A TRIBUTE TO A TRUE MAN OF GOD

  As I sit hear watching the stories of Oral Roberts I am so overwhelmed with his passion & heart for God’s people. I am writing this with tears of joy on my cheeks. He left behind not only a great legacy but also a great institution in which men & women are still being equipped to minister & lead God’s people.

Prayer, prayer, prayer said Oral Roberts is powerful. As he was speaking about starting Oral Roberts University & especially about the famous prayer tower in the center of the campus.  

As he was talking about his T.V. ministry  I was thinking what a visionary he was. When no one was wanting to mess with T.V. he jumped on it. Not only did he get on T.V. he got to do a quarterly primetime show. WOW!!

  You may be asking why am I doing this #1 I want to show honor to a great man of God #2 I want to reflect on our legacy.

  So what are you leaving behind you. Are you leaving a legacy, are you leaving debt, or maybe something else? Will people talk about you after you pass or will you be forgotten in a flash?

A FEW THINGS FOOTBALL

Well it has been a really bad football year for the University of Georgia. I am not one who talks about this kind of thing much but its looked really bad. On the bright side they won Saturday 34 to 10 against Vanderbilt. I think the biggest reason for the improvement is a few things but the number one reason is Mike Bobo was on the sidelines.

If we win out we could have a 9-3 record & for most teams thats not to bad but at U.G.A. its a poor season.

The Atlanta Falcons on a good note are smoking hot this year one of the reasons why is Tony Gonzalez and Matt Ryan. As well as the defense playing with great balance.

Tattnall County High School my alma marta has a good looking team this year too. They have lost two games but still in the hunt.

I have said what I need to say about football for now.  The DAWGS are off this week preparing to whip the Gators on the 31st and they have their hands full but it could happen.

CHURCH (RELIGION) V/S COMMUNITY (RELATIONSHP)

I have been asked many times why the crude title (church Sucks).

1. It gets your attention
2. how man does church really sucks
3. it’s my blog right

 

I am a locally licensed minister & I love Jesus with all my heart & I love the church in its purest form. All the things that man has made the church makes me sick. In the New Testament the church was the community. & somewhere down the line man has separated the two.

The two are constantly at war with each other it should never be this way. Lets look at what the bible says about what the church should be.

Act 4:32-35 NIV - All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales  and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

Now you see in the New Testament church they were more concerned about relationship and community than religion or religious activities.(church)

I want to warn you I know the dangers of becoming to social minded and not spiritual minded I know but first and foremost we should be able to build relationships. I dont care how spiritual you are if you cant connect with the people then how will they know how great God is.

I told my girlfriend the other night it’s not the product you sell it’s yourself you sell. If people like you they will listen to you. If you connect with people you must have sold yourself to them first.

If we will make our church  community and our community church we will see greater results because of three areas

1. Unity
2. unselfishness
3. more resources

remember the bible said that no needy person was among them

so my prayer is that we will be more community minded or kingdom minded and not just worried about this church or that church but about THE CHURCH

ATLANTA FLOOD & SERVENTHOOD

Let me start buy saying thanks for your prayers for the Atlanta area as well as for me my friends, Jessica & Garrett who bravely came along with me. We left Thursday morning very early & returned Friday afternoon. I was shocked at how quickly people responded to this situation. Mostly due to the efforts of Shaun King pastor of Courageous church in midtown Atlanta who twittered facebooked and did whatever he could to get people to help.

In this picture Shaun King, Andrew Odom, & myself right after we loaded the truck.                                

With all that said twitter is the reason I came to Atlanta I knew God was pulling me to come help. I saw Shaun's twitter on the flooding and started watching it closely. Before long he posted that he needed volunteers to help immediately. I jumped on it and in what seemed like a few minutes I was leaving for Atlanta with two friends from church. Actually it was a day & a half before we left.

Now that you know the WHY I will tell you WHAT we did. You know its much better to give than receive & I want to give all I can. You see I haven’t worked in 3 weeks but I knew I had to go . My funds were low but my faith & trust are high. So really we went by faith & just served with all our heart. We sorted clothes, we delivered clothes to a drop off location, we unloaded care packs & anything in between. I am so grateful to God for allowing me this chance to be His hands & feet.

I want to talk about serving for a brief moment serving is not about getting credit, it’s not about self-gain or even to promote your ministry. Serving is about being available, being HUMBLE, and most of all serving is about showing off GOD”S love to others through you. I want show a few pictures to you also in the next few lines and if you want to help here’s HOW

 

       

This is in Austell,Ga. where most of the worst damages were. Their is a great pastor in this town who was right in the thick of things half of his congregation lost everything. So pray for this man and his Ewing Road Baptist Church.

I will update you later on this and if you want to go contact me a.s.a.p.

A TIME TO REMEMBER

   I had a great time with my family Saturday night. To often in life we get to busy that we overlook some of the most important events in our life. For to much of my life I was guilty of this as well and it wasn’t until I rededicated my life to JESUS that I began to see this. I cant express to you how much we need to spend quality time with our family. I used to to run in and then right back out the door. Now I will drop whatever I am doing to spend time with them. Even Georgia football the way I see it we only have one family and we only live once.

   When we got home last night I was reading in Genesis 31 when Jacob was leaving Laban to go back home and that story intrigues me very much and the more I thought I said what a good illustration for this. He was missing his relatives and God told him to go back where his relatives were at.

   I had a real similar situation in my life some years ago and finally I realized that I must take a stand and find my way back to my family. You see since I started this post Atlanta was tragically devastated by the downpour. I am headed to Atlanta right now to help with the relief effort. So you never know when it may be your time so embrace your family and love them with all your heart.

WE are  so blessed to have family and if you dont God will be there for you. Our family is our first ministry and if we dont have our family in order how can we bring order to the body.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING or FREEFALLING

I am so excited about sharing this with you. You know the whole thing in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about being unequally yoked with unbelievers. Like I said in my last post I have had plenty of time to study and hear from God. I have really got a new perspective on this scripture. I was praying the other day and God began to speak to me about this.

He showed me that being yoked with an unbeliever is a lot like climbing mountains. You see I am not an expert on mountain climbing and have never done it, but I do have common sense. We think of mountain climbing as so many things but not many of us think about it like this. The whole concept is you take two people climbing mountains both are amateurs, but one is just a little more athletic. Say they made it about halfway up when the lesser one began to slip. Right then the athletic one rushed down to help the other.

I have a very vivid imagination so bare with me for a minute.right at this moment it is a very crucial time. During all this God showed me that this is like our life and being the stronger Christian if we reach out to the lesser one then we put ourselves in danger. Just think about this if you reach out to help this one is it easier to pull someone weaker up or is it easier for someone weaker to pull you down. Well most of the time the weaker one will pull you down every once in a while though you might pull them up.

So we have a choice to make if we are to fellowship with unbelievers . Either we become MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS or FREEFALLERS.

I have one more thing to talk about and its on the same subject. When you are pulled down you fall 90 miles an hour but when you climb back up after falling it’s a long slow process. So at all cost try to avoid being pulled down and if you have fell down already keep on inching uphill you'll make it. I did and you will too.

God’s Direction For You

i know it’s been a little while since I have blogged. My apologies to my followers I would like to share a piece of my heart with you. As always I encourage your comments this is intended to be an interactive site for you.

I have had some free time lately and really been hearing from God. You know how we all get to thinking that we have it all together and that we know what’s best for us. Well you’re not alone Lot did the same thing in Genesis 19:17-38 . You see just like you and me Lot THOUGHT he knew what was best and it turned out to be one big mess.

I know that if we will stay in a relationship with our heavenly father our direction in life will be much clearer. In Ps. 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Knowing this we should stay in the word (logos and rhēma) which is the written word and the spoken word.

One more thing to look at in lot’s story the very place God tried to send him he ended up there anyhow. With that in mind we should be obedient from the beginning and just maybe our lives could be that much simpler. So many times we get ourselves into things that God never intended for us to go through.

As I wrap this up I want to share three things with you

1. Stay connected to God
2. Listen to HIS voice
3. obey God

If we will do these things and of course other things our walk with God and our quality of life will both be better.

UNITY IN THE BODY

Last night I got to be part of something truly amazing. It was not a miracle or it wasn't even unthinkable but it just does not happen much. OK OK you say well what is it Ron. Two local churches got together last night and decided to combine their resources to reach our community. I am sorry actually it was three churches. My church the Believers church & Place of Grace. During our meeting we had some great discussions and really worked as a team. That got me to thinking about how powerful the BODY would be if we would have the same mission in life. Jesus said that we should go and make disciples of all nations. I tell you what would it look like if we truly was the body. Just say one church does food banks well another does a clothing ministry well, and say still another church they really help the elderly out. OK but what if the church with the food bank tried to clothe the people too instead doing their part. Remember the body the foot needs the leg the hip needs the torso and so on we work together to function as a true unit. So as we walk by faith in this area it will have some growing pains but also we will have some great benefits as well. Who knows maybe we will inspire other churches to join us and lets blow this thing up and reach the lost for Christ. as I am getting ready to close I want to share a scripture with you Eccl 4:12 12 And one standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer; three is even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. TLB this came to me about a year ago God showed me a rope in my minds eye and it was hard to break it. Not knowing at that time it was scriptural. So heres my final thought other churches are not competition but covenant partners

Authority v/s Pride

Let me start by saying that the Bible is the number one authority that we as Christians live by. I was talking with my grandpa today and was just joking with him, I asked him did he believe that the Bible have any authority. He kinda mumbled for a minute and then I told him I said you know an officer has authority because of his/her uniform just like the Bible has authority because of its editor (God). Then came a few amazing minutes of conversation together. He stated that we have got so many crazy laws and its just hard for them to be any authority to anyone. Then I stopped him (and now you must know my grandfather to appreciate this) I said you know it's not the laws that you dont agree with it's the authority of the officers you dont believe in. Then I went on to say most people believe in the Bible but they really struggle with it's authority. And for that matter it goes deeper than that it really boils down to this " most people dont truly believe in God or to put it another way the dont believe God because even the devil believes in God" So with all that said I began to look at a few things and soon started to see that mostly it was our pride that hinders use from recognizing the Bible or any other thing as an authority or having authority so examine yourselves daily by the word to show yourselves approved and remember the Bible is the number one authority that we as Christians live by.

Love In The Streets Like You Do In The Church

I am pretty new to this sorta thing but hey God has given us a platform to stand on and speak the truth. I want to talk today about a serious issue in most if not all churches. If this doesn't apply to you I'm sorry you know what they say one bad apple spoils the bag right? In the local church we have a very big problem with retaining people. I know there is several reasons for this nasty habit in our churches but I would like to focus on one area. Let me take a few minutes to set up this scenario. Just say someone in your church had enough boldness to go and witness to someone and they actually came to church. That's great right unless you are not ready to receive them. I know at our church one of the best things we do is greet our guest and we set aside about ten minutes of our service each week just for this reason. OK back to my scenario here and when that person came to church we greeted them at the door and in service and really put on our best christian face. Well thats all good but you see next is the real problem and this is what I want to talk about church is over and you greet the same individual bye and they go on about their business. Then lets say on like Tuesday you see them at the store or whatever and dont even as much look their way. Let me be the first to tell you that you are wrong and are a hypocrite in it's worst form.Because they are looking for someone to connect with and someone from the church exspecially and you just turn your back on them. Its like as long as we are in church it's fine to be seen with this person but in the general public it is a no no to even talk to this person. Let me tell you that is so far from the Bible because it is God's will that all be saved and acting like this is no way to get them saved. So I am going to close this way if you have trouble talking to some people in public because of what others might say or whatever your reason is that is very dangerous to you and the church as a whole. I know because I have been on the other side of this in my life I could not stand coming to church with my grandma because all those so called Christian's would just eat me up to my face and in public would not even speak to me and I was like well if they are like that I dont want to be one of those people. So let me end like this as I started seeking God in my life I decided not to base it on other Christian's lives but I began to search out the truth for myself in God's word and soon I realized that nothing shameful or anything like it was of God so examine CHRIST and not Christians to see what we should look like. And remember it's about a relationship not a religon!!!

My First Blog

Ok I just wanted to start off by saying it is awesome to be able to share my thoughts on the web so my first post is just an introduction my name is Ron and I am currently seeking my pastoral license to preach and that is about what my life is a life devoted to spreading the gospel to the world and serving my lord as long as I live in the next few days I will be posting a few thoughts on how we should treat people in church but more importantly out of church stay tuned!!!