Numbering Our Days

Numbering Our Days

Dear Champions,

The scripture is Psalms 90:12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I saw on the news recently that the average person is on their smart phone 4 hours a day.  We look at our phone 150 times a day and check it on the average of once every 5 minutes.   After 30 years of our life we will have spent about 5 years on our phone. Some of the smartest minds in the world are trying to make us addicted to our smart phones, and they are succeeding.

This Tuesday and Thursday February 27 and March 1^st  Kirk Cameron has a movie out helping us know how to protect our kids from the evil side of technology.  He is not telling us to get rid of technology.  The movie is going to try and give us wisdom on how to use it wisely. 

To get more information on the movie, got to http://connectmovie.com/  Pass this information along to your friends if you think that it will be helpful.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Forgiveness is for the Forgiver

Forgiveness is for the Forgiver

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Don Henley, and the scripture is Matthew 6:12, 14-15  Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. . . . For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

If we keep carrying anger toward someone, it'll eat us up inside.   Not forgiving will penetrate all aspects of our lives, like a cancer that is uncontrolled. It will affect relationships, health, and our work. It will impair our capacity to love even those who are completely uninvolved in the situation about which we are angry. It will stifle our own willingness to forgive ourselves.

 

Forgiveness is for the forgiver, not the one receiving the forgiveness. It doesn't really matter much even if the person being forgiven knows about being forgiven or not.  We must forgive for we are forgiven.

 

I know a man who sees no need to forgive his daughter because she hasn't acknowledged her wrong doing.  Sure, we all want an apology now and then. An apology is an affirmation of our injury and an acknowledgement that our feelings are important. But, what if the other party also feels injured and is also waiting for an apology?  Both may wait their entire lives, living without the blessing of forgiveness.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

No Greater Love

No Greater Love

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is from Bobby Bowden and is found in his book, Called To Coach.  The Scripture is John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.  John 10:15,18  I lay down my life for the sheep. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

 

One of my favorite devotionals I told our team is a touching story about two children in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.  A little girl was hurt and needed a blood transfusion to save her life.  They could not find an adult with the same type of blood in her village, so they had to draw blood from her 12 year-old brother.  Doctors asked the boy, "Are you willing to give blood to your sister to save her life?"

 

The little boy said he would do anything to save her.  As the doctor started to put a needle into the boy's arm, the little boy started to cry.  "Why are you crying," the doctor asked him.

 

"Will it hurt when I die," the little boy asked.

 

The little boy really thought he was going to die by giving blood to his sister, but he loved her so much he was willing to die for her.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Acknowledging God

Acknowledging God

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Ron Hutchcraft, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.     

 

Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Notice what's the opposite of trusting in the Lord with all your own heart--trying to figure it out for yourself, doing what you think is best...leaning on your own understanding.

 

Verse 6 says, "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths."  The other day I was really blessed in a place not normally associated with blessing—the dentist's office. I was in the waiting room and I saw an old friend with his wife--they're both in their 90s. He's working hard to care for his wife because her health is really deteriorating. Because it had been raining when they came in, my friend asked the dentist if he could help him get his wife out to the car. My dentist came back in, really touched by what had happened in those two minutes--so touched that he brought it up two more times. He said, "When I went out with George and his wife, it wasn't raining. And George said, 'Isn't it great that the Lord stopped the rain long enough for us to get out to the car?' Then he just looked heavenward and said, 'Thanks, Father.'"

 

Now that's acknowledging Him. That's noticing God's working in the details of your day. And that's where praise comes from...where joy comes from...where a victorious attitude comes from in the toughest of times. But you have to go into your day looking for God at work. If you don't, you'll miss God and you'll miss the joy.

 

If you haven't been seeing God a lot lately, you may have been focused on your circumstances...other people...or yourself--you've missed the fingerprints of God all over your day. The little mercies, the small miracles, the interventions, the encouraging surprises, the bad things that didn't happen. I know there's never a day where He doesn't show up because His "mercies are new every morning!"  You'll see God all over your day--if you're looking for Him.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining