Romans 12:1-2, 8:29

When we watch television we hear different types of advertising, and we hear a lot of slogans. After a while when we hear the slogan, we instantly think of the thing being advertised.

When we hear “It’s the real thing”, many of us think about Coca-Cola.
“Just do it”? We think about Nike.
“It keeps going and going”? We think about the little pink bunny running on Energizer batteries.

It is something how the words stick within our minds. I probably didn’t have to say the name of the product - those things automatically come to mind.

But, Don’t get squeezed. 

The  Apostle tells us “I beseech you… present your bodies a living sacrifice … unto God”. That is powerful within itself; presenting your body to God.
And then there’s the word “conformed”.  It’s just like taking on the image of something or becoming similar in its form.  In other words it’s just like when Mama used to knead those biscuits. She would squeeze that dough and when she turned it loose, you could see the shape of her hand or fingers.  When little kids play with Playdoh, they form shapes depending on how they squeeze it. At Denny Chimes we see the “imprint” of athletes - they put their feet and hands in the cement, and the cement is conformed to the shape of their hands and feet.
But the Bible says to us “be not conformed”. Our minds need to be renewed, but not conformed.  Our minds are not to conform to the ways of the world; we should not take on the mold or the shape of the world.  Instead, we are to be transformed.  He’s talking about taking on the image of the Lord.
In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke Jesus experienced a transformation. He took Peter, James, and John up on the mountain and he was “transfigured”. It was a change in the outward appearance of Jesus.  For us, our mindset needs to change.
Every day, many things are being thrown at us, especially through television, through the media, through music, and many ways.  As our young people listen to a lot of today’s music the messages in that music infiltrate their minds. They start taking on the image that they hear through the music.
The same can be true of the Word of God.  Even for an average person who doesn’t know Jesus as  Lord and Savior the Word of God can change them.
Imagine if he were to start listening to the bible, bible tapes, or bible teaching.  No matter who he is, even if he is the most hardened criminal; if there was a way to pipe this into their cell everyday where he is just hearing it hearing it hearing it every day it would change his mindset.
It will change YOU.  It will change your mindset.  And if our minds have been changed by the word of God we take on the image of God.

The Duck Story
It’s just like I heard this little story about this duck.
There was a wild duck he was flying with the other ducks and they were flying south.
As they flew over a farm he looked down and saw some tame ducks. He made friends with those ducks on that farm. He began to eat with them.  There was plenty of food and plenty of water.
He decided to stay with them a day or two, which turned into a month and more.   When winter was almost there he saw some other ducks flying south.
He felt that urge within his chest to fly south - to take off.  But since he had been hanging out with those other ducks he had put on weight and his wings had gotten weak.  He tried to take off but he couldn’t get up high. So he came back down because he had gotten heavy and his wings had gotten weak. He said to himself maybe I’ll catch them next time. He stayed on and kept on eating.
Soon winter was almost there and he saw another group of wild ducks.  He felt that urge within his breast to take off.  He tried to take off but he soon realized he couldn’t. He said maybe I’ll stay on for the winter and when summer comes I’ll catch them and go back north.  Summer came and the other ducks were going back north, but by then he didn’t feel that urge any more. The urge had left him and he didn’t even try.

We can get so caught up with the things of this world that it will shape us and mold us into what the world wants us to be.  We might see other saints going up higher and higher, but we’ve gotten caught up in the things of this world.
Our minds have been so infiltrated we can’t even catch up with the saints because we’ve gotten so caught up in the things of this world.
Don’t get squeezed - don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. Within this world that’s what has happened among Christians.  Same sex marriage, abortion, and all kinds of things are now being embraced.  What happened? The world begins to shape and mold our thinking.
Even Hollywood begins to dictate to people (sometimes even to God’s people) how we should live. On television you’re not going to find a show like “The Waltons”, and you’re not going to find a “Happy Days” anymore.  Now, everybody on television is sleeping around, going with somebody’s husband or somebody’s wife.  People allow the world or Hollywood to dictate to us what we think. We shouldn’t allow that. We should be dictating to Hollywood. We should not allow Hollywood or anything or anybody to dictate to us - to squeeze us into what they want us to be.

Don’t get squeezed by the mold of the world.  Instead, be made over by God in the image of his Son, Jesus Christ.
​~J.T.

​Exodus 14:13-25
Matthew 14:16-21
Acts 3:1-7
Let’s look at the analogy of receiving $84,600 in a bank account every day.  Imagine that every morning you would have access to that amount in your account. Now if you don’t spend it all by the end of the day it goes dead – whatever you didn’t spend is gone, forever.
For a lot of us, if we had access to that kind of money we would buy all kinds of things. 
Now convert that to 84,600 seconds a day. It represents the number of seconds in a day, which is what God gives us.  Every day, each morning, God gives us the gift of time. What we do with it is left up to us. It is left up to us if we use it for God’s glory or just to benefit ourselves.
Every day we are given an opportunity to use those seconds and we decide how.

Moses has thousands of people with him that Pharaoh allowed him to bring up out of Egypt, but now they are at the Red Sea. They have the Red Sea in front of them and there is Pharaoh’s army behind them. Now Moses’ people they were not fighters; they were not warriors.  The people down there had been enslaved - they had had no type of military training.
God speaks to Moses, and tells Moses to take his rod and stretch it out over the Red Sea. God is telling Moses you may not have a rocket launcher, you may not have a tank, and you may not have a military platoon, but use what you got. You have a rod in your hand.
Verse 21  ” .... the Lord opened up a path through the water with a strong east wind.”
We read that Moses stretched out his rod over the Red Sea as God had told him to do. God then allowed an east wind to blow all night and the Red Sea began to part. It blew until it dried the ground. So the Israelites were able to cross the Red Sea. God did some awesome things with what he had.

We know that there are several instances where God used people to do some things, to do some things with what they had.
God used a shepherd boy (David), a stone, and a sling to slay a giant.
God even gave Samson tremendous strength to take a jawbone and slay thousands of Philistines.
Jesus himself took five loaves of bread and two fish and fed five thousand, not counting women and children. He took water in the water pots and turned it into wine.
 
My point is even Jesus himself used what he had. From Moses and Aaron’s rod to David and the sling and Samson used the jawbone of an ass. There are so many things that God has used. He has a purpose and a plan for us. He wants to use us, and we must be willing to use what we have.
We might not have all of the things that so many other people have, but we all have talents, we all have the ability to do things, and we all have time.

God gives us time, those 86,400 seconds in the run of a day. The bottom line is this: what are we going to do with it?

A Story
This preacher went to this farmer and asked him some questions.
He asked, If you had $200 would you give the Lord $100? The farmer replied, Yes, I’ll give the Lord a hundred dollars.
If you have two cows would you give Him one?  Yeah, I’ll give Him one.
Two pigs, would you give Him one?
The farmer said, That’s not fair! You know I have two pigs -  and you want me to give the Lord my pig!
As long as he knew that he didn’t have those things he would say, Yeah I’ll give it to the Lord - the answer was yes. But when he came to something that he really did have, he said that wasn’t fair.

Whatever we have, we need to use it for the glory of God. The Lord has blessed all of us with gifts, abilities, ....... and time.

​Use what you got.
~J.T.

Exodus 3
Moses met God, but Moses was afraid. God told Moses to go back to Egypt, to tell Pharaoh to set the people of Israel free. Moses knew what he had done down in Egypt, he had killed a man.  He also knew that Pharaoh was a powerful man.  
Moses says unto God “Who am I?” Pharaoh won’t release them to me. My name means nothing. Maybe he would go back down there, but Pharaoh was KING, and it wouldn’t go well. I can imagine Moses says uh-uh, “No, thank you”, but God gave him assurance as we see in the 12th verse.
The bible says God will never leave us or forsake us.  If God tells you to go, He’s going to be with you. If He commissions you to go somewhere or to tell somebody something, regardless as to who it may be, even if it’s the president of these United States, He will be with you.  If God tells me “Johnny I need you to go to Washington - I need you to go tell the President something, I’m going.  And the thing about it is, God is so awesome that the CIA, those guys would not be able to stop me. Why? Because God is with me.  If He sends me, if He gives me a task like that, God is going to make provision for me.
Moses is taking on this task. I can imagine in my mind that as God has given Moses this task to go back down there in Egypt to deliver his people out of Egypt…..
And I can imagine Moses was shaking in his boots. If you study it Moses had a speech impediment, he stuttered a little bit.  So Moses made some more excuses. But God, He gives him somebody to go with him.  He will send somebody with Moses. 
If God gave one of us a task to do such as that - maybe go to take that message to the president - if I needed it He would equip me with a brother or sister that would go with me.  He would send someone that would be able to help speak for me.
He did the same thing for Moses – when Moses met God.
There are so many people that have met God but didn’t know it was God.  The bible tells us to be careful how we treat strangers for “some have entertained angels unawares”.  God himself will put people in our path if we need it.  We have probably all had an encounter with an angel and didn’t know it.
I know I have.
I was in Montgomery Alabama back in 1995 at a men’s conference down there.  During a break we went to look at a bunch of things that the speakers were selling – books, tapes, and other things. We had speakers like Myles Monroe, Whitley Phipps, and Coach Bill McCartney.  We were walking down this hall and there was this guy - he was tall, about 6’3” or 6’4”, tanned, sandy, curly like hair. He stopped me and began to talk to me and share some things with me that I know nobody knew but me and God.
I asked him “How long you been here?” He laughed and said “I just got here”. What’s your name, man? He said, “Michael”. After we finished talking we went on back – I didn’t think much of it. Now there wasn’t any more than maybe a 100 people there and this guy had on a tan looking suit, but I looked for that guy the whole time, the whole evening.  He should have stood out, but I didn’t see him anymore- he was gone.
After that conference, I continued to want to go to a Promise Keepers conference.  I first heard about it in 1990, it was in Boulder Colorado. Coach Bill McCartney was heading this Promise Keepers movement.  Finally, I got a chance to go. Now this is 1995. I wanted to go in 1991, ‘92, ‘93, ‘94 but 1995 came and they had the conference in Atlanta, Georgia so me and some brothers went.
During a time of worship, there was a guy sitting almost right in front of me.  This little guy stood up, looked back, and said “You know what; you’ve waited a long time for this, haven’t you?” It blew me away! How did he know I waited basically 5 years to go to one of those conferences? He laughed and turned around. This little guy was the spitting image of the guy I saw in Montgomery!
Sometimes God will put people in our path; we have to be careful because sometimes He does just that.
Prayer
God, we thank you for these men. We thank you for your word. We thank you for our experience with you. I pray God that those men who have not met you - I pray that they will meet you.
Lord at the intersection of life I know that we will all have to make a choice. We will all have to make a decision. I pray that these men that have not yet made a decision, that they will make a decision for you.
I pray that you will use me in whatever capacity to help them find their way. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
~J. T.

Exodus 3

Think about when we meet people – we might walk up, introduce ourselves, and begin to talk to each other……
But it was different when Moses met God.

Moses was a Hebrew raised in Pharaoh’s palace. One day he saw an Egyptian whipping a Hebrew.  They got into a scuffle - he killed the guy and secretly buried him.
He fled Egypt and went into Moab.  He was there 40 years before God even spoke to Moses. Moses was taking care of his father-in-law’s herd on the back side of the desert when he saw something that was unusual – a bush that was burning but it didn’t burn up (it was not consumed).
Moses “turned aside” to get a good look at this thing and when he turned aside God spoke to Moses. Now in the Old Testament God appeared to men in various ways. He appeared to men as we see each other now, but also in other forms. He appeared to Moses in this bush.
God told Moses, “Wait, don’t get too close”. He told him to take off his shoes because the ground he was standing on is holy ground. Moses began to reach down and take off his sandals and shoes because the presence of God was there.  The ground where this bush was was sanctified. When we go in the presence of God we must remember God is a Holy God.  So we have to try and make sure that things are in order.
Moses takes off his shoes and God tells Moses “I am the God of your fathers”, identifying himself with not only Abraham but with Isaac and Jacob.
I can imagine that was an assurance to Moses that Hey, this is God. Moses, recognizing that this is God, falls on his face because he is afraid. He is scared.  I can imagine that if God appeared to me, even in human form, I would have probably been the same way.  Yep, that’s God.  Boom, I’d probably fall on my face.
No one can look at God in His person. That’s why God appears in various forms.  If we were to look at God in His person it would kill us.  We cannot stand to look upon God with our human eye.
After God called Moses He commissioned Moses to go back down into Egypt.  He says to Moses now you’re at a point where I can send you back down there.  You’ve become humble; you’ve changed since you’ve been here in this desert.
Sometimes God will allow us to be in a situation so we can become what we need to be, to bring us where He wants us to be. God got Moses where He needed him to be, 40 years later.  It was as if He was saying “Now you are ready. Now, I want you to go down to Pharaoh’s house. I want you to go down there and deliver my people (talking about the children of Israel).”

A powerful change happened, when Moses met God.
Have you met God?

God is looking to change YOU – to grow you, to mature you.  He has a plan for you and He wants to take you from where you are to where you need to be. 

​Maybe you’ve seen some things - maybe He’s been trying to get your attention.

Go ahead – take some time and turn aside; take a good look at this great sight, this great God. He is waiting to meet you there.
​~J.T.

Luke 14:16-23
​John 1:11-12
When someone tells you supper is ready, you think about going to eat. The meal is ready, so now I can eat. You might say, "Thank God for the cook! And thank you Lord for this delicious food that I'm about to receive."
​
​Here in this passage from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is painting a picture of God’s abundance and his provision for those that are willing to come.  Everything is on this table, the table is set.  All things are now ready. You all come.

Then, something strange happens.  Those who are invited to this abundance, to this great feast, begin to make excuses.

The first man said I have bought a piece of land; he bought a piece of ground. He had bought a piece of property, now he’s going to go see it. How many of us buy a piece of land without even seeing it? Yet that was his excuse. He was basically lying.

The second man said I have bought five yokes of oxen.  I need to go and check them out, make sure they are healthy, no defect. I need to go have them approved. We see that he has already bought them, but now he needs to go and make sure they are not sickly. Something doesn’t sound right.

This third man, He has gotten married.  But a good man has prepared this great meal. Just think, the third man could maybe even look at the meal as his marriage reception. He could say to his wife, come on honey let’s go. But he says no - I just got married so I can’t come.

All three had an excuse.

After the ones that the Lord has chosen didn’t come, he told the servant to go out into the highways and hedges, go out into the streets -  get those that are blind and that are maimed.  Get all those that have been rejected and bid them to come.

After they came, the servant said, Lord, there is still room. Yes, there is still room.

God sent a Savior and when he sent his Savior to man, he sent him to his chosen people first. But they rejected him, they made excuses.  They said we don’t want to come in, we’ll just continue to hang out here.
He came to his own first, the Jewish people.  They refused him. They were invited, but they rejected the invitation.

Sometimes we make excuses. Sometimes we can hear the Lord knocking on our door, but we make excuses.
That’s why in the latter part of the gospel Jesus commissioned the disciples, saying “Go ye therefore….” He was talking about people like us.  He was reaching out to the Gentile people, people like us.

I can look back over my own life. I ain’t always been there and there were times that I made excuses.

I remember one time - at that time I was partying - I had one suit, blue pinstriped. I had it cleaned and I said I’m going to go to church on Sunday.  That’s what I would say on Friday. I would say I’m going to church.  But on Saturday night, I would find myself at “The 61”, at the club.  I would look up at the clock, 11:00. Then I’d say well, I’ll just go next Sunday. 

That happened a couple of times. Then one Sunday morning about two weeks later I was laying in the bed, sun was shining bright, it was the springtime of the year.  I can remember just laying around and it came to me about going to church; I was just laying there contemplating going to church.  The Spirit of the Lord spoke to me.  I wasn’t even walking with the Lord as I’m walking now but the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said: “You want to go to church.  You’re able to go to church. Why not get up and go?”  Two statements, one question. All those things were true, but I had been making excuses for weeks about going to church.  But this time, I got up and went to church.

To tell you the truth I didn’t just quit doing what I was doing right away.  But I obeyed the Spirit of God. I stopped making excuses.  I accepted the invitation.

We have to keep in mind, God knows your heart. Regardless as to what anyone thinks or says about you, God is the only one that knows the heart of every man, and no one can change a man’s heart but God.

​You are invited.  He has prepared a Way for you.  Don’t make excuses, accept his invitation. Say yes to God.
~J.T.

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