Well Friends,

This year is winding down.

I appreciate you visiting and reading and commenting.

This has been a very good year.
At the beginning of 2006 I had no idea that I would be:

• starting a blog in May
• starting a new church in June
• going on the radio in July
• leaving the Praise Fellowship Church building in October

You see we can make our plans and we should but remember we’re not alone. We have a partner. A friend in the god-head. We have Jesus as our savior, the Father as our father and the Holy Spirit as our earthly partner and helper. He is the one who made these “extra” and “unplannable” things happen.

Make it your aim to get to know Him better this new year. One of the main reasons Jesus came was to make way for the Holy Spirit to live in you.

I hope that you are doing well. If you’re not let me know, we can pray for you. We’ve seen awesom things happen as we’ve prayed. God is available to help. We can call on Him together. He loves to show up and do His stuff.

Love ya
Joe

Hey Folks,
Just testing out posting a picture on my blog. Here’s two of the most beautiful ladies in my life. Natalie holding JuliAnna. 

Yesterday at church we made the big announcement:

We are changing the name of our church.

We have been Empower since we started in June but the Lord has been ministering to us in several ways that we needed to change the name.

So starting on January 1st, 2007 we will be called
Family Life Christian Center.

As I was seeking counsel on this one comment from my brother was that the name Empower hits the head while Family hits the heart.

People need family and we can give them that.
People need to belong and they can belong here.
People need to be loved and they get that here.

We’re so blessed to be in this ministry. People are being loved, helped, taught, trained. Its exciting to see and hear the things the Lord is doing in people’s lives.

We also got a new web domain
www.familylife.cc
It still hits http://www.empowerchicago.org but we’ll be renovating the site for the name change and the new year.

God bless you all.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Joe

PS: Check out yesterday’s messages on heart motivations and praise.

We started a series this past Sunday in the offering messages on “Getting Your New Year Started Right”.

New Year’s resolutions generally fail because we often wait until the last minute to make them and don’t give it real serious thought.

When you make a resolution you are making a firm decision to change something in your life.

Most often it’s a habit that you want to change. If you understand how habits are programmed into you then it will be easier to understand what you have to do to reprogram yourself.

Remember you are self-programmable.

In Romans 12:2 it talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Another way to say that is “If you reprogram your thinking then your habits can change.”

However habits are programmed into your subconscious, they are deep-seated in you. That is why they are so hard to change.

Habits can be your best friends if you have the right ones. Its the wrong ones that can do you in.
Habits are God’s way to destress your life. Habits let your subconscious make a decision according to the way you’ve programmed it and accepted as the way that is right or the way you want to go.

But your subconscious doesn’t want to give them up, its programmed to stay the same until completely convinced to change.

• Dreams can reprogram your subconscious.
• Dramatic life-events can.
• Biblical meditation can.
• Repetition can.

I would add one more:

• Hearing God’s voice can.

Some of these habit-altering, sub-conscious reprogramming tools are under your control, some are not.

You can pray for God to speak to you in dreams or by His voice to help you change. However, you don’t want to pray for a dramatic life-event.

I recommend that you spend your time using biblical meditation and repetition.

Step #1:
Define your problem. Write it down. Think about it. Pray about it. Write it down as accurately as you can. Ask God if you’ve got it written out correctly.

Step #2:
Spend sufficient time in prayer and Bible reading to get a solid answer to your problem. I recommend you come up with a list of scriptures that directly speak to your situation.

Step #3:
Meditate on those scriptures. If you don’t know how to do biblical meditation just think about what you do when you worry. You imagine the problem from every angle and mull over every thing that could go wrong.

In biblical meditation take a scripture and begin to imagine it. Try to view it from every angle. Just like when you’re worrying. Try to imagine every possible thing that could go right in your life if this scripture was fully implemented in your life.

Step #4:
Change your actions. Based on the scriptures you’ve meditated you’ll know some new actions to replace your old habits with. Begin to do those new actions. Over time they will become habit.

If you get this process started now in December, by the time January 1 comes you’ll already be on your way.

Love ya
Joe

Dear Friends,

If you podcast follow the link to the left to subscribe. Hope you like.

God bless

Joe

Well that title might be misleading, however…

I’m so excited about something the Lord spoke to my heart this morning.

For years I’ve heard that verse that says “perfect loves casts out fear”

I’ve heard it preached, but no one has ever explained it to the point where I understand it.

So here’s what the Lord spoke to me this morning:

Son, walk in love.
Perfect love casts out fear because

• love is others focused and
• fear is self-focused.

I love you Son. don’t worry about yourself or your future just focus on loving Me, obeying Me and loving others.

This really is simple.

Love ya
Joe

There is a maintenance man at the church I used to go to, his name is Artie. Artie always has a smile. When he’s doing his chores he’s singing away, having a great time. Artie is not always smiling and singing because everything is going his way. Things are going his way because he’s singing and smiling.

One day as I was walking into the church I saw Artie cleaning the windows, smiling and singing. I said, “Artie, did you know that your smile is spiritual warfare?”
I explained that as he smiles at people someone might come up to him who the devil has been riding them trying to get them to think negative so they can ultimately do negative. But when they come with their negative attitude and see Artie with that big smile, the devil can lose his grip on that person.

Smile it will make your brain think you’re happy!

Please don’t forget to keep your joy flowing.

There are plenty of reasons to frown, but don’t let yourself get in that habit.

With a frown you can’t help anybody.

Smiles lift you up.

Smiles lift others up.

When you smile you begin to think about positive things.

The Bible says that when your eyes are full of light then your whole body is full of light. If you are focused on the negative you’re filling yourself with darkness. If you are focusing on things that make you smile then you’re filling yourself with light.

Keep smiling folks, it’s spiritual warfare. You cause the devil to lose his grip off people, he’ll lose his grip on you too.

Love ya
Joe

Don’t neglect the gift that’s inside of you.

We all have various gifts inside of us. But we also have a responsibility to use those gifts. Don’t neglect it.

It is so easy to forget about your gift, lay it aside and stay busy with other things. But you suffer and everyone else does too when you don’t use your gift.

Encouragement may be your gift. It’s one of mine. I remember years ago when I was still leading worship. The Lord spoke to me on the way to church: “Be strategic in the use of your gift today.” I knew He was talking about my gift of encouragement. As I was leading worship my eyes scanned across the congregation and I spotted a particular person whom I sensed needed some encouragement. After the service I went up to them and asked how they were doing. They responded and my gift started working. I started encouraging them and they walked out that day having been blessed.

Don’t neglect the gift that’s inside of you.

Do what you do well and do it often.

God has blessings in store for you and
God has blessings in store for others in you.

Blogging may be one of my gifts, sorry for neglecting it.

Love ya
Joe

Hey Friends,

Boy its been busy.

We’ve got to learn how to manage our lives.

• There are so many things that you could do.
• So many things that need to be done.
• So many things that we need to do.
• But there are certain ones that will bear the most fruit.

These are the ones that we should do.
God did not call us to be busy, but to bear fruit. Fruit for Him. Fruit that will last.
Keep thinking and meditating on what He wants you to do in your life.

• Let it fill you.
• Let it captivate you.
• Get excited about it.

Then when you have a decision to make about what you should do right now that excitement will speak to you. It will demand your attention. It wall actually call you into God’s will for your life.

If you’re like me, the really important things get pushed off for so long that when you actually have time to do them you’re in the habit of not doing them.

For me it’s playing guitar and worshiping the Lord one on one. I used to do it so much, and it gave me such fulfillment. I believe it blessed Him as well. But there seems to have been this constant flow of “other” things that have pulled me away from that that now its been kind of hard to get the ball rolling. But when I do it, when I press into it. I get blessed. He meets me right there.

And He’ll meet you there too, right in the center of His will.

Love ya
Joe