In the beginning of the book of Acts you read the story of the Day of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit fell with the noise “like the blowing of a violent wind” and “tongues of fire separated and came to rest on each of them.” This caused them to speak in other tongues so loud that the people on the street heard it! I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that their passion wasn’t from their past, even though they had been with Jesus (remember, when He died on the cross they all went back to fishing). I don’t think that they were even caught up in what was happening in that moment. I personally think that they were as exuberant as they were because Jesus had promised that when the Holy Spirit fell they would be empowered to do amazing things for the Kingdom of God! The fire wasn’t for the moment; it was for what was about to happen! They got “Fired Up” to actually go do something!
Continue reading “The “Fire””
Throughout this week I have been weighing some different things that I should write this blog about. There is a ton of things happening in our world right now and taking the forefront in our nation are the elections and corresponding campaign ads wherever you turn, and Hurricane Sandy blasting the east coast. Almost anytime of the year you could watch the news and get depressed but during this time you cant even get relief from commercial breaks! One word that keeps ringing through it all is Broken.
Homes on the east coast are broken. Mass transit systems are broken. Both candidates agree our government is broken (at best it’s just financially broke). And in the wake of it all are people whose lives seem broken. Now I don’t think that God sends natural disasters to lower the hammer and punish us all, but I do think he allows some things to happen so that we can be in the best possible place to be open to Him and receive Him. That place, unfortunately for us, just happens to be when we are broken. Continue reading “Broken”
Ever had a moment when your reading the bible and something small that you have read a bunch of times just jumps off a page? It just happened to me. The story happens in the book of Luke, chapter 5. Here’s the overview:
Jesus is teaching and healing people and the crowd gets big. There are a couple of boats there at the shore so Jesus decides it would be easier to speak from one of the boats instead of the shore and jumps in this unsuspecting fisherman’s boat, who happens to be named Simon Peter, and pushes out a ways to create a little floating stage. When he is done teaching he tells Simon to go out a ways in the boat and put down his nets for to catch some fish.
Continue reading “Because You Say So”
I’ve recently been diving into the book of Daniel to study the amazing effects of what prayer and relationship with God. Daniel has an amazing story that starts with being taken as a prisoner of war and ends up becoming the spiritual advisor to the nation that attacked Israel and seized him in the first place. But his rise to power is what amazes me.
He starts to set himself apart immediately when he turns down the choice food of the king because it would essentially be defiling himself before God to eat what was “unclean.” (Dan. 1:8) The fact is that earlier in the book it says that the Babylonians took many young men, yet only Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stayed true to God even in the face of possible persecution. You could already see the dedication on their part, which set them up for the blessings and insight that God would give them later.
Continue reading “but there is a God in heaven…”
I’ve recently been having my world rocked by “The Circle Maker” by Mark Batterson. It’s a book that is chalked full of scripture and keeps pushing challenging me to grow in my relationship and communication with God. But it has also pushed me to scripture even harder to study some of the people who had amazing prayer lives. This led me to dive into the book of Daniel and here’s what caught my attention this week…
In chapter 4, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and needs Daniel to interpret it. The dream is that God had made the king very powerful but he had forgotten that it was by God’s strength not his own. Therefore, God was going to reduce him to the level of the animals, grazing in the fields like cattle. I underlined the last part of chapter 4 verse 25 in my bible and highlighted it on my YouVersion App. It reads “until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.” The thought that hit me: God doesn’t need you.
Continue reading “God Doesn’t Need You…”
This morning I was reading my bible and came to the short book of Philemon where one small verse jumped off the page at me today.
“I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” (1:6)
It dawned on me that we see God’s goodness on the other side of our bold actions. You want to see God move? Step out in faith. Take action. Put yourself in a position where God has to show up and you will start to see all the amazing things we have in and through Christ!
Once your faith takes action you will begin to see God work through it. When you see God work through your actions you will gain a greater understanding of who He is and how good He is!
I’ve played on a lot of sports teams in my life… some good, some terrible. But I could tell early in the year what type of team we would be. The best teams shared a common passion and goal, and nothing could deviate us from that goal. There was a huge accountability factor, both on and off the court, to make sure our focus was always sharp. We knew that any small deviation from the goal of winning a title had the potential to start small but sidetrack us by a long way in the end of the season.
In any organization, business, or church a clear mission is key. It defines purpose and keeps the people within it focused on exactly what needs to be done. Most of the time when there is failure it is due to a series of events that slowly turn the organization away from the initial purpose. I believe it is time we, as a Church (big C, not little c) get back to the basics. Not being distracted or getting into battles about what we are against, but focused on our mission.
With Father’s Day right around the corner I want to take the time to point out how “Manly” the bible really is. I know there is a lot of love and grace talk, but there’s also a lot of stuff that would make for one sweet action movie. There’s even a group of guys who were a couple thousand years ahead of their time but would have made for an awesome prequel to “Act of Valor.” Their names… David’s Mighty Men.
You find them in 1 Chronicles 11 and these guys were no joke! Continue reading “You Attract What You Are”
Brandon Liebe 
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