Excel Still More

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Jon Rahm had his heart broken. He was winning a major tournament, just one day away from 1.7 million dollars. And then, it all went away, all of the sudden. What happened to him was terrible, unfair, and infuriating. But how would he respond? Would he blame everyone? Would he use it as an excuse to behave poorly? Nope. This d...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Life is busy. Everyone says this and we all mean it! So how do we keep the stress down and make sure everything important gets done? And done well? Maybe we need to evaluate how we order elements of our lives. Maybe if we keep putting small things first, we aren't giving big things the space they need to be successful. L...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Has anyone ever told you that evangelism is important? I would imagine you've heard it 100 times. We preachers talk about how God has called us to spread the Word in all circumstances. We talk about whole churches being active in teaching Jesus to others. And yet, many churches, and many individuals, just haven't go...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! The word "fellowship" has always been a challenge for me. I was raised for a while to believe it meant one thing. And then, later, it seemed I was being told something opposite. Today, from the Scriptures, I see something beautiful. Fellowship is an invisible thing, a spiritual and eternal thing, that shows itself,...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Last year we got a crack in the windshield of our 2018 Honda Odyssey. We had months to fix it, but didn't. This Spring, that little crack became a massive one that ran all the way across the driver's sight line!  At that point, we had no choice. But we also had not options. It had to be replaced and the cost was HUG...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! I want to introduce you to the most marvelous, life changing book!  I cannot recommend it enough. It is called the "Gospel of Luke."  Maybe you have read it before. But have you read it lately. And more importantly, have you read it in search of the heart of Christ? His compassion and love for people, and His charge...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! God has blessed most of us with children to influence and train. Maybe it is your sons and daughters, maybe you've gone on to the parenting heaven of grandkids. Maybe you influence other young family members, kids at church, or in your neighborhood. Do we understand that God is looking to us to share the message of Jesus...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! The disciples could not cast out the demon. Why not? Because their faith was too small. And Jesus told them how to get that faith right where it needed to be:  PRAYER and FASTING!  Do you use these tools from Christ to grow your faith?  For some of us, prayer is just a thing we do. And fasting... well... we don't do that...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Today we wrap up our short series on marriage. We started by looking in the mirror. Then we built a triangle and laid out a plan to grow towards God. Then we strategized a plan to make sure we are always fighting on the same side and never against one another.  And we discussed the beautiful SECRET (my favorite) to get all of...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Welcome back to our three part series on marriage. We started a couple of weeks back with a lot of self evaluation.  It starts with looking in the mirror and asking, "is it me?" Then, we talked  about the life triangle, and how you must head closer to God. If both of you can do that, you will always find each other...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Sommer and I had an amazing two nights in Florida last week!  We saw beaches on both coasts. But the highlight was speaking at the Florida College Spring Banquet. I had the honor of addressing 300+ college students.  I spoke to them about envisioning a better version of themself. In today's episode I'll walk you thr...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Marriage is awesome! At least, that's what God designed it to be. And for nearly all of us, when we first got married, we had awesome expectations. Whatever the state of your home, you can see things get even better by looking at SIX SIMPLE IDEAS. Maybe you aren't yet married, or maybe you are no longer married. I a...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Today we conclude a short series on 3 Questions for ... Everyone, Leaders, and now Achievers. This is derived from a podcast called Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron.  Though he didn't mention God and we have modified the topics and questions to address our spiritual walk. We started with "Believe to Achieve"...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Last week we looked at three questions all people must regularly consider. Did you spend some time on that?  Have you found your core belief?  If you missed that episode, we will have a short recap here.  Today, we push forward to leadership. Many of us are leaders:  of families, at work, over churches, or just in general amo...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! I was on a long drive back to Texas from Missouri this past week. A friend suggested a podcast called Chasing Excellence. It is secular in nature, but taps into the power to do greater things. But that power has to be in me. I must believe in something. Not because others do, nor because they tell me I should. That thing must...

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Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Kids get jealous. It is obvious on their faces, or in their cries. It pops up fast and then is forgotten. Adults get jealous. They are much better at hiding it, but not so good at letting it go. Jealousy, coupled with pride, is a relationship killer. And saddest of all, it prevent us from getting better!  The very person who...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! As people of faith, we know that God hears us when we pray. We know He cares and listens and answers. Sometimes we get a YES. Sometimes a NO. Sometimes a WAIT. But why don't we get more YESES? I mean, we are people of faith and love Him, right?  It can be difficult to accept circumstances when you ask Him and He declines...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! It has been a rough week in Texas and across most of the Country. The record cold and snow and ice and loss of power and water... quite a mess. I mean, it got below zero in East Texas! I was handling it fine, until one particular night. But I am thankful for that night, even with its weight and burden. I needed it. God knew w...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Fear is a factor for most of us. We have anxiety and concern about health and safety and COVID, and the government, and any number of things. To say they don't bother us would be dishonest. The question is, have you given these things the power to control your life? Or is your fear of God so absolute, so dominating, that...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Let's talk Bible today! Specifically, and excitedly, let's talk Leviticus!  Okay, not everyone's favorite book. But we do know it, don't we?  God set aside priests, sons of Aaron, appointed by Him to do 5 special things. Most Israelites were not priests, but they came to them for help. Then Christ came. He...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! "I am discouraged" - Have you said that in the last 12 months? I have. What were you saying it about?  Who were you saying it about? Christians have used a lot of social media time and foyer conversations expressing things that disappoint them. Tensions are high. So, why is that happening in the church? Is there any...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Giving is powerful. Being a giver makes you better and makes other people better. Giving builds strong relationships.  HOWEVER... so does receiving!  In fact, where there is a giver, there must be a receiver. And yet, great givers sometimes find it very hard to receive.  There may be some science behind that. Check out 4 obse...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! We are Laying out FOUR Action Terms to set the tone for 2021: 1) GIVING (getting ready to share) 2) TEACHING (sharing the Gospel) Today we add another:  3) LEARNING.   The only way to get better is to learn better. If we don't have new revelation, information, or perspective, how can we actually live better lives? Sadly,...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Jack Wilkie recently released a book, Church Reset, that I highly encourage you to check out. He discusses the 21st century local church model and how much emphasis we put upon people coming to church to be fed a sermon. It is a good thing, but it is a tool to help real growth, not a sign of maturity. Many immature Christians...