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Love, pray, give, laugh (4 of 4)

Have you ever wondered if Jesus told jokes? What about the disciples? Did they sit around and laugh at the mistakes they made while preaching?

I like to think Jesus had a great sense of humor and irony. After all, He rode into town on a donkey. He put mud in someone’s eye to heal them. God made a donkey speak to Balaam (insert Mr. Ed joke here).

If you find yourself unhappy and unable to laugh, it’s time to change a few things.

1. LOOK FOR THE GOOD. Stop finding fault in everything around you. If you are constantly pointing out what’s wrong with everything, STOP IT! Celebrate what IS working.
2. PRACTICE LAUGHING. Everything gets better with practice. Check out this article on laughing and health.
3. STOP BEING SO SERIOUS. Nobody likes a buzz kill. n-o-b-o-d-y. Find the joy in laughing at your own mistakes.
4. HAVE FUN. No matter what, find a way to have fun. Take a break. Pull a prank on someone. Watch a comedian. Become a comedian. Pull a prank on a comedian. Anything. Just have fun.
5. FIND GOD. Don’t get worn out, depressed, stressed or feel alone. Get in God’s presence and let His joy become your strength.
6. LOVE. PRAY. GIVE. If you will become a friend, you will have friends. If you show love, it will come back to you. If you pray and listen for God, He will speak to you. If you become generous, you will find joy. Because giving is more fun than you could ever imagine.

There are many, many, many more ways to find laughter and joy. But, don’t let a day go by that you don’t have a great big belly laugh. Go on, you deserve it.

If you are looking for a great source of humor that pokes fun at religion, take a look at Stuff Christians Like. I read it every day and you should too. It helps me not take myself so seriously.

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Love, pray, give, laugh (3 of 4)

Jennifer and I are grateful that our parents taught us the responsibility of tithing. The tithe is not a gift we bring to God, it is a requirement. Our parents taught us that giving was over and above our tithe. My parents have been faithful to tithe to the local church even when there was no food in the house. They were faithful tithers even when they did not have enough money to put gas in the car.

At our house, we do not view tithing as giving. I don’t give my taxes to the government. I pay them. I give gifts. I love the first definition of “give” over at dictionary.com.

to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation; bestow: to give a birthday present to someone.

Jen and I are also thankful that our parents taught us the joy of giving. I have watched my mom empty all of her “mad money” stash to give to a single mom. I was awed when my dad gave his boat to help rebuild after our church burned to the ground. This wasn’t any boat. It had always been dad’s dream to own his own boat. On the 10th anniversary of our church, The ROCK gave him a 22′ Grady White boat. He named it “Speechless”. But there was a need and dad didn’t hesitate to give back his dream. The joy in dad’s eyes when he saw “Speechless” for the first time was not as great as when he gave it away.

I thought I would go a little “old school” with this post. Recently, as I was thinking about giving, the MP3 player in my head did a flashback to the Ron Kenoly tune, “Give to the Lord“. Check out some of the lyrics.

Give in love, Give in faith
Give the joy and the smile on your face
Give as the Lord has given to you
How you give is a reflection of your gratitude

From you heart, give your best
Give unto God and you will be blessed
Don’t be stingy and don’t be tight
Learn from the widow in the Bible
Who gave her last dime

People rob God when they don’t give tithes and offerings
And they don’t understand why they’ve been cut off
From heavenly blessings but abundant life and prosperity
Begins when you prove your love to God by giving to Him

When you give, give to the Lord

I wonder how many people sang this song and meant it with everything in them… except their wallet. Mom and Dad, thank you for teaching me to never forget or overlook the tithe and thank you for showing me how much fun it is to be generous.

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Love, pray, give, laugh (2 of 4)

Pray and let God worry. ~ Martin Luther

Too often, I am tempted to try and figure everything out myself. I want to know who, what, when, where and why and I want to know right now. If everything is not working out the way I think it should, I struggle with questioning whether I heard God right or if maybe God missed it.

Yeah, that last sentence played with your head. Didn’t it? The truth is, you have done the same thing.

Why is it that we feel this need to be self-sufficient and without the guidance of God? The super spiritual person might say this never happens. Yet, we can all look back and see times when our need for immediate response caused us to run ahead without allowing God to speak.

What are you worrying about right now? What is weighing you down? How long have you spent in God’s presence waiting for Him to speak?

When Elijah was fleeing for his life, He was desperate because his whole world was falling apart. In I Kings 19:11-12 we read,

Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by.”
A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.

Let me encourage you today to do something. Get someplace where there are no distractions. Quiet your thoughts. Then simply say, “God, I need to hear from You.” Then, stop talking and listen.

Now, go do what He tells you.

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Love, pray, give, laugh (1 of 4)

Yesterday, I spent some time challenging our staff to get outside the walls of our church and show our city the love of Christ in tangible ways. I love how I Corinthians 13 tells us that all great things are just noise without love. My challenge to our team is to get together with small groups of ROCKERS and deliberately loving our community. We could fill a cooler with soft drinks and giving them to construction workers or taking fresh baked cookies to the police or fire department. Let’s go show love in unexpected ways. When they ask what we want, let’s tell them, “This is a gift from me and my church, The ROCK, to let you know God loves you and we do too.”

Check out Corinthians 13:13,

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Greater than faith. Better than hope. Love is supreme.

I dare you to show someone you don’t know how much Jesus loves them. Don’t ask to pray for someone until you have shown them love.

How have you surprised
someone with love recently?

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Weekend thoughts

• Yesterday we introduced our new Interim Director of Worship & Creative Arts, David Pray. He is a gifted musician, song writer, worship leader and artist. He is going to do an amazing job leading us in this new season. David, welcome to the team!
• The band was killing it yesterday. I love the excitement in our services.
• Yes, that was Tim Corey on harmonica with the band as they rocked “What I Like About You”
• Yes, we hurled t-shirts with gift cards in them at dads with water balloon launchers.
• The message was via video as we heard Craig Groeschel’s message, “Make Us One“. I loved that our people were laughing, amening (is that a word?) and responding to the screen. This opens so many new doors to hear what God is saying in larger church world.
• I think our A/C repair guys at the church are having a tough time fixing the air in our lobby… wait, the air has not worked 3 out of the last 4 Sundays. Yeah, they need to get it right.
• Jen and the boys gave me this for Father’s Day. Yeah, I’m being assimilated. Then I went to Best Buy and bought a new pair of wireless headphones for our bedroom. I would post a link to them. But, evidently there is not one single mention of the Rocketfish RF-WHP02 headphones on the net. Well, now there is.
• Spent the rest of the day hanging out with the boys playing X-Box.
• I love our church, I love our family and I love my life. It was a great day.

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