Guilty as charged. Yep I do both. The question I ask myself is, which is most beneficial to me and those around me. Well that is pretty simple to answer by defining each word. I will not exasperate you by giving my definition or even give you the answer. If you are a seeker and wanting personal growth in your life, LOOK it up for YOURSELF. Wow Den, How rude can you be? I just inspired you my friend. You see it takes an effort to blow up a balloon and none to deflate it.

A good friend text me last Saturday and asked if I could have lunch with him Monday. While we sat eating our lunch, he said he was leaving to go to the Philippines in about 12 hours and he wanted to talk to me before he left.

I thought to myself, why me??? He told me in essence, that my life has influenced or inspired him. He wanted to meet with me and share something’s he was learning and get some input before he left.  He was headed for remote villages where people live in the cemetery and they are surrounded by very dangerous people. Where AL Qaeda and extremist are in power and growing, where people have little hope or future, where the life span average age is 40, where HE possibly would be in danger of losing his life.

Now that is a tough balloon to blow up, yet he and others have chosen to go to INSPIRE.!!!

Every moment of every day you and I have the opportunity to inspire. From the clerk at the grocery store, to the Police officer who is writing us a ticket, to our teenager who will not clean their room, to the ones we love and those we dislike the most.

Make this day, the first day, of the rest of your life and go INSPIRE the world around YOU!!!   We already have plenty of deflators.

Tell them I am real and very much alive. I am looking for people who would like to be my friend. That’s all, just to be my friend. People have a lot of different opinion’s about me and who i am. They talk a lot about me on Sunday mornings. inside buildings with chairs and music and some one standing up telling them how they need me and what they are doing wrong which is causing them to be poor or sick and that my Father is displeased with them when they disobey and that the devil is going to get them. Then they tell them they have to give money to help to support what they are doing, so they can tell more people about me. They tell the people that we in the building are the saints and the people outside in the world are sinners. They tell them that my Father will send them to hell if they do not get born again and that he does not hear sinners. They also say things like you have to talk right and think right and be nice to everybody. Then they ask them to give more money to build the new addition to the building and that building over there that has another name on it has wrong doctrine. Then you turn on the TV or radio and everyone is talking about me again on special stations that is all about me, about the future, about giving them money so they can tell more people about me. They point to the camera and say the lord says there are 200 people out there, that need to give $55 dollars as a seed to get a big check in the mail or to get a blessing. They are always quoting the Bible and telling the same stories about the same people over and over and again. I often wonder do i have any more fiends beside Matthew, Mark, Luke John, Paul, Moses, Job, etc, etc. I get really confused sometime about who i really am when i listen to all this stuff.

I Just want to be their friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I often wonder what the average non church goer thinks of today’s Church. I know how I think about it at times. That’s it, I am Out of here!!! If I feel or think that way, I can only imagine how millions, upon millions, of others might be thinking. In my 38 years as a follower of Jesus, I have attended a few thousand services. There is handful that  impacted my life. As a Pastor I have conducted hundreds of services and again only a handful have impacted my life. Some one might say, why did you go. Simple answer, PEOPLE!!! Same reason why Jesus came, PEOPLE!!! But he did not come to gather them in a building and have someone tell them what the Bible says or interpret it for them, but to give them FREEDOM.  I am not saying that you or i should not go to a building and gather with other followers, but i will not let the walls of wood and mortar or the doctrines of men keep me in there. Freedom is in Jesus Christ and him alone.

People all over the world are searching for something. The mustard in the Frigidaire, their other shoe, a new job, a place to retire, a husband, water to drink, a safe place to get away from the abuse, a new Church to attend, ETC,ETC. But sometimes when we find what we are looking for, we stop searching.

I like this definition of Search:

To look into or over carefully or thoroughly in an effort to find or discover something:

Notice the words carefully, thoroughly and effort. We should never, ever stop searching for Truth. Absolute Truth is in HIM, THE TRUTH. Many have fallen from the pursuit of Truth because we were not careful and thorough in where we were looking. Absolute Truth can only be found in the Spirit of Truth, which is Christ in us. Pursue Him fully and be attentive of where you are looking.