Being a good listener is one of the best traits you can master in life, but it’s even more important when it comes to listening to advice.  Good advice can save you from marrying the wrong person, accepting the wrong job, engaging in illegal activity, and countless other situations.  The thing that is puzzling is how many people ignore good counsel. 

I’m not just talking about your wise, elderly grandfather, or intelligent friend, or even an intuitive partner.  How many people do you know that fail to acknowledge the wisdom of God?  Like any good parent, God has put down instructions to help us live an overcoming life, yet we don’t have sense enough to read them.  God’s Word is like and owner’s manual for a car.  If you obey God’s instructions, life will “run smooth” and you’ll find a power to live life to the full.  If you ignore them, you’ll have breakdowns, repairs, and failures.  In essence you’ll pay for it. 

God has wisdom on every topic pertaining to life, why can’t we discover it before the breakdown?

Anniversaries are special times to commemorate faithfulness.  We can celebrate the faithfulness of an employee, a spouse, or even a group of people.  God set up special days on the calendar to observe His favor and provision for His people. 

This weekend, Crossroads Church will celebrate 10 years of the faithfulness of God and His people.  Over the past decade God has helped us to go from launching in a movie theatre to building our own facilities on over 23 acres of land. 

It will be a time of commemorating the past, rejoicing in our present and anticipating our future.  If you are in our area, we invite you to join us for this special occasion in our 9 & 10:45 a.m. services. 

Joining us and participating in the services, will be former staff members: Bob Gerstenberger, Shelley Harris and Ryan Crozier.  A special video presentation will be shown representing our journey and what God has done in the lives of so many. 

We would love for you to be with us and honor the Lord for all He has done!

P.S.  Just like for Easter, I’m encouraging everyone who can to attend the 1^st Service to make room for extra guests in the 2^nd Service – thanks! 

Ever hear an announcer at a high school basketball or football game announce, “And that’s the end of the first quarter”?  Well, maybe some of us need someone to announce, “And that’s the end of the first quarter of the year!”  You may find that hard to believe, but as they say, “time flies.”

So maybe now is a good time for a check up. Take a few moments and look back over the year — are things on track?

Are things on track physically? How are you doing with that goal of losing weight?  Are you keeping up with the exercise you promised yourself back in January or late December?

Are things on track financially? Are you making progress on getting out of debt?  Have you been able to put aside for retirement?  Are you offering God your “firstfruits” offering of the first 10 percent of your income? 

Are things on track personally? Do you spend quality time with the people who mean the most to you?  Is your time well-managed so that there is margin in your life? 

Are things on track spiritually?  Are you reading God’s Word daily (such as the One Year Bible) for inspiration?  Do you spend quality time with God for transformation?  Did you listen for Him today? 

Taking time to reflect is one of the most neglected areas. I hope you will take the time  to reflect and make any adjustments necessary to make the rest of the year the best of the year.

I recently took off time for my daughter’s Spring Break to spend time together as a family and to get some rest.  Some of us don’t realize we need to be refreshed until it’s nearly too late. 

It’s always been amazing to me that Jesus took time to get away even though He was the Son of God.  He even taught the disciples to come apart from the crowds and have time alone. 

What do you do to be refreshed?  When’s the last time you came home, turned on the stereo to some soft music and just relaxed?  Or, do you keep your schedule jam packed and never seem to have a free moment?  If you’re answer is, “But, I just don’t have time for that!”  Then my response is, you must think you’re greater than Jesus who took time to get away and have time alone.   

If you don’t “come apart” – you will eventually.  Take it from someone who works hard every day – you’ve got to also play hard.  Don’t let your time of rest be in the hospital because you didn’t follow Jesus’ example.

Do you ever wonder why something happened to someone?  Maybe you’ve questioned, “What was the purpose behind that?”  There have been countless times in my life when I just didn’t have a good explanation for an occurrence.  So, what do you do in those times, or better yet, does God have anything to say about it? 

Here’s the verse I go to that explains things for me when I don’t understand, “The secret things belong to the Lord” (Deut. 29:29).  In other words, there are events in our lives that defy any human explanation and the Bible says, that God keeps secrets. 

The Apostle Paul described this as “seeing through a glass darkly.”  We just aren’t going to know everything God knows in this present life.  I personally don’t think I could handle knowing everything God knows in this present life.  Later on, Paul says, more will get revealed in the ages to come. 

I may not understand everthing that goes on today, and have a good explanation for everything that happens, but what I am convinced of is that there is Creator of Heaven and Earth, Who loves me enough to die for me.  After that, I’ll let Him handle the secret things.

It’s nice to be back after a week’s vacation with my family over Spring Break.  I was mentioning to a few people yesterday how I was able to read 3 books while I was gone and most were taken back.  Some thought I must be an extremely fast reader – I don’t think of myself that way. 

Here’s my secret:  I grab every available minute I can to fill my mind with profitable information.  That means when I was sitting poolside, instead of listening to conversations around me, or music on my iPod, I was reading.  You would be amazed at how much you can read in times like this.  Another opportunity is late at night when getting ready for bed.  Our family often takes reading material along on trips and we spend some time winding down in bed with a good book instead of mindless television.  In addition to this, I grab any spare moment of the day to read a few pages in the book I’m devouring.  This can be while waiting on my family to finish getting ready, or changing clothes in the middle of the day before going back out for activity. 

Again, you would be amazed at how many moments get wasted waiting, sitting, TV watching or daydreaming.  Try harnessing this time and use it to grow and feed the precious resource of your mind.  Let me know how many books you’re able to read next time you take a trip and how fulfilled it makes you feel.