Throughout Europe and America great artwork is housed and protected in galleries and museums.

The great Masters have the material expressions of their inner vision set aside for posterity and for all to see and marvel at.

These paintings and sculptures are insured and guarded against anyone defacing them.

It’s a criminal offense to deface them. 

If one tried to throw paint at the statue of David, in Florence, the Italian authorities would detain and arrest you.

God made great works of Art.

Not only the Creation we call Earth and all the universe…

but you and me.

Think about the intricacy with which your body functions. 

Consider the involuntary organs which work while we sleep. 

Consider how your skin heals after a cut. 

Study how your eye gets the water it needs from the tear duct.

Da Vinci created many great works.
Michaelangelo painted and sculpted great beauty. Many say The Sistine Chapel was his greatest work.

We are God’s Greatest Work.

We are, however, not placed in museums to merely be gazed upon.

We are great LIVING works….

set in motion to deliver blessings from the beauty within us.

If we shroud ourselves in fear and shutter up what God intended to be shared

it would be like whitewashing the Mona Lisa.

Defacing da Vinci’s lady is crime.

Restricting the gifts and beauty painted and sculpted onto and into YOU 

by Our Great Artist….

does not get you arrested…

but it arrests and retards the progress of His Intention.

Let the great work of Art that is YOU…

shine and be shared and seen and fully revealed to the fullest intention of Our Great Artist.

Today I was getting out of the car to meet a friend for breakfast.

Usually I get to the restaurant about 30 minutes before so that I can read my Bible and the devotion for that day.

Today, as I got out of the car I was reaching for my pen in the armrest and I saw my friend drive up.

I said to myself…” I don’t have time for the devotion today”.

And I realized the fallacy of that statement.

I chose to not arrive earlier. I chose to be on time rather than be early.

I had time…I chose not to TAKE the time this morning.

As I felt the sting of that comment…”Not having time”, I said to myself, “That WILL not get to be a habit.”

It could.
But it cannot.

“I do not have time for God” – A statement that cannot be made on any consistent basis by a pursuant Believer.

“I don’t have time”

No beating your back with the nine-tailed cat, but it’s choice we all need to correct.

Human beings MAKE time for the things they WANT to do.

From Labor Day through Thanksgiving, Saturday afternoons and evenings are set-in-stone appointments for college football fans.

It’s time set aside.

Say “I don’t have time” to your spouse and you will be denied a few things.

Say “I don’t have time” to your children enough, they will find something or someone who does have time.

God made time.

He placed the earth in orbit and rotation to allow daytime to work and night to rest.

He made the week to work and Sunday to worship and rest.

I DO have time.
Today I chose not to take it.

Looking at it one way…I “big timed” God today by telling Him I did not have time for Him.

That’s not His problem…It’s mine.

It can be an escalating problem if I choose to allow it.

I purpose today that it will not occur tomorrow.

Terry
May 14, 2015

I have a friend in Advertising. He produces websites, videos and many things to market and tout the people contracting his company’s services.

Marketing pieces, billboards, commercials, the small boxes on the internet you skim over are all selling, promoting, attracting and persuading the viewer to an interest, a product or company.

Women spend time and money on make-up and methods to enhance their beauty and to be attractive.

Are you an attractive Christian?

Do you persuade people to an interest in Christ?

Or do you persuade and attract them to another subject?

Persuasion draws us, many times, to our choices. Persuasions, both conscious and subliminal, lead us to many of our decisions.

Persuade others to Christ.

Learning Scripture and incorporating it into your everyday language is a way to persuade others.

Living out Kindness, Love, Charity, Forgiveness, Benevolence, all of the Fruits will positively persuade.

If you abide in Christ your words, actions and reactions will unintentionally exhibit the Fruits….and positively persuade others.

When your mindset is to have an effect on the world for His Kingdom…. then you will intentionally act Christlike, showing His Traits, operating in and through you.

You can persuade men as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.

Burn Bright.
Be seen.

Let His Light shine…
It’s not your Light, it’s Him in you.

Be a billboard.
A good, positive one.

Persuade.

Terry
May 8, 2015

In 1988, Bobby Allison elevated from the track and hit a retaining fence at about 210 mph.
After that accident and with Bill Elliot lapping tracks at 213 mph the racing authorities initiated the use of Restrictor Plates.

These aluminum plates are placed between the carburetor and the intake manifold to reduce the flow of air and fuel and in so doing, limits or restricts horsepower and speed.

They limit speed. They hold the car back and the driver.

We could look two ways at this, however.
What are the restrictions holding down your progress, holding back the speed of your growth?

Preconceived notions about your abilities?
Negative comments uttered by someone of influence?
Self-induced comparisons to others?
These are all restrictor plates which can govern and hold back momentum, speed and the growth of your abilities and influence.

The NASCAR drivers say these plates have sometimes led to big multi-car wrecks and pile-ups because they keep all of the competing cars close together in groups as they circle the track.

They limit speed.
They level the playing field.
They create crowds.
There is a safety element to them, however.
These restrictor plates keep the most efficient and best drivers from the full use of their ability to drive and maneuver.

What restrictions keep you from being more efficient, productive and influential in your spiritual life, in your business life?

Insecurity?
Fear?
Past experience?
Complacency?

Christ removed the “plates” from Paul’s life on the road to Damascus.
Peter had his restrictions removed in the upper room after hearing a strong “rushing wind”.

Ask Christ to do that same work in you.
Work, pray and seek to remove the restrictor plates in your life and see how fast you can go and grow.

As you gain maturity and experience, confidently push the accelerator and see where your freedom takes you.

Terry

The many coaches I played under in my “playing days” attempted to encourage, to push, to drive everyone to a better performance.
Not always did I understand their methods, in some instances I was too young, but I knew they wanted us to be the best we could be individually and corporately.

Some used “any means necessary” to get improved performance.

Challenge
Cursing
Consoling
Comedy

They were trying to move us from our level to a higher one.

I see the same attitude in 2 Timothy where Paul tells the younger Timothy to remember the gift put inside him.

The the older tells the younger…”Stir up the gift of God inside you”.

That was a coach prompting a player.

Stirring him up.

Stirring him to move to a higher level.

Stir yourself up.

You won’t be shaken past what you can handle….if the Gift and Presence of God is stirred up in you.

It’s a constant.

One cannot stir themselves once, like coffee, and be done.

You must be consistently be stirring yourself up.

To the extreme, Ray Lewis used to do a strange dance to “stir” himself up before a football game.

Many lineman hit each other and talk each other up to “stir” their emotion and intensity.

I would implore you to “stir up the gift of God” within you.
If you do not, it will fade in intensity.
It’s not God that fades…it’s our openness to Him and our Desire for Him.

Think on It.
Meditate on It.

How to do it?
Read Scripture.
Think on It.
Stir those words into your daily life…like sugar in a drink.

Live like Christ.
That will stir you and others up.

Love like Christ.
That will stir your family and friends, and all of your relationships.

Stir It up.
Today.

Terry

I have a friend in Advertising. He produces websites, videos and many things to market and tout the people contracting his company’s services.

Marketing pieces, billboards, commercials, the small boxes on the internet you skim over are all selling, promoting, attracting and persuading the viewer to an interest, a product or company.

Women spend time and money on make-up and methods to enhance their beauty and to be attractive.

Are you an attractive Christian?

Do you persuade people to an interest in Christ?

Or do you persuade and attract them to another subject?

Persuasion draws us, many times, to our choices. Persuasions, both conscious and subliminal, lead us to many of our decisions.

Persuade others to Christ.

Learning Scripture and incorporating it into your everyday language is a way to persuade others.

Living out Kindness, Love, Charity, Forgiveness, Benevolence, all of the Fruits will positively persuade.

If you abide in Christ your words, actions and reactions will unintentionally exhibit the Fruits….and positively persuade others.

When your mindset is to have an effect on the world for His Kingdom…. then you will intentionally act Christlike, showing His Traits, operating in and through you.

You can persuade men as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.

Burn Bright.
Be seen.

Let His Light shine…
It’s not your Light, it’s Him in you.

Be a billboard.
A good, positive one.

Persuade.

Terry

Allow God, everyday to draw your prayer life to a deeper and greater level.

It’s the trait of a deepening walk that you pray and meditate on the things and ways of God.

If not, then you are pit-stopping Him as you race through life.

You cannot get to a good spot or approach any leadership of quality
without that TIME alone with Him.

As leaders, please allow your Spiritual Father to foster His Spiritual Presence in your life.

You have been called and have answered and are in escalating positions of leadership.

It’s not hollow, if it is to be lasting and effective, then after The Call has been given and you answer, you then have to seek its’ full life.

It would be better to resign and abdicate your leadership than to stay, play and not grow into the full powered position of positive Influence available to you.

The people you lead and are influencing will not long follow hollow, shallow and weak leaders.

Reach out and pursue that to which you have been called. A great deal is up to you.

God leads, directs and prompts you. However, you must pick up your own feet and walk and change direction to walk to that “burning bush”. You must pursue and attain that to which you have been called, as Paul wrote.

For the future of our group, the future of your children, the future of the church,
Pursue It.
Attain It.

Live out that calling you have and are answering to the fullest.

Terry
May 5, 2015