Lifeway Church

Maybe you've heard of the poplular song by the J. Geils Band called "Love Stinks."  Adam Sandler made it popular in the when he covered in the 90's romantic comedy "The Wedding Singer."  There are many people out there who believe this very phrase.  They have been used and abused in relationships that have brought them to this conclusion.  I in no way want to diminsh the reality of those events but I would like to say that love doesn't stink.  Love is great.  It wasn't love that led to the hurt and pain that many have felt but rather it was maybe the betrayal of that love.  We're nearing the Valentine's Day when many of us will be cherishing our husband or wife but for some, they may feel alone and believe that experiencing love is not an option for them.  I would whole heartedly disagree with them.  God has designed all of us to be loved and to love.  When He created Adam in the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, He noted that it was not good for Adam to be alone so He created Eve to be Adam's partner.  I believe that God has designed someone special for every person who is willing to wait on God for the right time.  This right time is not the same for everyone.  For some the right time to have that special someone come into their lives could be after college, during college or like me right after high school.  I would not recommend that but it has worked for me and my wife, Rosie.  You see, love is great!  Love doesn't stink when we submit to doing it God's way, not ours.  So in this festive season of love and relationships, allow God to direct you in this area of your life.  If you already have that someone special in your life, cherish them and honor them with a sincere and authentic love.  If you're still waiting on that special someone, be patient and allow God to bring them to you at the right time.  You never know how God will work in your life and when you least expect it, God will meet the needs in your life.  God bless.

Every year at Lifeway Church we dedicate the entire month of January to prayer.  We have prayer meeting practically every day, except for Saturday, that literally saturate the month with prayer.  Several years ago we added the discipline of fasting along with prayer and these have proven to be powerful tools that God has given us to advance His agenda in our lives and our church.  I can not say that the month of prayer was my idea though.  I learned this when I attended a church in south Texas in the mid 90's called Iglesia Del Pueblo.  The pastor there was instrumental in shaping who I am today as a pastor.  Every year without fail we had a month of prayer and I remembered saying to myself then, that if I ever pastored a church, I too would have a month of prayer.  So, to Pastor Juan de la Garza I say, "Thank you for teaching and modeling me the importance of prayer.  It is a lesson I have never forgotten and never will."  Here at Lifeway, we are about to conclude our month of prayer.  It has felt like a race of sort.  Sometimes I felt we've been running up hill and at other times I've felt like we've been running down hill with the wind at our backs.  We've seen some amazing things through out the month and God has revealed Himself in awesome ways in the lives of so many people.  As we near the finish line, ready to raise our hands to break the tape that means we've finished, I see a sign in the distance that calls out to me.  The words are clear and I know that its message is for me and the body of Christ.  The sign reads, "KEEP RUNNING!"  I know what this means and it's unmistakable.  Although the month of prayer is over, we're to keep praying.  God is calling us to a life of prayer and not just a month of prayer.  Nothing builds my faith like prayer.  Nothing builds my vision like prayer.  Nothing causes me to dream bigger like prayer.  Nothing causes me to love more like prayer.  Nothing causes me to give more like prayer.  Nothing causes me to be a better dad like prayer.  Nothing causes me to be a better husband like prayer.  Nothing lines up my heart with God's mission like prayer.  That is why the Apostle Paul said, "Never stop praying!" (1Thessalonians 5:17).  Pray!  Pray!  Pray!  So at the end of this race, there's another race to run.  My friends it's time to keep praying.  Let's do it!   

If you're a comparison shopper, you are familiar with the term "more for less."  In fact, that term alone can bring out the most avid shopper to investigate prices and product alike.  I don't know if it's in our nature or if it is something that we have picked up as our society has become more consumer savvy, but this "more for less" attitude has gone beyond the borders of our spending and has crept into our daily lives.  If asked, I bet that most of us would want more quality moments in our marriages.  We would want more quality time in with our kids.  We want more from our finances.  We want more from our churches.  We want more from God.  Here's the thing.  We will never get more by giving less.  That is the biggest obstacle to overcome.  Does God want to do more for our marriages, families, finances and churches?  Yes!  There is no doubt about it.  The issue has been are we willing to do what God asks us to do, which usually means greater sacrifice and service, or are we expecting "more for less."  As a husband, if I expect more out of my relationship with my wife, I can't give less of my time, affection and attention to my wife.  I must give more.  As a father, if I want more out my relationship with my kids, I can't give less, I must give more!  As a business man, if I want my business to grow, I can't give less of my time meeting potential clients, I have to do more.  As a pastor, I can't expect God to do more in our church if I accept people giving less.  Less of their time, their talents and their treasure.  It's all connected.  You see, our lives are not like Wal-Mart.  We can't have more for less in our relationships.  If you want more, you have to give and invest more.  Here are a couple of things that we can do to evaluate our output in our lives.

• How much time, energy and resources am I investing in the things that really matter and that should matter to me?
• If I am to give more of my time, energy and resources to things that matter to me, that means I have to take time from somewhere else.  What areas do I need to take time from to give to others?
• Sometimes it's not the quantity of time that matters, but it's what you do with the time that you have.  Ask your spouse, children and/or church leaders, "How can I spend some quality time connecting or serving?"  Get someone else's perspective, not just yours.

So let's coin a new phrase today.  Get more for more.  Whether you're looking at this as a church leader, a spouse, a parent or any others figure, we're going to have to quit expecting more for less.  There are no short cuts to building stronger relationships.  God bless!

A lot of people don't like to pray because the get frustrated because they don't see immediate results.  We obviously live in a fast food culture of everything happening quickly.  This flies in the face of the process of prayer.  The process of prayer, waiting and receiving an answer serves a purpose.  That purpose simply put is to build our faith and dependence on God.  It's important for us to allow the process of prayer to grow us and expand our faith.  The question is not if God answers, but rather when we will receive the answer.  So as you pray today, know that the answer may not be given to you tomorrow or this week.  Don't get impatient and frustrated with the lack of expediency on God's part.  Understand that God is not only wanting to get answers to you, He's also trying to use the process of prayer to work through you.  So pray hard.  Pray often.  Pray knowing that God will answer and He's doing a work in you.  Pray.  Just do it!  God bless. 

I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little frustrated with doing things the easy way.  Why?  The easy way is not always the best way or the right way.  It's not easy to make the right decisions.  It's not easy to hold yourself accountable.  It's not easy to have high expectations.  It's not easy to stay committed.  It's not easy to keep your word.  It's not easy to love those who've offended you.  It's not easy to hold on to what is true and right.  It's not easy forgive.  It's not easy.  Many times when it comes to situations we may be facing in our lives we look for the easy way to deal with them.  I'm not opposed to easy when it get's the job done right, but most of the time the easy way doesn't solve our problems or deal with the issues. The easy way basically just sweeps things under the rug.  Doing things the easy way is really just putting off the inevitable.  When people are more about doing things the easy way, it says that they're not really interested in doing things the right way.  Doing things the easy way can affect our leadership whether it's in our work, church or home.  I'm learning that being a leader to my kids means that I will have to ask them hard questions sometimes.  It's easy to make excuses for them and probably less time consuming.  It easy to ignore the problems that you may face in your marriage and just hope that they will work itself out.   It's hard to make the time to actually have a dialogue with your spouse and really get to the issues that are affecting your marriage.  It's easy to blame your co-worker for low productivity, but it's hard to ask yourself what you could have done to help.  You see, we are never going to change our world as Christians if we're looking for the easy way.  We've got to be able to ask the hard questions and then tackle the solutions.  It would have been easy for Jesus to blame us for the cross.  It wasn't easy for Him to take our cross, but He did and He showed His love for us through the cross.  

I've been reading a book on prayer by best-selling author Mark Batterson called, "The Circle Maker" and it's been amazing. It has really caused me to evaluate my approach on prayer as it relates to me personally and as pastor of Lifeway.  A friend recommended the book and it took me just a couple of days to read it.  In fact, I'm on my second reading.  One of the focal points to this book addresses the topic of dreaming big.  My initial thought was, other than having to pray for strength to accomplish your dreams, I asked, "How can prayer change or affect my dreams?"  The answer I got was stunning if not life-changing and ministry-changing.  Let me share with you what I've learned and how I hope that this can be a blessing to you.

First, I discovered that the more I pray, the more I get connected with the Spirit of God.  That's obvious, right?  But something happens when I get connected with the Spirit of God, the creative aspect of God begins to deposit His "God-size" dreams in me.  Now I've always been someone who has had big dreams, but I think if I'm honest with myself, I can't say that I've allowed myself to have God-size dreams.  Why?  This answer is honest and sincere.  God-size dreams are scarey.  I mean real scarey.  They're too huge and seem so impossible to attain.  That's why they're called "God-size" dreams.

Second, I learned that because they are so huge and seem so impossible, I have no choice but to pray to God and depend on Him for those dreams to be fulfilled.  God-size dreams mean that I have to pray more and the more I pray, the bigger the dreams get.  It's an amazing endless cycle.  Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God can do more that we could ever imagine or dream!  Think about that for awhile and let it sink in.  God has dreams for you that you haven't even imagined yet.  When we do discover these dreams through the process of prayer, we are compelled to pray to God for the strength to see those dreams a reality.

Finally, I've learned that God-size dreams require that I take a risk or a step of faith.  Many times we don't want to risk anything because we're AFRAID of what it my do to our reputation.  "What are people gonna say?"  "What will people think of me if my dreams don't come true?"  "What if I fail, then what?"  Here's the thing, God-size dreams don't put your reputation at risk, they put God's reputation at risk because they're His dreams.  Even if your reputation was at risk with your critical co-workers or your negative family members, so what?  If you're not willing to take the risk, you'll never see the God-size dreams come to pass in your life and God will not be glorified.  Mark Batterson writes in his book, "You cannot build God's reputation if you aren't willing to risk yours."

So don't just dream.  Don't just dream big.  Dream God-size dreams and run to God in prayer when you get them.  You'll need to.  God bless.

So here we are at the beginning of another new year.  I'm so excited about what God is doing already at Lifeway.  Every year we take the first month of January to corporately come together to pray and seek God's face, His direction and His favor for the coming year.  We obviously don't limit our prayers to the month of January, but it's a good place to start.  I'm reminded of the words of Jesus when He said, "Seek first the Kingdom of God..."  These words ring true today.  Coming off the Christmas season when many seem to lose focus and get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the shopping, I think it's real important that we take the beginning of the year to seek God first.  This should not only be done in January, but every day of every month.  There are so many challenges to making this happen.  It's hard to seek God first when we haven't really developed a relationship with Him.  Going regularly to church is part of it, but to be honest, it's just a small part.  Developing a relationship with God should encompass my life outside the church.  Think of it this way.  I am not only married to my wife when I'm at home or when I'm with her.  I am in relationship with her no matter where I go or where I am and because of that I expect myself to honor that relationship.  The same can be said of our relationship with God.  We shouldn't only be in relatioship with God when we're at church, but at all times.  I should seek God first, above all.  There's a radical statement.  It's easy for anyone of us to seek fortune first, friends first, fame first, our own interests first, and the list could go on.  Seeking God first goes in the face of our "me first" society and that's why it's so hard.  Seeking God first is counter-cultural and goes against the streams of society.  None the less, we can commit ourselves to seek Him first whether you're a stay at home mom, a small business owner or a working professional.  Take the time to seek God first in all that you do, every day of your life.  God bless and happy new year!

God has called each of us to take this journey of faith.  Like in any journey, sometimes we experience some great and amazing things while at other times we wish we could skip over certain moments.  I remember growing up and one summer my dad told the family that he was taking us to Colorado to see the Rocky Mountains for vacation.  I grew up in the plains and gulf coast of Texas and I had never seen mountains in my life so I was so excited to say the least.  Little did I know that in order to get to the mountains, we had to drive through desolate area that is west Texas.  No offense to those of you who live their, but it is kind of boring compared to the Rocky Mountains.  The trip through west Texas seemed to last forever.  I kept on imaging mountains in the horizon but there was nothing except flat terrain.  You see, in this journey of faith, we will go through moments where we feel like we're getting no where but in order to get to mountain tops sometimes we have to go through the flat lands.  It's in those areas of life where our faith is being tested and strengthened.  James said, in James 1, that when our faith is tested that it will produce endurance in our lives.  I know that it's not easy to go through times of testing but it is necessary so that we can grow and get stronger.  Your time of testing is not a time for you to quit and give up but rather a time for you to increase your dependence on God.  As we live out our faith in the real world, our faith will allow us to accomplish great things for God.  We'll feel like we're on the mountain tops, but remember there is no mountain tops without the testing in the flat lands.  Be blessed and hold on to God!

I heard a statement/question recently that struck me at my core.  "If faith is so powerful and God's people are people of faith, then why are God's people so powerless?"  Hearing this caused me to reflect on the accuracy of the statement.  Lately, God has really been dealing with me in the area of my faith walk.  I'd like to share with you for a moment what I've been learning through God's word.

If you were to read Hebrews 11, affectionately known as the "Hall of Faith," you will read about men and women who accomplished great things because of their faith.  Noah built an ark in faith without before ever seeing rain or experiencing a flood.  Abraham left his homeland to land that God had promised him without exactly knowing where he was going.  Abraham and Sarah continued to believe God's promise in faith for a son that would eventually lead to a great nation in their old age.  The list goes on from Moses, David to Rahab.  All of these individuals have something in common.  Their faith in God all provoked a response from them.  The reason their faith was great was because in all of these cases in Hebrews 11, they responded in faith.  This is why I believe the initial statement I made in the begining is accurate. 

What good is faith if it doesn't provoke a response in our lives.  When we say we have faith and there is no response or action behind it, then their is no power needed to empower the act of faith.  That may sound a little confusing, so go ahead and read the previous sentence slowly.  When I say I have faith and their is no response from me, then my faith is meaningless and no power is needed to empower me.  I heard a true story from Pastor Robert Morris from Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas that illustrates this point.  Many years before Robert founded and pastored the great church of Gateway, he served as a traveling minister.  As a traveling minister, he lived off the donations and love offerings that churches would give him.  Robert tells the story of how he found himself having only one church to speak at during a certain month of the year.  This chuch was a rather small church but Robert knew that God would take care of him.  He was only scheduled to speak on a Sunday evening and afterwards the host pastor picked up a love offering for Robert.  After service the pastor was amazed at he offering that had been picked up.  The pastor was so excited to give Robert the check and when he Robert saw the amount, it was exactly the amount to cover his expenses for the entire month.  It's at that moment that God spoke to Robert.  That night before Robert had spoken, a missionary had been given an opportunity to share for a bit.  God spoke to Robert and told him to give the check he had just received to the missionary.  Robert was admittedly a little nervous but he knew it was God speaking to him.  Robert took the step of faith and responded by walking over to the missionary and privately giving him the check.  The only thing he asked of the missionary was to keep it private and not to tell anyone what he had done.  Afterwards, Robert and his wife were invited by a group from the church for dinner and since Robert had no money for dinner, he graciously accepted their invitation.  While at dinner, a brother from the church was sitting across from him and leaned over to Robert and asked him where the check was that the church had given.  Not wanting to offer any information, Robert said that the check was with his wife.  The brother persisted and asked Robert for permission to see the check.  Robert than told him that the check was in the car.  Robert didn't want anyone to know what he had done.  The brother didn't buy Robert's answers and asked Robert if he had given the check to the missionary.  Robert had no choice but to admit it.  The brother proceeded to ask, how much the check was for and knowing that there was nothing he could do to keep it from this brother he told him the amount.  The brother looked at him and pulled out a check from his coat pocket.  The brother proceeded to tell Robert that before service that evening, God had told him to give Robert a check for a certain amount.  When Robert looked at the check it was exactly 10 times the amount of the check he had given to the missionary!  Praise God.  Here's the lesson.  When Robert responded in faith, the power of God was activated in the situation and God was glorified.  God is no respector of persons, meaning that God doesn't play favorites.  If He did for Robert, He will do it for you and me!  When we say we have faith and we respond, then God's power is activated.  If we want to see a powerful faith in our lives, than we need to resond to whatever it is God tells us to do.  It could be to help a family in need.  It could be to go on a mission trip.  It could be to get involved in a ministry.  It could be just about anything.

Faith coupled with a response always releases the power of God.  What are you waiting for?  Allow faith to produce something great in your life.  Be blessed.