We are taking a look this week at some disciplines that will help us open our ears wide open to the voice of God. Today's principle is simply to follow the leader. In 2 Chronicles 33:10 it says, "The Lord spoke to Manesseh and his people, but they ignored him." Ouch!!!

I run into a ton of people who really want to hear what God is saying to them. God speak to me about my finances... God speak to me about my children loving you... God speak to me about my busyness... and the list goes on.

The problem is that He has and we ignore Him!

While I believe with all my heart that God will give you revelation through the Holy Spirit, I also believe that the Holy Spirit gives you revelation through the word. So if we really want to hear the voice of God, it begins with listening to what He has already said, doing it, and following the leader.

I promise you will hear God speak to you more and more when yo ... Read More »

This week we're spending some time talking about how to listen to God with ears wide open.

Isaiah 65:1 says, "I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one came looking for me."

Hearing God takes effort! Most of us rush through the busyness of our day without taking time to really look for God. Yeah, we might look for him in little things, but we don't set aside time just to say, "God help me, I am going to seek you." Usually we ask God for help, but what we really mean is for Him to do things exactly the way we want, instead of listening to His voice.

Spiritual Truth: Hearing God sometimes hurts, but it always helps!

God is willing to speak, but we have to be willing to do what He says. Sometimes I wonder if want want the blessing, but not the input or discipline of the blessor.

What do you need to ask God to help y ... Read More »

Remember when the doctor would always say, "Open wide..." when you were a kid? Well, I guess he wasn't the first to think about that term.

Isaiah 55:8 says, "Come to me with ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life."

In 2 weeks, I start a new series called "Dialogue" that will focus on praying and hearing God. As a precursor to the series let me encourage you to start answering the question, "Are my ears wide open?"

What I have personally found is that it is pretty easy for my ears to get clogged up with gross stuff that causes the voice of God to be muffled. I have found that to hear God I have to be intentional about it.

This week we'll take sometime to talk about disciplines that make sure that our ears our wide open.

Is there anything cluttering your hearing?

Spirit of Excellence

As I stepped off the train and started heading towards the Acer Arena, I could hear the music being pumped into the surrounding area. It was crisp and very clear. The closer I got to the doors I saw long red carpets perfectly placed, with no wrinkes, rolled out to welcome people. Being the weird person I am, I looked closer to see if there were any wrinkles in the matching red tape and to my liking there was not. The resource center was perfectly organized with great signage. The worship experience was very authentic, very spontaneous, but done with great excellence!

Every person had obviously embraced this value and executed it with great effectiveness!

Many people would argue that it's hard to be authentic and do things with excellence. Bring it on! I would say that is an excuse for laziness. I'm just sayin'.

Excellence is simply doing your best to the glory of God. When you do th ... Read More »

A Servant's Heart

Wow - I don't even know how to begin to unpack this part of the trip. What I saw in every person I met in Sydney was a the heart of Christ.

Simply put, they were very selfless.

While they had a tremendous confidence about them, it was balanced by a tremendous humility. It didn't matter what someone was asked to do, they would do it with a smile. I guess a better way to say it is that they would do it "Unto the Lord".

My prayer is that I would serve the Lord with that purity. So many times we are willing to serve as long as we get to do exactly what we want to do. The problem with that is that it's not Biblical. I'm sure Christ would have rather worked out the salvation thing without all the hurt and pain, but that was His call.

God has probably put you somewhere that you will experience some hurt and pain, but know when you walk through that season ... Read More »

One of the words I used in yesterday's post was the word "Expectant". The more I have thought about it, the more I think that is a very accurate word to describe how this body approaches God and church.

What do I mean by that? The simple way to say it is that there is a big difference in believing in God and experiencing God. They expect to experience Him!

They expect as they grow in intimacy with Christ that God will meet them and move in their lives.
They expect that when someone teaches the Word of God that God will speak to them a truth.
They expect when they enter into corporate worship that they will be refreshed and encouraged by God.
They expect when others experience that presence, in their personal lives or through corporate gatherings, that God will impact their lives.
They expect God will be faithful to His promises.

For example - Hillsong has well over ... Read More »

Wow! What a month it has been! Robin and I were blessed by somebody giving us the gift of going to Australia for the Hillsong Conference in Sydney. As we prepared we were praying and hoping that it would be life changing and it was exactly that! This week I'll try to begin to unpack some of my thoughts from the experience.

First, and foremost, I saw a group of people that were absolutely 100% passionate about the cause of Christ and the local church! We are not talking about people who simply have church on their social calendar, we are talking about people who truly believe what the Bible says, that the church is the hope of the world!

The moment you walked onto the Arena grounds you could feel the presence of God! There was such a huge expectancy from everyone there that God was going to do something incredible!

To demonstrate their passion, over 4000 Hillsong Church members took a week a vacation to serve us! Incredible!< ... Read More »

One of my favorite things in life is to watch other people live into their dreams. It takes a lot of faith and courage to pursue the unknown and one of my friends has done exactly that lately.

eCompliments is a new website and webtool that is truly incredible! I love their mission, "To be the world's forum for sharing the good." What a perfect idea!

The statistics are simple, 84% of people make decisions about purchases, services, etc. by studying online reviews, I know that to be true for Robin and I. We just got home from our trip to Australia and New Zealand where we made many of our decisions off of online reviews.

But here is where it gets cool - eCompliments has virtually everyone in the Yellow Pages listed, so you can compliment almost any business in the YP's. One step better - you can acquire ... Read More »

Wow! The past 10 days have been an absolute blast! I truly had the dream trip that I had hoped for! In the coming days I'll unpack some of what I observed, and some of what I felt like the Lord challenged me to be doing!

Worshipping with Hillsong was simply indescribable! I felt like I sat there with my mouth open in awe the whole time. The energy, the excellence, the authenticity, and the theology was beyond words. God has used them in supernatural way to impact worship throughout the whole world!

Our day in New Zealand did nothing but cause me to have to spend money to go back. We went on a tour to see a rain forest and the black sand beach on the west coast. If the weather was nice we would of gone sailing on an America's Cup sail boat. The people were some of the friendliest in the world!

I'm back at LAX now waiting for another oversold American flight. Robin and I are ready to get home, but have been blessed beyond belief t ... Read More »

I love this generation because they are authentic.

On the other side of authenticity is skepticism, but if you are the 
real deal this generation will know it and appreciate it. Read More »