THOUGHTS (6 am)

Those of you who have been around me for awhile know that I say, "I have a thought for you." After I say this I share my thoughts about what God wants to do in your life. Well, I have some thoughts for you. Grab your seat belt and hold on tight. What is going on in your (my) life that God isn’t #1? What is it about entertainment and stuff that subtly leads us out of a passionate relationship Jesus? It seems that the latest gadgets, the newest and the best have replaced the joy of our salvation. It doesn’t get better than what God offers us–CHRIST IN YOU!!! For the next 2 hours (actually the rest of your life) I want you to take this next verse seriously. I want you to consider this verse as if it was God speaking directly to you–because it is. This is God’s Word for us to live by and to shape our lives. 

2 Corinthians 10:5

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Make this your prayer to take every thought captive. Let me give you a picture of this for a moment. I was riding my bike with my son (Spencer) this weekend. We rode for a good hour before we hit a big down hill on a dirt fire road. As soon as he hit the downhill–he did a superman. You can see pictures on my FB (Danny Ray). He got cut up pretty bad on his side, hands, elbows and face! Ouch! For the next several hours he was very aware of every would. He probably didn’t get up that morning and thank God for the skin that protects his elbows. Yet, now he is painfully aware of God’s protection over every part of us. 

I know I am not aware of all of the things that God is constantly doing to get my attention but that was a wake up call not only for him but for me. A wake up call to be aware and thankful for both the seen and the unseen things that God is doing. It is easy to go about life without any awareness that God is doing great things all around us. For the next couple hours capture every thought and make your thoughts obedient to Christ. In other words, every ounce of pain, every situations, every opportunity, and every ounce of worry needs to be filtered through the question: What is your will in this situation? Your will. Your will. Your will be done.

It has been said that "pain is God’s megaphone." May God use His megaphone to teach you to be obedient in every area of your life to Him.

See you in two hours. Between now and then open your bible and write down a verse to memorize. Share it with us in the comments below.

ACCEPT (3 am)

We are designed to worship God 24/7 but somehow in the midst of our crazy lives we simply get caught in our worries, our troubles, our joys, our success and our life. Today is simply a reminder that life is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. We are constantly in need of a Savior! Sometimes we appear to have it all together but that illusion can quickly disappear with one change.

We lose a loved one.

We lose a job.

We lose our temper and end up using an old vice.

We say yes instead of no.

We break a promise that cost us a friendship.

The list could go on and on. The reality is that life is more fragile than a glass in the hands of a toddler. The verse that I am about to share will hopefully shake things up for you. I know when I read this verse it shook me at my core. I had to ask God some deep questions. The verse is spoken by Mary in response to the life that she has been called to. An angel tells her that she is going to have a baby born of the Holy Spirit. She responds by saying something profound:

"I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to accept whatever he wants."

Wow! What if we made this our prayer today? 

PRAY: Lord You know we are your servants. We know that You desire to give us hope and a future. We know that Your ways are better than our ways. Daddy, we are willing to ACCEPT whatever, yes LORD, whatever you bring our way today. We love you.

CHECK BACK IN 3 HOURS for the next update. Updates will be coming throughout the day. If you miss one–no worries. The idea today is that we take every thought captive to Christ. More on that later.