Unshackled Moments ~ August 31 ~ Wes Craven's Real Nightmare

The world lost a Master of Horror Film making yesterday as Wes Craven died of brain cancer. It saddened me to hear the news this morning. I have always admired Craven as a genius and innovator as well as relating to him somewhat on a personal level. Like many of my generation, his Nightmare On Elm Street was more than just another scary movie to me. It scared me on a level that few, if any horror movies before had done, and it gave me hope. Craven understood that the most frightening monsters were the monsters in our heads, not the ones under our beds. It can still terrorize me today to be stuck in a dream and feel unable to wake up. That lack of control while being subjected to terror and pain is not fun. But Craven created a film franchise with the idea of dream warriors who not only survived the monster who existed in the mind, but were able to stand against him, take his power and banish him.

But of course because the killer always returns in the sequel, we get a reminder that whatever success we have on our own never seems to last. Things may go right for a while, but as long as we can remember, the monsters of the past always lurk waiting for a chance to come back into our today.  We just  can't ever seem to completely escape the pain, fear and frustration of the past. But there is a road that leads to life and gives the powerless strength to take the heads of the monstrous giants. Faith in God trumps fear.

But what is faith causes the fear? One of the things that made me relate to Craven was that the nightmare in his early life, the pain that drove him, inspired him and fueled the choices of his life, at least early on, came at the hands of the church. He grew up in a world of religious rules and legalism that had little do with understanding the love of our Daddy with the heart and everything to do with conforming to an external structure. He snuck away from the Christian college he attended to see a movie, the college was Wheaton and the film was To Kill A Mocking Bird, because going to movies was strictly forbidden in the religious community he came from. Chaffing under restrictions raised rebellion, and he searched for reason and purpose in the very world that had been closed off to him.

I have been there saying that I can't be good enough to please the folks making my life hell with their standards so I might as well be bad. I have seen the silliness of some of the rules and restrictions as modern pharisees add restrictions to the laws of God. God said don't work on the Sabbath, the lawyers added rules about how far a person could walk on that day. God said love Him and others, and lawyers added don't go to movies, don't listen to certain kinds of music regardless of its message, don't read this or that.... it goes on and on as religion stresses restriction and the external and produces little more than rebellion, pain and failure. These ridiculous rules that tried to produce internal righteousness through external restriction and discipline were the nightmare that pushed Craven, me and so many others from God.

The sad thing is that they weren't God's rules nor His methods. God has always known that man can not produce his own righteousness, that the internal can not be changed by changing the external. Most of all God knows the simple truth that seems to escape so many. You can not restore something or someone to a state of wholeness from brokenness by cutting away, by removing things. That's why God adds. God always adds to our lives. He never takes away without giving more in return. Grace, freely given, love poured out, joy that can't be stolen, peace that isn't situational, the power of the Holy Spirit, these things and more are added freely and generously into our lives so that we can have relationship with God and walk worthy. We can never live up to the standards of holiness on our own strength, no matter how much we micromanage what we see, hear, taste, smell and touch. Even if we cut off all out sensory perceptions and inputs we would find a way to fall short of the standard.

It is man's attempt to control himself and others who says look but don't touch, touch but don't taste,taste but don't swallow....who tries to find righteousness through divorce from pleasure and the senses. But God made the senses and gave us pleasure as a gift. God said taste and see that He is good. Today let us remember that the restrictions between us and God have been removed. We have access through His grace and the sacrifice of Christ. Let us rejoice that in Him is fullness of joy and the purpose of the senses can be fully realized to take pleasure in Him. Let us not try to find the answer in the external but by surrendering our heart. And most of all, let us not place others under the bondage of law that we have been released from, holding them to a standard none of us can meet, but instead let the power of the Spirit add so much love to our life that others can't help but see it in the way we live our life. Let love and faith in God give us the power to walk free from the things and fears that hold us in bondage, and let us walk into the nightmares of the lives of those we encounter and show them a way of escape from the monsters that haunt us all.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 30 ~ Sorrow Of Heart

I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence, so the king said to me, “Why are you sad, when you aren’t sick? This is nothing but depression.” I was overwhelmed with fear 3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 Then the king asked me, “What is your request?” 

~ Nehemiah 2:1b-4a HCSB

There are two things that came to mind as I read the above verses. First, this casual dismissal as the issue  being nothing but depression, the NKJV calls it sorrow of heart. All too often we act as though depression and sorrow of heart are no big deal, something to ignore or push away or snap out of. But the truth is sorrow of heart can be far more damaging to the mind and soul than physical illness. So, when we see someone who is struggling with depression, let us be a source of encouragement and strength for them in their weakness and not dismissive of their situation.

The second thing is that although he felt afraid, Nehemiah told the king what was causing his depression. The king seemed dismissive, "Oh, this is no big deal, you're not sick, it's nothing but depression. What's your problem?" Nehemiah could have been hurt by this and said nothing, I'll do better, he could've gotten angry, or he could have let his fear keep him silent. Instead he said I hurt because......... Being willing to face his fear and be honest about what was going on with him opened the door to the blessing that happened next. The king asked what he could do. Sometimes it feels like we're all alone in our struggles. We don't have any help or encouragement. Then someone asks how we're doing and we say fine. Today let us try to be honest about what is troubling us, not going overboard with drama to manipulate or underplaying things to hide the problem either. Let us simply be honest and keep the door open for the blessings and help that God wants to give us.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 29 ~ Don't Gum It Up

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

~Philippians 4:8-9

I have been helping a man plane some lumber. It is exhausting and back breaking work. The main problem is that the boards are made from pine, and the shavings and sawdust clog up the rollers that are supposed to pull the board through the saw. This means that we are having to pull and force each board though as it cuts. It takes about a half hour to clean the rollers and before a single board is completed they are clogging again. Cleaning them isn't worth the time. So we push, pull, grunt, groan and fight for every inch of cut.

We have a purpose and a calling. Every one of us is called to do something for God that no one else can do, but  in addition we are all called to be His light and love on the earth and to reflect who He is to a world that is lost and in need of a solution. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to walk as we are called to walk and to live as God would have us to live. He is the power from outside of us that dwells within us that enables us to access the grace by which we can walk free from hate and sin.

What we run through our lives, what we think and meditate on, attitudes we allow, things we feed our spirit, are like the boards we choose. We have become new creations after accepting Christ, and we are no longer designed to operate on the same stuff we ran on before relationship with God. Like the pine boards and the planer, the wrong things in our life gum up the works. They dirty our spirit and clog the access of the Holy Spirit to our lives. That cuts us off from our power leaving us to try to walk with God, act right and love on our own strength and determination. Something we were never able to do right or well or long.

Today let us be careful to feed our minds and spirits with things that won't hinder the Spirit's power and work in our life. Our walk doesn't have to be a self induced struggle. We can have the peace of God all through the day, and when that peace remains as things go wrong and crazy around us it will point to the power and grace of God.

Unshackled Moment s ~ August 28 ~ Rejoicing In Suffering

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

~ Romans 5:1-5

Sometimes we don't see the miraculous. Sometimes we have a rough day. Sometimes rough would be an improvement. It's hard to do, but changing our focus can help so much. The truth is that every day more goes right than wrong for most of us. But it's also easy for me to ignore 1000 little things that I take for granted and put all my energy into the pain caused by, worry about and or self pity over the one or two major things that went wrong.

The day before yesterday served as a good reminder of my frequent failure in this area. The day started hard on almost no sleep with feelings of loss and hurt because of my not having something I wanted for the vast majority of my life. God has said no, and usually I'm OK with that. Sometimes though I am not, and  yesterday I struggled to get back to OK. My mother was rear ended. I lost time that I planned on using for final preparations for the sermon I was to give. I had several phone calls when I needed a few minutes of peace and quiet. I got behind schedule due to everything going on. I got even further behind when one of the two people that needed a ride to church didn't give good directions to where to pick them up. I ended up sitting in the back of the church and crying for most of the praise and worship portion of the meeting. The description of my latest really rough day.

But let's look at it a little differently. I did get enough rest to be able to function. I woke up, and my back wasn't hurting all that much. I felt that loss I mentioned, but I also knew where to go with my hurt and pain. The Lord ministered comfort to me, and this last bout over the issue didn't mess me up nearly as bad as the time before. I was able to use what I was going through as inspiration for an Unshackled Moment. My motorcycle started. I had a nice ride to work. I only worked a half day, giving me more time to prepare to preach than I expected, so what I lost later didn't leave me totally unprepared. My wife gave me some great hugs and cared so much about what I was going through. My mother is OK, and the car is too. I made it do church on time and was able to help make sure others got there. I was a help to my father. The worship was good, and God met me there as I poured out my pain and anger and bad attitude onto the altar. God gave the grace to preach and let go of the day. I got to visit with my family. I got to cuddle and spend time with Leah. I had a mini marathon of a show I like as part of the unwinding for the evening. I had a delicious lengua burrito for dinner that was very satisfying. I had no problems getting the sermon ready to post. I made it to bed before midnight and got a little rest without having prison dreams. All in all a pretty good day. It could've been even better had I not had an anger melt down less than an hour before preaching, but I am so grateful to God who is faithful to forgive.

Where we put the energy of our attention does effect how we experience the world. We're like the man in the Footsteps poem who can't realize that he's been carried until he looks back and only sees one set of tracks. He even wrongly thinks he walked alone until Jesus points out he was carried. When we focus on our self pity and the negative it's easy to feel alone and ignored by God, like everything is wrong and getting worse. But if we could turn our eyes to Jesus we would realize that we are floating safely through the storm. The storms will come, rain will fall and the wind will blow. It's going to happen. But if we can look to Jesus during those times, we can use the hurricane winds to drive us more quickly into the arms of the Comforter and the presence of the Lord. Sometimes a bad day can be the best thing that could possibly happen. Anything that brings us closer to God is something to rejoice about. That is why we can rejoice even in suffering.

Free From Sin

Dalyn Woodard shares on understanding what grace is really about. Our former manner of life is dead and gone because of the grace of Christ's sacrifice. If we could truly understand the power of grace that is available to us as children of God we could go through the rest of our life without sinning ever again. The message, "Free From Sin" is about 48 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, August 26, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 27 ~ Burning With The Lions

There are hundreds of books on how to pray. One of the most important questions the disciples ever asked Jesus was for Him to teach them to pray like He did. They observed Him, they knew how often and how well they prayed, and yet they were pretty much clueless. That's encouraging to me, because I sometimes feel clueless about how to pray.

It seems odd to be taught to pray. It's kind of like being taught how to have a conversation with your best friend. Except that's not usually what we want to learn is it? Don't most of the books on prayer seem to be more about how to sell yourself and or your cause to God and how to get Him to do what we want more than about how to have a conversation with a friend who is closer than a brother? Most of our instinctive prayers can either be classified as wish lists where hitting our knees is tantamount to sitting on Santa's lap, trying to convince Him that we've been good enough to deserve to have what we want or they are 911 calls seeking help with the mess we find our lives in, most often a mess caused by our own choices and selfishness.

But relationship with God is not a long term con to get what we want, and no matter how well we pray we don't always get spared the mess. Daniel was a man who knew how to pray. He spent hours on a regular basis chatting with the master. It was the most important part of His day, so important in fact that He refused to stop doing it even after a decree went out saying no one could pray to God. He got caught and sentenced to thrown in a lion's den full of hungry lions. In other words He was to be executed by being eaten alive. There is no record of Daniel asking God to spare Him the discomfort of the den. Yes, he was spared. The Lord shut the lions' mouths and they didn't eat Daniel. They also didn't claw him. But while he was eventually delivered and the event showed the power of God and brought Him glory, Daniel still spent his time in the dark with a bunch of lions. They stank. The place stank of death, decay and lion dung. There were no pillows or mattresses on which to rest and no food for him. It was not a fun place, and Daniel was not spared the experience.

Shadrach Meeshach and Abednego were men so faithful to God that they were the only three who refused to bow to a false idol. Their reward was a bonfire. They were spared as Daniel was. Not a hair on their hair got singed, even though the fire was hot enough to kill some of the guards escorting them to where they were thrown in. But they still got tossed to the flames.

Sometimes we look around and can't see anything in the dark, but we can smell the lions and their mess. Sometimes they're just enough light to see the mighty beasts lurking in the shadows. Sometimes we see through distortions from the heat that the flames are coming our way. We cry out to God to help us and deliver us. Then, when the lions don't disappear and the flames don't die, we get mad and hurt. We start doubting that God doesn't really love us. But we're so focused on the fact that the situation isn't changing we can't notice that the lions aren't eating us. We could be dancing in the flames with Jesus but we're too busy screaming fire.

We're like someone in a goof ball comedy who thinks that they've been shot because a ketchup bottle exploded and got all over them. They see what they perceive as blood and freak out. Once they realize that it's not blood they also realize that they're fine. So often if we would stop freaking out we would realize that the lion's aren't biting or at least that Jesus is in the fire with us. God is faithful. He does care. And often if we'll stop paying so much attention to our wounds we'll see they're really not as bad as we thought. We can get to that place easier when we see prayer as a tool to get us closer to Him rather than as an eject button for the situations we don't like.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 26 ~ Stuff Happens; It's Not Fair

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

 ~ Psalm 127:3-5

There are blessings that do not come to all believers. Not everyone gets the same rewards or the rewards they want. It can hurt, and it can serve as a point of entry for the enemy's arrows. Sometimes a person may get a taste of that which they desire so much only to have it taken away. This happened to the shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4.  She had no children, and God, through the prophet Elisha, gave her the blessing of a son. One day the boy had what appears from the description to be a heat stroke and he died. The woman used those famous words, "It is well" to describe how she was as she searched out the prophet to raise her son back to life.

The Shunammite woman's story is one of blessing and healing and restoration. Stories like that are usually awesome to read and hear about. Usually. But what if you're one of the many who never had the blessing of a child and want one? What if your children died and no prophet came and raised them from the dead? Do you rejoice with the man who had a life saving miraculous healing, or get angry at God and feel bitter because your Dad died of cancer and wasn't healed?

There are many situations like the above examples that can raise doubts and questions and cause so much pain. Why does one believer get the blessing and another not? Why does one person get the healing another doesn't? Even harder at times when the answer may feel like "Well, maybe I don't deserve to be blessed and rewarded," why do so many who are flat out evil seem to have their lives filled with the things you want but can't have?

These are tough questions, and I wish that I had the answer for you. I wish that I had the answer for me. But I don't. For one thing I don't think there is one simple easy answer. I  know part of it will have to do somehow and someway to this world being fallen, and at times the answer may include some consequences of free will. At times not getting the blessing  may actually be a blessing and we don't realize it. Other times the enemy may have won that battle, even though he will not win the war. Sometimes it may be  so that God can use us in a different way or area. It may even be at times a result of our sin that a reward or blessing is withheld. I don't know. There are no easy answers. Stuff happens, and life isn't fair. There are no verses that can make some absences and losses never hurt while we remain in these bodies on this side of eternity. There may be days when it's all we feel.

But I do know this. No matter how it feels or how it seems during those times.... God loves me. And God loves you. If you belong to Him, then you have already received the greatest blessing available to anyone, the grace of the cross that makes a way for relationship with Him. It's a blessing and reward that we can never earn or deserve. And it can never be taken away from you. If none  of us received any other blessing, it would be worth dying for. Today, let us remember that being adopted by the Father at such a great price is because of how much He loves us, and let us not focus on what we did not get or can not have in this life. Instead let us look at all His love has given us. And  for the pain that can't be overlooked or ignored? Let us crawl into the arms of the Great Comforter and let His love soothe our souls.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 25 ~ Is Eeyore Humble?

“God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 

~ I Peter 5:5b-7

It is common to think of someone who is humble to have no self-esteem. They just go around like they have no value and everyone and everything is more important than they are. We see humility as being more like Eeyore than Jesus. But Eeyore isn't humble. Eeyore is depressed. Jesus humbled Himself, and yet there has never been anyone, not will there ever be anyone, who truly understood who they were and they're value than Him. He is the very firstborn of the Father and heir to the kingdom.

Being humble doesn't mean you're worthless or a doormat. It doesn't mean thinking less of yourself. Then what does it mean? Well, I have heard it said that humility is thinking of yourself as right sized, not too highly nor too poorly. I have also heard it said that humility is being teachable. I think that there is some truth to both of those ideas, but we can deduce what God considers humility in the verses from I Peter 5 above. God has an issue with those who are proud. It's not about high or low self esteem, but rather what Jesus said to the Pharisees when He basically told them that He couldn't help them because they didn't need Him. He came for the sick, not the well. The truth is that we are all sick, but the proud don't realize and understand that they need God and can't do it on their own. He cares about us and wants to heal, restore and lift us up. But He can only do that to those who submit to His healing hands.  Humility is simply understanding that we need Him and knowing that we can not be justified, righteous on our own. We can not save ourselves or even be worthy of saving without His grace.

I am a child of the Most High God. I am a treasure in His eyes, bought at a grace price, loved by the one who fearfully and wonderfully made me. I have great value and understanding that is to see myself as God wants me to see myself. But I also must know that I need Him so that I always look to Him as the author and finisher of my faith, as my complete source and every answer. His is God, and I am not. I need Him. That is humility, not the "Well, do whatever you want to to me because I am not worth loving and everyone else just walks all over me too," self depreciation that comes pouring from Eeyore's melancholy soul. We aren't called to that but to joy.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 24 ~ Where's The Sun?

So never let a cloudy day ruin your sunshine, for even if you can’t see it, the sunshine is still there, inside of you, ready to shine when you will let it.

– Amy Michelle Pitzele

We are so stuck on perceptions of the situations around us that quite often on stormy days we will say things like "I wish the sun would come out" or "The sun didn't come out today." Statements like these reflect the fact that we didn't see the sun, but we know the truth. The problem is that we allow how we feel and our perceptions to be more real to us than the truth that we know.

The truth is the sun didn't do anything differently. It wasn't one degree out of position. It was right where it was supposed to be, shining just bright as it always does. The sun didn't change, our perception did because something, storm clouds, got in the way.

The Son is always shining in our lives. Sometimes the storms of our situations, our feelings, our messed up minds cover the skies of our souls with clouds that make it hard to see the Son or feel the warmth of His love. But it's still there, just as bright and hot as before. Jesus doesn't change, and His love for us never fails to rise with His mercies that are new every morning.  The rains will come into our lives. Sometimes they're just brief showers, and sometimes the storms last so long we begin to think that we missed God's note to build an ark. But every storm runs out of rain, every cloud eventually dissipates or is blown away, and we will experience the presence of the Son in our lives again. Today let us trust the truth that the Son is there and full of light and love as always, and let us not choose the sensations of our experiences as the foundation for our beliefs and response and attitudes.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 23 ~ Pliable

Once we give our lives to Christ, we have given our lives to Christ. Sounds redundant? But it's something that we sometimes seem to forget. We come to God and then try to live as though our lives were our own, as if our will still had a valid voice. We have given up our lives. They are His to do with as He wills. One thing He has promised is to complete the work He began in our lives and to bring us into perfection and righteousness. For those who are or were as messed up as I have been that entails quite a lot of molding and healing and changing in order to bring the new creation into being from the old one. There's still a lot of work to do in my life, and that can be said of yours as well. The process can be joyous or misery, it can feel like accomplishment or torture, it can be something to look forward to or fear. The only difference between the two extremes is our attitude and amount of surrender. The more we make ourselves pliable to the Potter, the less it hurts when He works the clay. The more that He has to force the changes that need to be made, the worse it feels. Today let us make ourselves easy for the Master to mold.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 22 ~ Take A Dirty Bath

Naaman had leprosy and went to the prophet Elisha for help and healing. You can read the stroy in 2 Kings 5, but the gist of the story is that he was told to go wash in the Jordan river seven times. He did it and was cleansed and healed. Sometimes we go to God for help and we get "Your faith has made you whole, take up your bed and walk." But sometimes we have to go get in some dirty water seven times to get clean. We want to respond like Naaman did at first sometimes with a "that doesn't make any sense!" or "that's stupid! How is dirty water going to make me clean?" or "why can't I just have what I need now without all this going to the river stuff?" But it's not about the water being clean or dirty, and it's not about going under enough times or not too many times. It's about obedience. Sometimes God just wants to see us willing to trust that He will do what He promised and obey even when it doesn't make sense and or doesn't involve instant gratification. Today let us be quick to obey and let God worry about the why and how of it all.

Grace To Sin?

Dalyn Woodard shares on understanding that being powerless to control the sin in our life and salvation being unearned and a perfect gift of grace does not mean that we can continue to let our lives be filled with sin.The message, "The Grace To Sin?" is about 38 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, August 19, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

The video below is a classic Christian rock song by Petra that has been chosen because of it's complimentary message with the sermon. May the Lord set you and keep you free and fill you with His joy as you surrender more and more to His great love.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 21 ~ The Caterpillar Is Dead

Some caterpillars are quite beautiful, but when all is said and done, even the most interesting and beautiful of them is little more than a glorified worm. Then one day something in them responds to the intention of their Creator. They wrap themselves in a cocoon, essentially killing themselves in response to the call. No, you say, they aren't killing themselves. They are entering transformation. They are becoming something new, different, better. They are being made a butterfly.

That is true. It is also true that they are no longer caterpillars. The caterpillar is dead. What once was is no longer. They may not be completely a butterfly until they emerge from the cocoon, but no matter what happens, they will never be a caterpillar again.

We Christians are much like the cocooned butterfly in the making. We are not yet what we will be in all the glory and splendor and ability to fly, but we will never be the worms we were before again. It's dark in the cocoon. We can't see everything. Sometimes there's growing pains. Sometimes there's dying pains. We are literally changing from one creature  into another, and the two don't even look anything alike. Growth into the new means death of the old. They aren't compatible. The transition can be painful at times, especially so if we fight the process and try to live as though we were still caterpillars. We aren't.

Today let us remember that while we may not yet be fully transformed into the glorious child of the King we are becoming, we are no longer the child of sin we were born. We have been born into something new, something different. Let us remember if it feels uncomfortable or a little scary in the tightness and the dark, that something beautiful is happening inside. Let us look forward with expectation and joy at the colors our wings will display as we fly.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 20 ~ Loving Ourself

In yesterday's UM Stop Trying So Hard To Love the fact that we need God's grace to be able to love others as we are called to was the theme. But it's not just loving others that we don't get right. We also often fail to love ourselves as God wants us to. God does want us to love ourselves. If He didn't then loving your neighbor as you love yourself would have no meaning. But more times than not if we do love ourself we begin ego tripping and become full of pride. And the other end of that swing is a self hatred and self loathing that fails to see any value in who we are. Yes, we are sinners and screw ups on our own power, but that is not all we are. We do not need to be full of pride and consider ourselves above or better than others to love ourselves, nor do we need to be self loathing to be humble.God values you so much that He hung on the cross with all the weight of your sin so that He could establish a relationship with you. That means you're valued and important to the Creator of the universe. And while you often hear in the rooms of recovery that you're not unique and are not suffering from terminal uniqueness, the truth is that you are indeed unique. Not in the sense that no one can get what it's like to be you or no one has gone through what you have, but in the sense that there is a part of God's spirit that you are uniquely qualified to compliment. There is some part of who He is that will never be glorified quite the same by anyone else. God loves us, and we all have our own special and unique calling and relationship with Him.  That means we should value and love ourself as a precious part of His family.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 19 ~ Stop Trying So Hard To Love

"God loves you and I'm trying." ~ Bumper sticker

My grandmother had this not as a bumper sticker but in the form of a baby on board caution sign. I thought it was funny then, and now I believe that there was some truth to the statement. I do believe she tried to love others the way Christ did. She failed miserably. So do I. And so do you.

If you've heard me preach or read my writing on a regular basis then you've heard or read that grace is not the freedom to sin but rather the freedom not to sin. No matter how hard we try, we can't walk with God on our own power and we can't stop sinning by our own determination and strength. We also can't love. Sure we can love certain people, like our family, but even that love will fail and often be tainted with selfishness. But to truly love those we encounter throughout our day the way that God wants us to love them, the way that God wants us to love ourselves, the way that Christ loves them....we just can't. So stop trying so hard. 

That's right, stop trying. Instead fall on the grace of God to do for us and through us what we can't do ourselves. Instead of trying to love someone that our old nature really doesn't want to love, let's ask for the grace to get out of the way and let Daddy love them through us. Let Daddy be in control of our actions and reactions, facial expressions and tongues/keyboards when it comes to that person. Let God do the loving. We won't be able to tell the difference and neither will they, and when we see what the love of God can do in the life of another we may be more quick to apply it liberally. The love of God flowing through us will teach us and cause us to love. We can't teach ourselves or manufacture love we don't have, but we can be as filled with His love for others as we want. All it takes is surrender.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 18 ~ Love And Hate

You can't love God and hate people at the same time. You can't do the will of God and hate people at the same time. You can't be a light of His love and hate at the  same time. Instinctively even heathens understand these truths. So, when we spout love with our mouths and hate with our actions, expressions and selfishness they see our sin rather than hear about the God who loves them and could save them. Today let us be of maximum service to God and our fellows by letting our words be love and by matching our words and deeds. May those we encounter today, whether they be family or stranger, experience the love and presence of God when they are around us and see very little of us.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 17 ~ Twisting The Golden Rule

There a few twists on the golden rule. An eye for an eye is justice, and that was the first twist. Do unto others as they have done to you. Jesus showed that justice is right but the love of God is better. He challenged us to show love and told us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat others like you would like to be treated. We as put another twist on it that is neither the love of God nor justice but sits well with our selfish nature. That is to do unto others before they can do unto you. Strike first and strike hard. Get them before they get you.  Today I would offer another twist.

Do unto others as you would have God do unto you.  We are called to be examples of Christ's love and mercy to the world. One way to do this is to put ourselves in the shoes of the other person, Imagine it's us being rude or selfish or cruel or or or, and instead of running into us we ran into Jesus. If while acting like a jerk we found ourselves face to face with the Lord, how would we want Him to respond to us, to treat us? With love and mercy or contempt and condemnation? Would we want forgiveness or justice? 

Unshackled Moments ~ August 16 ~ Pure Of Heart

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” 

~Matthew 5:8

What does it mean to be pure of heart, and how can I make that more and more a description of myself? To be pure of heart is to be single purposed. Pure gold is gold that has nothing else mixed in with it. Pureness of heart is to have our heart always responding yes to God. The great promise is that when we desire God, we will find Him. When He calls us to Himself and we say yes, He never then turns us away.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 15 ~ Mercy

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

~ Matthew 5: 7

Call it what goes  around comes around, reaping what is sown, karma, input output, whatever. You could even call it fairness, which we don't get a lot of. But if we show forgiveness and mercy to others, we'll get it given to us. Jesus was pretty big on this concept. Forgive us as we forgive. The man forgiven much who had a man thrown into prison for much less found himself facing the wrath he should have.

There is a difference between mercy and grace. One is not getting what we deserve and the other is getting what we don't  deserve. Neither can be earned. We don't deserve is the key phrase of both. But there can be conditions placed on a free gift. One of the conditions of receiving mercy is to show mercy, but don't worry if this goes against your nature. It goes against mine too. That's the wonderful thing about grace. What we can never earn and never produce on our own we can have, and this includes the love, desire and ability to show the mercy of God to others. Today let us be merciful.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 14~ How Hungry Are We?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

~ Matthew 5: 6

This ties in with the verse before it about the meek inheriting the earth because once again it's a verse that describes something more than it may seem. We may see that verse and think craving. I hunger and thirst for righteousness like I have a serious hunger for a root beer ice cream float. But unless you're talking about the cravings of a pregnant woman that's just not serious enough. Now a pregnant woman with cravings is going to do whatever it takes, wake her husband and send him to a store two towns over in the middle of the night to find what she's hungry for. Nothing else will do, and she won't let it go until she's satisfied. The cravings, her hunger is her body's way of trying to naturally get certain things she's lacking due to the pregnancy. It's more than a hankering, it's a need.

We say that fighter's who train well for a championship fight were hungry for it. It becomes their passion. They pursue it above all other things. They tear themselves down to be built back up so that they can be at peak performance for the fight.

To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to recognize the need for it, to crave it to such an extent that you will pursue it above all else. It consumes your thoughts and drives your dreams. It is the prize that you keep your eye on. When we hunger and thirst for righteousness that way we can't stand to fast. We have a promise that we will be filled. One day we will be perfectly righteous, but until then, we can taste it today by submitting our will for His and putting relationship with Him above everything else. It is only by His power and grace that we can be made righteous, which by the way simply means innocent and right and good through and through.

It's Not Your Fault And You Can't Fix It

Dalyn Woodard shares on understanding why we sin and how we in our own strength are incapable of not sinning. The answer to the problem of sin nature is only found through Jesus.The message, "It's Not Your Fault And You Can't Fix It" is about 46 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, August 12, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 13 ~ The Strength Of The Meek

Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.

~ Matthew 5:5

This may be one of the most ridiculed of all the verses from the Sermon on the Mount. I can't count how many tough guys on TV and in movies have twisted this verse into some kind of joke. This might be because we see meekness as weakness. The meek are doormats in our estimation, and we couldn't be more wrong. To be meek means to be obedient and submissive, yes, but not to men. We are to be meek to God. The best soldier is one who is meek in regards to his commanding officer but not with his enemy. We are not doormats unless it will bring glory to God for us to be. We are not weak at all because we have the power of the Spirit within us, which is necessary to be able to have the strength to turn the other cheek and love our enemies. No one could ever live out the kind of love God required but Jesus. It's not weakness to be meek. It takes more strength than any of us posses. It takes a gift of grace to have the power to submit to God's will over our own. Today let us ask God for the strength to be meek.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 12 ~ Comfort For The Mourner

Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

 ~ Matthew 5:4

Jesus continued His first recorded sermon by addressing a second criteria of people who are blessed. First we need to see our own insufficiency and need, to be poor. The second is a continuation of the first. Some people see their poorness and respond by trying harder and digging deeper within themselves rather than turning to outside help. But some see their brokenness. They mourn because they are damaged and can not repair themselves. Those who are broken can find comfort in the Spirit. It's actually a promise that if we look for comfort in God we will find it. The reverse is also true however that if we look for comfort in anything other than God we will either not find it or it will be fleeting and lacking comfort at best. Our sufferings and the things that cause us to mourn can serve a great purpose in that they can teach us to turn to Jesus for our solace and comfort. Today let us not despise our suffering but let us work within us the understanding that Jesus is the answer and nothing else.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 11 ~ Poor In Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

 ~ Matthew 5:3

Jesus began His first recorded sermon with the above sentence. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The kingdom of heaven is something to be desired here and now. Nevermind the eternal aspect of heaven that none of us can truly wrap our minds around, but there is an aspect of the kingdom of heaven that is now. We need it. Today is the day of salvation, and once again not worrying so much about heaven and hell and eternity as being saved from the hell of today, to be saved from our own selfishness and self centeredness so that we can walk with God today. The first step in accessing the kingdom of heaven on this plane of existence, of finding and developing a relationship with the King, is realizing the need. It is good to want relationship with God, to desire to be closer to Him. But that's  not enough. We can be distracted from desires. We can change our minds. But needs are an altogether different story. If we are poor in spirit then we have come to the place where we understand our insufficiency. We don't have enough.  We need God. It's not about want or desire anymore. We have come to the place where we understand that we do not have what we need for life, we are poor. In that place of poorness, of not having or being enough in ourselves, we can turn away from self sufficiency and cry out to God for help. In doing so we find relationship, salvation and citizenship  in the kingdom. We are all poor in spirit. Today let us see our poverty so that we see our great need to find everything that we need in Him and through Him.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 10 ~ Spiritual Diabetes

I have a niece who turned 13 yesterday. She's a beautiful young lady inside and out who happens to have juvenile diabetes. Her pancreas doesn't work, and she can not regulate her own blood sugar. Sugar highs and lows cause different but equally serious, even life threatening, issues. She has been blessed with an insulin pump. The pump allows her to go through her day while it controls her insulin intake. Usually. When it works. Things can happen that cause it not to work right. Sometimes this is immediately noticeable. That pump site isn't correct. Sometimes though the issue may got unnoticed until she gets sick.

We have a similar issue spiritually. It's not our fault. We were born with it, like my niece was born to be a diabetic. But something in our spirit doesn't work right, and we don't produce goodness and righteousness in anywhere close to sufficient quantities to produce and maintain life. We can try and want to all we want. Our spiritual pancreases just aren't capable.  When we come to God through faith we are given an awesome spiritual insulin pump. It's a temporary fix that gives us the goodness and righteousness of Jesus to make up for our insufficiency. The main similarity with real diabetes is that try as we might we can not make ourselves produce what we need to live and need an outside source. Without it we will surely die. The main difference is that when we pump our lives full of Jesus, He replaces what we lack. He covers the need. But more than that, as the Holy Spirit enables us to walk in goodness, righteousness and love, our spiritual pancreases actually start to work some. And one day, on the other side of eternity, they will work as they were intended to when we were created. The other main difference is that unlike insulin, we can never have too much Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Today let us remember that we can not walk with God on our own. Let's make sure that we have our pump site right so that we can receive an influx of the Spirit as we go about our day. And while we're at it, let's say a little prayer for a sweet 13 year old with diabetes.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 9 ~ God's Treasure

“Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." 

~ Luke 12:6-7

Sometimes we just feel so worthless. We look at ourselves and all we can see is what we don't like or even hate about ourselves. The mistakes we've made outweigh every good memory and seem more real. If we could get away from ourselves, dump ourselves, fire ourselves, etc. we certainly would, and we can't imagine why everyone doesn't feel that way. Sometimes we even try to escape who we are and how we feel about ourselves, and those escape attempts often lead to more bondage and feeling more miserable and self-hating.

The response to feeling this way is not to be found in the power of positive thinking and attempting to convince ourselves that we are better than that. We can stare at the mirror and repeat the we are beautiful and essential to the universe mantras until we are hoarse without it doing any good. But Jesus said that we can know the truth and that when we know truth it shall make us free.  The truth is that we are valuable to God. At our worst and most worthless to ourselves and others we were still worth everything to Him. He loves us way more than we could ever love ourselves. He says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and worth more than precious jewels.

You are valuable to the Creator of the universe. That truth can free you from the bondage of how we feel about ourselves and the prison of the past. It can remind us that when we feel broken, weak and dirty we don't have to hide but can run to the Father. God's truth is more real than how we feel. The truth is that you are precious to Him, He considers you His treasure.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 8 ~ God Is Dead

God is Dead. 

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Sorry Freddy, I get where you're coming from. I really do. But you were wrong. Oh so wrong. Nietzsche knows now without question that God is alive. I personally believe that there's a good chance that I'll get to chat with the fellow preacher's kid in heaven someday. I hope so, but there's also a chance he didn't make it.  What I do know is that to hate anything as much as Nietzsche came to hate God there must be deep hurt that comes from loving and feeling betrayed. His issues with God may have started where my own did. I think there is so commonality in the pain that comes from that unique status of being the son of a preacher man.

Regardless, Nietzsche had hurts that led him to questions that led him to philosophy. I went that route some myself. In fact I almost majored in philosophy in college. But finally I came to a place that Nietzsche did not. I realized that old Fred suffered from acute arrogance. What Nietzsche's ideas finally boiled down to is that if Christianity didn't make sense to him, if he couldn't figure God out and answer all of the questions he had satisfactorily then God was irrelevant and not real.  I came to the place where I realized that no one with a finite mind would ever truly be able to understand and perceive an infinite anything.

Oh and it's so easy for those of us who never got hurt or angry enough at God to say, "You're dead to me," to say Nietzsche was wrong and that we've always believed. I told a man seven years ago that I was not an atheist nor an agnostic, that as messed us as I had gotten I had always known that there is a God. He laughed and told me that I was the ultimate agnostic. I disagreed until he told me that an agnostic was less someone who didn't know if there was a God as much as someone who claimed that there was but lived as though He either didn't exist or was irrelevant.

The truth is that God is either everything or He is nothing. If we declare Him to be alive, then He must be everything. We have no other option than to fall on our knees in submission to all that He is. If we are unable or unwilling to surrender, the only way we can do so is to declare in our hearts, irregardless of what we say with our mouths, that God is dead. And if we go that route, a patient, merciful and loving Heavenly Daddy, who is very much alive, will weep with all heaven and hope for our return to Him. God defeated death...and He is alive.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 7 ~ God is love

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

I Corinthians 13:4-8a

God is love....Love suffers long or is longsuffering, which means that it doesn't quit when things get difficult. God doesn't back down or give up. God is also kind. Kindness is partnered with patience, because it's more than just enduring and putting up with difficulty in relationship, but doing so with an attitude and desire that makes things better. Kindness is endeavoring to bless. God blesses us. He is kind to us.

Love doesn't envy, brag or inflate itself, which basically can be boiled down to God doesn't build Himself up by putting us down and doesn't compete with us. Jesus humbled Himself for us. He took our curse. He made His victory become our victory and our weakness became His, That's love. And God doesn't put our needs last or even second. He wants us to be the best us we can be, unique and precious in His sight and yet a reflection of glory. He was willing to die to make that happen. He won't force it on us, but He pleasures in what is right and best for us and nothing else will do. He will never fail us or fall short of bringing us into the fullness of His glory.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 6 ~ God Is Our Shield

God is our shield. That means that God can keep us safe. There was a man named Frederick Nolan. Nolan was in North Africa during a time of persecution who hid from his enemies in a cave. He couldn't run any longer and crawled inside exhausted. He knew the enemy would find him, but he just couldn't go on. As he lay there a spider began weaving a web. Those who would kill him soon arrived at the entrance to the  cave, but upon seeing the web they thought there was no way Nolan could've entered the cave without disturbing the web. They moved on, searching for him elsewhere, and he escaped them. When he realized what happened he said, “Where God is, a spiders web is like a wall, “Where God is not, a wall is like a spiders web.”

In the world's view faith may seem a flimsy thing, but God is able to keep us and protect us against all the wiles of the enemy. Today let us remember that no matter how vulnerable we appear or how great what we face appears God is not only our shield but all the shield we need.

You Can't Make God Not Love You

Dalyn Woodard shares on knowing that we are God's and how much we are loved by God. There is nothing we can do to change that. He will finish what He started with us. The message, "You Can't Make God Not Love You" is about 37 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, August 5, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 5 ~ God Is Our Strength

The sci-fi of the past is pretty much here now. No, we don't have our hoverboards yet, nor our flying cars or space colonies. And I would love a replicator and a holodeck. But there are pretty of advancements that have happened in just my lifetime that are the stuff of science fiction. What's the point?

The military has a suit now, an exoskeleton. It is made to fit the body of the person who will be using it. Think Edge of Tomorrow but less Hollywood. With one of these suits though a man can lift hundreds of pounds and walk like it's basically nothing, a human forklift that can shoot. They are expensive and bulky but they are out there. And if you saw one in action and didn't know what it was you would think that soldier is seriously strong. He may be, but what is making it possible for him to lift and carry that impressive weight is not his strength.

God is our strength. His Spirit is within us and acts like an inner skeleton that enables us to do far above what we could ever do on our own. We can climb higher, walk farther, endure more, carry impossible burdens and move mountains by His power. With the power of the Spirit we can actually overcome  the bondage that has enslaved us and break the chains that have held us for all our lives as though they were flimsy and weak. It's not because we got spiritual and became good and strong that we find ourselves able to walk away from addictions and walk with God. It's because the nature of grace is such that when we answer His call to come to Him, He replaces our weakness with His strength. We don't have to rely on our strength that will fail us. We have God's strength to do the job.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 4 ~ God Is Faithful

faithful: adjective 1. strict or thorough in the performance of duty: a faithful worker. 2. true to one's word, promises, vows, etc. 3. steady in allegiance or affection; loyal; constant: faithful friends. 4. reliable, trusted, or believed. 5. adhering or true to fact, a standard, or an original; accurate: a faithful account; a faithful copy.

God is faithful. Even when life has trust us that we can't rely trust and rely on anyone but ourselves and experience has proven that our faith in ourselves is misplaced, the truth is that the love of God never fails and He is faithful. God does what He says He will do completely and thoroughly and exactly as He says He will. Some things may not happen as quickly as we'd like, but when He said He will heal the brokenhearted and set the prisoner free, that's exactly what He meant and what He will do if we let Him. He is true to His word. He doesn't change His mind and get wishy wash depending on the situation or popular opinion. He is the one friend, Father, commander who is always loyal. He set a standard of holiness and perfection and stayed true to it while staying true to His attributes of love and mercy at the same time by sacrificing perfection on a cross in our place so that we who can never be perfect and holy on our own can be made perfect and holy through Him and by Him. Whatever part of faithfulness we look at, it perfectly describes God and why we can trust Him and rely on Him always.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 3 ~ God Is Good

God is good. All the time. And all the time? God is good. Now that sounds kind of trite and silly. But it's true. If God were really totally good He would want the people He created to be happy and have easy care free lives. If God were really powerful He could make what He wants to be reality. But we are rarely truly happy and life is almost never easy and care free. Therefore God is either not good or weak or both.

Wrong. He just has His hands tied.  You like being free? Americans have been awfully proud of that "Give me liberty or give me death" quote and the "Don't Tread On Me" flag gets brought out whenever we see people mad at the idea of the government stepping on or taking away our liberties and rights. We hate it when someone tries to take our freedom and rights away. So how can we even pretend that we could love the idea of a God that would make us puppets with no choice. But He didn't do that. He gave us free will. He gave us the choice to love Him and serve Him or not. That means some will choose not to and at times all of us will. When we do we bring pain into the world and our lives, because to fail to serve and love Him is to fail to fulfill the purpose that we were created for. And failing at our purpose can't produce anything other than misery and pain.

Then when we all screwed it up and sided with the enemy He came, took on flesh and died so that we could have life and be reconciled (made right) with Him. He has born our failures and our punishment. He jumped on the grenade we pulled the pin on so that we could live. That's a good God. He uses His power to take everything that the enemy, everything people do to try to use or hurt us and everything we have done wrong and make into something that can be used for good. It was His creative mind after all who managed to make it so that manure could be used as fertilizer to make food grow. He knows how to take our crap and use it to make life grow, and He longs to do just that if we will let Him. That's pretty good. That's more than good. That's heroic and awesome.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 2 ~ God Is Real

If you ask me to prove what I believe, I can’t... The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a leap... and comes out upon a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.

~Einstein

God is real. It's a simple statement, a true statement. Some may doubt it and question it and demand scientific proof, but I know it. Well how is what I know more important than scientific proof? It's not to you, but it is to me. What you know is more important to you than scientific proof. If you are inclined to disagree than consider why you believe in scientific proof. It lines up with your own experiences that tell you what you can and can't believe and trust.

We believe when the "evidence" leans a certain way and lines up with our own personal experience. Video, photographs and descriptions from people who appear to be trustworthy make me believe that there is a geographical place we refer to as Alaska. I've never seen it personally. I know photographs can be doctored and faked. Has anyone seen Jurassic World? Video doesn't prove much these days either. But I know Alaska is real.

I know God is Real because I have seen what He has done. I have experienced His presence and His power. I have struggled with addiction for nearly thirty years and then had Him do for me what I had never been able to do for myself. I've met many crack heads, coke fiends, tweakers, junkies and drunks who have all gotten clean and sober and all given credit to God for doing what they couldn't. I have seen and experienced transformations in character and emotions and mental states that are as obvious and as radical as caterpillar to butterfly that simply can't be explained any other way.

I have both felt the presence of God and seen the difference in my life when I surrendered my will to His. That is evidence that I can easily trust more than what can or can not be seen under a microscope. And the thing is that that same very real God I have found also wants to have a relationship with you. It's His passion. It's His  greatest desire. He wants that so badly that He sent His Son to die and remove the barrier between you and Him. If you give Him an opening as small as a BB, He will show Himself real to you as well.

Unshackled Moments ~ August 1 ~ Lion's Dens

My boss went to Oklahoma last week to pick up a 40 ft trailer full of farm equipment. He got it home, and the next day we were going to take the equipment to his  sales lot and unload it. The truck wouldn't start. After trying and checking several things we discovered that a wire had come loose from the starter because a nut had come off a bolt. He found a replacement nut, but the starter had to come off the truck in order to put it on. Once that was done the time came to put the starter back on. In the process of doing that Eddie  broke the solenoid. When all was said and done, that little adventure cost four days of time waiting to unload the trailer and over $80 in repair costs, not including my labor.

Yesterday we headed to the lot to unload. Eddie drove the truck with the long trailer, and I followed in another truck. He turned into a fuel station on the way to the lot. He told me he just realized that he was about to run out of diesel. He didn't have enough to get to the lot and to a fuel station.  He said it's a good thing he noticed, because running out with that huge load would have really been bad, and if he had run out on the way back from Oklahoma. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed how low on fuel he had been. I agreed that running out would've been horrible, but said it actually was good he hadn't notices, because if he'd stopped for diesel on the way back he'd've been stuck at the pump. The truck wouldn't have started back up due to the wire. He thanked the providence of God that it had worked out as it did.

Sometimes things go wrong, and if we focus on the downside, the loss of time and money, the inconvenience and frustration we may not see the hand of God protecting us. Daniel received God's protection from the lions, but he still spent the night in a lion's den in the dark with the remains of victims and feces and the beasts themselves. God's care doesn't always mean problem or worry free. But we need to remember that no matter how bad things feel or seem it doesn't mean that God isn't good to us or doesn't love and provide for us. It's never until we're past it and  haven't been eaten by the lions that we can see the providence of God keeping us safe. In the midst of the situation we usually only see the teeth.