Touching Heaven, Changing Earth

This last weekend I had the privilege of attending a youth rally with the teens of our church. It was one I had been apart of before, but hadn't been for a few years. This year's theme was "Touching Heaven, Changing Earth". Among the three speakers, one of them described it in a way that I connected with easily.

He described those times when we are on a mountain, figuratively speaking, and we have an awesome experience...aka mountain-top experiences. But, inevitably, we have to come down off of that mountain, sometime.

We talk of heaven being 'up'. So, speaking from a perspective of mountains, we would be getting closer to God if we were up on a mountain. Several people in the Bible, like Moses and Abraham, all had grand experiences on a mountain top. However, they had to come down and be with the people, eventually.

The best part about their experience, was that when they came off of that mountain, they were changing people (aka earth). They had experienced something hardly anyone else had experienced. They were closer to God, literally. Some heard from God or 'saw' Him in some way.

You have had or will have experiences that take you closer to heaven...that is the touching part. However, since you've touched it, use what touched you or moved you, and allow it to help make a difference in others' lives. Help the motivation that you experienced to change something on this 'corrupt' Earth to point someone or several closer to Him.

May your day be filled with a touch of heaven, so that you will be motivated to change earth!

Touched heaven...excited to see how I can change earth!...

Going Green: Altering Yourself to Help Your Environment

"Going Green" has been a hot topic for the last few years. With more and more people becoming aware and concerned with the environment, the craze continues to gain ground. Though I am not an environmentalist, I do get concerned with throwing so much trash away and thinking about the earth and generations to come.

When I was investigating the concept of "going green" I found out something interesting, at its essence. One simple explanation was "altering your activities to help your environment". When you enter a room/environment, we are going to affect that environment. What effect will you have when you enter your workplace, your home, a store/check out line, a restaurant, etc.?

This "Going Green" is not so much the global environment, but more the unseen environment/atmosphere. We looked at five of the seven churches in Revelation, chapters 2 & 3, to get an idea about how a bad environment is not very appealing to God. Here are some applications to choose from this week...

1. Reflect back over the past few hours or days of work. How did your actions pollute or improve the environment?
2. Reflect back over the past few hours or days at home. How did your actions pollute or improve the environment?
3. Be conscious of trying to improve an environment which you enter in to. So, the next time you go shopping, try to improve the environment by helping someone, saying something nice to someone, calling your cashier by name, buying a cashier a candy bar - to say thanks, or some other way that may help the "environment".
4. Pray that God would help you as you aspire to help the various environments that you are in.
5. Self-reflect different areas that you need to clean up your body/mind "environment". Is there negativity toward someone? What do you need to do to "go green" and positively alter that environment?
6. Pray for your church family so that we can have a positive environment for which God to work and that He will be pleased to "digest" our service and worship to Him.
   

Recycling, planting trees, reducing hazardous materials, and many other things will help the earth to not be polluted. It will also save many natural areas and habitats.

With these same concepts, we can "go green" and create an environment that is reduced from pollution and allow our environment to not be "polluted".

Remember the catch phrase from Woodsy the Owl..."Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute!" Click here to recall one of those commercials.

Monday Mentionings: Empty - Earth - Isaiah 45:18

It was a great day getting together! The warm weather made me feel a bit more excited to get out; maybe you felt similar feelings.

Yesterday we started a new series called “Empty”. This series is designed to help us understand the different ways which can be empty. We started the series by looking at the earth and how it was empty, dark, formless, and void. Here are some additional ways to remember and apply the lesson…

1. Support is necessary in just about every area of life. Whether it is physical, emotional, medicinal, etc., support is crucial. God set up the earth by suspending it over nothing. However, the earth still needed support – that being support from the Creator. You need support as a Christian – you must be connected to the Creator, too. If you’re not connected to Him, you will go down quickly! Don’t have a week of empty time without connecting to Him! Take time to connect to your Creator this week by praying to Him – give Him your concerns, complaints, praises, thoughts, evangelistic hopes, ministry goals, etc.

2. What does if feel like to you to be in the dark? The earth was dark in the beginning, but Genesis 1:2 tells us that God was still there. Look for someone this week who might be experiencing life in “darkness”. They could be going through something that day, that week, or just a time in their life that seems without hope. They may not even realize that they are living life in “darkness”, but as you recognize it, take your light to them. Your light might be a compliment, a prayer, a conversation, buying lunch, sending a card/e-mail of encouragement, etc. Regardless of what your “light” is – the main thing is to take it to them!

3. God is Good…All the Time! There is nothing remotely like our God! He is awesome! Take time to appreciate our earth and all that makes our area unique. Even in the bleakness of the winter, we can be appreciative of the area that we live in. Maybe you will want to praise God for this too, but at least take time to appreciate where you live and that it was given to you to live on.

I hope you had a great start to your week!

May you have a “vision” and an intuition for those who are walking in darkness as you go about things this week!

Taking my light ~