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Monthly Archives: November 2009

1

Marrying the Good

Nov 24, 2009 8:37 am by Paul Jenkins in Evotions, Family, Personal

Romans 12:9
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.

Wedding cake topperI married up. No doubt about it and I’m not afraid to admit it. Of course, anyone who knows Wendy already knows this is true and most who know her also pray for her because she married down! Still today, over 18 years later, I think of our wedding day and smile and am overwhelmed with the thought that God blessed me so greatly in Wendy. Yes, I married up.

I don’t know how it was for you when you married, if you married. For me, it wasn’t hard because I’d seen what was out there and so when I found this woman who was passionate about Jesus, was full of His grace and compassion and had a heart to minister, it was pretty much a no-brainer. Throw in the fact that she was wonderfully hand-crafted by the Lord (translation…smokin’ hot) and could see past how I looked, and marriage was an awesome celebration!! I was on that day, and still am today, the happiest man in the world.

God calls each of us to marry the good the same way I married Wendy. When she walked down the aisle, everything else faded away. The nerves, the fear, the disbelief that she had chosen me. It all just went away because she filled the room and filled my vision. I could see nothing but her, and when we see the good that God has called us to, it isn’t that we have to struggle to hate what is evil so much as it is that the good just overcomes it. Everywhere we go, everything we see reminds us of the good and how much better it is than anything else we could have married.

Today, you have the opportunity to show this world sincere love. Love that is not divided, not disguised, not fake. Love that is tenacious in the way it sees and holds onto good things, and is just as tenacious in the way it throws away the bad. Love that is glued to what is useful, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, happy, excellent, upright and honorable. Love that won’t let any of those qualities go in the same way I will never let Wendy go, because we’d be fools if we did.

Love like that and watch the world shine as His glory overtakes the evil in it. Love like that and fulfill the will of God, which, at least for today, is simple…

Marry the good.


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Sydney and Light Switches

Nov 23, 2009 11:10 am by Paul Jenkins in Evotions, Family

1 Peter 2:9
But you are…a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.

Turn the light on!Sydney loves light. Well, maybe she doesn’t love light as much as she dislikes the dark, but anywhere she goes in our house will involve her turning on every light switch from the point of origin until the point of destination! And often, you can tell where she’s been because she’s still working on turning the lights off as she leaves where she’s been. It drives me nuts because she doesn’t pay the power bill (as I’m sure most 7 year-olds don’t), but on a spiritual level, I love the application of her simple action. You see, Sydney is never really comfortable in darkness. I fear that sometimes you and I may be.

Now, I don’t mean that all of us have this dark, sinister side that we’re trying to hide from others who know us. What I mean is that I find myself not flipping the light switch in my house because I don’t think that I need to (and I’m cheap when it comes to the power bill!!). Over time I’ve learned about how many steps it takes to get from one end of the hall to the next, or from the den to the bathroom, and so on. This is probably a great skill to have for saving money, but it isn’t such a great skill to develop for spiritual growth, because the last thing we need to be doing is cutting corners on how much light shines in our lives.

One could argue that the current apathetic trend within the North American church can be traced back to believers becoming more like me and less like Sydney. We’ve acquired (for the worse, I’d say) a real knack for walking in the least amount of light possible. We stumble in the dark because we feel that we don’t really need all that light like we used to when we were just little faith-kids that were afraid of the dark. Sure we knock our knees against the coffee-table every now and again, or hit the doorframe with our big toe, but we never seem to make the connection that God wants to shine light at all times and in every situation. Plus, He’s taken care of the power bill!! No skimping necessary!

Forget those old Nike commercials that convinced us that we should want to be like Mike. I want to be like Sydney! Turn all those light switches on and fill the house with light from every bulb possible! Let it shine all the time, everywhere.

It won’t get you any awards for going green, but it’ll keep you a lot farther from sin.


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A Real Wireless-G network

Nov 20, 2009 5:46 pm by Paul Jenkins in Evotions, Technology

1 Peter 3:12
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their prayer…

Wireless signal logoToday was quite a day. A planning session around good Mexican food (because nothing makes planning better than chips and salsa!) and then a quick trip to the bookstore that turned into a 5 hour stay as I set up a new computer and got it configured to run wirelessly so they could connect to the good ol’ world wide web. It wasn’t that it was hard, it’s just that it took a while to get rid of the old machine, connect all the cables to the right places, and then allow the hardware to acquire the wireless signal so that the famous Google logo would pop up on the screen when they clicked the blue E. Yippee.

The point of all that rambling, believe it or not, wasn’t to encourage you to get a Mac, although I do think they work quicker out of the box. The point is that the longer I waited, the more thankful I became for the truth of this verse. It takes absolutely no time for us to connect with God, because He is always – repeat that to yourself, always – watching us and listening to us. No matter how crazy the day has been, whether good crazy or bad crazy, our prayers never have to suffer as a result. He is watching, listening, and ready to act on your behalf.

Think about that. How does knowing He is attentive to your prayer change the way you pray? It makes me even more confident that what I say, He’ll hear. That what I ask, He’ll understand. And that what I need, He’ll give.


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Pick me! Pick me!

Nov 19, 2009 9:48 am by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions

Acts 6:3
Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.

Pick meI read this verse and cringe for 2 reasons. One, it brings back all the memories from Junior High when I was the skinny kid hearing those words no kid wants to hear: “Fine, we’ll take Jenkins.” But the second reason I cringe is far more serious than the first (because surely counseling can help with that first one, right?), because the verse makes me wonder if I would have been picked at all.

We live in a culture that is all about self-publicity. I’ve said it before, but I am continually amazed at how far people will go on YouTube in an attempt to be discovered, or picked. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, and so everyone is crashing violently, singing badly, pranking, punking, and fighting while the camera rolls so that they will hopefully become the next big thing. We might as well just wear neon hats that blink and spell out the words, “Pick me! Pick me!” We promote ourselves, our church, our sermons, our pastors as the greatest ever. Pastors announce that their next series is “the best series we’ve ever done at (fill in the name of the best church ever gathered together in worship).” Of course, it’s only the best one until they get the next one ready, and then the next one, and so on, and so on. Is it any wonder that in the age of hype, church attendance is struggling? People come expecting it to be best ever and leave wondering why they even came at all.

And yet, here is Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit (v. 5), full of God’s grace and power (v. 8), doing great wonders and miraculous signs among the people (v. 8). He is picked as one of the seven even though he apparently never once asked to be chosen. No self-produced video clip of his ministry in action, so full-color brochure. Just a simple servant, willing to lay hands on sick people with or without the title “One of The Chosen Seven.”

This is what God desires, isn’t it? Not that any of us become the next big thing because of all our efforts to make it happen, but because He looked down and found us busy serving, loving, and seeking people in need of His great power. I want to have what it takes to be a chosen servant, and I pray you do, too.

Serve today when no one is looking, because the One in charge of the team is.


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Winning Big

Nov 18, 2009 8:50 am by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions, Fitness, Running, Sports

Romans 8:37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Nike logoThis morning was like any other. Wake up, make coffee, rouse the kids for school, get a cup of coffee, rouse the kids again, refill mug, read some in the Word, more coffee, yell from my desk for the kids to hurry, check ESPN.com for the latest news (that isn’t nearly as important as actual news but is far more interesting), start writing. Some of the headlines at ESPN’s site caught my attention, though, and got me thinking about this powerful verse. On the sidebar of the home page were the links for 2 stories about last night’s college hoops action…

“No. 1 KU avoids Memphis’ upset bid” and “No. 2 Spartans escape Gonzaga’s upset bid” were screaming at me about the faith. I quickly turned to this verse in Romans to see why these headlines had such a dramatic effect on me, and there it was. Right there in the study notes at the bottom of the page was the Greek word for that phrase “we are more than conquerors.” Hupernikomen is only used this once time in all of the New Testament, and it literally means that we are “over and above victors” or “super victors.” Our faith is not designed to be like the Kansas Jayhawks or the Michigan State Spartans. We are not supposed to barely escape this world with victory, or hang on to win because the devil misses a last second shot at the buzzer to beat us! Nope, we are to pass through this life much more like the 11th ranked Tennessee Volunteers who pummeled UNC-Asheville last night 124-49. We are not those who get in to the kingdom by the hair of our chinney-chin-chins!!

In fairness, of course, we have to admit that our lives don’t always fit this description. You may find yourself looking in the mirror and saying, “Me? A super victor? I can’t even be a supper victor!” It’s so easy to lessen the weight of Scripture’s truth by making it match our experience, but the beauty of faith is that we stand on the truth of Scripture first, and believe it while life catches up. You and I are more than conquerors because our Savior didn’t barely defeat our enemy. He annihilated him at the cross and now lives in us! Through Him we overwhelmingly conquer!

Believe it or not, the world understands this. In fact, a small shoe company called Nike takes it’s name from this Greek word. When they launched the “Just Do It” campaign, they didn’t preface it with “if you feel like it” or “if you’re already a runner.” They just said to make your body do it. Lace ‘em up and head out and watch the results. They knew that more times than not we don’t feel like doing a lot of good things, and in those times, the super victors “just do it.”

So go get your last cup of coffee and head out, you overwhelming conqueror! You’ve got super victories waiting for you today!

And possibly, a pair of Nikes.


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