I believe your (and my) success for the new year is directly related to you spending time alone with God.

The Bible says in Hebrews 11 that
He(God) is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

He also promises in Jeremiah 29:13
“If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me.”

The most meaningfully successful people I know seek the Lord the most.

The one’s whose success is purposeful and very blessed are the one’s who intentionally set aside time to pursue improving their relationship with God.

I know you’re busy but God is waiting and He’s available to you.

Consider going into your room by yourself, closing the door, kneel down next to your bed and talk to Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Consider taking a day and getting away by yourself to seek Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Consider taking three days off by yourself to pray and discuss your future with Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Open your Bible, read it.

Get a journal, write what you want to say to Him, write down thoughts and impressions you think might be from Him.

• God loves you.
• He’s your Father.
• He’s full of wisdom.
• He’s not holding back.
• He’s not mad at you.
• He loves you.

Go talk to Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Happy New Year!
Pastor Joe

21252

During Christmas time people try to be very cheery. MERRY Christmas!

Well some people struggle with that.

One quote I heard this year was
“Happiness doesn’t come from money it comes from relationships.”

In the Bible, the very first thing that God disapproved of was man being alone.
He set about immediately to change it. You should too.

The other night my wife, Nancy, came home from shopping with a few of our kids.
She said something about really needing to spend time with me because she felt lonely.
Now I don’t claim to understand women 🙂 , but I can’t see Nancy being lonely. We have seven children and we spend ALOT of time together.

As soon as she said that, I said, “Nancy, I don’t think that’s you. I think it’s a burden to pray for someone else.”
She said she instantly knew that I was right. She said it was a deep grieving in her gut. Someone hurting really bad.
She spent some time praying in the spirit for them until the burden lifted. Nancy is quite a prayer warrior.
If that was you that she was praying for, be encouraged. God is thinking about you. God agrees with your discontent with being lonely. He wants to change it. He wants it changed.

The other day I was taping a video devotional for the TLN network. One of the devotionals I taped went something like this:
=======

January 9

Researcher Carolyn Schwartz wanted to see if multiple sclerosis sufferers would benefit from receiving monthly peer-support phone calls from other MS victims. But over time, a surprising trend emerged. While those receiving support calls appeared to gain some mild benefit, the real beneficiaries were those lending a supportive ear. In fact, those who offered support experienced dramatic improvements in their quality of life—several times more so than those they were helping.

=======
My Friend,
If you’re lonely. Change it. Call someone. Help someone. Get out of those four walls, either physically, via phone, email or snail mail. Reach out. Help someone. You will be quite blessed.
Local nursing homes need volunteers to come and just talk to people.

If you’re lonely reach out to someone else. Don’t wait until they reach out to you.

You’ll be blessed if you do.
Love ya
& MERRY CHRISTMAS
Joe

21059

For the last year and a half we have had a young lady teaching our children here in our home. She has been a huge blessing. Her name is Rebecca Collins.
It’s been amazing how much she’s helped us. The kids love her. So do we.

But today was her last day of teaching the kids. She’s going to the mission field. Her life-long dream is being fulfilled on December 27th.
She’ll be home-schooling for a family in Guatemala and helping in an orphanage.
God has mighty plans for this young lady. Keep your eyes open for her.
If you want to get involved in her work financially go to our website and make a donation. She doesn’t know that I’m doing this, but I think this would be a huge blessing to get behind her and bless her and the ministry she’s working with.
You can stay up to date with her ministry by viewing her blog.
Keep her in prayer.
Watch her works and watch her faith, maybe God will have you follow suit.
Be blessed

Joe

20819

As a pastor I have a strong desire to see people grow and mature in the Lord.
This really affects all areas of life so I don’t hold back on talking about all sorts of things when I’m teaching. Paul mentioned something like this in the following verse:

Acts 20:20
You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.

This verse gives me great liberty in making applications of the word of God in all kinds of ways. Any way that would be helpful in maturing people.

Starting in January at church I’m going to start teaching the basics of Christianity.
I’m going to use an outline from Andrew Wommack’s Discipleship Evangelism course.

But I believe Christian maturity is not shown by how much you know or by how gifted you are but by how you act. Specifically how well you operate in the Fruit of the Spirit as outlined in

Galatians 5:22,23.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.

Now I have been doing an offering message during most services since I started pastoring but in the new year I’m going to switch that and do a Character Message before the offering. I’ll start with the Fruit of the Spirit but then move into all different types of character qualities that we should have.

I’m pretty excited about this because it’s on me just like any time the Holy Spirit is on me to do something. I believe He(the Holy Spirit) has a bunch that He wants to share with us.

So I invite you, if you’re in the Chicago area, come check us out at the Wheaton Bowl 10am Sundays. If you’re not local hit us on the web at our church site, you can listen to all of my sermons or radio shows there. Make it a regular habit. I believe its time for Christians to grow up and become mature. The Lord may be calling you to this. Are you ready? We are. Join us.

Pastor Joe

20635

Hey Friends,

What would you like for Christmas???

That question either brings up a list of desires or stirs up some anxiety.

Nancy & I went out to lunch a few weeks ago with a couple who’ve been used mightily by the Lord. It was the first time we had met them but I felt prompted by the Lord to ask them a question:

What are you believing God for?

I figured, everybody wants something from the Lord. Most people wish something in their life would change or they want something that they are lacking.

When I ask people that question it causes them to dig inside themselves to find out what their real desires are. That can cause some anxiety and it did when this fellow started to answer.

I put him at ease by letting him know that I really just wanted to add my prayers and faith with his. After he and his wife started digging around on the inside of themselves he brought up something that was a real hot-button topic for me. He started talking about organizational structures and preparing for growth in his ministry.

This was when I realized why the Lord had me bring up the question. God wanted to minister something from the inside of me to the inside of them. It was a powerful experience as I began to encourage them with what God had given me already.

They left that lunch time sensing that they had been touched by God. And it all came from asking a simple question:

What are you believing God for?

So, I have a question for you:

What do you want for Christmas?

Let me know,
Joe

20322

Hey Friends,

I just found out that some of the links to my songs were broken. I just fixed them for you.

Click on the list to the left side of this page and you can hear some of my original music.

God bless you
Joe

20168

Well the end is coming!

The end of the year that is.

53 days left. Maybe less by the time you read this.

Have you given up on your 07 goals?

Did you hit any of them.

People who pay attention to their goals have a much higher chance of hitting them.

(Next time make a poster and put the goals up!)

You still have time to make some progress on your 07 goals.

If you can find them, pull them out, look them over.

Did you really want to do that?

Did you make any progress?

What could you do before the end of the year?

Remember, thinking big is great for goal setting,
but thinking small (in bite-sized steps) is better for actually accomplishing the goal.

I challenge you: go ahead and finish one of your 07 goals.

You still have some time.

Remember, Napoleon said that one of the reasons he won so many battles is because he understood the value of 5 minutes.

I’m working on mine.

Be blessed
Joe

19869

Here’s a video I’m going to show this Sunday.
Enjoy.
Joe
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-7885835831822787256&hl=en

19761

Hey Friends,
Go check out Mark Collins website, watch his video then rate it on the Apple website.
There’s a contest for doing a video in 24 hours. Rate his and push it to the top.
Thanks.

Hey Friends,
I’ve been teaching lately on the renewing of your mind.
This concept is taken from Romans 12:2

• Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—
  his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Friend, if you knew what God’s perfect will was for your life, would you do it?
What if you don’t know what that will is?
You don’t want to get to heaven and find out you had an assignment on earth that you never knew about!

The only way you’re going to know what God’s full will is for your life is if you begin to renew your mind. You see if you’ve given your life to Jesus Christ then your spirit is brand new. The problem is you still have your old brain and body. So although Jesus has done a complete work in your spirit He has left some work for you to do:

You are responsible to renew your mind.

If you don’t do it, nobody else will.

Realize though the benefit: if you renew your mind you will be transformed. The word “transformed” there comes from the same Greek word where we get metamorphosis. So imagine a caterpillar being changed into a butterfly. God’s will for your life is that you be more like a butterfly than a caterpillar.

If you’re walking around this life with an un-renewed mind you are more like a worm, a caterpillar

than what you are supposed to be like:
a butterfly.

Spend time reading God’s word.

Listen to some good teaching about who you have become now that Jesus lives in your heart.

I’ve shared about this several times in our teaching at church.
Take some time and listen on our church website. I believe you’ll be blessed.

Love ya
Joe

19480