Pete Wilson's Blog, page 21

The Power of Life and Death

You have never spoken a neutral word in your life, everything that you say has the power of life or death. Hateful things that were said to us in our past have a tendency to stick with us for the rest of our lives because there is a scary, painful, long-term shelf life to ugly, negative talk.

As we head in to this new year, I would challenge you to ask yourself two things:

Who has God placed in your life and how can you encourage them with your words today?

Don’t Wait

You know I think most want to make a difference with our lives. However over time we buy into the lie that “making a difference” is  reserved for a small handful of people. Probably people that have huge platforms, or tons of money, or maybe people with really powerful positions.

Do you have a God given prompt, dream, or idea that you’ve been considering taking action on?

If so, let me give you two pieces of advice that might help you out.

Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak

This past weekend at church I tried to communicate my heart regarding some of the recent racial tensions that we’ve had in our country over the past few months.

It wasn’t a political statement. I wasn’t taking sides. I’ve just been wrestling with what my personal response should be and wanted to share that because I bet many of you are trying to figure out what your response should be.

I’ll be honest: I was scared to talk about this. I didn’t want to say something that would be misinterpreted and offend an African American community that I care deeply about or offend a law enforcement community that I think has an incredibly difficult job day in and day out and handles it most often with grace and class.

Friends I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have a clue how we’re going to resolve many of the current tensions we have in our country. What I do know is that my responsibility moving forward is quite clear: Less talking and more listening.

And something tells me this strategy would be extremely helpful in most of the situations and relationships in my life where I need some sort of peace.

 

Jesus Isn’t Afraid Of Your Mess

Christmas is a reminder that Jesus isn’t afraid of our mess.

If you’re like me, you’re not wired to deal with the messes in your life. But the Christmas story is a reminder that Jesus doesn’t run from our mess, he runs to it. Jesus didn’t come into a perfect world full of perfect people, he came into a broken world, full of broken people so that he could redeem us.

Enjoying the Right Now, Right Now

I meet people almost everyday who are overwhelmed and exhausted. They don’t seem to have the energy and strength to get through the day much less enjoy and seize the day. There may be a variety of things that contribute to this but allow me to make a quick observation.

A lot of us take a portion of our energy and strength and we apply it to yesterday. We have a lot of regret. We wish we had a do over. We replay situations and decisions over and over and over.

And a lot of us take a portion of our energy and strength and we apply it to tomorrow. What if this happens? What if that doesn’t happen? We worry and fret and lose sleep over things which may or may not actually happen.

We dedicate so much of our energy and strength to yesterday and tomorrow that we don’t have enough to enjoy today.

In this short video I’m teaching on the idea of receiving each day as a gift. Hope you enjoy and please take a moment today to enjoy the right now, right now.

A Tool For Good, Not A Drug For Yourself

I just read that this weekend’s Black Friday sales hit $50.9 billion. Isn’t that crazy? Imagine how much all of that would have cost without the sales?

I get asked a lot, especially this time of year if I think money is evil. I don’t.

I think most of our money problems come into play when we look to our money to give us something that money can never give us. If you think more money will bring you more contentment and peace then you’ll spend your life chasing after more and more of it only to one day realize that there is no correlation between money and peace. Each of us are given a certain amount of resources we have to use during our life time, and it’s up to us to determine how we will use these temporary tools to bring eternal glory.

Make money a tool for good, not a drug for yourself.

Prayer Reveals Your Pride

Prayer reveals how much PRIDE is in the tank of your soul.

Most of us struggle with prayer, because we’re very talented at pride. We are attracted to control, confidence, and competency. We have convinced ourselves that we have a lot more control than we actually do, but prayer allows us to realize that we are in desperate need of God’s help.

I preached about this recently and I wanted to share a short portion of it with you.

Prayer Actually Changes Things

Prayer changes things.

If we pray for something, we expect our request to be answered immediately, and if it isn’t, we are done and move on.  I’m not sure if some of you are like this but I know I see it come up sometimes in my life. It’s that posture we take, if we’re honest, where that when we pray, we sometimes don’t stick around to see if God will answer. But, here’s an idea I want to remind you of today. Persistent prayer changes this. Prayer is an absolute game changer. It CHANGES things. Maybe not in the same hour, or in the same day that you said the prayer, but regardless, prayer CHANGES things.

So whatever you do today, don’t give up on a prayer. Don’t take matters into your own hand because it’s not happening ‘fast’ enough. Trust God to not give you what you want, but what you need. Sometimes the most amazing thing that is happening in prayer is not what is happening to your circumstance but what is happening to you.

Want vs. Need

Sometimes we believe we know more about our lives and what we need better than God does, but He is infinitely wiser than we are. We need to ask God to give us what we need, not what we think we want, because we trust that only He knows better.

“Ask and it shall be given to you.” Luke 11:9

What is one thing that you have asked God for, thinking it was exactly what you needed, only to find out He had something better in mind?

You Are Not Second Class

“Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Luke 15:21

You know what, sometimes we can be uncomfortable with the idea that God celebrates us. We are broken and full of shame, so we feel unworthy of God’s love and grace because of all the things we’ve done in the past, and it’s hard to feel honored when you don’t feel honorable. But we need to remember that our God is not logical, his grace is scandalous. You are worthy to be honored, even when you don’t feel very honorable.

Through everything in life, the one thing we need to hold on to is that no matter what you’ve done in your life, He still celebrates you!

When God looks at you, he sees your righteousness through Christ and no matter what we’ve done or will do, our heavenly Father will always love us.