Center

Christ be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

You’re the center of the universe
Everything was made in You Jesus
Breath of every living thing
Everyone was made for You

You hold everything together
You hold everything together

Christ be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around your life
We lift our eyes to heaven, to You

God wants to be at the center if everything we do. He wants to be the reason for everything that we do. Is God currently at the center of your life?

What do you think keeps you from allowing God to truly be the center of your life? Take a moment and ask God to reveal the things in your life that you place at the center of your life instead of Him.

Reflect on the lyrics of “Center” by Charlie Hall. Consider asking God to become the center of your life and the reason for everything that you do.

If you decide to do this, you must truly be willing to let go of your own life and let God rule.

Are you willing to let God have all of your life whatever the cost?

Read: Jeremiah 29:11-13

God has an amazing plan for your life but you must remember that it is God’s plan and not your own. Do you trust God enough to seek His plan for your life? If so, you have cut the cords, raised the sail, and are beginning the epic voyage of follow Jesus.

Pray and ask God to forgive you for placing other things at the center of your life. Ask God to reveal His plan for your life and that he gives you the courage to trust Him and to let Him be the center of your life.

Healing Is In Your Hands

No mountain, no valley
No gain or loss we know
Could keep us from Your love

No sickness, no secret
No chain is strong enough
To keep us from Your love
To keep us from Your love

How high, how wide
No matter where I am
Healing is in Your hands
How deep, how strong
Now by Your grace I stand
Healing is in Your hands

Our present, our future
Our past is in Your hands
We’re covered by Your blood
We’re covered by Your blood

How high, how wide
No matter where I am
Healing is in Your hands
How deep, how strong
Now by Your grace I stand
Healing is in Your hands

In all things, we know that
We are more than conquerors
You keep us by Your love


We don’t have any say so in the kind of life we are born into. The world tells us that we pretty much have to play the hand we’re dealt and make the best of it. Through Jesus however, life can be everything we dream of.

Think back to the passage in Romans we read yesterday. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing we have ever done or ever will do can change that!

Reflect on the lyrics of “Healing Is In Your Hands” by Christy Nockels. Probably the most amazing aspect of a relationship with God is the healing and freedom that He provides. When we decide to accept and follow Jesus, the bible teaches that at that very moment, we are healed.

Read: Isaiah 53 and carefully reflect on verses 5-6.

This passage is a prophecy about Jesus. It speaks to the truth of what happens to the person that has accepted Jesus as their savior. See, God loves us so much that He sent Jesus, His own son, to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Even more than that, this passage says that by that same act we have been healed, set free, and made new!

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17

We have been made new! We have been set free! Whatever you have done, when you accept Christ, it is washed clean!

Pray and thank God for the gift of Jesus. Thank Him for the healing and freedom that comes from accepting Jesus as your savior. Ask God to give you a deeper understanding of what this means.

How He Loves Us

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way...

Reflect on the lyrics of “How He loves Us” by The David Crowder Band. Do you always feel like God loves you this much? Yesterday we learned how much God longs to spend quality and intimate time with us each and every day. Still, it is sometimes easy to feel like God is far away and not too concerned with our issues here on earth. When we feel this way, its good to be reminded just how God feels
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Read: Psalm 139

In this Psalm we learn that God already knows everything about us. He made us and he is “intimately acquainted with our ways.” We also learn that regardless of where we go in life, God is still there seeking and pursuing us. Why does God do this? Because He loves us! The Message translation of the Bible puts it this way.

“I am an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful—I can’t take it all in.”

But how great is God’s love for us? Read Romans 8:35-39 and let it assure today of your heavenly Father’s love for you.

Pray and thank God for His love for you. Ask Him to continue to reveal Himself to you along with the great plan He has for you. Ask that as you continue to seek Him, He will continue to make His love more and more real in your life.

Sacred Space

Last week I wrote 5 devotions for our beach retreat. This is the first...

"Sacred Space"

Listen to song here

Where I find a quiet place.
It's where my soul finds sacred space.
It's where my knees touch the ground.
It's where peace is found.

In You, Jesus.

It's where my heart is purified;
the only place I feel alive.
It's where my Father beckons me.
It's where this child is meant to be.

It's where I run.
It's where I hide.
It's where You hold me safe inside.
It's where I live.
It's where I breathe.
It's where I look upon Your beauty.
It's where I fall.
It's where I rest.
It's where I find You loved me best.

It's where I tremble with Holy fear.
It's where my questions disappear.
It's where my feet begin to dance.
When I realize where I am.
I'm in You, Jesus.

What do you do when you need a break? Is there anywhere you go or anyone that you talk to when you are sad, disappointed or angry. Who do you share your deepest secrets and desires with? If something great happens, who is the first person you tell? Who or what is it in life that holds you together?

The bible tells us that this is who God wants to be for us. God wants us to share everything with him. God wants us to talk to him all the time. God wants us to tell him when we’re happy or excited and when we’re sad or angry. God wants to be our friends (see John 14-15)!

Do you have this kind of relationship with God?

When was the last time you spent time alone with God? We’re not talking about Sunday morning or a little prayer before you go to sleep. When was the last time you spent quality time alone with God?

Read: Isaiah 26:7-9

Does your soul yearn for God in the evening? Does your spirit long for God in the morning? Is God’s name and glory the desire of your heart? Why do you think the prophet Isaiah would write such words?

Read: Colossians 1:15-17

Isaiah knew that God had created everything even himself. Isaiah knew that if he was ever going figure life out and make it trough he would have to spend time with the one that hold all things together.

God doesn’t want us to spend time with Him and worship Him because he wants to check up on all our fun. God wants to be our friend and walk through this life with us. God wants to guide us and show us the right paths to take and right choices to make. He loves us and wants to show it! This is why Isaiah could declare that he longed for God and that God was his joy.

Read over the lyrics of Sacred Space by Steve Fee. God wants to be this for us and so much more. Will you let today be the day that you begin spending regular, quality time with God?

Read: Psalm 27 and let it be your prayer this morning. Ask God to forgive you for not spending enough time with Him. Let God remind you how much He loves you. Ask God to give you a desire for His glory.

An Epic Voyage

Last week the students of Piney Grove Baptist Church and myself were on a beach retreat in Garden City, SC. Not only was this trip blast, but it was also an amazing time of worship and renewal. During this week, many students decided to recommit themselves to the life Christ has called them too and two accepted this life for the first time. On Friday morning, I even had to privilege of baptizing one of these students in the Atlantic Ocean. Needless to say, this was a very successful trip and was something that I will never forget.

For the next few days, would like to share a little bit about the week by posting my message notes from the week. Our theme was "An Epic Voyage" and bottom line is that following Christ is the invitation to embark on just that, an epic voyage. Below is the title message.

Why An Epic Voyage?

Epic - a long poem narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures. A grand, romantic, monumental, and adventurous story.

I love stories! Whether they are in books, movies, or told by someone, stories shape the world in which we live. What kind of epic stories have you heard? What are your favorites?

The Odyssey. The Iliad. The Canterbury Tales. The Lord of The Rings. The Chronicles of Narnia. Harry Potter. Dare I say...Twilight...?

Voyage - a long journey involving travel by sea or in space. Traveling in or through the unknown, mysterious, or chaotic. An expedition, pilgrimage, or quest.

Think about the ocean. Its chaotic. Its unknown. Its violent and its beautiful. It draws people. It draws rugged sailors and sunbathers. It calls out to us. We want to be in it while at the same time we’re all a little scared of it.

The thing about a voyage however is that in order to have one, we must embrace and embark into the chaos. In every epic story, the main character is forced to do just this.

When Odysseus left his home little did he know that he was embarking on a chaotic yet heroic journey that would last many years. When Frodo agreed to protect and carry the ring to the fires of Mordor, he was beginning an epic and uncertain voyage. The same can be said of Lucy the first time she traveled through the wardrobe into Narnia and of Harry the first time the boarded the Hogwarts express.

All these characters have one thing is common: when their fate and calling was before them, they said yes regardless of the cost. Their future was unknown, they had no idea what they would be called on to do. They simply embarked on an epic voyage into the unknown, mysterious, and chaotic trusting that they were joining their lives with something much greater than themselves.

I believe that the day we decide to follow Jesus Christ, we decided to embark on the same type of epic voyage. That is what Christianity should be all about. Discovering the God given courage to follow Christ in an epic, romantic, monumental, and adventurous way. This is the type of Christianity that the Bible speaks of and I believe that it is the same that we are called to live today.

The Bible is God’s epic. It’s God’s epic story in and through and to humanity. The Bible is full of stories of people that chose to say yes to something greater than themselves and encounter the greatness of God in their lives.

Do you feel the greatness of God in your life? Do you feel like your commitment to follow Jesus has been an epic voyage? Have you ever even said yes to such a calling?

I think it is easy to keep our Christian lives pretty safe and calm. We go to church, go to small group, go on a mission trip, and we think that means we’ve got it all together. Sadly, this is the case with most of Christianity. This goes on while God is calling each and every one of us to lay down our comfortable lives, take up our own cross, and follow him at all cost. Each and every day God stands at the foot of our beds calling for us to journey with Him on an epic voyage of life in and through him.

We need to recapture what it means live an epic Christianity.

Before we can do this, we have to make a serious and courageous decision. We have to let ourselves go. We have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We have to lay down our own ideas about life, and God, and following Jesus and allow God to truly reveal Himself to us.

This can be scary, but its the first step in truly following God. Let the image of the ocean and a boat be your guide. We are the boat, and God is ocean and the wind and anything else that can have an impact on a vessel. If you want to embark on an epic voyage, you must first cut the cords that bind your boat to the dock.

“If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.” -Oswald Chambers

The lines that bind us to the dock can be a lot of things. Maybe its sin. It could be our plans, how we want our lives to go. It could be money, a relationship, and job. It could be our attitudes or bad feelings towards others. It could be fear. Whatever it is that keeps us tied to the dock, we must untie it if we are truly going to experience the greatness of God in our lives.

God loves us and has amazing plans for each of us. But we can’t get there if we’re still tied to the dock.

May you be brave enough to cut the cords that bind you to the dock, allow yourself to float out into the vastness of God’s grace and for the first time become serious about simply saying yes when Jesus says “Follow Me.”

Will you yourself to embark on an epic voyage?