GLOW

Do you remember glow in the dark toys?  Your child might have one or two of these glow wonders stuffed somewhere deep down into the trenches of the toy box.  It might be underneath a race car or some train tracks but it is probably still there.

 

If you were to find that toy and turn the light off you probably wouldn’t get real excited at the dark plastic mass in your hand.  Why?  Because that super fun toy has not seen the light of day in months and appears broken. It is not glowing anymore! Well you know as well as I do that it is not broken it just needs a dose of light to glow again.  In minutes after an encounter with the light the glow is back and shining brightly in the darkness of the room.

 

Today, you might find yourself down in the trenches of the toy box. You feel stuffed somewhere between your personal responsibilities and pressure from others and you find that your glow is gone.

 

You just need to find your way back to the light so you can glow again. It only takes minutes in the light to get the glow back.

 

My dad and I went camping a few years back and for some reason we woke up at the same time.  Our tent was pitched in a clearing on top of a mountain and the view was extraordinary.  We unzipped the tent and walked out onto the camp site and the moon was as full as I have ever seen it.  It was so full that it looked like we could have just reached out and touched it.  We stood there in awe for a few minutes staring at the glory of the moon.  And the truth about the moon is that it would have no glory to it at all if the sun wasn’t shining on it.  The sun illuminates the moon making it absolutely breathtaking.  Without the sun shining on the surface of the moon the moon would look like a giant rock floating in the air.  It takes the light of the sun to make it glorious.

 

Your light source is Christ and you are a reflection of His light in this dark world. Get back to your source of light and then share that light with everyone around you.

 

Here comes trouble

My senior year of college was going great! I was very busy with my double major of intramural sports and girls.  However I started to realize that my demanding schedule was beginning to leave me breathless at the end of the day.  At the age of 23 I was ten feet tall and bullet proof with a strong feeling of immortality.  But all of that came crashing down in an instant when I went to the doctor for a checkup.  After running multiple tests the results came back and were very clear. They had discovered that I had a very rare heart disease called “Ebsteins Anomoly.”  The doctor told me that I needed open heart surgery and needed it right away.  The only thing I could remember at the time was a sense of complete devastation. How could this be? I had my whole life in front of me. 

The brother of Jesus was very specific when he wrote to us.  He said, “Dear brothers and sisters, when trouble comes your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.”  James 1:2

JOY?!  How in the world can our troubles turn into joy?  I mean don’t we spend most of our lives trying to avoid the troubles of life.  We work so diligently at trying to make our lives as comfortable as possible so we will be filled with joy, right?

There are some attributes of trouble that I believe are very true.

1)   Troubles are going to happen to us whether we like it or not. 

2)   Trouble tends to come out of nowhere.  Have you ever been blind sided in life?  Everything seems to be going just right and then all of sudden, “WHAM”, out of nowhere you are faced with a crisis in your life.

3)   Trouble tends to cause us to doubt God.  After we are faced with our crisis the first place we look is up with one question on our hearts.  Why me, Lord?  Haven’t I been faithful to you? Haven’t I tried to live a life pleasing to you?

4)   Troubles tend to force us to look upwards.  After the doubt in our heart subsides and we have nowhere else to go we begin asking God for relief.  Psalm 4:1 says, Answer me when I call to you. O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress.

5)   Troubles have a tendency to allow us to find strength in God.  We slowly begin finding our strength in the One who loves us the most. After the questions and doubt leave then we turn to God for help.

6)   Troubles have a tendency to show us what pure joy really is.  It is not God’s nature to abandon His children.  We might think that He does at times but what He’s really up to is a process of completing our joy by carrying us through the trouble.

Always know that through any storm in your life God is always at work!

Who's Carrying You

One of the greatest memories I have of being a new dad was carrying Zack around in a baby carrier.  This carrier was new to me. It attached to my chest and it allowed Zack to perch right up in front of me.  It was like a backpack with a kid in it. You know what I am talking about and if you are a parent you probably have one stuck up in your attic or closet somewhere. 

Zack loved this thing!  Without it, all he could see was the back of a stroller, but when daddy carried him in his new little buddy contraption he could see everything. Now I loved this handy dandy toy as much as he did.  Everywhere we went I had my ZackPack (that’s what I called it) with me.   If we went to the grocery store I wore it. If we were at the mall Zack was right there with me.  I carried him everywhere.  I enjoyed seeing his face light up at everything he saw.  I also enjoyed having him close to my chest.  It was an awesome thing for a new dad. 

Zack was too weak to walk but he wanted to experience life and I could tell that he experienced life to the fullest when dad was carrying him around in the ZackPack.

Did you know that God wants to carry you?  We are too weak to experience life by ourselves.  We might think we aren’t but in reality we are.  We cannot walk the path the Father has given us to walk without Him carrying us.

Deuteronomy says it this way;  The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as He did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place. Deuteronomy 1:30-31 (NIV)

God’s people had watched God carry them out of Egypt and deliver them from the hands of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea.  I would have to say on that day God fought for them and they won victoriously. 

As I have looked back over my life I have seen how God has carried me and fought for me. But what is still so sad is that at 39 years of age I still I think I am in control and can fight my own battles.   All of us have examples of when God has carried us through some disaster in our life. But just like the Israelites we forget easily and quickly how God has brought us through victoriously. 

We walk through life with some sense of control and when we reach the age of strength we begin to rely on ourselves. We tend to leave God out of that blend but in reality He is the one who has His hands on us from our first breath until our last.  He is the one that desires more than anything else to carry us and fight for us just like a father carries and fights for his child.

Although my baby boy didn’t realize it at the time, if he was going to move through life I had to be the one who carried him.  He didn’t realize his inability to do it on his own.  It is the same with us.  We think we can handle the battles, but we can’t.  Our Father wants us to recognize that He delights in carrying us.  I can’t remember whose smile was bigger when Zack was close to my chest, mine or his?

Who’s carrying you?  Let go and let God carry you.  You will go much further than you ever dreamed you could.

Joy in the Journey

I can remember one Christmas when our boys were little we decided to head out to Little Rock, Arkansas to go see Kristy’s family for the holidays.  So we met Kristy’s brother and sister, and their families, in Atlanta and decided to caravan out to the Mid-West together.  We piled 6 adults, 4 children, Christmas presents and every bit of our luggage into three minivans and took off.  Kristy and my sister-in-law were pregnant at the time so that made things very interesting to say the least.   

What should have been a two-hour trip from Atlanta to Birmingham turned into a five-hour ordeal.  We made 27 potty breaks and 13 carsickness stops before we even arrived into Alabama.My philosophy of travel is, “May the best mini-van win.”  When we get in the car we don’t need not stop for anything!  My goal is that of any Nascar driver, to beat the competition.

So this little joyful holiday expedition was not turning out in my favor and I was getting more and more frustrated with every stop we made.  What should have taken us nine hours actually turned into a fifteen-hour trip!

When we pulled into Little Rock I was dead tired and angry.  The pregnant ladies were mad with me because they couldn’t understand my lack of compassion for the ones who were carrying our children.  The nerve of them to be angry with me!  We made horrible time and I lost the race. Where was the compassion for me?

You know, I have to tell you something; a few days later after I had fully recovered from that pain-staking journey, I reflected back on the trip and quickly realized that the greatest thing about it was the traveling.  The hotels, Zach doing his thing on the side of the road because he couldn’t hold it any longer, the fellowship over the C.B. radios, the jokes, the food, everything!

I was looking for the end and I missed out on the joy of the journey.

So when it comes to our spiritual journey I think we constantly look for the end results all the while we are missing out on the best part.  The journey itself!  You and I have the best opportunity right now in this very moment to enjoy the best that Jesus has to offer. 

When we decide to focus on the end is when everything gets complicated and frustrating for us.  Jesus says it this way, “Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to love freely and lightly.” Matthew 11-28-30 (the message)   

The key to life is not getting to the end. It is simply enjoying the here and now.  It is possible for us to take so many things for granted when the blessing of living our lives is right in front of us.

W-Wait on His timing. God knows the plan He has for your life so just enjoy the journey leaving the results of the end up to God.

A – Allow for U-turns in your life.  Life can bring its share of curves and we must be willing to adjust our routes so they will line up with God’s will.

L – Lay your burdens down.  Proverbs 12:25 says, “An anxious heart weighs a man down.

K – Keep going.  Don’t stop walking in the reality of who God is in your life.  Trust His heart for your journey. Our lives are a marathon not a sprint.  If you need to rest, then rest.

Remember that the joy of life is in the journey!

Outside Looking In

We were not wealthy by any means but when I was growing up but I can remember on my sixteenth birthday my parents bought me a used Nissan 300ZX.  It was the most beautiful car I had ever laid my eyes on.  It was sleek with a spoiler on the back and it was very fast.  The speedometer registered 140 and believe me I tested it. (Don’t tell my dad) The sound system was out of this world and at night when the dashboard lights were turned on it glowed orange like the cockpit of a F-15 fighter jet.  It would even speak to me if something was wrong.  If I was running low on gas this sexy little computer voice would come out of nowhere and say “Fuel level is low. Fuel level is low.”  The first night I had it I was cruising around my hometown of Port St. Joe and I am almost positive I heard it say, “Your life is about to change.”  And you know what? That sexy little British voice was right!  I went from this pudgy little fifteen year old huffing around on a Schwinn to the Big Man on Campus!  It was almost overnight that my life changed.  A couple of weeks later I had a girlfriend, I was elected the president of the Student Council and everyone wanted a ride in my new car. 

I became so obsessed with my new car and identity that I made sure it was washed and shiny almost every weekend.

However, I never really understood that I needed to take care of the motor as well.  Gas was a given but that was as far as I got from a mechanical standpoint. 

So on the day of my prom, as my girlfriend spent all day fixing her hair, I spent all day washing and waxing my Z.  To the say the least it was showroom clean.  When I was done I went inside to get cleaned up for the evening’s festivities.  After one thousand pictures of me in my tuxedo I took off to go pick up my girl.  My girlfriend lived in Apalachicola, which was about a 30 minute wooded drive down Highway 98 from Port St. Joe.  Now, I have made it in about 15 minutes before when I was running late for curfew, but that’s another story. 

About half way into my journey my beautiful Z car decided to quit.  It began to sputter and make funny noises and had just enough juice left for me to pull her off the road and then she died. I had completely blown the motor. You see, I hadn’t checked the oil in a while and what I found out was a simple little concept about an engine: No oil, no engine.

I mean who knew?

So I found myself standing on the side of Highway 98 in the middle of nowhere decked out in my tuxedo with my thumb out. 

My sweet ride had left me stranded on the side of the road because I had neglected to take care of the inside.  Sure, the outside looked great, but it wasn’t doing me much good at that particular moment.

Finally, two elderly women pulled over and gave me a ride to my girlfriend’s house. We wound up taking her dad’s dusty old Pontiac Grandpa car to the prom. For the record, it is still in the top 10 on my “worst days” list.  

The truth is, too many times in our walk with Christ we tend to focus on the outside appearance while the inside is wrecked.  What will people think of me? How should I act? What does this look like in public?

Eventually our lives breakdown and leave us stranded on the side of life’s highway because the inside, our hearts, have been neglected.  A polished outside is useless when the inside is wrecked. 

David says it best in Psalm 139:23-24.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

The king of Israel stooped low that day, in humility, and asked God to begin working on the inside of his heart. The exact place where you and I must come to in our lives if we want to see change.  We must ask God to help us recognize those things that are affecting our soul and ask for His help by surrendering those things over to His power.

There comes a time in our lives that we must stop being so concerned with what we look like on the outside (Religion) and start allowing God to work on the inside (Relationship).

Outside appearances are deceiving and they don’t last. Our soul will eventually break down when our heart is not fully surrendered.

Today, ask God to heal the wreckage and make you new on the inside and when you do the outside of you will look better than ever!

“Relax”

One of the biggest obstacles in my life is the ability to relax.  Now when I was a child I had no problem with this concept.  I enjoyed life to the fullest for one reason.  I knew that all of my needs were being met and the only responsibility I had in my life was to have as much fun as I could possibly have. Friends, video games, slumber parties and Christmas. 

But as I began to grow into adulthood this little thing called responsibility started to creep into my life and I didn't like it.  I actually avoided it as long as I could. And then it happened. I was no longer the child. I was the parent. And along with those duties came the mortgage, the light bill, the car payment and providing all of the things my parents provided me as a child for my own children. 

In life, we cannot avoid our responsibilities as adults but at the same time we can still enjoy life. Our priorities change in life but that doesn't mean the fun has to go out the door.  And the foundation of a fun life is the ability to relax and take in the small things. And that sometimes is hard for us to do. Well you know, because of our to-do lists and all.

But when we find our needs as adults being met by our Heavenly Father then we can relax. Look at this way:

R— Realize that I am not perfect—Psalm 119:96 says: I have seen an end of ALL perfection, but your commands are boundless.

E—Enjoy God’s Unconditional Love—1 John 3:1 says, How great is the love the Father has LAVISHED on us that we should be called    children of God.

L—Let Go and Let God handle things—1 Peter 5:7 says:  Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.

A—Act in Faith instead of Fear—Joshua 1:9 says:  Be strong and  courageous!  Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

X—Exchange perfectionism for Grace—2 Corinthians 12:9 says:  But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Have fun today, relax and enjoy the ride.

“Re-Decorating your Life”

After my wife Kristy and I had been married for a couple of years we finally had the opportunity to buy our first home and so in our excitement we set off with our Real Estate agent in search for our dream home… or at least our first home.  We knew what we wanted and we knew we didn’t have much money. We searched for what seemed like forever. 

After weeks of looking we rounded the corner one beautiful fall day and pulled into the driveway of 304 Wesley Circle and knew it was the home we wanted the second we saw it.  We thought to ourselves that if we could afford it then this was it.  This was our home.  Everything on the outside was exactly what we were looking for and our agent knew it.  It was quite embarrassing for me as I noticed the drool dripping from Kristy’s lips. However, I quickly got over it as I noticed the drool dripping from our agents mouth as well.

I told Kristy if the inside looked half as great the outside then we were heading to the bank.  With excitement and anticipation our agent flung the door open and said, “Here is your new home!”  But when we looked inside the drool dried up and the smiles disappeared quickly because all we could see was teal!  That’s right, I said TEAL!  Teal coming down the stairs, teal in the kitchen, teal in the dining room, teal in the living room and teal in our shattered dreams.  Every speck of floor covering was the color teal. 

At that moment my cell phone rang and I didn’t recognize the number. I let it go to voicemail and later discovered it was the nineteen eighties. They had left a message wanting their carpet back!   

Needless to say we left our dream home disheartened and discouraged.  That night we began to discuss our possibilities and realized that if we offered less for the home then we could take the extra money and replace the carpet.  After serious negotiating with the seller we bought the house and began redecorating.  We began pulling out the old carpet and replacing it with the new and improved carpet.  We were in the process of re-decorating our dream home.

Did you know that God wants to do the same thing with our lives.  He wants to replace the old with the new.  

He wants to re-decorate your life. He wants to change your anger to peace and your frustrations to joy. He wants to change your heart to love.

Let Him in your heart and let Him redecorate your life.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

Isaiah 43:18-19

Skimming Slag

Have you ever wondered what God might be up to in the chaos of your life?  You can be certain that God doesn’t waste a moment of your life.  You are always in His workshop being made into the image of His Son.  It is so easy to doubt God in the hard times and even easier to forget about Him in the good times, but He never doubts you or forgets about you.  You can take comfort in that promise.  If we loose our faith in God it doesn’t mean that He has become unfaithful to you.  2 Timothy 2:13 says, If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who He is. 

So why does it feel as if God has become unfaithful to us at times?  Why is that we doubt that God even knows our names in the fear and madness of our life?  We doubt because we cannot see Him in action.  The reality is that God is always in action in our lives and on our behalf.

As God is working on us we must understand that there are things in our life that God wants to remove. Those impurities that keep us from reaching our full potential in Him.  So what does God do?  He removes the pollution in the uncomfortable moments of our lives.  Even when we doubt Him because of our pain He is still at work.

I will melt you down and skim off your slag. I will remove all your impurities. Isaiah 1:25.

“Skimming Slag” is actually a silversmith term that means removing the leftover waste from a precious metal after it is melted down. The Message says it this way, “I will purge the junk from your life and clean you up.” There is a  movement right now in our churches that says, “Feel good and stay  positive.” And although God is all about staying positive it doesn't mean that God doesn't use circumstances in our life or take us through seasons of our life to purify and purge us of the things that do not bring glory to His name. 

And if we trust in God’s plan for our life then we must trust in His methods.  In other words we cannot have the Lemonade without the lemons or the rainbow without the rain.

We tend to bristle at the idea of God wanting to make major adjustments and changes in our lives but He always has a purpose in it. And that purpose is to refine His children into pure gold. Jesus tells in John 15 that the Father cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit and prunes those branches that do bear fruit so that they will bear even more fruit.  The reason He cuts off those branches that produce no fruit is because those branches are not productive and can actually infect the other branches from producing any fruit. Spiritually speaking these branches are dead weight that are usually part of the problem rather than the solution. 

 Let me ask you a question.  Are you a dead branch that hinders the growth of the other branches or are you a branch that the Master Gardener is slowing pruning and cultivating into a fruit bearing machine?  In other words, are you apart of the problem or part of the solution? 

Jesus wants us all to be alive branches with the Father’s hand slowly at work in our hearts.  Alive branches bring glory to the Father. Dead ones don't!  Trust His heart as He prunes.

Never are you more close to the master gardener when He is pruning you into His image. 

Philippians 1:6 says, And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Let Him continue skimming your slag and be certain that He is continuing His work in you even when it’s painful.  You are never alone in the process because God is always faithful.  He cannot and will not deny Himself.

Clothed with Christ

I remember the day it happened.  My brother Tommy, my dad and I were standing around the kitchen (huddled around the pantry, snacking) watching out the window at a lightning storm that was brewing. It was a bad one too.  Lightning was cracking all around us and we were counting the seconds from the thunder.  We were having a ball with it.  We would say, "Oh that one was 2 miles away. Ooooh that one was 1.2 miles away…"

And all of a sudden it sounded like a cannon going off in my ear!  Lighting had just hit a tree right next to the house.  From where we were standing in the kitchen it was about 15 feet away.  All 3 of us hit the deck like a bunch of little school girls.  After we gathered our composure dad asked Tommy and I  to go upstairs and check the air conditioner unit to see if it was running hot, because that bolt hit about 2 feet away from the  unit. 

My brother and I ran upstairs to check it out and the a/c unit was still running cold, but we began to smell smoke.  My brother being a volunteer fireman began rapidly checking around and noticed something.  He looked at me in panic and his eyes led me over to some black smoke creeping out of our storage closet.  Our storage closet was built into the attic and it is where we kept all of our junk, I mean treasures. 

Tommy opened the door of the closet to a raging inferno.  Lightning had jumped from the tree over to the wiring in the house and caught fire.  The fire was eating through the wall and smoke was beginning to take over the upstairs.  In a panicked voice Tommy told me to grab everything I could and run.

He went after his stereo and his guns and his guitar and for some strange reason I ran after my clothes and started pulling them out of my closet.  I was trying to save my clothes!  My clothes?  I thought to myself if the whole house burned down at least I would have something to wear and the only thing my brother would have to cover his nakedness was a 12 gauge and a Fender guitar. I mean it made sense to me.

So at a split second in time I had to make a decision on what was most valuable to me and I decided on my clothes.  

The truth is...our clothes are important to us.  They cover our bodies and allow us to be fashionable. We value them.  That is why we have huge malls slam full of stores that are full of clothes.  When you go shopping most of the time you are going shopping for clothes.  What did our boys get for Christmas… clothes!  After Adam and Eve did their thing in the garden all of sudden they needed clothes.

But these are the clothes of our outward appearance. And although our outward appearance matters our inward appearance matters even more!

Galatians 3:26-27 says, For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on the character of Christ, like putting on new clothes.

Being followers of Christ means we are clothed in Christ.  We wear the inner robe of Christ, and as we grow, that inner robe begins to shine as our outer garments.  So when people look at us they see something different.

They see an outward glow rooted in an inward appearance. 

If you are clothed with Christ on the inside it will eventually show on the outside.  On the inside we are brand new. Let the inward appearance of Christ in your life shine as an outward glow to the world. 

You are clothed with Christ!

Living in His Lap

One of my favorite things to do as a child was to crawl up into my dad’s lap and watch television.  As a matter of fact I have a picture of me as a little boy in my fathers lap and it is one my greatest treasures.  I enjoyed it right there more than anyplace else.  Why?  Because I felt safe. I knew that nothing could happen to me there because I was as close as I could possibly be to the one person who would give his very own life to save mine.  There were so many qualities of my father that I loved.  He was tall and strong and flew airplanes and played college football. But the one quality that sticks out most in my mind is the genuine love that He had for me. He truly loved his boys with all of his heart and I knew it.  And in the safety of his lap is where I felt his love the most.

Our Heavenly Father’s greatest desire for us is not that we serve Him with reckless abandonment or perform moral duties in His name.  His greatest desire for us is that we trust Him enough to crawl up into His lap and let Him love on us the way only He can.  It is so easy for us to get lost into the religion of tradition. It can be a very dangerous place to be because it limits us from the Father’s love. It diminishes the power of the cross.  Wayne Jacobsen says it this way, “By viewing the cross as the offer of a get-out-of-hell free card rather than an invitation of friendship with a gracious Father, we empty it of its power.” 

I believe Paul says it best in Romans 8:15.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, “Abba, Father.”

His greatest desire for you is that you live in His lap and through that intimate relationship the righteousness  He desires will flow from your heart like a wellspring. 

Perfection is not what He is after. He is after your heart to rest in Him.

Trust His love for you enough to crawl up into His lap and simply say, Abba!

Cross Examining Christ

I was talking with a pastor friend of mine a few weeks ago and he had asked me if I had seen the previous night’s episode of a popular television show.  I told him that I missed it because I was busy either reading my Bible or in a state of prayer or feeding the hungry or something. 

He began to tell me how furious he was about this particular episode.  The last scene was in a courtroom with a Rabbi on trial.  The defense lawyer began asking the Rabbi about the “ridiculous stories” in the Bible.  “Do you really believe that Moses parted a giant sea?  Do you really believe that Jonah was swallowed up by a giant fish? Or are these just made-up stories to help your faith?”

I asked my pastor friend why he was so upset.  He said, “Because they are lies that create disbelief in the minds of people.”  I told him of course they were. What else would he expect from the father of lies?

The trial of Jesus didn't end in the worlds eyes at the midnight hour in the Pharisees makeshift courtroom 2000 years ago.  The world is constantly putting Jesus on trial day after day for two reasons:  To discredit His message and to create doubt in the minds of all people. 

If Satan can create skepticism in your mind then he’s got you right where he wants you.  Because skepticism leads to disbelief and disbelief leads to giving up. 

Belief is birthed only in the intimacy of you being with God.  Disbelief is birthed everywhere else. 

Don’t ever look to the world to try and prove if Jesus is real.  Jesus will always be on trial in the eyes of the world. 

Make no bones about it. Jesus is who He says He is and He will forever be the King of kings.   Stop trying Jesus and start trusting Him. You know who He is deep down in your heart. That is why it is so valuable for you to guard it.  Remember it is the wellspring of your life.

It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.  Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said.  He was buried, and He was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4    

The only way Satan can defeat you is to steer your mind in the opposite direction of God the Father.  Don’t let him do it. Stay close to Him and stand firm in your faith and God will show how real He is!

You cannot cross examine the truth and win.  Satan knows that. He knows his future.  The world cannot stand up to the power of Christ in you.