Malachi is all about living a life of excellence by offering your best to God, not your second best!

God hates scraps, it’s a hard message to hear, but he commands our best.

As leaders, we are responsible to build an ever increasing level of excellence in our businesses and ministries.

Things left untouched, will decrease, but we need to allow God to work though our lives to increase.

This requires effort and hard work, not settling for mediocrity or second best but offering every area of our life to Him as a pleasing and acceptable offering.

Basically content filtering monitors any incoming webpages and filters them according to their content. It filters porn and any other content that may be inappropriate for minors and team members here at church.

ContentKeeper Technologies: Internet Content Filtering Solutions

Content Keeper looks like a pretty good solution. It’s pretty cost effective – about $50 per year for each computer on the network.

I can just picture him now in the school yard, down behind the toilet block….
“hey Jess, you got some of the good stuff?”
“Yeah Johnny, I got something here you need real bad”
“Really, what have you got for me?”
“A tract bro, on holiness, just for you…”

Or how about his mother searching his room…
“Anthony, I’m worried about Jess, I think he’s up to something really bad and mixing with the wrong crowd, I just found a bible in his room.”

Anyway, I just thought how funny the tables can turn in any situation, for some reason, he was running from his parents into the right direction, rather than the wrong one!

Did I mention I love God?

I want to suggest that lack of freedom is completely confined to the poverty of ones mind. So many people in this world are completely confined to this malaise of self doubt and self centerdness that they fail to see a world of opportunity sitting right in from of them.

Opportunities come and go, but it is the ability to seize an opportunity and make use of it that gives an individual power over the circumstances of life. What kinds of opportunity am I talking about? While financial opportunity may be the first to come to mind, it is by no means the answer to the question. Financial success in life is Mearly an outcome of a successful life, it is not a means to happiness or freedom or success.

I believe that freedom comes from fulfilling the two great commands that Jesus outlined to His disciples. “Love God with all your heart” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

By loving God with all your heart you desire to do all things according to His will and Purpose. This means putting Him first in every part of your life and by not allowing the worries and concerns of this world push you around.

Secondly, “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” doesn’t mean figuring out the least you can do for someone and doing it with a begrudging heart, but looking carefully at yourself and deciding how you would want to be treated in their situation. This means caring for someone in need, looking after the interests of someone more needy than yourself and lifting them up.

As it says in James Chapter 1 in the NIV version of the bible:

Verse 27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Freedom is about looking past the selfishness of our own existence and personal sustenance to the worship of God in all parts of our life. Whether it be financial, giving an encouraging word, making to most of ideas inspired by the spirit to advance the Kingdom of God or simply giving someone some quality time or a hug, God’s desire is for us to be people of influence.

So many times in life we see people attempting to be happy through their own effort and fulfilment of selfish desires. I don’t believe this is the way to freedom. I don’t believe we can ever be free when we are shackled to the things of this world.

God desires for us to not be a part of this world, from being polluted by the world. Freedom is coming to a revelation of God and others as the most important things for gaining freedom. After all, whats the use of gaining the whole world, if only in the end you end up losing your own soul?

All I can say is this; Love God, love others, and learn to die everyday, and God will bless your path with many jewels, so that in the end they will be set into a crown of righteousness that will be offered to you when the day of the Lord comes.

Amen!

In all our technology and artistry, we have constantly through the ages sort to elevate ourselves in the place of God. I can imagine how God see’s us, clinging desperately to the natural, to what is easy and knowable and understandable, looking for wisdom that in the end never satisfies our existence.

How God must desire for us to embrace Him! To look for knowledge in His inspired word, to seek understanding by His spirit. He pours out wisdom liberally on us, and yet we spurn every effort on His behalf to give us what we need to make our lives successful, fruitful and beneficial, not only to the prosperity of our own soul, but also the prosperity of others.

I can see how God see’s me, someone who can surmount every obstacle, challenge and mountain on life’s journey. I have come to an understanding of His will for my life. To continue to follow and serve Him and build His church irrespective of the circumstances of life.