Have you ever found yourself discouraged in your walk with God because you feel like you don’t measure up? Or because you feel like you aren’t good enough to be in His presence?

I know I have felt that way before.

But the truth is, we should never let anything ever stop us from going into God’s presence. No matter how you feel, what you were told or if you think you aren’t good enough. Those are lies.

God wants us to come to Him as we are! Because of the sacrifice that Christ made for us on the cross, God now only sees us through the lens of Jesus. God doesn’t see a sinful, unworthy, wretched person; He sees a perfect, pure, without blemish, blameless masterpiece! Amen.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Cor. 5:21 NIV

In the Old Testament when people would bring an offering to the priests, the priest would examine the animal to make sure it was spotless and without blemish. The key thing to realize is that the priest examined the animal and not the person. They examined the sacrifice and not the sinner. And if the offering was indeed without defect, the Lord would accept the offering and this would purify the person making them (us) right with God.

This is a HUGE comfort to you and myself…

When Jesus died for us, He became our sacrifice and made us in right standing with God. So don’t be ashamed of who you are, where you have come from, or what you have done. Don’t be afraid to come before Christ with boldness, freedom, and joy. And don’t believe the lies that tell you that you are not good enough or perfect enough to enter into His presence…

Come as you are.

You are welcomed with open arms and seen as beautiful, spotless, and because of Jesus, without blemish.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matt. 11:28-30 MSG

Isn’t it a relief that we can come before God just as we are?

“Look to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is no other.”  Isaiah 45:22

One of the hardest things to do spiritually, in my opinion, is to stay focused and concentrated on God. And what I mean by that is to stay focused on Him not just during the tough seasons in life but during our rough times as well. With all the distractions that life offers, it is easy for us to give importance to things that should not hold importance. Often times the very blessings of God can be the very thing that trips us up…but is that Gods fault? No. It’s ours. Other times we can start to compare our life with those around us and start to weigh our circumstances against theirs…this is of no benefit to us.

Gods asks us to simply look at Him. To keep our gaze fixed in His direction.

The truth is, we will find all we need in Christ. I bet most of you reading this already have heard that or know that, but how many of us actually live that out? It’s amazing when trials come up in our life, how quickly we allow them to steal our focus, attention, and our joy. It is easy to become overwhelmed with worry, fear and stress when things don’t go the way we thought they should go in life. It may feel like you can’t escape your pain, hurt, or worry.

But all the while God will be saying, “Look to me” and you will find all that you need.

In one of my audio classes in school, I learned about something called the “cocktail party effect.” Have you heard of it? The cocktail part effect is the ability to focus our listening attention on a single source among a mixture of other conversations and background noises, ignoring those other conversations. It is basically how we can carry conversations in noisy environments. It is pretty neat.

We have the ability to tune out distractions and focus on what is truly important. If we can do this at parties then we can certainly do it spiritually as well.

God asks us to look at him and we will find all we need. So what if during our difficult seasons of life when the hurts, pains, and distractions are at their loudest, we focus our attention on God and, like our ears, let the rest fade into the background?

What if we tuned our hearts toward Christ and allowed His voice to be the loudest in our lives?

No matter what you are going through right now, be determined to focus your attention on Christ and watch your trials, difficulties, and worries fade away. Don’t allow your circumstances to call the shots and be the loudest voice in your life.

To find relief, rest, peace, hope, or joy, just do as God asks us too:

“Look to Me, and be saved.”

What do you think, do you need to work on focus?

“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” Unknown

With 2011 behind us and 2012 under way, what are your goals for this year? Have you set any yet?

Every new year seems to be a great time to press reset and set goals. Even though nothing but the date changes, it’s a good time to reflect on the year that has passed and give some thought to what you want to accomplish in the year that is to come.

The truth is, goal setting is extremely important and something I really believe we should all do. If we do not set goals we are far less likely to accomplish what we want and have to accomplish.

I want to encourage you today, if you have not done so already, to set goals for this year. Pray about them, write them down, and then put them in a place where you can see them often. Writing your goals down makes them far more concrete in your mind.

“The mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord shows him what to do.” Proverbs 16:9

Don’t be afraid to dream big. Have both large and small goals. Don’t be intimidated by what you want to write down. The awesome thing about spending some time in prayer about your goals is that chances are your goals are desires that the Lord has placed inside you. The Lord would not give you a desire and not provide you a way to accomplish it.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” Henry Ford 

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust the Lord with the goals that you set this year. Be bold and set ambitious ones. Let this year be different. Be faithful and work hard at them. Do your part and trust God to do his. Make 2012 be your best year yet!

Have you set any goals for this year?

“I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27

As Christians, we have heard over and over that with God all things are possible. But truthfully I think that we are sometimes afraid to ask, think, or dream for the impossible. We know that God can do anything, but we fail to allow Him the opportunity to do so. It is difficult to always believe that truly no problem or situation is too big for God.

In this verse, it is almost as if God is righteously taunting us, saying, I dare you…ask away and see if I don’t exceed all of your expectations!

What mountain are you facing today? What decision needs to be made? What are you struggling with? Is it sickness, financial, or relational?

Whatever you may be going through today… I dare you.

I dare you.

I dare you to ask God for the impossible. I dare you to dream bigger than ever before. I dare you to go boldly before God and ask for that break through. I dare you to ask and see if God doesn’t just meet but exceed your every expectation. Remember simply, God is able.

 ”Now to the one who is able to do beyond all measure more than all that we ask or think, according to the power that is at work in us…” Ephesians 3:20 

I came across this quote the other day and I could not help but agree.

“The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.” - Dallas Willard

I agree…I think that the greatest agent for change is through the church.

This is our time to rise up with the power of the gospel. With the living power of Christ within us, and change this world.

It’s time to dream the biggest.

pray the impossible.

and believe the incomprehensible.

Now is the time.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” —Gandhi

Too often we hesitate. We wait. We won’t be the first to jump in. We want someone else to take that first step and then we jump…the problem is, that requires little faith and little trust. To be the first, to be original, to be innovative, and to follow your calling requires boldness, a pioneering faith, spirit and an “all-in” trust.

“It seems to me though that nobody wants to be the pioneer. Too  many would rather wait for someone else to develop a proven program or structure that they can adopt. We travel far and wide to the latest conferences, hoping to find a surefire way to increase our organizations or church’s growth. We want someone else to face the risks and take the chances for us. It is safer. It is more secure. It is more financially stable.” Paul Gibbs [The Line and The Dot]

I think God knew that blind faith and trust would be difficult to us. Thankfully, He basically says that if you have the absolute smallest amount of faith, you can move mountains (Matt 17:20). That should be all that we need to get us going. That should be the push that we need. The tipping point.

It’s time to be pioneers. It’s time to stop waiting for others to go before you. You have been called and He has laid out your path before you. Now it’s time to step out and go for it. Pioneer.

Be the change you want to see.

What is it that you need to step out in faith in and pioneer?

Reading through parts of Joshua recently has made me realize that our prayers as Christians, or at least my prayers, are not nearly as grand as they should be.

I think the feeling is that we are somehow a burden or bothering God by bringing our requests to Him, but it’s quite the opposite. He loves hearing from us.

I know I go through seasons where my prayers are far too small. I more or less go through the motions. Do you think the Lord wants to me hear more than a food blessing from us? Do you think that he wants to hear more than just occasional prayer when we feel like we need something from him?

I think he does.

I think he wants seemingly impossible, limitless, earth-shattering prayers. I think he wants the desperate cry of our hearts about changing the world! I think he wants to hear our dreams and visions. I think he wants to know our plans and desires.

The truth is, with God, all things are possible. (Matt 19:26)

And we all know that…but how many of us pray like that?

How many times do we truly pray the seemingly impossible but come into existence in our lives?

In Joshua 10, Joshua is fighting the Amorite armies. The Lord spoke to Joshua and let him know that He was helping him and on his side (it even says that God dropped large hailstones on the enemies). The fighting went on all day and continued as night began to fall. The Amorites started to flee into a valley to hide with the night fall, but Joshua, wanting to finish the job, prayed the most epic prayer you will ever hear. He prayed the impossible to be possible. He prayed,

“Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” (vs.12)

WHAT?!?! He just prayed for the sun to stand still; to stop moving so that his army could have more light to finish defeating the Amorites. And guess what happened? God listened. He stopped the sun and the moon until the fight was over!

“So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies…The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since…” (vs 13-14)

This I know: God is moved by our faith. We need to start praying some big faith prayers. We have a self-reliance problem in this culture…it has become about the individual and how well one can support him/herself. I think this mindset has trickled into our prayer lives. We stop asking God for big things because we think we should take care of it ourselves.

Let us get back to having boldness when we approach God. Let’s not put limits on a limitless God. Let’s allow God to tell us what is possible and what is not. Let us pray bigger with no boundaries.

God said we can move mountains. Joshua stopped the sun. What will you pray for?

In case you missed it, here was my guest post on Mary DeMuth's blog.

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I believe there are two major keys to living a life of freedom:

1) Do what you were wired to do!

What are you passionate about? What are your deepest desires? What are your hopes and dreams? The first key to living in freedom is to do those things.

Nothing will make you feel more bound and caged, then when you are doing and pursuing things that you were not meant to do. A very good way to become burnt out and feel boxed in is to live against how you were wired.

I came to realize this truth: God isn’t going to make you do something that He didn’t hardwire in you. We have our passions and our gifts for a reason. He wants us to use them. Your gifts, however, are to ultimately to further His kingdom. God requires of you just one thing with the talents and desires that He gave you, and that is to be willing to give them back to Him. In my life, it was only when I was willing to give back to God the gifts, passions, and dreams that He gave me, that I found total freedom.

This leads me to my second key to living in freedom.

2) Surrender what you have been given.

The thought itself is somewhat counterintuitive. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the more “control” you have over our lives, the more “free” you will feel. But something that my pastor said really rings true: “The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of control.” The simple truth is that God is the one in control and not us.

I used to fear giving things up to God. I would hold on to my dreams and desires and keep them on a short leash. I would only ask God for help or guidance when I was stuck or at the end of my rope. I thought that if I gave up my desires and dreams, I would lose them, and that God would use me to do something that I was not passionate about. I now know that not to be true.

But Christianity is funny like that. Sometimes the most powerful beliefs we hold to, don’t seem to fit with common sense. In order to be exalted, you must be humbled. In order to be rich, you must be made poor. In order to be filled, you must be emptied. When struck down, you are to turn the other cheek and then go the extra mile.

So why surrender?

I believe a major reason is because we cannot be fully trusted with our gifts unless we are continually surrendering them to Him. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things…” You may start with good and wholesome intentions with your talents and passions, but if you are not continually laying down your pride and laying down your gifts, it is only a matter of time before you get sidetracked. The benefits of trusting God with our passions, however, are well worth it. Verse 7 & 8 say, “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”

Surrender is not a sign of weakness. Surrender gives God room to work and will allow Him to use you in a mighty way. I’m sure we all want to “never stop producing fruit”, but the key is to always surrender what’s been given to you. Allowing God inside and amongst your gifts is so vital to living a life of freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). You want Him with you. You are better off giving Him your desires, letting God be God, and because of that, living in joyous, complete freedom.

Remember, you are called to be free. And the only string attached to living a life of freedom is more of Christ.

“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14 [NIV]

The few famous words from our GPS’ bring us security knowing we are on the right path and made it to where we wanted to be. But on the roadmap of life we don’t have a GPS to tell us the way; we don’t always know which path is the right path to take. So how do we navigate our way to make sure we end up where we want to be?

A good place to start is looking at where we came from. Following the path from where we were to where we are now, will give us a great indication of where we will end up. It’s easy to look back and see how we got to where we are now, but it often seems impossible to know where we will end up. But Andy Stanley adds,

Looking ahead we are often deceived into thinking that life is a series of unrelated decisions, and somehow we will end up where we want to be simple by force of will or luck…A path, like all paths, has a specific and often-times predictable destination.

Are you feeling lost? Are you not sure where you are heading? Maybe you know where you want to end up but aren’t sure if you are currently on the right path…

Reflect on the paths that you’ve chosen. Think about the choices you are currently making. Look back and see where you were and where you are now to determine your direction. Then you can use your direction to determine your destination. It takes more than just good intentions to get to where we want to be…we have to make sure we are headed in the right direction.

It’s important to look inside ourselves and give ourselves a checkup…

So…Arriving at destination or recalculating? Which path are you heading for?

What makes you feel strong? What empowers you? What activity gives you energy?

What is it that makes the time fly by? What brings you joy? What makes you feel alive?

Chances are, the answer to those questions are what your strengths.

Pursue them. Cultivate them. Shape your life around them. God designed you the way He did for a reason and when we pursue those strengths, we are fulfilling God’s desire and design for our lives.

Our culture seems so focused on improving our weaknesses. If you are lacking in a certain area, we are so quick to try to fix it, or we are feel shame that we are not as good as someone else. We’ll attend workshops, special classes, and seminars to try to help improve our weaknesses. But what if we gave the same focus to improving our strengths? What if instead of changing how we are wired, we learned what our strengths are and put our energy and focus into them?

When you become wrapped up in wishing you were someone who you are not, you become hindered from becoming the best version of yourself.

So what if instead of becoming mediocre at a several things, we focused and developed our strengths and became the best at just one or two thing?!

“Each of us has certain strengths. We were born with them, they will always be our strengths, and we delight in them…Trying to improve our weaknesses is like trying to teach a rabbit to swim or a snail to race, God’s design for work is best when it goes from strength to strength.” ~Marcus Buckingham

We were not all created the same way. We all have unique and different talents and abilities.

Let’s shift our focus. Let us not settle for being mediocre at many things just to call ourselves “well-rounded”; but instead pursue our strengths. Be the best you you can possibly be. Develop your giftings, pursue them, incorporate them into your daily routine, and live out God’s plan for your life!