10 Blessings From Doing Things God’s Way

April 16, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

10Solomon opens the third chapter of Proverbs with these words, “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart.” Then he goes on to list the blessings that come from doing things God’s ways. Here they are—

  1. A prosperous, long life (v. 2)
  2. You will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man (v. 4)
  3. Straight paths (v. 6)
  4. Health to your body (v. 8)
  5. Overflowing success for your work (v. 10)
  6. God’s discipline—yes, His discipline is a blessing (v. 12)
  7. God takes you into His confidence (v. 32)
  8. God blesses your home (v. 33)
  9. He gives you grace (v. 34)
  10. He gives you honor (v. 35)

With a list of blessings like that, why would I ever want to try to do things my way?!

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Such Confidence!

February 12, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Such Confidence“May God give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” (Psalm 20:4)

How confident David is! How bold! And yet through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, David says exactly what Our Lord taught—

If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you. (John 15:7)

I tell you the truth, My Father will give you whatever you ask in My name. (John 16:23)

This assurance to ask largely of our loving Heavenly Father looks to His provision alone. It believes and it asks. It knows that God can answer—“now I know” (Psalm 20:6)—and that He does answer—“You have granted all the desires of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips” (Psalm 21:2).

Oh, for faith to believe You and ask You for more!

How would your prayers change if you had the confident assurance of David?

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Blessed Insurance

January 6, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

ImmersedI’ve been bailed out by an insurance company many times. Homeowner’s insurance for the damage caused by a falling tree, medical insurance for surgery, auto insurance for car wrecks.

But here’s the thing about insurance: It’s only helpful after you’ve had a problem.

  • Workman’s comp is good after you’ve been injured
  • Auto insurance is good after you’ve smashed your car
  • Health insurance is good after you’re sick
  • Life insurance is good after you’re dead

Sadly, many people treat God like an insurance policy. They try to handle their lives themselves, and then after they’re beat-up, tossed around, and kicked to the curb they pray that God’s insurance will bail them out. It’s like they’ve changed the words of the old hymn to, “Blessed insurance, Jesus is mine!”

God desires for us to have a blessed assurance! He wants us to know His love and involvement in our lives every single day. Look at the assurance in these verses—

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him. (1 John 5:13-15)

If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

The Bible isn’t just a book to be read, it’s a book to be prayed. Get His Word in you, and stay immersed in His Word, and watch how your prayers change. You don’t have to wait for prayer to be your insurance policy, but you can live every day in a blessed assurance that God is for you.

Read the Bible, pray the Bible, and watch God do amazing things!

I will be continuing our series on prayer—If You Will Ask—this Sunday at 10:30am. Please join me!

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If You Will Ask

December 31, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

If [web]Prayer is powerful. Ask anyone who has ever had answer from God in prayer, and they will quickly tell you just how valuable and powerful that prayer was to them.

With that in mind here’s a simple question: why don’t we pray more? It seems like prayer is often the thing we turn to when everything else we have tried has failed. Or we pray after we have messed something up, instead of before we attempted it.

The Bible says this—

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (1 John 5:14, emphasis added)

Notice that key qualifier: IF we will ask there is an incredible confidence in God’s answer. 

Prayer should be first and continual. That’s why l like beginning each year with a renewed emphasis on prayer. This Sunday is part one in our series If You Will Ask, where we will be exploring the mind-blowing things God gives to His children who ask Him … things like insight, patience, power and initiative.

Please join me at 10:30am this Sunday as we begin our reinvigorating look at the power of prayer.

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Thursdays With Oswald—Our Broken Treasures

November 7, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Oswald Chambers

Our Broken Treasures 

     It is a revelation of pure joyousness in which the child of God pours into the Father’s bosom the cares which give pain and anxiety that He may solve the difficulties. Too often we imagine that God lives in a place where He only repairs our broken treasures, but Jesus reveals that it is quite otherwise; He discerns all our difficulties and solves them before us. 

     We are not beggars on the one hand or spiritual customers on the other; we are God’s children, and we just stay before Him with our broken treasures or our pain and watch Him mend or heal in such a way that we understand Him better. 

From Christian Disciplines 

I think we sometimes forget the infinite capacity of our Heavenly Father. He is All-Loving: no one has ever—or can ever—love more completely and deeply than He does. He is also All-Powerful: there isn’t anything that limits His potency. What an amazing combination! If God were only loving but not powerful, we couldn’t be sure He was able to answer our prayer. If God were only powerful but not loving, we wouldn’t be comfortable about bringing our concerns to Him.

But He is Both! And as such, we should have such rock-solid confidence that He not only can answer prayer, but that He wants to answer prayer. He answers, as Oswald Chambers says, in ways that reveal more of His nature to us, so that we can understand Him better and better through each answered prayer.

“Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

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Thursdays With Oswald—Confident Access

October 17, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Oswald Chambers

Confident Access

     It is not our earnestness that brings us into touch with God, nor our devotedness, nor our times of prayer, but our Lord Jesus Christ’s vitalizing death; and our times of prayer are evidences of reaction on the reality of Redemption, so we have confidence and boldness of access into the holiest. 

     What an unspeakable joy it is to know that we each have the right of approach to God in confidence, that the place of the Ark is our place, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness.” What an awe and what a wonder of privilege, “to enter into the holiest,” in the perfectness of the Atonement, “by the blood of Jesus.” 

From Christian Disciplines

It’s not what I do that gives me access to God, but what Jesus already did! He paid the price that was beyond my reach so that I can now come directly into God’s presence in full confidence that He will receive me.

Amazing love!

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Hope All Day Long

October 16, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Psalm 25-5

Show me Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long. (Psalm 25:4-5)

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Absolutely Amazing

November 28, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

I know I’ve read this verse before, but today it just seemed to leap off the page…

Both the One who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Hebrews 2:11)

Did you catch that word BOTH? This places me in the same category as God Himself!

I am the one made holy because Jesus died in my place. Jesus paid the price for the forgiveness of my sins, and for the righteousness of God to be given to me!

Then notice it doesn’t say we are being made holy, but made holy. It is finished.

Now Jesus is pleased to call us His brothers and sisters!

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!

When I read something like this, an important question comes to mind: How should I now live?

Confidently—because I am accepted into God’s family.

Humbly—because I didn’t pay the price, but Jesus paid it on my behalf.

Thankfully—because there is no greater gift I could ever receive.

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Confidence Is Inspiring

February 9, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Leaders see the destination long before everyone else does. They see it, they describe it in vivid detail to the rest of the group, and then they help get the whole group to that “promised land.” Consider these visionary leaders…

  • Moses—God showed him a picture of the promised land, and then Moses explained to the Israelites how to get there and stay there.
  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—“I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
  • Mike McCarthy—“Wait a minute,” you may be thinking, “Do you mean the coach of the Green Bay Packers?!”

Yes, I mean that Mike McCarthy: The head coach of the Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers.

Most teams win the Super Bowl, celebrate it during the off-season as they get measured for their rings, and then have a ceremony at the beginning of the next season to hand out the Super Bowl rings. But not the Packers.

Check this out: Mike McCarthy had the Packer players get their rings sized BEFORE the game!

“I talked to our football team a lot about having real confidence, and those are just examples and opportunities to express that,” said McCarthy. “I felt that the measurement of the rings, the timing of it would be special, it would have a significant effect on our players doing it the night before the game.”

Here’s how some of the players responded:

“So that’s pretty unusual, huh?” linebacker A.J. Hawk asked. “Well, I liked it. It made things real for us.”

“It was the night before the game,” linebacker Desmond Bishop said. “And we could see that it was right there. Everything we wanted was right there in our hands, literally and figuratively.”

“That’s our head coach. He’s been the same way all year,” defensive end Ryan Pickett said. “He said he thought we were going to win it all, so we should have the rings fitted. After the meeting, we just went out (of the meeting room) and they had people there to measure us.”

If you are a leader:

(1) Get a clear vision for where you are taking your team.

(2) Describe it in vivid detail for your team; make it real for them.

(3) Then put the symbol of the “promised land” right in their hands.

What a great leadership lesson!

(Hat tip to my dear friend Greg Heeres for sending this article my way!)

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Lead Like David

September 1, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

I’ve always been fascinated by the leadership of Israel’s second king: David. There are so many leadership lessons to be learned from his life. A few things I’ve noted about his leadership that I am always trying to implement in my life as well.

Respect—David treated everyone (even his enemies) with respect.

Shrewdness—David used his wits exceptionally well. He knew how to shower gifts on the right people, show recognition to those who needed their ego stroked, be gracious to those who were uncertain, and even flex his muscles with show-offs who got out of line.

Prayer—David was a man of prayer. He prayed for direction, he asked God for strategies, he prayed for deliverance. He prayed for everything.

Confident humility—I know it sounds like an oxymoron (how can someone be both confident and humble?), but David really got this. Check out this commentary:

And David became more and more powerful, because the Lord God Almighty was with him. … And David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.

Man of the people—David didn’t closet himself away; he lived and led in full sight of everyone.

All the people took note and were pleased; indeed, everything the king did pleased them.

I want to lead like David led!

What about you? Are there other areas of David’s leadership that you admire or want to imitate?

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