Second Stage Ministries

“...where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.... Psalm 121:1-2 NIV Last week’s post served as a closer to another and the start of a new series of posts called “Eyes Up”. In this series of posts we are going to be leaning to the verses above and looking at some things that we need help with if we are to do them as Jesus would have us. The first one of the series that I want to talk about is something I feel is very lacking in the world and really needs to be figured out soon. LOVE. There is not enough people willing to just love in the world. I have to say that when we look at the actions of people in this world and the different things that break our hearts, we ask the same question; where is the Love? There is fighting, war, murder, and other threats all over the news and in the media. We don’t have to look very far to find that this world is lacking love. That is the one thing that I’m sure we all can agree on. So, where is the love? How does...

This is a very special post. This is the 100th on this blog. With that said, I wanted to take a look at something in this post that was revealed to me a couple of months ago. How we see people is very important. But how we see certain people might cause drama in our lives. Jesus experienced such trouble with the people that He chose to interact with. One such instance can be seen in Luke 19: “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.” - Luke 19:1-2 NIV This is worth explaining: Tax collectors were notorious for being criminals. Just as verse 2 states, tax collectors would often charge people higher than needed and then take the extra money and pocket it. For example, if the tax was 2%, tax collectors would charge 5% and tax the 2% where needed to go and they would pocket the 3%. So with that said it makes the next part of the story more understandable: “He wanted to see...

This post comes from a portion of my lesson that I taught the 4th and 5th graders at my church. The lesson was on kindness and I used the story of the woman at the well found in John 4. If you are not familiar with the story here is a brief summary: The woman goes to the well to draw water. She's going at a time when she could be alone and away from people. She has been mistreated by the people of the town because of the mistakes that she has made in the past. So you can imagine her surprise when she gets to the well and finds Jesus sitting there (although she didn’t know that it was Jesus). But she gets something different from Jesus that she had not gotten in a while - kindness, compassion and love. Jesus does bring forth her mistakes, but He does it in a way that wasn't condemning. So because of this she went back into town and most of the town came to see Jesus. This let to great revival in the town. [1] But I want to draw your attention to the objection to kindness...

There are some songs that just meet you where you are. They just come on radio or on the playlist that you are playing and it's almost like the song is playing for you. I'm not just talking about Christian/worship music, but secular music as well. Over the course of this series of posts (that will continue on and off over the course of the year) I want to look at songs that have helped me in this season of my life. So, with today being Valentine's Day, I thought I would be cool to look at a portion of a song by Jesus Culture called "Fierce". Let's look at the lyrics below together and then I will share some thoughts with you: Like a tidal wave Crashing over me Rushing in to meet me here Your love is fierce Like a hurricane That I can't escape Tearing through the atmosphere Your love is fierce [1] LIKE A TIDAL WAVE I love the picture of the love of God in these four words. I just picture a gigantic wave coming in and just drownin...

This was such a good imagine I had to share it with all of you. This past weekend I shared a difficult story with some of friends at church. After I shared with them, we had one more service that followed. I was teaching the 4th and 5th graders, which I absolutely LOVE to do, so I was staying for that service. After the service, one of the people came back and wanted to share an image with me that she saw during a worship song. This is what she told me: ---------------- There is a line in one of the songs that says "Your love so deep is washing over me." I saw this picture of you and you were standing, face to the sky, and arms spread wide being drenched with water. ---------------- I cannot even begin to express what that meant to me. The love of God just washing over me. The image that it gave me is something that will never go away. No matter what we are facing. No matter how hard life is - God's love just pours out of the skies and washes over us. You...