Back from visting family.

I am back in town after visiting family for Thanksgiving. We had an awesome time with our family. I hope that your Thanksgiving was a blessing as well.

More to come on th Beautitudes in few days.

Keep pressing on!

Happy Thanksgiving.

I pray that you and your family have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Blessed are those who mourn

"Blessed (happy) are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4
When I intimately encounter the Lord and meditate on His attributes and beauty, I realize how utterly helpless I really am to live this life apart from Him. I am confronted with how poor in spirit I really am.

This is not to be condemning. Those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior can rest in the fact that through Christ we can do all things. Picture it this way. Before my daughters go to bed they need to have their rooms cleaned. As I look into their room, with the lights off and the hall lights casting dim light into the room, the room looks pretty clean. But when I turn the lights on in the room, it looks like a bomb went off in their room. It seems like every toy is on the floor, the sheets on her bed are off and crumbled up into a ball and that they must have the whole neighborhood over to make that mess.

When I turned on the light (not the dim light from the hallway), I clearly saw the mess. This is what it is like when we enter into His presence. His light shines on us to show us our helplessness. He does this to bring us closer to Him.

Being poor in Spirit

"Blessed (happy) are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Being poor in spirit has nothing to do with money. It is the total absence of pride, self-assurance, self-reliance and the awareness that we are nothing in the presence of God. Our posture needs to be one were we look to God for everything. In other words, I need to look to God as a husband, parent, teacher, coach, friend and every other area of my life. I need to develop intimacy with God in prayer before I embark in any of the areas of my life I mentioned above. For example, before I devise my lesson plans or practice plans, I need to ask the Lord what He wants me to teach, what type of drills I should use and how I should deliver the information. Anything short of this sows the seeds of pride and self-reliance. I would be basically saying, I have the knowledge and training to teach and coach on my own. My prayer would sound something like this: Lord, I created the lesson plan/practice plan now please bless it and anoint my words. That is dangerous ground to walk upon. I have lived my life for too long on my own pride and self-reliance. It is time to sit at His feet. We each need to develop a track record with God. The Christian life is a marathon not a sprint.

My beautiful daughters

Quote from the book

"The glory of the Gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world , she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, thought it may hate it at first. That is how revival comes. That must also be true of us as individuals. It should not be our ambition to as much like everybody else as we can, though we happen to be Christian but rather to be different from everybody who is not a Christian as we can possibly be. Our ambition is to be like Christ, the more like Him the better, and the more like Him we become, the more we will be unlike everybody who is not a Christian." (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones p.28).

Introduction to the Beautitudes

The author, D Martyn Lloyd Jones states that all Christians are to live a life exhibiting the Beautitudes. They are not reserved for a select few super Christians. If you are a Christian, they must describe your conduct. The Beautitudes are a description of our character. The intent of the Beautitudes is that all Christians manifest all of the Beautitudes all of the time. The point that the author makes is that the Beautitudes do not naturally occur in all Christians. We cannot work to make the Beautitudes part of our lives. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit and by God's grace.

Sermon on the Mount

I highly recommend the book, "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones. This is a must read.