Keith Green - Make My Life A Prayer To You Lyrics Album: No Compromise

You make my life a prayer to You
I wanna do what You want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers no compromise

I wanna shine the light You gave
Through Your Son You sent to save us
From ourselves and our despair
It comforts me to know You're really there

Well I wanna thank You now for being patient with me
Oh it's so hard to see, when my eyes are on me
I guess I'll have the trust and just believe what You say
Oh You're coming again, You're coming to take me away

I wanna die and let You give Your life to me, so I might live
And share the hope You gave to me, the love that set me free
I wanna tell the world out there, You're not some fable or fairy tale
That I've made up inside my head, You're God the Son
You've risen from the dead

Oh I wanna thank You now for being patient with me
Oh it's so hard to see, when my eyes are on me
I guess I'll have the trust and just believe what You say
Oh You're coming again, coming to take me away

I wanna die and let You give Your life to me, so I might live
And share the hope You gave to me
I wanna share the love that set me free

Jesus, I’m missing the point | You have my word.

Great thoughts on worship and how if its about anything other than Jesus, we missing the point.


http://havemyword.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/jesus-im-missing-the-point/

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Sometimes to look forward we need to look back - Vision Sunday @EastsideSA (Senior Pastor Riaan Niemand)

Riaan shared on memories of significant places and areas where his ministry started and had significant moments.

'The stuff I am busy with, does it have eternal value? Am I caught up in the right things?!?' - Riaan

'I want to finish well!' - we should all be aiming to!

Riaan challenged each of us - "How is your heart? Are you the same as when you accepted the Lord? Or has the 'normal' life robbed you?"

'I need to up the Rev's of my spiritual life'

Luke 10: 25-28

How do I finish well?
1. Love God completely
2. Love your neighbour as yourself

(Matthew 22:40)

Matthew 6:10 'your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'
As Christ followers we need to bring God's kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. We prayer for it - It is possible.

If this is true, what do we need to do to fulfill these two commands?
'Full me heart Lord daily!'

Loving your neighbour
1. Personally - Love family, work, play
2. Church - Love the people who visit and worship @ eastside
3. Other people - Loving other communities of faith; People in crisis; Poor and dispossessed

This year we want to:
- Inspire you to give yourself to God in abandonment
- challenge you to become the most spirit filled loving person In town
- Change your mindset by helping you to bless and be blessed

What do we need this year in Eastside?
- Be a spirit filled christian this year, living out your calling in our communities, seriously.
- Commit to a cell and connect seriously.
- We need a ministry of socials to connect people
- We need for everyone to seriously adopt a block (too many broken people)
- We need to go into a third building phase
- Loving those who are not from our community
- Restart a church that is standing empty (Team or church planters for 2013)
- Having a big youth celebration in December for churches across denominations

We need your help for?!?
- Prayer all of this into being
- Give us some of your time to serve these communities
- Give us money and resources so that we can help these communities to help themselves
- Help us to feed children and support early learning centers
- Support our job creation initiatives
- consider giving two years of your life towards church planting
- we need intercessors. Satan does not like it when a church like ours get serious about these things.

Jesus says Love God with abandonment!

The Love God test
1. Take a journey back; are you where you used to be?
2. Have you ever started loving God?
3. Is your life today more radical than last year this time?
4. What is really important in your life?

We need to help ourselves to help others!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Right the first time

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?" -John Wooden

John Wooden, a highly successful coach, with many lesson learned, highlighted the fact that if we use time as an excuse for doing it right the first time or saying we don't have the time to do it right, THEN we most definitely won't have the time to do it over again - properly.

In a coaching / athletic performance world it is very true and applicable. As coaches we need to encourage / enforce / provide an environment and culture of 'first time, right time!' We don't have time to mess around because every session, every stroke, every stride is part of the larger process of becoming a better athlete and individual. So using time as an excuse to not do it right the first time, should actually be no excuse.

In our coaching world applying the 1-10 rule is very applicable. For every time I do it wrong I need to do it 10x right to correct the wrong.

So too in the Christian walk of faith. Every step, every action, every deed, every prayer, every quiet time, every moment should be done right. Time should not be a factor!

Often in our Christian walk of faith as a 'Christian' coaches and athletes we use TIME as an excuse for not doing things right - the first time. You know its early morning and late training sessions, and 'all' the other things that take times. Reality though as Coach Wooden said, if we say we don't have time, we won't have time to do it over. God gives us a chance to make choices and to make the right ones now, remembering that one day the world as we know it will no longer be and we will have all hopefully made the right choice on earth to have joined the right team, the ETERNAL team of Jesus Christ.

Its time for me and all to evaluate what we using as excuses for not doing things right and 'hoping' we will get a chance to do it over.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Its not your courtroom! - Pastor Mark Odendaal (Eastside Community Church)

Its not our place to judge - God is the ultimate and only one to judge.

1. Don't judge those who break God's laws (Romans 2:1-5)

2. Don't judge in the Grey area (Romans 14:1-10)

3. Don't know when you're in the Dark (1Corinthians 4:5)

4. Don't judge unbelievers (John 3:17)
Its not our place, not even Jesus came to earth to judge people.

If we as Christian stand in judgement of others then the kingdom is going backward


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Signs of a healthy church - Acts 2 - Pastor Desmond Henry

Rick Warren - 'we need to focus not on church growth, but church health!'

Many churches are growing! But how healthy are they???

Acts 2

So what are the signs of a healthy church?

1. Spirit-filled / Spirit-Led Leadership
Lead from a point of spirit filled leadership, not our own understandings

2. Spirit-filled preaching and teaching (Acts 2: 16f)
Focused on the word of God, being spirit led in our preaching and teaching

How healthy am I? Is my life centered on the word of God and empowered through the Holy Spirit?

3. People turning to Christ (Acts 2:41)
"I want to stand up for Christ"
How commited are we, as Eastsiders and individuals professing to be Christians, prepared to go out and to find and save the lost?

4. Hunger for the Word of God (Acts 2:42)
God's word is a living word, if we allow the Holy spirit to impact the word of God into our lives. God's word speaks into our lives, IF we allow it to!

Fill your life with His word and allow the word to tranfor your life

5. A desire to be together (Acts 2:44)

6. Breaking of Bread together (Acts 2:42)
Make this part of our daily lives. Remember me, God said, by sharing and breaking bread together.

7. Passionate Prayer (Acts 2:42)
Prayer can change circumstances and can change us!

Give thanks to God through prayer. Practice being in God's presence
God see's and hears everything

8. A sense of awe and wonder about what God is doing (Acts 2 :43)
Do We have this sense for this year?
What can God do through each of our Lives?!?

9. Extravagant generosity (Acts 2:44)
Willful and own choice giving. What does God want me to do with my resources, not just money! Giving of myself, time and funds for God.

10. Purposeful Unity
A. Large and small groups (Acts 2:46)
B. Joy .. Sincerity ..
C. The Lord added to their number daily.



What are we doing in the will of God to enhance the health of your church???

How healthy are you?!?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Tracking the Training | FCA Resources

The FCA (Fellowship of Christian athletes) has great posts and food for thought on the life of an athlete and or coach and more specifically the spiritual walk of faith.

In this post we as coaches and athletes are challenged in both our tracking of our training but more importantly our spiritual walk and tracking thereof. Enjoy!

http://fcaresources.com/devotional/2012/01/12/tracking-training

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Winning - not a part time thing

@frankdickcoach: No one is a part time winner. Winning is a choice for life. It is how you live your life. It is being all you alone can be in every moment (via Twitter).

Reading this tweet earlier tonight made good sense and something I can agree with. We get so caught up in 'winning' as athletes and coaches, that we often loose focus of what it entails and is all about. What we also forget, as mention by Coach Frank Dick, is that winning is not a one time, now and then thing. Its a 'Life' thing. How we live our life out each day that contributes to the success of winning.

Everyday, every moment, its a choice to win. Live each moment as a winner, not only some times when you remember and want to experience it. This does not however mean that living a 'winning' lifestyle each day is going to be easy. Not at all, it will be challenging and often challenge the norm.

God also expects each of us to to live like and be winners. Per implication, we first need to join the winning team (God's team, by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and saviour) and then follow the walk of a winner each day.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Discipline vs regret - a challenging quote

"@motivatquotes: We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment." ~ Jim Rohn

This is very true, we will suffer, its just which one that will make the suffering 'pleasant', I suppose.

As my squad gets back into full swing of things for this new year on Thursday, there will be some suffering and particularly after a 'break' (even though I trust that they all have kept active with the programs I have provided them), the pain of discipline and being disciplined in training and focusing on the task at hand will be a challenge. If they neglect to 'become disciplined' to the squad sessions and or they were not self disciplined over the holidays, they will find this challenge great.

The other end of them not being disciplined will most definitely be that of regret and disappointment in the long term. This can particularly be the case if / when they don't achieve results based on their ability due to lack of work, effort and commitment.

Similarly in the Christian walk of faith, we are required to walk a disciplined road, along the straight and narrow. This is not an easy road, but the fruits of this labour is great, similar to the fruits of the sporting labour. However, choosing not to walk this route the pain of regret and disappointment is far greater than the pain we experience committing ourselves to the Christian faith. The long term benefits of the 'pain' of discipline far outweighs that real pain experienced if we do not.

We are told in the bible to discipline our bodies like the athlete!

So as we start our final cycle of the 2011/2012 swimming season and I coach my athletes to prepare them for the final, main national competitions of this season, disciplining themselves and their bodies is a challenge I will be placing in front of them continuously.


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

2012 - an Olympic new year

So around the world everyone has moved into the year 2012. What makes this year special to us sporting 'freaks' is that the ultimate sporting event, the Olympic games, takes place again this year, with London, England, playing host. This for me as a coach is a special event, as I view it as the ultimate.

For me, my greatest dream is to be fortunate enough to be able to go to an Olympics.

Well 2012 will see athletes from around the world aiming to and eventually competing at the games. But the Olympic games has greater significance than just competing, its also what it stands for as outlined in the Olympic motto.

This morning I sent the following message to my swimmers. This is a special message directed at them. Understand though that I am coaching primarily senior age group swimmers, with many of these now breaking through into the senior ranks in terms of performance. I see each swimmer as an Olympian. Some might make it there some day, that we don't know, but what I do know is I can challenge them to be better, and especially when we move into a new year. So here it is:

"To all my amazing squad of swimmers. Here wishing you an amazing Olympic year, 2012. My prayer is that each one of us use each opportunity to make use of our God-Given talents in this year. Let's approach the year as Olympians, always striving to improve ourselves in everything we do, not only swimming. Remember the Olympic motto is Faster, Higher, Stronger. Let's become such in all we take on. May 2012 be filled with many special blessings & moments that hold memories for life. Hold family near. My prayer is that Psalm 37: 3-5
(3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
4  Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5  Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.)
holds true for each of us this year. Let's tackle it. Happy new year my Olympians. Coach S."

Does this not hold true and should hold true for each of us. So as we have moved into the Olympic year, 2012, let's make it a special one.

God Bless
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device