Gold Plated Inside

Why when I was a kid, (well that sounded funny, I sound so old.)  "Why when I was a kid..."  gold plated stuff was thought of as very second class, cheap.  Nowadays gold plated is normal, jewelry is gold plated and it's fine, no one cares.  It's kind of like people though.  We worry a lot about how we look on the outside, and less about the inside. The out looks gold, but the inside is a bit like plastic.  But God created you to be gold on the inside.  When you receive Christ the Spirit of God comes and lives in you and cleanses you.  Jesus is cleaning us on the inside, changing us, growing us, maturing us.  He shines and refines us on the inside.  According to Malachi “He is like a refiners fire or a launders soap.”  God realizes something we need to remember, the inside, that's what counts.  So maybe your teeth look a bit funny, or your short like me.  Hey, people can grow, and teeth can be fixed, what's important to remember is that you are golden, beautiful on the inside.  But don't just take it from me.  Ask God, He loves you, He made you.  Don’t be gold plated, be 24 karat rock solid Christian.

Whatever You Do

So what do you do?  and if you're young, what do you want to be?  Whatever that is, you should spend more time doing that, practicing that, learning that, then say, watching TV or playing vids.  What do I mean?  Let's say you want to be a musician.  Well then you must practice.  You must practice a lot.  Let's say you watch 2 hours of TV or play 2 hours of video games every day.  OK, take that time and put it into what you want to be.  If you want to be the greatest TV watcher of all time, then watch a bunch of TV.  But most people don’t want to be known as world class TV watchers.   Colossians 3:23 says "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart."  God is teaching us here to learn how to be skillfully great amazing outstanding and crazy good at something.  Give whatever you are doing all of you.  Study, work, learn, and while everyone else is playing the next great video game, you are preparing yourself for a life of fulfilled dreams and success. And then after that, you can watch some TV.  It’s like eating your veggies before you have a rice crispie.  Mmmm.

I Need a Word

In Hosea 1:1 it says "The word of the Lord came to Hosea...."  Well that is big.  If the word of the Lord came to you, well, things were about to change.  The word would be so many things to people.  It would tell them what to do, or what they should be doing.  It would tell them what was going to happen.  Don't you wish it would happen to you.  Boy I wish the word of the Lord would come to me.  Oh wait, it has.  The word of God is sitting somewhere close to you right now.  Well go get it.  What do you need?  It will tell you, who you are, what you can do, what you should do, who God is, what He has done, what He is going to do, and how you can win.  It will reveal power, wisdom, truth, knowledge, and how everything was created to work.  Yeah, it's all in there.  It will recharge you, restore you, renew you, and resound within you.  (Oh there was an ole rezound reference. Ha.)  It's full of songs, poems, sayings, stories and teachings all designed by the Holy Spirit to give you life and life more abundantly.  And you thought google was cool.  The bible.  Go get it.

Vote for You

If you watch any TV at all you notice everyone is always telling you what you like.  "Here, try our Jukee soda, you'll love it."  Really? How do you know?  Maybe I don’t even like soda.  Well it's an election year, and whether it's soda or candidates, everyone is going to tell you who to vote for and why.  First, we all need to vote, of course, it's part of our influence God has given us.  But who to vote for?  Now this may take some work.  You need to remember that TV is telling you who they want you to like, and it's not always truth.  You will need to do some research.  Find out for yourself about each candidate, specifically what they have done.  Pray and ask God for wisdom.  Jesus told us we would know them by their fruit. So look at what they have done, not what they say they will do.  And Don't be tempted to vote for whoever everyone else is voting for, Instead vote for the person you researched who has the best fruit, the person you feel the most confident in, and that is a vote for you.  Or vote for me.  Jason Anderson.  Just think about it, I can keep all of my speeches and debate answers to exactly one minute, so we all save time.

Hot Cup of Joe-Hovah

EEEAAAA EEAAAA EEAAAA, the alarm clock that is waking you up before you were ready.  So what gets you going?  Shower right?  Immersed in hot water.  Or a cup of Joe lights your fire.  Then the day swings in at you like an erupting volcano of stuff you gotta get done filled with hot molten not enough time lava.  Okay, shower and coffee both feed the body, but what get's your soul going.  The heart of you will need more renewing than your body if you want to win today.  So what if you stole just a few minutes of sleep from your body and fed your heart.  Remember as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.  Or as a woman thinketh in her heart.  So how about starting off your day by immersing yourself in the hot water of the word of God.  A good ole fashioned bible shower, a devotional bath, lathered up with some sweet smelling prayers.  Or making yourself a hot cup of God in the morning, with cream and sugar.  You want to get fired up for a successful day, put God first, and no matter what erupts in your day, you'll be cleaned inside and out, charged up, energized, and ready.

Give Me a Sign

In Judges 6:17, When an angel comes and visits Gideon to tell him that he will lead the Israelites to freedom, Gideon says "give me a sign that it is really you talking to me."  Later he puts out a fleece two mornings in a row, asking for another sign.  Have you ever wanted a sign from God on what to do?  Have you ever been staring tragedy in the face and cried out God where are you, just give me a sign.   Jesus described his sign as the story of Jonah who was in the belly of fish for 3 days, and that he also would be buried in the earth for 3 days, but then rise again.  Jesus described his sign which is now today the most popular and recognizable sign in the world.  You want a sign, He gave you one, it's the cross.  What does a sign do?  A sign tells you what to do.  A stop sign tells you to stop.  The cross tells you to have faith, to be healed, to leave your poverty behind, to believe, to forgive, to sacrifice, that the price has been paid, that you can win, the cross tells you to love.  Do you need a sign?  Here's your sign.

Woe unto..wait what?

In Isaiah 6 the prophet Isaiah is thrust into heaven and sees the throne room and God and he's all "Woe unto me, I'm ruined!  For I am in a man of unclean lips.."  So then an angel goes and touches his lips with some coal and says "Now you're clean".  So what does God want to do when we feel unclean?  Well, he wants change what you say, “you’re clean.”  We might be tempted to act like Isaiah here, and every time we get around God's presence, like when we go to church, we feel so unworthy.  We might be tempted to follow Isaiah's footsteps.  "Woe unto me"  But here's the difference.  When you received what Jesus did for you on the cross, well, you are made clean.  You are not unworthy, you are not unclean. God has made you worthy.  It's like looking at the house someone just cleaned and saying, wow, this place is a mess. So you just insulted whoever just cleaned it.  God has paid an enormous price to clean your house, so stop saying your so unworthy, and just be happy your with God.  When you decide to act all unworthy like Isaiah you are forgetting the cross, for Isaiah Christ hadn’t died yet, but for you, well He has.