A GLIMPSE OF PRESTONWOOD

Check out this powerful video on how God moved through our church last year... As we close out the first month of 2011, I can't tell you how fired up I am about all that God will do in the coming months.

MARCHING FOR LIFE

I am so grateful for the ministry to our teens, not only through our Student Ministry but through Prestonwood Christian Academy. I was so glad to hear that 15 of our students joined a handful of teachers and parents (along with about 10,000 others) in the Dallas Rally and March for Life in Downtown Dallas last Saturday.

The students are members of the PCA Pro-Life Club. What a blessing to have such a club in our Upper School, with students celebrating life. And that’s why they marched ... to celebrate life and in peaceful protest on the 38th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

One of our teachers said the students left “knowing they had been a part of a special worship time and knowing they had made a difference for life.”

PCA is taking about 30 students to Austin on Feb. 10 to lobby for life-saving sonogram legislation requiring all women who are considering abortion to have a sonogram.

Our Prestonwood Pregnancy Center is an amazing “Jesus Ministry” that provides sonograms for free to women from all over the Dallas area. And, praise God, many of these abortion-minded women who enter the doors of the Pregnancy Center for a free sonogram end up changing their minds.

MY FAVORITE DEVOS

January is getting away from us already! So, just wanted to check in and see how folks are doing on New Year’s resolutions. I hope that one resolution is to find a devotional that truly speaks to you. I have a few favorites that I thought I’d share with you. My prayer is that after awhile you won’t consider this a resolution but rather a part of your daily routine—a part of life.

• Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
• My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
• Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence by Sarah Young
• Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman
• Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck
• Pathways: Your Daily Walk with God by David Jeremiah
• Prayer, Praise & Promises: Daily Walk Through the Psalms by Warren Wiersbe
• Time To Get Serious by Tony Evans
• A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie
  

Let me know if you have a favorite devotional.

CHOICES

In this, the start of a New Year, I am focusing on the wisdom of God that we find in Proverbs. These wonderful 31 chapters of Scripture written by King Solomon help us discern the foolish from the wise—the choices that we must make in order to live the life that God has planned for us. So on Saturday and Sunday, I’m beginning the new message series Choices: Finding the Doorway to Godly Living.

How easy is it to make the wrong choice in life? We need only check out the newspaper or the news on TV to see the consequences people are facing for making the wrong choice—that split-second decision that changes everything. At the same time, when we make that heart decision to follow Christ, to trust in Him, to choose His way over our own way, life is changed forever ... for the better!

Proverbs 3:5–6 have long been life verses for me.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

These verses hung in my room when I was a child and a teenager. They were and continue to be a constant source of encouragement to me. I am confident that God guides His children and I am confident that we can know the will of God. And the reason that God wants us to accomplish His purpose and will is so that we may glorify Jesus Christ! His purpose is to conform us and make us like Jesus.

So, I hope you’ll join us at one of our five weekend services at Prestonwood and Prestonwood North, or if you live out of town be sure to catch us online (11:00 a.m., CST, on Sunday). Take to heart the wisdom in these pages as we study Proverbs, and know that all that God brings into our lives and all that God does in our lives is for the purpose of making us like His dear Son.

2011: "The Trumpet Call Is Sounding."

Happy New Year! As we begin 2011, I wanted you to meditate on something the great Billy Graham said a few years ago:

“With the New Year before us let us prepare ourselves for spiritual battle. Let Christ be more than mere sentiment. Away with pretense and half-heartedness. Away with compromises and defections. Away with faith that awakens only on holidays. Away with faith that is as flimsy and as seasonable as tinsel. These are days of emergency. The trumpet call is sounding. He that puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. Let’s put our lives on the line for Jesus Christ. Nothing short of this will do.”

Those are powerful words. And they are convicting words. And they are words we should take to heart as we take spiritual inventory in this New Year. The “trumpet call is sounding” indeed, and God expects us to do His work and His will and He tells us in Ephesians 5:15–17:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

We must make each day count; living each day as if it were our last. This is the only life we have and Scripture tells us to redeem the time, seize the day. Seize it, love it, live it, experience it, exhaust every day not for ourselves but rather for the glory of God and for others, that the time here on this earth might be powerful and effective.

We are to live with passion, purpose and to walk with precision. A wise man, a wise woman measures each step of the way and fulfills the plan and purpose of God for their lives. We must seize the day and the opportunity in order to maximize each moment for Jesus Christ. We must give this day completely to God and every day for Jesus Christ.

Let Christ be more than mere sentiment.