Session 3 : Your Heart Matters (Video Notes)

• The heart is three things.
1. It’s the command center of your life.
2. It’s deceitful and corrupt.
3. It’s made new in Christ.
• We associate Love with a 3 pound muscle in our chest that pumps blood through our body.
• We connect with other people emotionally and physically with our hearts.
• The heart is more than the center of our human affections but actually represents the center of an entire person.
• Luke 10:27 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.
• Mark 7:20 - 22 Then He said, “What comes out of a person—that defiles him. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.
• Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
• Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
• There wouldn’t even be such thing as country music if it wasn’t for broken promises and broken hearts.
• When it comes to the heart, you don’t have a lust problem, or a sex problem, or a pornography problem, or a behavior problem, what you have and I have is a heart problem.
• The heart simply wants to be satisfied with it’s own desires at the expense of others.
• 1 John 3:20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
• The good news is the power of the gospel can change our sick deceitful hearts and make them brand new.
• Matthew 5:27 - 28 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
• Sin happens in the heart first. Each of us is a sinner. Your heart can be made new in Christ.
• Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
• Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Romans 6:17 - 18 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
• You can never really gain any benefit from living according to your own selfish desires.
• Jesus is the cure for your heart problem and your lust problem and your shame problem and your guilt problem and your porn problem and your sex problem and your insecurity problem.
• Jesus is the cure of your sin problem.

Session 6 : Our Final Destination (Video Notes)

Below are some of the notes I took while watching the Session 6 video called ‘Our Final Destination’ of the True Love Project with Clayton King.

• Sexual desire is a sign of something greater than sex. It’s a reflection of the need for lasting love.
• Psalm 119:105 - 106 Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path. I have solemnly sworn to keep Your righteous judgments.
• Psalm 119:109 - 112 My life is constantly in danger, yet I do not forget Your instruction. The wicked have set a trap for me, but I have not wandered from Your precepts. I have Your decrees as a heritage forever; indeed, they are the joy of my heart. I am resolved to obey Your statutes to the very end.
• What is your final destination in Life? Wedding day, the wedding dress, honeymoon…
• You’ll never have a perfect marriage and there is no such thing as perfect sex and there are no perfect spouses. The truth is the person you are going to marry is so sinful that Jesus himself had to die on a cross to save them.
• You could have the picture perfect marriage. You could be a virgin as you walk down the aisle but if you don’t have Jesus then none of those will satisfy you. And none of those will save you.
• Jesus is the destination. He’s the big win. He’s the goal. He’s the finish line. He is the treasure at the end of your life.
• If you get all the other things you ever wanted but you don’t get Jesus then in the end you gain nothing.
• Mark 8:35 - 38 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me and the gospel will save it. For what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his life? What can a man give in exchange for his life? For whoever is ashamed of Me and my words in the adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.
• Philippians 3:12 - 14 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
• Submission –> Direction –> Instruction –> Action –> Destination
• Psalm 119:9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping Your word.
• Psalm 119:11 I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You.
• Psalm 119:35 - 37 Help me stay on the path of Your commands, for I take pleasure in it. Turn my heart to Your decrees and not to material gain. Turn my eyes from looking at what is worthless; give me life in Your ways.
• If you get Jesus, you get everything!

Habakkuk 3:2 What?

Today I saw a song title that said Habakkuk 3:2. In my curiosity I decided to look it up. I type it into Google and I get a few links. The first link that pops up is in NIV and I read it.

And then I read it again. I think for a minute “What the heck does that mean?” I felt like Ralphie in The Christmas Story as he hurries to decode the secret message from Orphan Annie. Let me find another version. I read over the ESV text.

Still lost! What has me so confused is the last line of the text because it sounds so dark. So then I think maybe seeing the whole chapter will help.

A-ha, it’s a prayer. Ok, now we are getting somewhere. Let’s go back to Google and find out who Habakkuk really is. I look over all the Wikipedia information on Habakkuk and that’s some good information but then I find a link to a blog post from a Bible study. This is where it finally makes sense. The link to the blog is below.

https://viministry.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/trusting-god-habakkuk-3/

Then I think, “This is the same thing we are doing today that he did hundreds of years ago”. So after reading the blog I found, about three times it finally made sense. The reason I share this is because the story of Habakkuk’s heart being changed from a person who knows of God to a person who has experienced God’s great works. It’s a great story that many people deal with in their own lives. It was if this was Habakkuk’s testimony to the rest of the world.

At the bottom of the blog there was quote that made perfect sense. I have re-pasted it below.

“There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness” (A Divine and Supernatural Light, Jonathan Edwards).

Of course now excited about the story of Habakkuk, I had to read all 3 chapters.

Update: I added a link to the video on YouTube of the song mentioned above.

Open Office Culture Doesn’t Work

Yesterday I realized this open culture of cube farms doesn’t work. Facebook and Google may have created the push for this open culture but they are counterproductive. Don’t get me wrong here. At one time I thought they were productive. I thought they were the way to go but then I realized something. People aren’t collaborating and the people who are collaborating are disturbing the rest of the people in the area. If you walk around you will see almost everyone with a headset on or ear phones in. They aren’t in online meetings. They are trying to drown out the noise of all the conversations in the area so they can be somewhat productive which means they aren’t collaborating. They are slowly becoming less and less productive.

Over the years I’ve been in numerous office situations. I’ve found that individual offices don’t work either. They create silos of people who hardly ever collaborate causing lots of rework. I think they work great for managers and executives who need their private times but not for individuals or team leaders.

So what is the solution? The solution is a mix of both. This mix is team rooms. Rooms that seat anywhere from 5 to 10 people in a room where the area in that room is open just like the low wall cube farms. This allows for teams to become closer than just colleagues and that is what builds a team. That is what fosters collaboration, open communication, and ownership. The people in the room work on the same or similar projects that require open atmosphere communication. This is the day-to-day communication that doesn’t directly affect a project but is important. The team members shouldn’t need to wear head phones every day to get work done. The team leaders should also sit with their team members to keep track of their team’s problems and activities.

Just some thoughts from a rambling office worker.

Easter realization

Today I realized something…
So what stemmed this thought? Today at church a new friend came over and gave me a hug after the service. It was a glorious service today. Anyway, it wasn't just a hug. It felt different. It sparked something inside of me that made me realize something. I finally realized that something I've been looking for my whole life, something I've been praying for, I will never have on this earth. What I mean is I’ll never know what it feels like to have an earthly father’s love for his son. This may seem bad to you but it’s a great breakthrough for me. It means I’m letting go of things that are holding me back. I’ve struggled my whole life of 35 years with wondering what it felt like to have a father’s love for his son. Even as being a father now, I’ve made my mistakes. From the outside looking in, most people would probably say I haven’t been a good father. Especially to my son. What I’ve learned over the past few months is I’m not a bad father. I’m a father who didn’t have a father to model that example so I’m having to figure things out the hard way. By making mistakes and failing a lot.
I’m sure you are thinking, where is the breakthrough right! The breakthrough is that by letting go of the thought and trying to find the feeling of what a father’s love should feel like, I can focus my time and energy on accepting the love of God as my father filling the hole in my heart and let that joy and love overflow from my heart into my own family. I can let the Godly men I have become friends with be the example of being a loving father.
This thought then got me thinking what is going to happen with my kids and their kids. The absence of a father at one generation before the developing of the foundation can take place will ripple across multiple generations before the males in the family genealogy becomes aligned with children who've had a stable father the whole time. Sometimes a grandparent or someone else can step in and take on the role shortening the generations ripple affect but it all takes time. Something we all have a limited amount of.

Are you really living life to the fullest?

If tomorrow you were given 30 days to live, what would you stop doing and what would you start doing?

What would you give up or stop doing?

Maybe you would give up going to work or maybe say goodbye to that Netflix marathon you've been watching for 2 weeks, or maybe exercising, or healthy eating. Who needs to exercise and eat healthy when you are dying, right!

What would you start doing?

Maybe you would start going to church, maybe read the bible (You know you want to start studying for the big test coming up in heaven), maybe call a few friends just to hear their voice again, or maybe do a little traveling. Have one last family reunion? Maybe start a journal for your kids to read later or write a book to your kids for when you are gone.

So I ask you these 2 questions for a reason. What’s the difference in giving these things up when you know you are going to die but yet you’ll do them today without any regard for your life. You spend today thinking there will be a tomorrow, or there will be a next month or a next year. What you aren’t doing is living life to the fullest. If you had 30 days to live would you sit down and watch the whole Grey’s Anatomy series? I already calculated it. The whole series comes out to 18 continuous days of watching TV. I highly doubt you would sit down and watch a whole Netflix series knowing you were going to die soon. So why would you do that when you think you are going to live many more years? Is your life some how less valuable when you think you are going to die in the far out future versus the near future? Now obviously you can’t just quit work without a good reason because you still have bills and people to support but maybe you will think of work as just a resource to do life.

Now let’s talk about those things you would start doing. What’s stopping you today from doing those things now? Probably money. Maybe vacation time or other commitments. What is your plan to start doing those things? If those things are so precious that you would spend the last days of your life doing them, why aren't you doing them now? I suggest you make a plan every year to do one or two of those things you would do in your last days that you aren't doing and then plan the rest of your year around them. If those things are that precious then everything should come after them. Including work! Your job should supplement your life and not consume your life.

These aren't lessons I just one day realized. These are lessons that have taken many years to learn and refine. Something that has also taken me a long time to learn is that time is truly your most precious asset in life. Ask yourself, what would you give up today if you were going to die in 30 days?

Happiness in yourself

Here's a little knowledge tip in life. You are responsible for your own happiness in life. It's nobody else's job on this planet to make you happy in life. Not your friend's, not your family's, not your spouse or significant other, or your kids job. Only you can define if you are happy in life and only you can control if you are happy. If you are blaming someone else or some event or something for making you unhappy, it's your fault that you let them or it steal your happiness. Happiness comes from inside.

This is a message I originally posted on my Facebook timeline September 9, 2014.