Walking Dead begins October 7th at Real Life

The walking dead refers to those who appear to be alive but aren’t.  You meet a lot of walking dead every day.  At the grocery store, your school, in the next cubicle at work.  People who appear to be alive but are really just walking dead.  The Bible says that everyone who rejects Jesus as Lord is bound for death, but that in order to truly live we must die to ourselves.  Without Jesus we are dead in our sin – walking, but dead.  With Jesus we must die to self so that we can truly live in Him – dead, but walking.
Join us at Real Life throughout October as we travel a path few have, the Walking Dead.

There will be a special Top Secret surprise this Sunday and then October 7th we'll have a photo booth set up where we'll be taking your picture and then will "zombify" it and post it on Facebook with you tagged.  Then you can grab your pic and put it as your profile picture for the month to help us leverage social media to get the word out about Walking Dead!

The Making of an Extraordinary Day

Facebook can be depressing.

I see so many people nearly overcome with worry, relationship issues, baggage, not being able to let go of their past, haunted by memories, strangled by addictions, tangled in sin.  It's no wonder their posts are depressing and negative.  I remember being told, "show me your checkbook register and calendar and I'll tell you what's important in your life."  Today, all we have to do is look at someone's wall. 

But it doesn't have to be this way.  

Your day can be extraordinary.

Don't you want to wake up excited about the day?  Don't you long to look forward to your future?  Aren't you tired of feeling stuck?

Open your eyes, it's an extraordinary day.

There is something that happens when we get stuck by our past and frustrated with our future.  We stop looking around.  I have this problem.  When I walk or run I often find myself looking straight down at my feet.  Where I am going to step next.  Like I am so worried about falling or stepping on something that I keep my focus six inches in front of my toes.  That's a depressing place.  I start focusing on the gray pavement.  On every... single... step... and monotony begins to set in.  Soon, all I want to do is stop.  But when I look up, to where I'm heading, I get happy.  I'm filled with awe and wonder at the beauty of the trees, the stars (I run at night) and everything God has created.

Some people, maybe you, are so worried about falling again, getting hurt or getting even that they spend all their time looking at life six inches at a time.  What is my very next move?  where will my very next step be?  They get so focused on what's immediately in front of them that they can't see all the different directions and options that are open to them.  Nascar drivers are trained to look at where they want to be when they are driving into a wreck on the track, not where they are.  If you are focused on where you are, six inches at a time, you'll end up headed for an emotional wreck.  But if you focus on where you want to be, where you're headed, what's open to you, you will naturally begin to head in a new and positive direction.  2 Thessalonians 2:15 says, "Take a firm stand,feet on the ground and head high."  God knows you'll never get where He wants you to go if you're worried about how you're going to get there.  Look ahead and you'll make the necessary course corrections.

Here's the first few corrections you can make right now.

1. RECOGNIZE WHO YOU ARE:  2 Thessalonians 1:11,12 says, "God makes you fit for what He's called you to be..."  Can you wrap your head around that truth?  You don't have to be perfect!  You don't have to worry about doing everything just right in order to be who you want to be.  It's God who makes you fit for what He's got in store for you.  And it's not about what you are "doing" for Him it's about who you ARE to Him!  He perfects you according to His plan for you!  Who you ARE not what you do.  You are a child of God and He's got a plan for your life that extends through this life and into the next.  But you'll never see it if you're too busy looking at the ground right in front of your feet.  Trust Him to do the work IN you that will enable you to be what He desires you to be.  He makes you fit for His purpose!  Recognize that He's got a plan for you (and here's an exciting secret - this not just true for Christians... God is calling and fitting every person for His plan and pleasure.  So don't think you're disqualified just because you haven't joined Him yet.  You can right now and experience this new, changed life!)  Today you don't have to be perfect.  You don't have to focus on your life right now.  You can relax and trust that God is working in your life to accomplish what He has laid out just for you.  And what He's begun in your life He will be faithful to complete.  Lift up your head and look at all He's doing!
2. PRAY FOR TODAY:  The fact is that you're going to do stuff today.  You're going to meet people and make choices and work and think and plan and have a pity party and worry.  We all go through a ton of emotions and struggles and joys each and every day.  But these don't have to be single events that come and go.  You can redeem your day and see each choice, each conversation, each moment as pregnant with purpose and possibilities.  Paul says, "pray that [God will] fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something" (2 Thessalonians 1:11,12).  Pray each day that every decision you make, every thing you do and thought you think would be guided by the Holy Spirit.  Every action would be done in His strength.  Every conversation would include Him.  The truth is, if God's not in it it's not going to amount to anything anyway.  Your good ideas and acts of faith, without God's presence and energy to complete them are just ideas and acts.  They are here and gone.  They live six inches in front of you and with the next step you're past them already.  But if they are done in God's energy they can have lasting effects that stretch both in front of you to affect your future and behind you to impact your legacy.
3. HONOR JESUS:  Our role in life is to be a walking talking Jesus.  I want my children's behavior to be a representation of who they are, Landreths.  Their actions reflect not only on them, but me, their mother and their grandparents and extended family.  The reality is that people will judge our whole family on their actions and attitudes.  Like it or not, this is how we function.  When was the last time you saw a stuck-up-rich-girl and didn't immediately make a judgement about her family and life? How we live our lives reflects on every other Christian and even on Christ Jesus Himself!  When a Muslim extremist blows something up every other person everywhere makes a judgement not only about that person, but about their nation and their god.  But when we honor Jesus with our lives something incredible happens.  "If your life honors the name of Jesus, he will honor you" 2 Thessalonians 1:11,12).  Your life can actually impact how others see the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  You. Right now.  Are either causing people to think, "I'd like to experience that kind of life..." or "if that is what being a Christian is like I don't want it."  Every status update, every tweet, is either drawing people to Christ or pushing them farther away.  Honor Jesus with your life and He'll honor you.  That's His promise.

Recognize who you are.  Pray for today and Honor Jesus with your life.  You'll begin to experience the makings of an extraordinary day.

The iPhone 5 and Your Walk with Jesus...

I just watched a YouTube video from Apple on the release of their newest iPhone and I was amazed by two things.  How incredible this phone will be and how little it has changed.  No matter how much they use the words, redesigned, started over and completely new, this new phone does not seem to very different from the iPhone 4S.  Now, please understand that if you bought me one I would thank you and then with a complete lack of spiritual maturity show it off to all my friends.  That moment of honesty aside when you look at the pictures of the new phone it looks incredibly similar to it's iPhone predecessors.

What Apple HAS done, instead of coming out with a completely new looking phone, is get really specific and intentional with the little things.

For example, they took the case - which is virtually the same as the 4 and 4S - and made it fit together even better.  They now take pictures of the front and back of the aluminum shell while on the conveyor belt and mechanically mach the other pieces of the case from over 700 precast options.  Their claim is that they are dealing in nano-meters when it comes to how the case fits together.  They have also come up with ways to slim the case down a little, but have made it longer without making it wider (no, your old 4S otterbox will not fit the new phone).  They had to create a new LTE chip as well make several other advances to the hardware to make this all happen.   In addition they created new ways of polishing and finishing the aluminum so that each chamfered edge, each rounded corner is nearly a mirror image of the others.

But it doesn't look much different.  It is a little smaller a little longer but the screen, the apps, the backgrounds the form and function of the phone is nearly the same.

I wonder what would happen in our spiritual lives if we took the Apple approach to our walk with Christ?  Instead of looking for that next big breakthrough or duty or job that God is just waiting to give us, what if we started focusing on the little things.   You could start with the case.  Are their corners to your personality or demeanor that could stand to be smoothed down and chamfered a little?  Would it be a good thing if you focused on making sure that your personality and attitudes were mirrored so that whether you were at home, the grocery store or church you appeared the same to those around you.  You know, not so rough.  Maybe your language could use a polish.

And what about the inside?  Are there areas that you have simply ignored because they seemed to be working?  What if you started getting specific with your spiritual life?  How much time do you spend in prayer/Bible reading each day?  How can you sandwich that stuff in so it becomes a more consistent and vital part of your life?

Maybe instead of looking for that next BIG spiritual step you and I could start looking inside and outside our lives with a focus on the little things that help us be better prepared for the big things.  Here's to a more efficient and integrated spiritual walk for you and for me.

(and I'd like my new iPhone 5 in black)

Walking Dead

Maybe you've heard of the AMC show Walking Dead, maybe not.  I'm a fan.  So if you've been watching you know what I'm going to share, if you're just starting the series on Netflix or something this is a spoiler alert for you.

In the show, at the end of the second season you learn that the "virus" that turns people into zombies does not come from being bitten or scratched and it is not ingested or airborne.  The virus is in every person already.  Now we don't yet know where it came from (perhaps in season 3) but it is present in every person.

That means that even though you are alive right now, you are walking dead.

I read the other day in Philippians 2 this sentence, Jesus, being God, didn't "claim special privileges.  He lived a selfless, obedient life and died a selfless, obedient death..."

Jesus was (and is and always will be) equal with God.  However, He willingly gave up His POSITION as God refusing the special privileges that came with His deity.  Instead of making the rules (like He made the universe and everything in it) He obeyed them.  Instead of being outside and beyond death (as everlasting and eternal) He obeyed it's physical requirements and offered Himself willingly to the most horrific death of His time.

In my prayer journal I wrote these lines.
-Jesus died to self way before He died for my-self on the cross.
-Jesus died to sin way before He died for sin.

Jesus was a walking dead.
From at the least the age of 12 He knew exactly what He had been born to accomplish.  He knew exactly where He was headed and He followed that path with unwavering commitment to the end.  He was born to die.

In you and me is the potential to live like Christ Jesus.  To die to sin means we MUST die to self because in the end sinfulness is selfishness.
Jesus, thank you for setting the example for me, an example I too often fall WAY short of, so that I might know what the life of a walking dead looks like.  The walking dead are completely alive and vibrant and awake to You and Your power, even though they are dead to themselves and to sin.  Help me to live the real life of the walking dead.

Walking Dead message series begins October 7th 2012 at the  El Dorado Civic Center Sunday's at 10am