Real Devotion: Real Love

John 15:13

1 John 4:18-21

John 3:16-21

1 Corinthians 13

The word love may be one of the most over used words in the English language.  We use the same word to describe our favorite pair of pants and how we feel about our families and people who are dear to us.  The same word that we use to express how much we enjoy food, is the same word to convey our deepest affection.  If this seems troubling to you, it should.  Love itself was never meant to be expressed by words.  It is shown and lived by actions.  Words are empty unless they are backed up by your life.  So the question is do we just simply use the word love or do we live it out?  How do you show love with your life?  What decisions do you make that back it up?  Does your life shine with love or does your mouth just say it?

Real Life Pictures: Wednesday

Real Life Day 4

Today was hump day.  Most of our team over slept this morning including myself.  That makes for a rough start and a quiet breakfast time.  Our team prayer time has been some of my favorite time of this trip this week.  Watching the students pray, read their Bible, and worship is definitely the highlight of my day.  Hearing the students pray out loud for Real Life Children's Ranch and the kids is awesome.

It was finishing day.  We cleaned up where we had laid sod, hauled off trash where we cleared a wood line, finished ripping up flooring in a house, and ran barbwire on the fence we mended.  You could tell our students were tired but I never heard them complain.

The afternoon was spent hanging out with the kids and doing small cleaning around the ranch.  We quit  around 4pm and headed to the Hotel to rest, freshen up and eat pizza.  Then headed back to the ranch for a service with the kids and staff.  It was an awesome time of worship, students sharing scripture and testimonies.  There was such a sweet presence of God in the chapel during the service.

After the service we hung around for a couple hours playing and laughing with the kids.  It was a great way to end the day.  Tomorrow is our free day and we have rented out what they call "Douglas Pond." It is a fresh spring pond with rope swings and zip lines.  We will have a picnic lunch and then grill hamburgers and hotdogs later in the afternoon.  It will be fun to hang out and play with all the kids and staff of the ranch.

So proud of our students and what they done and given this week.

Real Devotion: Real Obedience

1 Peter 1:14

James 1:22-25

1 Samuel 15:22

You may have heard it said in church that obedience is better than sacrifice.  What does that mean?  How does that apply to your life and my life?  Simply said sacrifice is what you do, it is your actions.  Sacrifice is the outward effort.  Though that is important, there is something a little deeper.  Obedience.  If God only has your sacrifices, He only has your hands, but if you are obedient, He has your heart.  Obedience is a commitment of your heart.  You can fake sacrifice for a time but never obedience.

Real Life Pics: Tuesday

Real Life Day 3

This is one of the best missions trips that I have ever been a part of. The cool thing is that we have not presented the gospel in the traditional way that you would think about with a missions trip. Yet we have felt the love and presence of God in everything that we have done. We felt it in laying sod and playing on a slip n slide, laughing with kids and making friends. Instead of preaching about the Gospel we have been striving to live the Gospel out. Everyone got up moving very slowly. Sore and tired from the day before. Breakfast and load up time was an hour earlier than the day before. We got to Real Life and had an awesome pray time. There was such a sweet peace as we prayed for Real Life and for each other. After our prayer time we went straight to work. We pulled up more carpet, laid 9 pallets of sod, and repaired a fence. It was a little warmer today and several of the student's faces are red this evening. We quit working around 3pm and set up the slip n slide. It was awesome watching our students go down it with the kids, everyone was laughing and having a blast. For a moment our students forgot how tired they were and the kids from Real Life forgot their pain. The afternoon continued with popsicles, duck duck goose, and a lot of goofing off. We left Real Life shortly after dinner and headed to Dairy Queen for a victory ice cream. It was good to sit back and relax for a moment and take it the day. Tomorrow will be another busy day. We get to have a service with everyone. Looking forward to what the rest of the week holds.

Real Devotion: Real Compassion

Proverbs 21:13

Micah 6:8

Ephesians 4:32

1 John 3:17-18

Compassion is defined as a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.  Compassion is not only knowing something is wrong or seeing someone in pain but it is backing it up with action.  It is putting movement with your feelings.  Jesus has not called us to feel sorry for anyone, He has called us to see the hurts and help bring the solution.  Compassion can be as simple as giving someone a smile, a hug, or as complex as inconveniencing yourself to meet their need to show the love of Jesus.  How will you not only have compassion today but show compassion and live compassion?