Monday, March 31 - II Timothy 4:6-8

Sometimes it's great to read a passage of Scripture in several different translations just to get the idea of what it's saying.  Today is one of those days for me.  I love the way this verse sounds in "The Message" (btw - it's easy to read the bible in different translations.  Just go to www.biblegateway.com and you'll find all the translations you want and more.)

Here's what I love about this verse in the message: 

1. "This is the only race worth running..."  Wow!  That puts it all in perspective for me.  It reminds me that there might be so many other things out there that seem worthy of my best effort - sports, grades, jobs, relationships, clothes, cars, stuff, etc... but when it's all said and done and my whole life is reviewed in the presence of God only ONE thing will really matter - How well did I do at running the race that God created for me to run?  

A question for today: Am I running God's race or my own?  Is God getting my absolute best or the leftovers?  

2. "I've run hard right to the finish, believed all the way.  All that's left now is the shouting - God's applause!"  

Ok, that right there... I'm real excited about that day.  To think that the God of the universe would actually applaud me is not just a little overwhelming, but very overwhelming.  It's important to understand the reason for His applause.  It's comes with running our race "hard right to the finish".  If I take my walk with God seriously and run my race with Him and for Him with all that I've got then I'm guaranteed to one day have the most amazing and humbling experience of all time.  The God of the universe will applaud me and the same is true for you when you choose to run your race with everything you've got.  

Questions to ask yourself: Am I giving God my absolute best?  Does he get the best part of my heart and mind?  Am I just giving Him a couple minutes of attention each day or am I really focusing on giving Him all that I have and the best that I have?  

I'm feeling challenged.  How about you?  

Have a great day!!! 

PE

Saturday, March 29 - Hebrews 12:1

Good morning Real Lifer's.  This verse goes down as one of my top ten favorites in bible verses.  I've read it literally hundreds of time, I've preached on it and meditated (that just means to think about something) on it for many, many hours over the course of my life.  

Why the love for this verse?  Here's a couple thoughts...

1. It again has the imagery of my spiritual life being a race that I run.  I connect with that being that I love sports and have played them all my life.  There's just something about me realizing that my spiritual journey is like a giant marathon that I'm running.  It's my connection with the runner moving forward that I like.  I'm challenged to consider how I can move forward, even if only a little bit, every day in my relationship with God.  

Are you moving forward in your walk with God?  How?  Do you have every day goals or weekly goals that you're trying to accomplish?  

A marathon runner sets both big goals and small goals.  A big goal is the obvious goal of completing the race in a specified amount of time.  The small goals have to do with the pace they are running, their training routines, their mile-markers along the way, etc...  

2. In the NIV version (New International Version) it says that there is a "great cloud of witnesses" that are cheering us on.  I love this!!  If you read it in other translations you'll discover what this means.  It means that there are people sitting in the stands cheering you on in your spiritual race.  I love that!  Someone is cheering for me.  Someone is looking down from heaven cheering me on, saying, "You can do it, you can make it, don't give up, don't ever up!!"  

Imagine that you're in a huge stadium with hundreds of thousands of people there in the stands. You're running around the track for the final laps and the entire stadium is cheering you on. That's the image that God wants in your mind.  It's like all of heaven is looking down and cheering us on.  It's a whole lot easier to do the right thing and stay true to running the race when you have someone cheering you.  

This part of the verse also means that others have already made it.  If they made it, so can you. God is not asking you to do something that no one else has ever done.  

3. The last part of verse takes me back to what Pastor Courtney preached on Wednesday night.  "Throw off the sin that so easily entangles..."  One of the biggest obstacles in our race is sin.  The verse gives the imagery of our sin being like a snare or a rope wrapped around our feet.  We get "entangled" in it.  You can't run a race with your feet all wrapped up in rope.  It kinda makes me think of the game called, "Three-legged race".  You know this one... when you and a friend tie one leg together and try to run.  It can be done, but it's exhausting and you don't move too fast.  The same is true in our spiritual life.  In order to really run the race well we need to avoid all the sin and all the junk as much as possible.  

Here's some questions to ask yourself today: 

1. How am I doing in running my race? 

2. Do I realize that all of heaven is cheering me on? 

3. Do I have friends that are cheering me on right now? 

4. What junk do I have going on in my life that is hindering my race?  

Have a great day!!!  :)

PE

Friday, March 28 - I Corinthians 9:24-27

Hey Friends... we're back.  It's been crazy getting caught up after Youth Convention.  Thanks for hanging in there with us.  

Here's some random thoughts on today's passage.  

The writer in this passage is a guy named Paul or the Apostle Paul.  He's one of the greatest writers of all time.  His challenge to us is simple.  Don't run your race with God like a loser, run it like a winner.  What's that mean? 

Have you played a game or been in some kind of contest when you knew from the start that you were going to lose.  I mean, you knew, without a doubt, that you were going to lose, no question about it.  If you've had that experience then you know that gut feeling that exist in those moments.  It's that feeling that says something like, "Oh well, I don't really care anyways... no big deal... it's not that important..." 

Sad to say, but during my years of playing college basketball I had many games when we played teams that were so far above us in divisions that we just went out, took our beating and went home.  I remember playing at one tournament where the crowd laughed at us during warm ups, the opposing team didn't warm up, they just walked out to play and at half-time the starters for the opposing team showered and dressed back in their street clothes for the second half.  Now that's confidence.  They had absolutely no doubt in their minds that they were going to win their contest with us.  BTW - they won by over 50... ouch!  

The same should be true of us in our spiritual journey with God.  We should have absolutely no doubt that we are going to win in our relationship with God and we should "play" or in this case "run our race" in a such way that we prove our confidence, first in God and second in our desire to win.  

How do I put it into practice: 

- Have a confident winning attitude. 

- Don't ever give up, ever, ever, ever!!!!

- Don't run without purpose.  (that's what it means when the verse says to not run aimlessly or beat the air)  Think about it this way - My purpose is to grow a little closer and a little more dependent on God each day.  

Ask yourself this question: 

Am I running my race with God with everything that I've got?  

BTW - my senior year in college we played for our regional championship against a team that we hadn't beat in over 4 years.  For the first time I really believed that we could beat that team and I played the game of my life.  In the end we lost the game, but I personally won - I walked off the court knowing that I had given absolutely everything I could to win that game.  Several players from the opposing team came up to me after the game and said they had never played against anyone that had played as hard as I had.  That's a win in God's eyes and from eternity's perspective - that's all that matters.  

Wednesday, March 19 - Roman 8:1-14

Hey,

This is Pastor Courtney... It's after midnight which means we leave for Fine Arts in less than 12 hours, and I haven't even begun to pack! Food for thought from my student handbook in high school: "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday." :)

Anyway, just like you, I'm trying to remember that even when things are super busy and chaotic in my life, I need to make time for God... So I'm here, sharing my thoughts with you!

As promised, this chapter offers hope from yesterday's chapter (where Paul was so stressed out by the cycle of wanting the right thing but doing the wrong thing). When I read the Bible, I want to know what exactly I can do to change my life. Paul talks about freedom in Christ, but what does that mean for me? What do I have to DO?

If you're asking the same question, I think verse 5 is key... It says that people who are stuck doing the wrong things have their mind set on the wrong things. So if you're messing up, it probably has something to do with what you're putting in your mind and what you're thinking about. A really great verse to remember is 2 Corinthians 10:5, which tells us that we can and should "take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ" - which simply means that we should get control of our thoughts, every single one. For example , if you're struggling with anger issues, are you letting your reasons for being angry replay over and over in your mind like a broken record? If you're struggling with staying sexually pure, what are you putting in your mind (through television, magazines, movies, internet, music), and what are you thinking about? If you're struggling to forgive someone, do you constantly think about the things they did to hurt you?

A few years ago, I struggled with an eating disorder that had completely taken control of my life. I said I wanted to get better, and I tried to some extent. After months of struggling, I didn't understand why I still hadn't changed. Part of the reason I didn't change, is because I was letting my thoughts run rampant in my mind. I would sit down to a meal and my mind would automatically start calculating the calories. I would lay down to bed at night, and my mind would automatically review everything I had eaten that day. As long as I was letting those thoughts go free, I was essentially a slave to them. It was not until I took control of those thoughts that I finally started to make progress.

You can CHOOSE what you think about. You can CHOOSE what you fill your mind with (through music, movies, etc.). If you choose to think about the same junk, it will continue to have control of your life. I will tell you from experience, it's really hard to just clear your mind of wrong thoughts. You have to replace them with the right thoughts. How do you know what the right thoughts are? First, if you spend time reading God's Word, you have a better understanding of right and wrong, and you also have positive challenging stuff to think about. Secondly, surrender your thoughts and decisions to God- meaning, ask yourself some tough questions... What consumes my thoughts? Are my thoughts dragging me down? What am I putting in my mind? How would God want me to think or act in this situation?

The great news is that God promises if we give our lives and our thoughts and our decisions to him, we'll find true freedom and satisfaction.

Love you guys,

Pastor Courtney

Tuesday, March 18- Romans 7:15-25

Hi there! It's Pastor Courtney. Can you do me a favor? If you're reading this, can you give us a little shout out by leaving a comment, so we know this is helping someone. Seriously, a simple hello would be wonderful :) Thanks!

Now, for my late night thoughts...

OK, so there's a good chance you read this verse and thought, "What???" The writer, Paul, sounds totally confused and messed up...because he is... We all are. Check out this passage in the Message version at www.biblegateway.com.

We know what's right, and we try to do it, but we don't. We know what's wrong, and we try not to do it, but we do.

Can you relate to that at all? If so, let me put your mind at ease... you're normal. We all have a spiritual side that wants to live for God. The other side of us, called our "sin nature," only wants to live for our own personal pleasure. Here's the problem: temporary pleasure that comes from shallow things IS NOT the same as a sense of true satisfaction that comes when you're living for God... The temporary pleasure is empty and doesn't last, so you have to go look for more, and more, and more, and more... and before you know it, you're hooked. It's controlling you.

Maybe it's your desire for popularity, and you find temporary pleasure in being popular... but it takes work to stay popular, and before you know it, that desire is controlling you. You're making your decisions and basing your feelings on that desire. Maybe it's your desire to feel loved, and you look for satisfaction in a relationship with a guy/girl... but when that relationship doesn't work out, you move on to the next one and the next one. And you're so hooked on being in a relationship, that you don't know how to be single. It controls you.

But all the while, you're not totally bad. There's honestly a part of you that knows what is right and WANTS to do it. You've even TRIED to do it... really hard. So why is it that you just can't seem to win? Is there really any hope?

The last couple of verses tell us, without a doubt, YES. Because of Jesus Christ, we have hope. We need to get to a point where we say, "I can't do it on my own, because when I try I fail. I need to live a life surrendered to God, meaning all my decisions are surrendered to God, and trust that he won't fail me or steer me wrong."

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is a struggle with forgiving someone who really, really hurt me. I knew I needed to forgive this person, and I kinda-sort tried, for years! I really think I gave it the best shot I humanly could. But as much as I wanted to forgive them and even thought I forgave them, I let bitterness build up inside me. Unforgiveness leads to bitterness which is a poison that will eat away at you and affect all of your other relationships. Now, unforgiveness doesn't exactly sound like a typical pleasure that people get hooked on, but it totally is! There's something, in a "sin nature way" that makes it feel good to hold onto a grudge and not let go! The more time passes, the tighter you hold on. I got to a point where I said, "I don't get it. I know I need to let go of this, and yet there's a part of me that doesn't want to. What's wrong with me?" The problem is that I was trying to do it all on my own. I wasn't totally letting go of the hurt and totally surrendering it to God.

Tomorrow's reading will talk about how we break free from this cycle of wanting to do the right things but actually doing the wrong things. For today, think about this:

1. What is an area of your life where you know what's right and want to do it, but you still find yourself messing up?
2. When you've tried to do the right thing, what did that attempt look like?

Love you guys,

Pastor Courtney

Monday - Romans 6:12-18

Ok... so this is one of those passages that you have to read and read again and again if you're really going to understand it.  You might even have to read it in another translation or two to make some sense of it.  I read it in the NIV and Message translations.  It's not hard to do that just in case you're wondering.  Just go to www.biblegateway.com  You can read it in dozens of translations there.  

So here's the jist.  It's pretty simple once you get your head around it.  It really comes down to once basic question: 

- Who is in charge of my life or who is my master?  (who's calling the shots)

Paul, the writer of this book makes it clear that God wants to be in control of every detail of our life.  That might ring of someone we might call a "control freak", but it's really quite simple.  Think of it this way...

In the day and age in which Paul was writing it was common for people to become a slave, to willingly become someone's slave or servant.  Their pay was room and board (a place to sleep or food).  In return they would do whatever work was required.  Paul, in this passage, makes it pretty clear that when we choose to serve Christ, be a Christ-follower, a legit Christian, we are actually choosing to make the same commitment to Christ that a slave would make to their master.  Wow!  That's the kind of commitment that Christ demands from us.  It's this all-encompassing, all-consuming commitment to live for God no matter what.  

Why would anyone do that?  Well, it's not hard to understand if you remember all that Jesus has done for you on the cross and all that He continues to do.  It actually makes perfect sense to give your whole self to the one who gave His whole self to you.  This path has short-term challenges that lead to long-term happiness in the form of our stay in heaven one day.  Pretty cool.  

In contrast to being a slave to Christ, we can choose to be a slave to ourselves.  What does that mean?  Simply that we are slaves to whatever pleases us at any given time.  Of course, that can have its advantages at times, but it ultimately leads to one becoming a slave to sin, which in the end leads to death.  This path has short-term benefits with long-term consequences that are not cool.  

So again, ask yourself one simple question in response to this passage.  (or a couple)

- Who is in charge of your life?  

- Who is in charge of every, single, little detail?  

- Are you literally a slave to Christ?

- What do I have to do today to become a fully devoted follower of Christ?   

Put it into practice today.  Love you guys.  

PE

Sunday, March 16 - Romans 5:20-6:11

Hey guys,

This is Pastor Courtney. I don't have video for you today, and I apologize. I do have 2 somewhat unacceptable excuses:

1. I haven't updated the video recording program on my computer.
2. I'm not wearing any makeup :)

So the Bible is filled with chapters that manage to be really hopeful and yet challenging all at the same time... chapters that say here's the good news, but at the same time, here's something you really need to work on... That's what this portion of scripture does. Let's start off with the good news:

In Romans 5:20-21, we read that where sin increases, so does God's grace. This means that even if you've messed up badly, God doesn't look at you as someone who is too far gone and impossibly lost . He sees an opportunity to show-off (in a very good way:) He sees a chance to demonstrate just how powerful his grace and forgiveness really is. Think of it like this... if you are one of the best baseball teams in the league, and you play a team that has lost every game so far, it's not all that impressive if you beat them. However, if you go up against the undefeated champions and you win, now you've given people something to talk about... God loves impossible situations and impossible people. When God steps in and does something miraculous, something no human could possibly do, he gets all the credit (aka the "glory"). That's what happens when God loves the unloveable and forgives the unforgiveable. You're not too far gone. Neither is your friend.

Now for the challenge:

Have you ever heard someone say that they will enjoy life now, and maybe find God when they're on their deathbed? Have you ever done something and thought- I'm going to have to pray for forgiveness for this later? That's what Paul is talking about in this section. He's basically saying to the Christian, "You figure God is going to forgive you, so you think it's alright to do whatever you feel like doing and just apologize later? - Wrong!" He then goes on to sort of question their faith by asking, "If God has really changed you and made you a new person, why are even thinking about doing the same old junk? Are you really changed?!" It reminds me of the super nice teacher at school who lets everyone get away with everything. Everyone says how great she is and how much they love her... But if you are using a person and taking advantage of their kindness, do you really love and respect them? Love doesn't take advantage of another person.

Ask yourself:
Do you really love God or do you use God?
If God has really changed you and made you a new person, why are you even thinking about doing the same junk. ARE YOU REALLY CHANGED?
What needs to happen for you to completely get rid of your "old self"?
What good things have happened in your life that God deserves "credit" for?

Galatians 5:16-26 - March 15, 2008

Great passage today. Some questions to ask yourself:

- What kind of fruit am I producing in my life?
- Am I happy with it?

FW: Devotions at Starbucks - James 1:22-25

Today I’m coming from our local Starbucks, where Alisha Barbitta works.  Shout out to her because she gave me a free Hot Chocolate this morning.  I couldn’t do a video post.... too much weird music in the background and I’m honestly not too excited about people giving me strange looks while I’m talking into my computer.  

Anyways... James 1:22-25 – here’s my thoughts, questions and challenges.

I love the illustration of the mirror – how many times have you forgotten what you looked like.  Chances are, not many.  I think the idea here that often times when it comes to God’s Word that we are literally so forgetful that we forget that we’re Christians as we go throughout our day.  Ouch!!  I think that’s true of all of us.  Ask yourself:

“Do I actually forget that I’m a Christian as I go throughout the day”.  

I was thinking that sometimes when I look in the mirror that I want to forget what I look like because I either don’t like what I’m seeing or because it’s easier to just imagine what I think I look like or what I really want to look like, than to actually allow the truth of the mirror to show me what I really look like.  

Same is true of our spiritual life, it’s so easy to simply choose to forget what our spirituality looks like and then fool ourselves into believing how “good” or “ok” we are.  The Word of God becomes like the mirror of our spirituality that we can compare ourselves to for an accurate and completely honest look at what our spiritual lives look like.  

I guess that’s why it’s at times its real scary to read the Word and try to apply it.  It shows us all or junk.  When I look in the mirror it doesn’t lie to me.  I see my crooked nose, receding hairline, zits, dry skin, gray hair and large biceps.  (I guess some mirrors still show us what we want to see.  Ha.)

When I look at the Word it doesn’t lie to me either, I see my attitudes, negative and critical opinions, lack of compassion for others and on and on the list could go.  

One more thought from late in the passage.  James 1:25 that if you look into the law it gives perfect freedom.  This is so different than how we think about laws.  We normally view laws as things that restrict freedom.  Our thought process here is that our life would be better without rules and laws.  But in complete contrast to our normal way of thinking James says that being under the perfect law of God actually gives us perfect freedom.  I think what James is saying here is that when we use the perfect law as a mirror for our soul that find complete honesty and truth which actually gives us the freedom to be our true selves and serve God in complete authenticity.  Talk about being in bondage and under law – try living your life as a fake all the time.  That’s real bondage.  

Today questions to think about:

Do I actually forget that I’m a Christian and just act however I want?
Am I looking into the mirror of God’s Word to reveal to me what needs to change?
Am I really living in the freedom of being myself in God’s sight or am I faking it and fooling myself into thinking that I’m fine?  

Psalm 139 - Thursday, March 13 Bible Reading

This is such a great chapter.  One that you should read often, especially if you struggle in insecurities about who you are or how you look.  

What's the challenge:  Take the last 2 verses and make them a prayer for the day.  

this is YOUR spot to...

1. Find out what's going on at Real Life.... Here's some stuff we want to hear from you: Are you going? What are you looking forward to? Do you have any ideas?

2. Follow along with the daily scripture verses. For those of you who want to go a little deeper, we'll be sharing our thoughts on them EACH DAY right here. Here's what we want to know: What did this verse make you think about or challenge you to do? Did you find anything confusing? How will you apply this verse to your day or a specific situation?

3. Get to know us. We're not boring. We're not perfect. And we have a life outside of church. Shocking, right? :)
_________________________________________________

BUT, and this is important, we don't want to be the only ones doing the talking. So comment away!

We'll do our best to post everyday, so check back daily. You can also subscribe so that each new post is sent to your email.

Love you guys!

Pastor Courtney