Week Three of our 30 Day Journey

Don’t you love to watch those incredible shows about Mount Everest climbers. I’m so intrigued by people who will risk everything to reach the highest place on earth. These guys will fight forty-degree-below-zero windchill factors, their hands and toes will be frostbitten, they’ll barely be able to breathe, but they will give it all to make it to the top. I sit there watching, eating my chips with my diet Dr. Pepper, just exhausted, feeling like I’m right there with them, risking my life.
Mount Everest is over 29,000 feet tall, but when you reach 26,250 feet, you enter what they call the death zone. There the altitude is so high it can’t sustain human life. The body is unable to acclimate to such a low level of oxygen, so if you stay in the death zone too long, you die. That’s what happened to a climber in May 2006. He was left by climbers in the death zone while they ascended to the top of Everest. All the people who passed him realized he was in trouble, but they assumed he was part of another team and someone else would rescue him.
Not long after that tragedy, another climber, Lincoln Hall, was found in the death zone. He was rescued by a party of four climbers and eleven Sherpas, who gave up their own summit attempt to stay with Hall and descend with him. Hall later fully recovered. What made the difference between the survival of one and the death of the other? Unselfish team work.
That kind of teamwork seems to be the exception these days. With sports superstars hogging the glory and corporate leaders taking all the credit, it’s rare to see a unified, effective team. Too many individual agendas compete, sabotaging the goal that’s best for the team. Whether it’s a sports team, a friendship, a business partnership, or a marriage, a lot of relationships fall apart because it’s so hard to get along with others. We each have a separate agenda that prevents us from communicating clearly and following through on what’s needed to grow closer.
We’re in a new series that I’m calling One Month To Live – Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life, and we’ve been having a lot of fun with our thirty day challenge asking that clarifying question everyday, “what would I do if I knew I had only one month to live? If we were counting the days before we left this earth, we would be looking for ways to build bridges, to bring about healing, and to enjoy our most important relationships. No one wants to leave this earth with unfinished business. We want to leave our loved ones having experienced the summit of our relationships as the result of our courage to love.
To love completely we need the power of love. This principle is the area of greatest regrets because it deals with our relationships and is the most important of the four principles in this series. I want you to consider today  1 Corinthians 1:18. It says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the Power of God.” Christ showed us the most powerful demonstration of love when He went to the cross, and in the cross we find the power to love the people in our lives, and we need God’s power to love completely. We all know it can be a steep climb from where we are to where we actually want to be in our relationships.

This Lord’s day we’ll learn about 3 mountains that need to be climbed in order to Love completely … the journey will begin but it will take us a few weeks to complete.  Don’t Miss It!

If you’re new to the Nashville area let me invite you to check us out at one of our 3 campuses:  Hermitage meets at 9:15 AM, Mt. Juliet meets at 10:45 AM and our Rayon City campus meets at 11:00 AM.  So hopefully one of those times will work with your schedule.  To get directions to each campus go to www.hhbconline.com.

Week Two of our 30 Day Journey … to a No-Regrets Life

We’ve just begun an exciting and life changing series we’re calling One Month To Live – 30 Days To A No-Regrets Life and this Sunday we are going to examine the first principle for a no-regrets life – how to live passionately.  Nothing great ever happens without passion. The driving force behind all great art, all great music, all great literature, all great drama, all great architecture is passion.

Passion is what makes things great.

Passion propels athletes to break records.

Passion pushes scientists to discover new cures for diseases.

Passion is what gives life. The kind of life you were made to live!

So, notice today the power behind Mark 12:30. “So love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.” Notice the word PASSION because God wants you to love Him with passion. God want you to live a life of passion. God created you to be a passionate person. You were made with the capacity for passion because God is a passionate God. He feels things so deeply. Regardless of your personality, God made you to be a passionate person. You may be extroverted or you may be introverted, it doesn’t really matter. God made you to feel things deeply. I know a lot of people who are more introverted and they say ,“Well, God didn’t make me to be passionate.” Yes He did. He made you to feel things deeply, regardless of your personality because God is a passionate God.

Kerry Shook tells of a story about his wife was in the car with his eight year son, Stephen, one day. Stephen did something to remind her of her husband, Kerry and she said, “Stephen, you are daddy’s boy.” He said, “No, I’m not.” She said, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “Well, I’m not really related to dad.” She said, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “Well, I’m related to you, but I’m not related to dad?” She said, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “Well, I’m related to you because you had me. Dad’s just married to you.” When Kerry heard that he was thinking, son, we’ve got to have a talk. We’ve let this go a little too long. He had put this off to long. Unfortunately dad will need to tell you, you are related whether you like it or not. Kerry said, You’re totally related to me.

One of the reasons why we lose our passion is life is we forget who made us. We forgot whose we are. The God who made you is an extremely passionate God and He made you to be a passionate person. Look at Romans 12:11. “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” Notice the word “keep” because what that tells me is that passion is something that you can lose. You have to work at keeping your passion. You can lose your passion for the Lord. You can lose your passion for life. God created every one of us to be passionate people, but the problem is, life just tends to beat the passion right out of you. The problems and the pressures and the stresses of life sort of drain the passion right out of our lives. But, God wants us to be passionate people.

If you’re in Nashville this weekend join us at one of our three campuses as we grow in passion for Christ … it only takes the desire to lower a man through a roof … then the journey is on.