as well."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals but I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"
When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!
1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.Thus, non-believers who attends church will find it very hard to understand the sermons. Thus, this supports that the person mentioned earlier is NOT a Christian.
"if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"That is not true. Going to church is NOT the ONLY way for nourishment and it is not even the best way. The best way to keep yourself in-tune with God is have a consistent heart that seeks Him; consistent in a way that you continue to long for God and to seek Him EVERY MOMENT of your life. And by seeking Him, we will be nourished.
A young woman was stopped for speeding. The police officer ticketed her and took her before the judge. The judge read off the citation and asked, "Guilty or not guilty?" The woman replied, "Guilty." The judge brought down the gavel and fined her on hundred dollars or ten days in jail. Then he did an amazing thing. He stood up, he took off his robe, stepped down from the bench, took out his billfold, and paid the young woman's fine. Why? The judge was her father. He loved his daughter, yet he was a just judge. She had broken the law, and he couldn't simply say to her, "Because I love you so much, I forgive you. You may go scot-free." Had he done such a thing, he would not have been a righteous judge. He would not have upheld the law. But because of his love for his daughter, he was willing to take off his judicial robe, step down to her position, assume his relationship as her father, and pay the fine.
You just never know what might happen everyday when you put yourself out there to love somebody. I had a long day and decided to cancel my last meeting of the night because I was seriously too physically exhausted. Before I went home though, I prayed to God, please let me help someone today the way You would help them. I didn’t know where to go, but I needed to go get a screw for my car’s license plate so I pulled up at a hardware store parking lot. Right when I came out of my car a man walks up to me and says, “Sir, I’m sorry to ask this but would you be generous enough to get me a hamburger and a drink? I said, “I would be happy to!”
He seemed very sheepish. His name was Billy. I could tell he was not your normal pan handler so I got to know him more. He told me had been out of work for 4 months, by trade he was a mason, but times were hard and he didn’t have enough money to eat that night. When we got to the counter of Mc Donald’s I asked him to order whatever he wanted. He ordered a #1 Big Mac meal. I told him to order more, to get anything he would like, but he simply said that would be enough. So I at least super sized the meal for him. I ended up getting my order and sat down and had a “happy meal” together haha.
