Bringing Scripture to Life

This past Sunday, my wife Lyndsey and I celebrated our 12 th  wedding anniversary, and I have to tell you, and I realize before I say this that it may not seem very "manly" of me to say this -- at least by some men's standards -- but being married to my wife has been by far the greatest blessing in the world to me. On September 25th, 1999, I became, in my opinion, the most blessed man on the planet. God allowed me to marry one of His amazing daughters, Lyndsey, and it has been the greatest adventure and love story that I could ever have hoped to experience up to this point in life. I have to confess to you that our marriage has been absolutely blessed beyond measure as far our relationship is concerned. We have had arguments, of course, especially in the first six months of our marriage when God stuck two very rough lumps of clay together.  It was awkward at times, but we allowed the Potter to take His spirit and pour over us the living water in order to help mold...

Please join us this Sunday at The Church at Promenade , as we continue our study through the Gospel of Mark, with a message titled, "Breaking through the Obstacles of Faith".

   Have you ever wondered what Jesus did when He first woke up in the morning? Did He eat a bowl of cereal? Did He watch cartoons? Did He read the newspaper?    When looking at the Gospel of Mark, the Bible actually answers this question for us. The Bible tells us about Jesus getting up "a long while before daylight" (Mark 1:35), which is very early, and which came after a very busy day of ministering to people (Mark 1:21-31), that lasted well into the night (Mark 1:32-34).     It was the next morning after this extremely busy day, that we read about Jesus doing something very different, and for some, very difficult. And yet, it is what Jesus disciplines Himself to do each morning, that sets an amazing example for each one of us in how we should be living out our lives.     To find out where I am going with this, you can read how I recently  challenged The Church at Promenade to begin following in Jesus' footsteps at the begin...

   I am so excited to see what God is going to do in my good friend Dave Menard's life. Pastor Dave is one of my favorite bible teachers on the planet, and the Lord has called him to start a new work in San Diego.    The Mission Community Church is having their grand opening service this Sunday in San Diego. If you live in the area, I would highly encourage you to go visit this church. For directions you can go to their website at  The Mission Community Church .

This past Sunday at church, I threw out a challenge to our church. The challenge was to begin spending alone time with God each morning. I wonder if they have been doing this. I hope and pray that everyone has accepted the challenge and is being richly blessed by it. In this past Sunday’s message we looked at a message titled, “In the Secret Place with Jesus”, and we discovered that Jesus spent an entire day pouring himself out by ministering to many people. Jesus taught for hours in the synagogue, fought against demons and won, healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever, and spent the entire evening healing the sick, casting out demons, and ministering to the entire town (Mark 1:21-34). I don't know about you, but that sounds like a very mentally and emotionally exhausting day! I know when I have extra busy days of ministry like that, when I wake up the next day I am completely drained, and the last thing I feel like doing is waking up extra early to spend time in prayer...

"The Word of God is like a lion. You don't have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself." Charles Spurgeon

What kind of wings does your faith have? Does your faith have the kind of wings that cause you to want to fly away from the difficulties that life brings? Or does your faith have the kind of wings that cause you to trust in God, and rise up in faith with Him, in order to soar through the winds of difficulty that life brings our way?  It was March 8th of this year that I had just left a meeting with someone who I thought had cared about me and my family. This meeting turned out to be a disaster for me, that left me shell-shocked in disbelief, while at the same time feeling painfully let down and extremely disappointed in the horrible way that this person had acted. I remember leaving Starbucks that sunny Tuesday morning, getting into my SUV, and pulling out of the parking lot into the deepest, and darkest valley I had ever had to face in my ministry up to that point. I travelled over to the Sports Park and cried out to the Lord for help and for strength all morning long, whi...