When Monotony is a Good Thing

Many of us wrestle with the idea of an unfaltering, abiding love. We understand a “just” God, a “holy” God, and we even get a “wrathful” God, but when it comes to a God of furious, even passionate love, we squirm in our chairs a little bit. Can anyone really love EVERYONE that much, when we have such a hard time loving the people “we love the most” that much? We’re not so sure about anything that “steadfast” of “consistent” because we hardly have anything to compare it to in this world.

Transform

Grace. It’s such an unassuming word. Just one syllable long. Yet, this small word carries with it an entire world of possibility. This tiny word contains a whole action-set that changed the world in an instant, centuries ago, and continues to change the world now one person at a time.

We have nothing if we do not have Grace. We are a truly ragamuffins, poor-stricken and directionless, if we don’t have God’s grace to clothe us and His mercy to guide us.

In our ministry, I have seen men and women changed…

God’s Disclosure

Unlike the disclosures found at the bottom of many business sites, God’s disclosure is all-inclusive and all-encompassing. He doesn’t speak legalese, rather he speaks love. At the time, his contemporaries were like my lawyers… there was a law and He needed to abide by it. Yet, here was a man who claimed to not just know and understand God, but actually be God. He was throwing out everything people had believed God deemed important and announcing the old era was done and a new day was dawning.

Written on ALL Hearts

Have you ever watched the movie Amadeus? It’s primarily about Mozart’s rise to fame as a remarkable composer of his time. It’s also about Antonio Salieri, a contemporary composer of Mozart, who wondered how God could promote and give talent to such a morally depraved man. Haven’t we all wondered this at one time or another? Why do some of the most unchristian people, produce some of the richest or most culturally advanced creations? Why can we see God in the most ungodly places and people?

The DNA of Selfishness

When I was a slave to my ambition alone, I felt a gulf between myself and others and a widening chasm between myself and God. It wasn’t until I admitted that my talents, the opened doors of opportunity, and my growth were not from me but from God, that I could relinquish the responsibility and begin looking for ways to use these gifts as a way to serve others. My work could be a conduit to God, and not just to me alone. 

Grace is a $100 Bill

It may seem strange for me to equate grace with money. You may find it a little bit blasphemous, but let me tell you a story of something that happened to me over 10 years ago…

The Great Recession had just swept through the United States and very few people were untouched by its insatiable and greedy presence. My own real estate and hard money businesses had been eaten alive and after letting go over 80 percent of my workforce, closing down the office, and moving everything to the basement of a house I could no longer afford, it was difficult to see God’s grace.

Jaclyn and I had three small children, all under the age of three, our accounts had been wiped out, all my properties, which had been leveraged to the hilt, were in foreclosure, and the loans I had made to other investors were in default. I had painted myself into a corner and felt the room closing in on me.

It was then that God urged…

Transformed

In my twenties, I was cocky salesman who traveled from port-to-port. I was good at what I did and believed the world owed me some pretty hefty favors. Then one day in walked a blond who somehow changed my life forever. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but the joke was on me. This blond was the beginning of my own transformation.

How?

It wasn’t her faith… but her lack of faith that suddenly brought God back to mind. I saw first hand what the belief in ‘graceless god’ can do to someone and subsequently how the uncovering of the true Grace of God can absolutely free someone.

The blond is now my wife, Jaclyn. Through her, I got to witness the journey from point A to point Z. I watched as a woman wracked by fear and distrust unraveled the mystery of God’s grace and her transformation eventually became mine. I watched as she finally accepted Christ and how that leap of trust and newfound courage of faith changed every aspect of her. How she talked, how she walked, even how she thought. Grace is truly a game-changer.

He’s Onto Us

The other day I was talking to my VP of Marketing who made a prayer request for a friend of hers who is struggling right now. You see, her friend’s daughter, who at the tender age of thirteen, underwent some pretty heinous experiences at the hands of men she trusted. She mentioned that her friend […]

His Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear. And Grace, my fears relieved. How precious did that Grace appear The hour I first believed. — John Newton I have […]

Have you RSVP’d?

The other day I was watching our daughter play with her brothers. My beautiful little girl has hit an age where we’re all deftly aware of how fleeting her moods are. One moment she’s giggling and full of light and love and the next she’s full of tears, a dark mood suddenly befalling our house! […]