Pursuing Your Vision

Real Life TV Interview

Temptation

Superficial Relationships

Promise & Pain

Deal with your Problems

Temptation

“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” (James 1:13-14 NKJV) Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted of the devil, see Matthew 4 & Luke 4. Jesus had no desires to draw him away into temptation so the Holy Spirit led him to be tempted. Fasting looses the bonds of wickedness, Jesus had none so when he fasted the devil showed up. Where Israel as a nation failed in the wilderness, Jesus their Messiah would not.

When Satan began to speak to Jesus he didn’t introduce himself. Just know when satan speaks to you he won’t introduce himself. Satan questioned Jesus’ identity and spoke to his greatest area of vulnerability. Satan tried to get Jesus to turn stones to bread. The enemy is always trying to get us to prove ourself by preforming for him. The enemy questioned Jesus’ sonship and spoke directly to the felt need of hunger that Jesus was experiencing. The enemy will try to question our identity and speak to our greatest place of vulnerability which is often a felt need. Very often Satan speaks to a felt need in our life, don’t listen to him he is a liar. Remember satan steals from us by lying to us. As believers we must follow Jesus’ example of submitting to God and resisting the devil. When we resist the enemy he will flee from us the same way he did from Jesus. The more we are rooted and grounded in the love of God and the truth of his word the less we will listen to the enemy. The more truth we possess the less temptation is actually tempting. The enemy tried to misuse scripture to make Jesus commit suicide from the church steeple. Suicide is completely satanic. Satan’s agenda is for him to get us to self destruct because he did. Your life has immense value, don’t even consider suicide or self destructive lifestyles. Don’t allow the enemy to misuse the Bible on you. Don’t worship Satan by trying to get what you are after the fast way. Satan wanted Jesus to worship him. In fact satan offered him the keys of the of the kingdom if he would just worship him. Jesus refused. We must refuse. Jesus came for those keys, but he had to die to purchase them. The enemy tries to get us to compromise so that we can get what we want the cheap and fast way. Please remember that there are no shortcuts in the kingdom of God. Jesus taught us to pray, “lead me not into temptation.” That petition to God is about us not desiring things that are destructive for us. My prayer for you is that you would not desire things that are destructive for you.

Adversity

We all experience adversity in this life. Often it is how we respond to it that determines the environment we live in and the direction of our life. Adversity tests how much pressure we can actually take. “If you faint in the day of adversity, Your strength is small.” (Proverbs 24:10 NKJV) The level of our strength is determined by how we handle adversity. Do we handle adversity or does it manhandle us? As followers of Jesus our faith should govern our feelings. Jesus said to his disciples that, “we are going to the other side.” When adverse wind and waves came against the boat the disciples were afraid. Although his disciples were afraid Jesus was not afraid. Let’s make it personal. Just because we experience adversity doesn’t mean we have to be anxious. We must not allow adversity to give us anxiety. Scripture tell us “to be anxious for nothing.” When scripture tells us to do something we are then able to obey scripture through the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Helper. He did not come to help us to do our will. The Holy Spirit is here to help us to do God’s will. The Holy Spirit is in believers to help us to obey God’s word. When we obey God’s word we experience God’s power and provision. When others are anxious we can be peaceful. Peace is not the absence of adversity, peace is what we can release to bring change to the adversity that we may be facing. The gospel teaches us that peace was more powerful than the storm. God’s peace is more powerful than the enemy’s storm. Jesus could speak to the storm that he could sleep in. We can’t speak to a storm that we can’t sleep in it. If we can sleep in it we can speak to it. Jesus rebuked the disciples for having fear of something they had authority over. The issue was they didn’t know they had authority over the storm. When we lose our peace and give in to anxiety or fear we surrender our ability to bring kingdom influence to the adversity that we may be facing. Hold on to your peace, because you will need it especially in times of adversity.

Fit for the kingdom 

“And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” – Luke 9:61-62 NKJV

In a world where Christians slap “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” on t-shirts everywhere, being fit for the Kingdom has nothing to do with our body and everything to do with our mentality. While I do think health is critical and very important that is not what this short blog is about. If you put anyone before the king and anything before his kingdom, you are not fit to work in and for the kingdom. Here a man wanted so say goodbye to his family. This is a perfectly good request. In our world today we could send a text, make a call, send an audio text or even leave a video message. In Jesus’ day that was not possible. Here we see a person who is more concerned with how his family feels than he is with following Jesus. We can’t put other people’s feelings before our faith. Here is the stone cold straight up reality: If we don’t put God first, biblically speaking we are idolaters. If we want God to add to us we must seek the kingdom first. We are fit for the kingdom when we put God first. When we put God first, the only direction we can move is forward. If we are following Jesus there is no time to look back, we must keep running the race looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. If you have enjoyed this blog you can see a short video on being fit for the kingdom by clicking here. If you would like to follow the brand of the shirt that Adam is wearing you can do that on Instagram @dftliving 

Entertained or Engaged ?

Often I have people ask me “are you watching this Netflix series? Or that Netflix series?” My answer is usually “no I don’t have time for a series but I do like a good war or action movie once in a while.” To be clear I did enjoy the HBO series Band of Brothers. So I guess if something strikes my interests enough I would make time to waste on a good series every once in a while. This reoccurring question has caused me to think deeply about these two questions. “Am I entertained or engaged? And are we as a culture entertained or engaged?” The answer is simple. A tree is known by it’s fruit. Entertainment produces entitlement. In that culture everything is driven by numbers, ratings, reviews and ultimately pleasing people. While engagement produces growth, progress, diligence, and faithfulness and then ultimately purpose. We can be people who are engaged in things that matter and hence we use entertainment for what it is supposed to be used for. Think of entertainment like dessert. Dessert is great once in a while. However we should not live on dessert. More often than not diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems and an early death will be the results. So it is with people who live off and for entertainment. We were created to be engaged in things that really matter, because we really matter. Which means we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by entertainment. We must not allow entertainment to keep us from meaningful engagement. The proper engagements lead to long-term commitments that lead to lasting change. We must find out what really matters and give everything to and for that. We should find out what is worth dying for and live only for that. For me it’s Jesus. What is it for you?