Our Prayer For You

Please join Michelle Chastain as she prays for those involved in The Life’s Healing Choices Campaign at Stockbridge Community Church.

the housecleaning choice

Guest Blogger:  Michelle Chastain on “Life’s Healing Choices”

Week 4’s choice is that I openly examine and confess my faults to myself, to God, and to someone I trust.  The beatitude behind this choice is Matthew 5:8:  Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.  The truth is that I can not purify my own heart with good behavior.  Only God can give me a pure heart, and this pure heart will bring about good behavior. 

In Sunday’s sermon Pastor Jeff talked about Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life and that the disciples were told to loose the grave clothes.  This is what week 4 is about:  God has saved me (brought me back to life) and I have to examine myself and see what is wrong in my life.  Confessing the wrongs in my life to myself, to God, and to someone I trust (not on billboard outside of the local supermarket) is the removing of the grave clothes – bringing off the things that only the dead wear.  The living do not wear grave clothes!  Just like Lazarus needed help from the disciples to loose his grave clothes, we need help from others – our church family, our small group, and maybe even Celebrate Recovery or Christian counseling. 

I can not change myself; only God can change me.  My job is to surrender to God and allow Him to bring about change in my life that is needed.  As I spend time with God in His word and in prayer and with other believers, the grave clothes begin to come off, layer by layer, as He purifies my heart. 

This week as we make our moral inventories and share with other people, let us pray that God will begin to remove our grave clothes so that we can live in light of His promises.

do we really want to be like jesus?

I finished Bill Robinson’s book called, Incarnate Leadership last night.  One of the things he shared was how we have a tendency to pick and choose how we want to be like Jesus.  This next statement got me, “But mostly we want Jesus to be like us.  It has been said that God created us in his own image; then we returned the favor.”

Ouch!  That one hurt.  I think all of us need to chew on that statement awhile and ask the question, “Do I want Jesus to look like me or do I want to look like him?” 

This statement draws us right back to God’s word when Paul tells us that we are to deny our selves or sacrifice our will by become a living sacrifice for Christ.  We thank God for Christ giving up of his will and obeying the Fathers will that cost him his life. That is what the cross was all about.

Now He asks us to give up our will for his will and receive a better life through Him.

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)   Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

yard sales and tribulation trail

Have you ever had a weekend that was great but left you exhausted?  That would sum up mine.  Rhonda and I cleaned out our basement and closets all day Friday and into the night getting ready for the Financial Peace yard sale on Saturday.  We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies coming into the church parking lot Saturday morning.  We had lots of stuff that was priced from $1 to $5.  When our alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., I prayed that God would help us sell all that stuff because all the money was going toward the pledge Rhonda I made to by bicycles for the kids in Henry county who would not get anything at Christmas if it were not for the people of SCC.

We made $358! Praise God!  It was a miracle.  We came with my Envoy loaded from front to back and floor to ceiling along with a small trailer.   But at the end of the day, we left with two small boxes of stuff which we took it to the Haven’s House thrift store.

After we left there, I was so tired and wanted to go home and crash, but Rhonda reminded me that someone had given her tickets to Tribulation Trail.  I must be honest, I didn’t want to go because I was so tired, but I was so glad I did.  Rhonda, Katelyn and friend, Georgia and I walk through the trail together.  I was very impressed with the program, but more than that, I could sense the passion of every volunteer.  You could tell every person from the parking lot volunteers, to the trail guides, to the people who acted out every scene, to the people that prayed at the end, believed they were making an eternal difference.

I must say I was thrilled by the fact that I saw at lest 10 to 15 people from SCC there volunteering.  As a pastor that said to me that we really are a community church.

The most impactful moment for me was when my daughter and her friend said, “I want to volunteer next year to be apart of Tribulation Trail.”

So, I would like to say to all those who volunteer in our community, “Thank you for making life better for people you will never meet.”

Hebrews 13:20-21 (NIV)   May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

a prayer for you

Join Michelle Chastain this week as she prays for you in SCC’s Week Three of “Life’s Healing Choices.”

10 things

Guest Blogger:  Rhonda Daws

                     “10 Things I Love About My Pastor”

 10. He’s the real thing

 9.  He goes shopping with me and really looks for what I like  

 8.  He is a great father to his children

 7.  He mops my wood floors

 6.  He is always learning and reaching for better things

 5.  His JOKES!

 4.  He’s a great pastor always watching out for his church 

 3.  His cute little head 

 2.  His love for God

 1.  He is the best husband a woman could have. There is no doubt about his love for me!

show some grace

I have continued to ask God to change me through this spiritual growth campaign that we are doing called “Life’s Healing Choices.”  I can tell you God has not come down and given me the writing on the wall, but He has opened my ears that I can hear him talking to me.

For example I am reading this book called Incarnate Leadership, by Bill Robinson.  In this book he talks about how we need to be like Jesus and live a life of grace and truth when it comes to dealing with others in our family, church, and on our jobs.

John 1:17 (NIV)   For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Most show very little grace to people for this one reason… we guess their motive before we give them a chance to tell us their motive or why they did what they did.  Most of us can get so worked up in our mind with anger or hurt feelings because we make up a motive in our mind and let all of our feelings flow from a false assumption.

So here is the deal about grace, stop guessing the motive of other people before you ask them and give them the benefit of the doubt.  Another way to say it is, “show some grace.”

If we will practice this our stress level will go down greatly because we want take everything so personally.  Then, our life again gets better when we change, instead of trying to get others to change.

the commitment choice

Guest Blogger:  Michelle Chastain

This week we learned that the Commitment Choice is choosing to consciously commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.  This choice is not about weakness but rather about meekness.  Meekness is bringing something under control, much like a bit in the mouth of a horse harnesses it’s power. 

When I make the Commitment Choice by accepting God’s Son as my Savior, I choose to accept God’s Word as my standard for living.  The Bible is living and active and, when I read it, it gets inside of me and changes me.  It is truth and will set me free.  The Bible takes pressure off of me to make decisions because it is my manual for life. 

I also choose God’s will over my own.  Following Jesus is a 24 hour a day, 365 days each year commitment.  Each morning I should thank God for the day and ask Him that His will be done, in my life, and that I can be a part in His story rather than trying to make Him a part of my story.  Choosing God’s will is the power of meekness in action. 

The final decision I must make as part of the Commitment Choice is living in the strength that God gives me.  His power in my life makes these other things possible.  The Bible says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). 

The key to the Commitment Choice is that I must humble my heart before God.  Jesus will knock at the door of my heart but He will not break it down.  I have to be willing to allow Jesus to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior.  Only then does God have the opportunity to change me from the inside out.  When I make this choice, God brings the same power that raised Jesus from the dead into my life and begins to heal me from my hurts, habits, and hang ups.

What holds you back?

Last night was a great small group meeting. I really enjoy breaking up into a smaller group with the men. Last night we talked about the things that hold us back like fear, guilt, worry, doubt and pride. The question was asked, “Which one of these do you think you struggle with the most?” My answer was, “It just depends on what is happening that day”. As we are finding out in our Life’s Healing Choice series, the greatest choice is to trust God. When we as humans admit that we are not God and that we need him, it removes pride. At this point we stop trying to control things that are out of our control. It’s only after this point that we can move to the next level of trusting God and that is to believe he has the power to change me and my situation. From there, we move to the next step of giving our will and life to Chris’s care and control. Here’s the bottom line that is being revealed to me… If I want to live without fear, worry, guilt and doubt I have to choose to trust God. The result of trusting God with my life is peace in my mind and heart. Someone said in my group God doesn’t want to take the steering wheel out of our hands he just wants to be the GPS that we follow.

 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

what is God doing in you?

I don’t know what God is doing for you, but he is really working on me and in me.  This spiritual growth campaign (Life’s Healing Choices) has been the best for me personally because I have made it personal.  My prayer has been and continues to be, God change me.

I am asking God to bring the changes, let me see the changes that need to happen in me, and give me the power to step in that direction.  He has been very faithful to do so.  You know what I am learning?  When I humble myself and ask God to change me by letting me see the light of his ways, I have to admit the errors of my ways.  I can tell you this is a much better approach than having to feel the pain of my errors or sins.  Pride is a horrible sin and I had no idea that I had so much in me.

I must admit I have lived my life looking at other people’s lives and their errors and offered correction or help through God’s Word.  But I have spent the last few weeks asking God to reveal my sins that I might confess them that he can heal them.  I have read this verse for years and never really got the depth of it until now. 

James 4:7 (NLT)   So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.

Here is the take away that I have missed for years:   I must humble myself before God first.  In other words I must ask God to examine my heart and life and confess my desire to control and to want to look good in front of other people.  When I do that, the devil is no problem.  The devil’s greatest weapon in my life is filling me with me.