It Came from Within!

If a monster was freely roaming, destroying and terrorizing our city streets, you’d probably want the city to do everything in their power to stop it, right? This morning, Gregg introduced us to some real-life monsters that we’re not always so aggressive in eradicating from our life. These are monsters that seek to invade our hearts.

While we learn from an early age how to monitor our behavior and filter our words and our actions in order to make life work, it’s not enough to monitor our behavior; we have to learn the art of monitoring our heart.

That’s why Solomon, the wisest man to ever walk the earth, said this:

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23

Above all else…before you do anything, do this one thing because everything in life emanates from your heart—your words, your thoughts, your actions and your relationships.

You guard your heart by watching what goes in and keeping an eye on what comes out. How’s your heart? Don’t be afraid of the monsters. God has given you specific weapons to fight and defeat them.

It’s going to be a great series. You won’t want to miss it. 

Three C's-Connection

At the beginning of the year, Gregg took some time to expound on three of Grace Honolulu’s core values— we’re calling them the three C’s. Since I’ve been lagging in my blogs, it looks like I kept you hanging for over a month to reveal the third “C”.

Well, here is it: connection. Connection is experienced when we’re devoted to loving God’s people and growing through relationship with others. Two of the main ways we do this in the church is through participating in a small group and serving on a ministry team.

How are your relationships in the body of Christ? Are you getting connected with other believers by sharing your life with them in a small group? Are you a part of something bigger than yourself and your own schedule through serving on a ministry team?

As Christ-followers, these are three important groups of relationships for us to have in our life if we’re going to partner with God in becoming all that He’s created and called us to do.

Christ—being devoted to loving Jesus and experiencing relationship with a living God.

Community—being devoted to loving people and influencing our culture by following Jesus into the places where we live, work and do life.

Connection—being devoted to loving God's people and growing through relationship with others in small groups and serving with a team.

Three C's-Community

Christianity is more than a religion--it's a relationship with God. During our series, Connecting the Dots, we've discovered that too often there's a disconnect between our faith and how we live our everyday lives. We can compartmentalize God, keeping Him as a "Sunday thing" we do, instead of seeing Him as real and actively involved in the world in which we live. 


We've been learning about three important groups of relationships--the three C's. The first is our relationship with Christ. The second, is our relationship with our community. God desires for us to take this incredible relationship that we have experienced with Christ and share it with the community where we live, work and do life. 


Community is being devoted to loving people and influencing our culture by following Jesus into the broken, hurting world around us.

Three C's - Christ

This month, we began a new series, Connecting the Dots. Too often there’s a disconnect between our faith and how we live our everyday lives. Yet, God is real and He is actively involved in our lives and our world.

Throughout our series, Gregg will be discussing the three most important groups of relationships for us to have as Christ-followers—we’re calling them the three C’s. The first is our relationship with Christ.

We experience how real and reliable God is when we trust Him first. Going to God should not be a last resort, but a first resort. Here are some practical ways to trust Him first in your life this year. At the first of each day, seek God. At the first of each week, gather together for worship. At the first of each month, give God your tithe. And at the first of each year, set aside time to seek God through fasting and prayer. 

As for the other two, you'll have to come back next week, or see you Sunday!

Loving the Church

I just read this post on Henri Nouwen's website, Bread for the Journey: 


"Loving the Church often seems close to impossible. Still, we must keep reminding ourselves that all people in the Church - whether powerful or powerless, conservative or progressive, tolerant or fanatic - belong to that long line of witnesses moving through this valley of tears, singing songs of praise and thanksgiving, listening to the voice of their Lord, and eating together from the bread that keeps multiplying as it is shared. When we remember that, we may be able to say, "I love the Church, and I am glad to belong to it."

Loving the Church is our sacred duty. Without a true love for the Church, we cannot live in it in joy and peace. And without a true love for the Church, we cannot call people to it."

I Am What I Do

This Sunday, Gregg will conclude our Identity Theft series with I Am What I Do.

I have found myself believing the powerful lie that says my worth comes from what I do. This mentality for years led me to live as if my performance was what made me valuable. I would do, do, do…add, add, add wearing myself out to prove my worth and significance. This mentality kept me in bondage through most of my high school years as I battled an eating disorder. I thought if I looked a certain way and accomplished a lot of great things, then I would be content.

When we live this way, we wrongly derive our identity from what we accomplish, what we have and what people think about us. What we do shouldn’t define us. The one who created us should define who we are. If we are not allowing the truth of God’s word to define who we are, then something else will define us.

Our culture sends a lot of messages about achieving success and attaining “outer” beauty, but very little guidance is given as to how we can develop inner peace, beauty and contentment. We’re left to figure a lot of it out for ourselves. Developing this worth doesn’t come from trying harder. It’s not about doing more. It’s believing the truth about God and how He sees you. It’s about becoming the woman that He created you to be. 

I Have to Be Strong

Tomorrow, we’ll begin a new series, Identity Theft. Did you know that you have an enemy who desires to steal your identity and mar your self-image. In John 8:44 the devil is described as a liar and the father of lies.

When we fail to believe what God says is true about us, we can never become all that God desires for us to be. A lie, when believed as a truth, will affect you and influence your life as if it were true.

I’ve believed a lot of lies about myself over the years. One of them, Gregg will be sharing about tomorrow. It’s the lie that I have to be strong. For some reason, I sometimes feel this great pressure to always be strong—that it’s wrong to show weakness and imperfection.

Whether it’s the pressure to be emotionally, professionally, or spiritually strong, God says that it’s not in our strength but in our weakness that His strength is made perfect in our lives.

When we’re strong, the tendency is to rely on our strength. It’s when we’re weak and broken that we look to God for His strength to work through us.

My strength is extremely limited; but God’s strength is unlimited. As I embrace my weakness and trust God, I find that His unlimited strength is more than enough to meet my every need.

Agents of Influence

This Sunday, we have the exciting privilege of having Stephen Mansfield minister at both of our Sunday morning services!

Stephen Mansfield is a New York Times bestselling author and he is quickly becoming one of America’s most respected voices on religion, culture and politics. He has authored many books including, The Faith of the American Soldier, The Faith of George W. Bush and The Faith of Barrack Obama, and is a highly sought after teacher and speaker.

If you’re in the area, please join us! Stephen Mansfield will communicate a different topic in each service. At our 8:30am service, he will speak about the importance of reaching the next generation. At our 10:30am service, he will share how God can use our lives as agents of influence the marketplace and culture. 

Fight for Your Family

Little behind on my blogs. A couple of weeks ago, Gregg concluded our Parenthood series with a message entitled Fight for Your Family.

I realize that I’m a little biased, but I think it was one of the most powerful messages he’s given. You can listen to it here.

As a parent, I want God and His love to be real to my children. Yet, there are times when the task is so difficult that the temptation is to give up.  

We spend a lot of time fighting for their health and protection, but how much energy do we truly expend in fighting for their spiritual development?

God’s presence and power needs to be at work in our lives before we can expect our children to experience His presence and power at work in their lives. 

In Nehemiah 4, when the Israelites became discouraged while building the wall around Jerusalem, Nehemiah made a strategic decision.

Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” Nehemiah 4:13-14

Nehemiah posted them by families. By doing this, the Israelites were continuously reminded about what they were fighting for. If they became discouraged and gave up, they stood to not only lose a generation, but their very own sons and daughters as well.

Don’t ever give up in the fight for your family. Your children need to know that they’re worth fighting for.

Gotta Have More

Last Sunday, Gregg continued our Hostage series by talking about addiction. God desires for us to break free from things that hold us hostage and addiction is something that destroys our relationships and our lives. Did you know that Hawaii is the worst crystal meth abuser in the nation?

Gregg shared that the downward spiral towards addiction begins when we replace God with something else. We underestimate the power of sin and the desire of our soul. If God is not at the center of your life, something else will be.

One man in our church shared about the high price that his addiction cost him. Bill was addicted to gambling. His gambling addiction forced him into bankrupty more than 40 years ago. Not knowing what to do, he abruptly left his wife and their seven children for three years. Thankfully, Bill surrendered his life to Jesus several years ago. You can listen to the message and the rest of Bill’s sobering story here.   

Only God can break the power of addiction over our lives and satisfy the longing in our soul. The path to freedom begins when we take our addiction to God, take it public and take it down—fighting for our freedom.

Our amazing youth leaders put together a powerful drama portraying the effects of addiction and the freedom found in Christ. You can watch it here. Warning: I’ve yet to watch it with dry eyes!

No Perfect People Allowed

This Sunday, we’ll begin a new series, No Perfect People Allowed. If that disqualifies you from coming, I am terribly sorry. We’re really excited to have Lynette Lewis with us to open our series.

Lynette travels and speaks extensively all around the world and is one of John Maxwell’s Maximum Impact Speakers. With over 20 years of marketplace experience, Lynette has served in the corporate arena in various capacities, more recently as a senior marketing leader with Deloitte and Touche in New York City. Lynette is also the founder of Stop Child Trafficking Now.

Lynette will be talking about the Deception of Perfection. If you’ve never heard her speak before, she’s a powerful communicator who’s able to connect with her audience in an intimate, personal way.

Hope to see you there! Unless, of course, you’re perfect. Then you’re not allowed. J

U-turns Allowed

When you’ve strayed so far, how do you even begin to find your way back? Sunday, Gregg interviewed our youth ministry director, James Webb, about his difficult journey through abuse, anger and drugs to a finding a relationship with Christ.

James mentioned that at one point in his life he thought it was too late for him to turn his life around. He felt that he’d gone too far and didn’t even know where to begin to find his way back.

During that season, someone told James something that stuck with him. Something that he couldn’t shake.

To find out what happened and what gave him hope to change, you can listen to his entire story here.  

It’s never too late to get a fresh start. God offers us hope and allows u-turns. In doing so, God graciously wipes our slate clean and gives us a new start on the inside, in our hearts. 

Outta Control

Thanks to my husband, Gregg, for co-writing this post with me.

Since Gregg spoke last week on Losing Control, we’ve received several emails, questions and comments. God is in control and although He gives us a limited authority for a limited time, ultimately, He controls the outcome.

While Gregg’s message was about acknowledging that God, and not I or you, is in control, the most frequently asked question we received this week sounded like this: “How do you move forward after spending years in an unhealthy, controlling relationship or environment?”

Good question.

From our experience, here’s a couple of thoughts that have helped us move out of these types of situations and forward into what God had for us.

1. Honor God in all that you do and refuse to hold on to offense and bitterness. This is always much easier to say than to do. With sadness, I know some who have rejected God altogether because of the way another person (Christian) treated them. Sin is real, our world is broken because of it; hurt and pain are a common part of our human experience. Refuse to blame God when others hurt you. Hold to God, forgive and let go of offense.

2. Get into a healthy environment. Before I got glasses, I thought I could see clearly. It wasn’t until I put on the glasses that I began to realize how distorted my vision really had become. Controlling environments are usually isolated environments. Move forward by getting into a healthy environment where you can begin to see clearly and live with the freedom Christ offers.

3. Take responsibility. It’s important to take responsibility for your life. Desiring to please people and avoid tension can lead to surrendering decisions as to how we live our life to others. We’re responsible to God, not someone else, for how we live our lives, the way we use our gifts and talents and the choices we make. Choose wisely. Choose to please God.

4. Dream. God has big plans for your life. Love God, love people and make disciples. It’s all right to dream big and go for it!

5. Oh yeah, remember that He really is in control.

Same Old Boring Stroke

Yesterday, Justin and Jordan started tennis lessons. They received tennis rackets for Christmas (2008), and have been hitting balls against the garage door for over a year. Armed with rackets, they headed to their lessons and began to learn the basics of tennis.

Last Sunday, Pastor Steve shared about an experience that his boys had with a tennis coach. Let me attempt to explain it to you.

He said that their coach would drill them on the “same old boring stroke” and encouraged them not to come up with something new, fancy, tricky or spectacular. Just the same old boring stroke, executed strong and well.

The church can host a lot of events and do a lot of things, but if we neglect the necessary and foundational things—the  “same old boring stroke” (not really boring, but you know what I mean)—we will fall short of what God desires for us to be.

Every believer should be a disciple and make a disciple—nothing fancy, tricky, new or spectacular, but the essential ingredient to demonstrate God’s love to a needy world.

Same old boring stroke executed strong and well, and the world will never be the same.  

  

On the Move

This Friday, Gregg and I will celebrate 16 years of marriage. In the 16 years we’ve been married, we have had five children and moved 13 times. Then, it seems fitting that we would celebrate our anniversary week with a new baby and another move.

No, I’m not pregnant. We just bought a puppy. And while our family is not moving this weekend, our church is. In planning for the January rebirthing of our church, we are relocating our Sunday services from Dole Cannery to Kahala Elementary. Closer to the University, and in a community where families live, work and do life.

So, I’ll be dedicating the next few of my entries to some of our more memorable moving experiences. Some happy, some sad, all painfully true.

Gotta go. Time to take our new baby to the vet. Then it’s off to the Children’s hospital so my bigger baby, Brandon, can have his cast removed.