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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32)
Are you drinking the Kool-Aid or the living water?
I mean, where are you getting your values? On what foundation are you building your life?
Are you plugged into TV all day? Is your favorite news channel like an IV pumping Kool-Aid into your veins?
Is it soap operas? And you know that show you’re binging on is basically a soap opera, right? That’s why you can’t stop watching.
But all these things impart values and morals. Our books. Our novels. The people filling our news feeds. The click bait.
We keep going back to the same sources and drinking the artificial...but colorful!...Kool-Aid.
Meanwhile, we have an amazing source of living water – the Holy Spirit of God who lives inside every Christian believer. (John 7:38-39)
Living water – it’s a spiritual spring, teeming with life!
It’s the Spirit of God inside of us, flowing within us...but we have to tap into it. We seek God in prayer and praise and Bible study, and we tap into His living water. We draw near to Him, and He draws near to us. (James 4:8)
Then He shows us things, ways to live, attitudes to adopt; and when we do, He establishes our lives on a firm foundation.
In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said that when we hear His teachings and do them, we are building our lives on a solid foundation.
Sometimes people accuse fired up Christians of drinking the Kool-Aid. On the contrary. The world is sucking down the Kool-Aid like a maniacal third grader. And even Christians can fall for the cartoonish colors, shovels of sugar and short-lived satisfaction.
So stop with the Kool-Aid.
Instead, let us run to the living water, clean and refreshing and satisfying!
God bless you, today.
I’m Doug Apple.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Thursday, March 30, 2017
I'm Supposed to Love People...But How?
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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32)
Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to love people...but how?
I think we all know that if we are on our way to Jericho and we come across a beaten man, we’re supposed to load him on our donkey and take him to the inn, right? Like the good Samaritan.
But life is full of people and their drama, full of neighbors and friends and strangers and people we like and people we don’t like so now what?
We’re supposed to love them...but how?
First let me note that love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5:22) So the more we let the living water of the Holy Spirit flow in our lives, the more we will love people, automatically.
And the more we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit by our own sin and selfishness and disobedience and laziness, the less we will love people...automatically.
But I’m getting to a prayer we can pray, and this has really set my heart on fire.
Philippians 1:9 says, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.”
So that’s my prayer. “God, please give me that depth of insight into how to love people, each and every one of them.”
I’m a father of four adult children, all married. I need to love them in different ways than when they were 5, 7, 9 and 11. What do I say? What do I give? When do I act? When do I offer my insanely wise advice, and when do I keep my big mouth shut?
To love them well I need depth of insight!
The homeless man on the corner, or at least he says he’s homeless. See how I am? I need depth of insight!
And so I pray, “Lord, please, I love You so much, and to love all these people You bring into my life, I need to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.”
Amen.
God bless you, today.
I’m Doug Apple.
I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32)
Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to love people...but how?
I think we all know that if we are on our way to Jericho and we come across a beaten man, we’re supposed to load him on our donkey and take him to the inn, right? Like the good Samaritan.
But life is full of people and their drama, full of neighbors and friends and strangers and people we like and people we don’t like so now what?
We’re supposed to love them...but how?
First let me note that love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5:22) So the more we let the living water of the Holy Spirit flow in our lives, the more we will love people, automatically.
And the more we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit by our own sin and selfishness and disobedience and laziness, the less we will love people...automatically.
But I’m getting to a prayer we can pray, and this has really set my heart on fire.
Philippians 1:9 says, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.”
So that’s my prayer. “God, please give me that depth of insight into how to love people, each and every one of them.”
I’m a father of four adult children, all married. I need to love them in different ways than when they were 5, 7, 9 and 11. What do I say? What do I give? When do I act? When do I offer my insanely wise advice, and when do I keep my big mouth shut?
To love them well I need depth of insight!
The homeless man on the corner, or at least he says he’s homeless. See how I am? I need depth of insight!
And so I pray, “Lord, please, I love You so much, and to love all these people You bring into my life, I need to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.”
Amen.
God bless you, today.
I’m Doug Apple.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Power Through
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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32)
What might you have been excellent at if you had powered through?
Let me say it again.
What might you have been excellent at – if you had powered through?
See, we’re all made in the image of God. He created us, and He packed us with individual gifts and talents.
But it’s raw material.
It’s like the planet. God created it, and He packed it full of astounding raw materials. And I think we have only just begun to discover all the amazing things He put here.
The same is true with us. Every one of us. He packed us full of raw materials, but they are hidden. They are under the surface. It’s not obvious. We have to dig, excavate, plow, work it.
I hate to see young people squandering so much time. I hate to see anyone wasting time, but especially young people, who are still so much like an undiscovered land. What might they be able to do if they just worked at it?
That’s the problem with raw materials. They require a lot of work.
Phil Collins became known as one of the best drummers in the world. But as a child it was just bare, raw materials. He liked to hit things in a rhythm.
But he worked it, hard. In his new autobiography he writes, “I must have put in my 10,000 hours before I’m even a teenager...when I’m home, I drum, to the exclusion of pretty much all else.”
You are a wonderland of raw materials, just waiting for you to discover! What are you good at? What can you be great at?
Whatever it is, greatness never comes easy. You start with the raw materials, and then you work. You work, man!
You work now, so you don’t end up older with someone like me saying, “Just think - what might you have been excellent at if you had just powered through?
God bless you, today.
I’m Doug Apple.
I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32)
What might you have been excellent at if you had powered through?
Let me say it again.
What might you have been excellent at – if you had powered through?
See, we’re all made in the image of God. He created us, and He packed us with individual gifts and talents.
But it’s raw material.
It’s like the planet. God created it, and He packed it full of astounding raw materials. And I think we have only just begun to discover all the amazing things He put here.
The same is true with us. Every one of us. He packed us full of raw materials, but they are hidden. They are under the surface. It’s not obvious. We have to dig, excavate, plow, work it.
I hate to see young people squandering so much time. I hate to see anyone wasting time, but especially young people, who are still so much like an undiscovered land. What might they be able to do if they just worked at it?
That’s the problem with raw materials. They require a lot of work.
Phil Collins became known as one of the best drummers in the world. But as a child it was just bare, raw materials. He liked to hit things in a rhythm.
But he worked it, hard. In his new autobiography he writes, “I must have put in my 10,000 hours before I’m even a teenager...when I’m home, I drum, to the exclusion of pretty much all else.”
You are a wonderland of raw materials, just waiting for you to discover! What are you good at? What can you be great at?
Whatever it is, greatness never comes easy. You start with the raw materials, and then you work. You work, man!
You work now, so you don’t end up older with someone like me saying, “Just think - what might you have been excellent at if you had just powered through?
God bless you, today.
I’m Doug Apple.
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