Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. (Genesis 13:12)  Don’t sacrifice your walk with God for money or material possessions. Be careful where you pitch your tent.

Lot is a prime example of improper priorities in his life; he made decisions based on the well-watered plains of Jordan, and chose for himself all the plain of Jordan.  It was a decision strictly based on economics without considering the spiritual implications.  A long look at the lives of Abraham and Lot gives men an understanding in the importance of “Pitching His Tents and Building His Altars.” There have always been men who walked with God and there have always been men who walked with men.”

Lot was a man who was:
• Weak in his devotions
• Worldly in his desires
• Wrong in his decisions
• Wrecked in his demise

God allows us to choose our own path…but He doesn’t allow us to choose what destination that path will lead to. God will allow us to choose anything we want, except for the consequences, we can’t choose those! As a matter of fact, we have to live with the consequences of our choices.

Every decision we make, to at least some degree, affects the direction of our future. For the most part, our decisions are determined by our desires. We often make life changing decisions based on:
Possessions
Power
Popularity
Pleasure

Instead we need to seek God’s purity and purpose in our lives.

A woman told her unsaved friend after attempting to win the friend to the Lord – “There is only one letter of the alphabet that separates us….I love the WORD while You Love the WORLD!”

What do love the most today?? Do you love the world or the Word of God??? Which direction is your tent pitched – toward Bethel (God’s house) or Sodom (the world)?                                                         (JAMES WEBSTER)

“Dear God, if you should give us a son, grant that he may work for you in China.” That was the prayer of James and Amelia Taylor as they consecrated their first child to the Lord, months before he was even born. That child entered the world on May 21, 1832. His parents named him James Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor would, indeed, grow up to work for the Lord in China. Not only that, but he would be used mightily by God and he would transform the way missionaries worked among the people they ministered to. In his own way he would change the world.

Taylor became a Christian as a teen and was immediately drawn to China, deciding that the Lord was calling him to serve as a missionary. He spent several years studying medicine and the Mandarin language before departing on the long and perilous journey to the Far East. Very quickly he made the radical decision to adopt Chinese dress and hairstyles, understanding that such things could increase his credibility in the eyes of those he loved (even if they would make him a laughing stock among his fellow missionaries). He went on to found China Inland Mission, an organization now known as OMF International.

These are 3 lessons we can learn from this man’s life:

Called to Suffer. Hudson Taylor’s call to take the gospel to a foreign land was a call to suffer. And this man suffered very deeply, eventually burying his wife and four children on the mission field. The call to serve as a missionary may have seemed glamorous to those who sponsored him and it may seem glamorous to us today, but in reality it was a call to suffer and to suffer deeply. Yet it is clear that this suffering was an important forming influence in his life; in many ways it made him the man he was. The Lord did not work in him apart from this suffering, but through it.

God’s Preparation. When God calls a man to serve him, he also prepares him for such service. Hudson Taylor invested a great deal of effort in his own preparation through learning languages and studying medicine. But the Holy Spirit also prepared him by granting him a great love for the Chinese people, by giving him great confidence in the Gospel, and by granting him continued awakening and re-awakening. This man was equipped vocationally, but also spiritually.

God Provides. Taylor had an unshakeable belief in God’s ability and desire to provide for the work He had called him to. Where God had called, God would also equip. For that reason Taylor relied fully upon God, refusing to plead for money in the ways most missionaries did. He would even refuse to have a collection taken up after he spoke at a church, asking everyone to wait and pray about whether the Lord would have them support his work. He would rather people not give at all than have them give out of emotion.
(TIM CHALLIES)

1) THAT YOU DO JUSTLY: While it’s easy to find corporate greed and political corruption in our culture, the truth is that it’s in us as well. We find it in our tax filing, our time clock punching, and even in the deals we make when we sell a car or a house. Doing what is right is fundamentally important to God. That we act with fairness, integrity, and honesty is at the heart of what it is to follow God. How you deal with your neighbor, your boss, or even a stranger is the heart of how you deal with God. You cannot separate behavior from belief. Belief and behavior are integrally linked.

2) THAT YOU LOVE MERCY: To surround ourselves with compassion, empathy, and steadfast love for each other. It’s interesting that this term stands in the center of the triumvirate of Justice and Walking with God. Mercy tempers our justice and it flows from our walk with God. Justice without mercy is barbaric – yet mercy without justice leads to destruction. God calls on His people to love kindness or mercy. We are to be a people who love people with God’s own heart. The heart that has been touched by the love of God is seen to exhibit and flow with the compassion, forgiveness, and love of God for others.

3) THAT YOU WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD: To walk humbly with God means…
• MATCH HIS COURSE – walking in the same direction as Him. To walk with God we have to know what direction He is going and match our course to His. We have to acknowledge who is in control of setting the course for our lives. You cannot go your own way, do your own thing, and be your own person and expect God to bless it. The blessing is in walking with God not asking Him to walk with you.
• MATCH HIS PACE – we are called to walk with God – to accompany Him – not to run ahead or lag behind. Running ahead always leads us down wrong paths. Lagging behind we loose sight of the one we are following and often get lost. If you walk with the One who knows the path you will never get lost.
• MATCH HIS PURPOSE – become His disciple: We are not coequals with God. We are the creation – He is the creator. We are the disciples – He is the Teacher. We are the servants – He is the master. We are the children – He is the Father. Understand the relationship. Too often we act with God like rebellious teens act with their parents – struggling for control – struggling to be number one – God’s requirement is that we walk humbly with Him – acknowledging His sovereignty, His leadership and His Lordship. The wonder is that He has invited us into that relationship.

God’s requirements for us are simple …
Live right – with integrity and justice
Love right – with compassion and mercy and steadfastness
Walk with Him – live as disciples of the Most High God                (DAN CALE)

To whom did Christ give the Great Commission? Jesus gave the Great Commission not only to His eleven disciples, but to every one who has believed in Him through the centuries. Therefore, every Christian should be vitally and continually involved in helping to fulfill the Great Commission as a way of life through the investment of their lives, their talents and their treasure.

Shortly after Jesus gave the Great Commission, God the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, transformed and empowered the lives of the same disciples who, during His trial and crucifixion, had denied our Lord and for the most part had deserted Him. Following Pentecost, they went out boldly and courageously, willing to risk their lives to proclaim the message of God’s love and forgiveness in Christ. In fact, all of the disciples died as martyrs preaching the gospel, except for John who died in exile on the Isle of Patmos after he survived being burned in a vat of oil for his faith.

Somehow we have gotten the idea that the early Christians were different from us – that they possessed a quality of life to which we cannot attain. But it is a fact of history that the people to whom Jesus gave His Great Commission were common, ordinary, working people plagued with the same weaknesses that we have. The only difference between most of them and the majority of us is that two outstanding things had happened to them.

First, they had complete confidence in a resurrected Lord triumphant over death, one who lived within them and was coming again to reign on the earth.

Second, they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Today, if enough Christians were completely committed to our resurrected and returning Lord and were controlled and empowered by His Spirit, we would turn our world upside down and experience a mighty spiritual revolution like that in the first century.
(DR BILL BRIGHT)

God’s word comes to Jonah telling him to “go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me.”   This is a tall order  for any man,  but
one we would expect for a prophet of God.  And we would expect, like any other prophet, for him to go.  But Jonah does something unexpected and fascinating.  He runs!  He actually tries to run away “from the presence of the Lord.”  This is a man who knew God.  He knew God’s character.  He knew God’s word and he certainly would have known Psalm 139 which says, “Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence?”  Everyone knows you can’t run from God.  Yet Jonah runs.  Why?  The bottom line is that Jonah runs from God for selfish reasons.

Are you running from God?  Maybe a better question is, are you trying to run from God?  Are you like Jonah, knowing the things of God but ignoring them because of selfish reasons?  Jonah couldn’t see the foolishness of his actions, and neither do we.  So often we think there is a better way.   A happier way.  A  way
that leads to real peace, hope, love, and joy.  But running from God never takes us where we want to go.  Jonah thought he could take a ship, even pay the fare for a ship, to get away from God.  He never got to where he was going, and neither will we.  Donald Barnhouse wrote, “It is always that way.  When you run away from the Lord you never get to where you are going, and you always pay your own fare.  On the other hand, when you go the Lord’s way you always get to where you are going, and He pays the fare.”

God’s way is always the best way.  Even when the world around you is screaming for you to go another way, don’t believe them.  Jesus, who is the true and greater Jonah, told us that He is the way, the truth and the life.  Trust in Him, His ways, His plans, His truth, and He will carry you to where you are going.  And He will pay the fare!                                       (ADAM GREENFIELD)

Our Christian life is a race of hard work and we cannot stop just because we feel weary!  We are to run with endurance and aim to FINISH STRONG.
We all realise that long distance runners work hard to build endurance and strength. And to run the race set before us, we must also strip off the excess weight that slows us down and run with endurance and with the strength that the Holy Spirit can give us.

To live effectively, we must turn our eyes on to Jesus. We will stumble if we look away from Jesus.  Stop staring at ourselves or the circumstances surrounding us.  Let’s run for Christ and not for ourselves.  We must always keep Him in our sight daily.

When we face hardship and discouragement, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture of what God has for us. It’s hard to remember that suffering is the training ground for us to mature.  It develops our patience and makes our final victory sweet.

We may even have to press on through persecution. Don’t be surprised when people misunderstand, criticize and hurt us because of what we believe and how we live. DO NOT GIVE UP! Work hard at finishing strong.
Continue to live as we should, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Always remember that God is the only One we need to please – An Audience of One!

The Bible urges us to focus on Christ to prevent weariness and discouragement in our daily living. Learn to pay more attention to Him than to our struggles. He is always with us, supporting us when we stumble, and encouraging us with His example (1 Peter 2: 21 – 24). Keeping our eyes on the Author and Finisher of our faith will help us stay close to the source of our strength and remain faithful to the finish.

Don’t grow weary and don’t give up until we have crossed the finishing line, finishing strong. Throw ourselves forward earnestly in an attempt to do all we can do for God while we have the time.

Are we tempted to think that we have already put in our time and that our race is over? If we are still breathing, we are still in the race, so go for it. Determine today to finish strong. We might just accomplish more for God than ever dreamed possible.
Focus on the finish line,
Run to win and
Refuse to give up.
God will make a difference through us.

So let us head together to the finishing line expecting to FINISH STRONG!

Churches are really unique places aren’t they? There are very few other places where you will find people from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, stages of life coming etc together regularly. I personally think the more varied a church is the more it is a wonderful picture of God’s grace and design.

However, the diversity within churches does bring a unique challenge. Jesus prayed to His Father: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22-23).

Reflecting on this is pretty humbling. Jesus is basically saying that the way in which we model unity speaks to the world the truth of the Gospel. And how do we become unified? Through showing love and care to one another, choosing to lay down any petty squabbles in order to see the best in one another.

I realise that it is unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to enter into a deep relationship of love and care with every member of their church, as it would take more hours than there are in a week. However I do believe each one of us is called to care for others. How that works out practically in a church is down to each individual one.

Our church puts an emphasis on small groups and ‘doing life together’ in those. That doesn’t negate the other relationships we have across the church with those that are probably more like us, but our small groups are made up of a cross-section of people. I think that’s one of their strengths as it teaches us to love and care for those that perhaps we aren’t naturally drawn to in a social setting.

If we are not caring for our own community within church well, not only are we hindering the way in which Jesus said the world would recognise Him, but we have little hope of being able to show genuine care to those in our local communities. And what about when our neighbours come into our church? If they don’t see us caring for one another there won’t be much to attract them to stay.

                                                             (CLAIRE MUSTERS)

God specializes in finding and changing people we consider out of reach. It took a while for Nicodemus to come out of the dark, but God was patient with this “undercover” believer.

Afraid of being discovered, Nicodemus made an appointment to see Jesus at night. Daylight conversations between Pharisees and Jesus tended to be antagonistic, but Nicodemus really wanted to learn. He probably got a lot more than he expected – a challenge to a new life! We know very little about Nicodemus, but we know that he left that evening’s encounter a changed man. He came away with a whole new understanding of both God and himself.

Nicodemus next appears as part of the Jewish council. As the group discussed ways to eliminate Jesus, Nicodemus raised the question of justice. Although his objection was overruled, he had spoken up. He had begun to change.

Our last picture of Nicodemus shows him joining Joseph of Arimathea in asking for Jesus’ body in order to provide for its burial. Realizing what he was risking, Nicodemus was making a bold move. He was continuing to grow.

Lessons from Nicodemus’ Life

Unless we are born again, we can never be part of the kingdom of God.

God is able to change those we might consider unreachable.

God is patient, but persistent.

If we are available, God can use us.

God looks for steady growth, not instant perfection. How well does your present level of spiritual growth match up with how long you have known Jesus?                                                           (SOURCE UNKNOWN)