Social Media is a great tool to connect with others. The ability to instantly speak to hundreds, and even thousands, of people is amazing.

But, it does bring with it a warning.

Sometimes you don’t need to say it.

If you’ve been on Social Media long enough you’ve seen the meltdowns, rants, and complaints

• The wife letting her husband (who is not on Facebook) “have it”
• The employee telling his boss off
• The teenager griping about their parents
• The young adult chronicling their emotional breakdown – hour by hour
• The middle school kid talking about another middle school kid

All Social Media does is reveal who you really are – so be careful!

Social Media outlets are not the place to:

• Say something negative about your spouse
• Unload on the deacons
• Tell the church how bad they are
• Vaguely (and poorly) leave a “message” to the member who will “know who they are”

You may be tempted – but don’t do it – You will regret it!! Avoid the temptation to put anything negative out – it is not worth it and it could probably be classified as “unchristian”.
Set your phone/computer/device down and walk away.

Sometimes, the best you can do is just leave your status blank.

According to this article, Mr. Lucas believes the world will end in 2012. He has either bought into the hype or is helping create the hype surrounding the Mayan calendar.

So what do you think? Where does the truth lie? Here is what I believe:

Matthew 24:36 “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. {NLT}

Could the world end in 2012? Not really. I think according to the Bible that some things have to happen before the world “ends”.

Things like: the rapture of the church, the resurrection of the dead in Christ, the tribulation period {7 years}, etc.

Could those things begin in 2012? You bet! They could start today!!

But for now, lets not have another Y2K scare. Yes, the Lord is coming back. Yes, the world is going to be burned up. Yes, some bad things are going to happen. No, no one knows when it will be.

Live for Jesus! Trust Him! Tell others! It’s OK for you to ‘preach’ the world is going to end – everyone who doesn’t know Christ is going to have a terrible ending. We MUST tell / warn them. Just don’t attach a date to it!!

Personal well-being blossoms among U.S. adults who strongly identify with their religion, regularly attend church and have three or more close friends in their congregation, say sociologists Chaeyoon Lim of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Robert Putnam of Harvard University. Members of this devoutly connected group cite especially high levels of life satisfaction regardless of how many or how few friends they have outside their congregation, Lim and Putnam report in the December American Sociological Review.

Wow. Regularly going to church & having Godly friends really does make your life happier!

Here are a two bible verses that said it first:

Psalm 5:11-12  But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy.
  For you bless the godly, O Lord; you surround them with your shield of love.

Psalm 133:1  How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!

So, don’t ignore the evidence – get connected to God through your local church.

Here are 5 quick tips on how to be happy:

1. Know the Lord as your Savior – nothing else matters!

2. Join a vibrant, Bible believing church. You ought to sense the joy of the Lord when you walk into the building. If you feel like you are at a funeral service – visit somewhere else!

3. Join a small group / Sunday school class / life group – or whatever you want to call it. You need to meet & make friends with people who are in the same life situation as you.

4. Go all the time. The study found that it was people who attended regularly that experienced more happiness. You can’t go to church too much!

5. Grow in the Lord – the closer you get to Jesus the more joy & happiness you will find.

Be happy – go to church!!

Think for a moment about some of the odd events that surrounded the birth of Christ:

1. Mary, a virgin, conceived the child of God. Angles appeared to her and spoke to her and she told people about it.

2. A star guided a band of wise men – traveling in all their pomp  - to Jerusalem looking for someone to be king! They told the current king they were being guided by a bright light to his replacement!!

3. Jesus was born in a manger. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords was born in a smelly cave surrounded by sheep and manure. But, in the providence of God, where else would the Lamb of God be born!

4. Shepherds, working the third shift, were visited by a multitude of the heavenly host and told of the event. They probably saw and heard thousands of angels. Shepherds – not royalty – had the birth of Christ announced to them.

5. Joseph had his engaged wife tell him she was expecting – and GOD was the father! They lock people up for saying things like that.

I could go on and on. That’s just the main characters. That’s just enough to make you ponder a little bit this Christmas season.

Don’t just read the Christmas story. Read the story and talk about it. How would you have felt? Reacted?

Then remember, God did all of that so you could have a relationship with Him.  He did it so that your sins could be forgiven – so that you could go to heaven – so that you could be saved.

It’s a great story.

And…… it really was a strange way to save the world.

If you lived life claiming every promise that God had about:

• Family
• Finances
• Fear
• Witnessing
• Church
• Life’s Purpose
• Priorities

…what would your life look like?

The #1 factor that is keeping you or me from doing it is FAITH!! We want to trust God but sometimes just don’t seem to have the faith. FEAR wins out!! And, those are really the only two choices we have when it comes to the promises of God – Fear or Faith!

Are you afraid to trust God? Are we afraid of the outcome? Are you afraid you will mess up your life? The answer to all of those is “Yes”! But, there is a solution. 1 John 4:18 says, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” The key to getting the fear out of our lives and filling it with Faith is the love of God!!

If you want to have faith to claim the promises of God, fall in love with Jesus!

So, why don’t you do it? Why don’t you just pick a promise of God and by faith say to Jesus, “God I’m not sure I understand all of this but I’m going to believe it and act on it!” If you would, you would change your life for the good forever.

Walk with Jesus – Throw out Fear – Take Hold of the promises of God by Faith!!

“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world…” 2 Peter 1:4

What is stopping you from giving your all?

What is stopping you from growing to be the best Christian you can be?

Jesus told us exactly what would keep you from living the Christian life to the fullest . . . and you’ll be shocked to find out.

I’m going to tell you over the next several weeks what’s stopping you from being the Christian that deep down inside you long to be so don’t miss out beginning August 15th!

I’m not talking about your crazy uncle or cousin that everyone is ashamed of at the family reunion. {if you don’t know of a crazy uncle or cousin you’re probably it }I’m talking about how crazy our family and home situations can be at times.

The days of the perfect family seem to be over. Where did ‘Father Knows Best’ and ‘Leave it to Beaver’ families go? Fact is, our family lives don’t resemble that well ordered life anymore.

So what does that mean? Can God still do something with your family? Can God still use your family? Can some “sense” come out of your crazy family?

Believe it or not – He can do great things with your Crazy Family! There are a lot of crazy families in the bible and there is help and hope for yours!

Join us beginning on Mother’s Day and find out how. Invite someone to be with you. Almost all of us know a family that is hurting and needs help. You can really make a difference in their lives by just inviting them to church.

PS. If you click on the picture you can watch a video where I talk about the upcoming series even more.

But, the fact is, Spiritual Warfare happens every day of our life for the ‘regular’ Christian.

How do you fight a spiritual battle?

How do you win a spiritual battle?

Listen to this sermon by Pastor Joel Southerland and get some help on “Winning Spiritual Warfare for the Regular Guy”.

According to Barna, “More than 8 in 10 adults in the U.S. claim they had weekly religious education before age 12. Of those, 69 percent now attend religious programs weekly.”

What does that mean?

Parents that means you cannot overestimate the importance of having your child in church when they are young. Being part of a good children’s program and youth program has  a great impact on their spiritual lives later on.

So, to all of the parents reading – here are some admonitions:

1. Model a consistent Christian life for your child / teen. It is even better if they see Jesus in you!

2. Make Sunday School and Wednesday night youth worship/AWANA’s part of your regular routine without fail. I know your child has homework on Wednesdays but if they need to stay up a few minutes late it won’t harm them for life. Being detached from the youth group might. Make sure they are in Sunday School every Sunday. Don’t be a “hit or miss” family when it comes to Sunday School – your children will pay the price later on!

3. Make Christ the center of your home. Talk about Jesus / church all the time in a positive way. Don’t ever let them hear you complain about something going on at church.

We all want our children to grow up to be good citizens and good Christians. It doesn’t happen by accident!

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The town of Cheviot, Ohio is taking extra security measures this year to protect baby Jesus [you can read about it here http://bit.ly/8jrEQ8 ]. Several years ago someone stole their baby Jesus from the town’s nativity scene several times. So, to combat that this year, they have installed security cameras to watch over baby Jesus. The article goes on to say that a new industry is being formed in order to protect baby Jesus in public nativity scenes. Some companies even put GPS locators in the dolls in case Jesus gets kidnapped. WOW!

And then I thought – I wish Christians protected Jesus as much at Christmas time. It seems that years ago the Lord Jesus was stolen completely away from the Holiday of Christmas as well. We let Him get “swiped” and we haven’t even gone looking for Him.

This Christmas – find Jesus and put Him in His rightful place!

He is the reason for the season!