Friend, go up higher!

Luke 14:10 But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when your host comes in, he may say to you, Friend, go up higher! Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit [at table] with you.
THe calling of God to us is that we may go up higher. Yes it is true that you may be lifted by the invitation to His feast! But their is still a lifting higher when:

1. We humble ourselves
2. We maintain a relationship with the one who invited us

Thank God I am not everybody else!

One of the biggest challenge of our time is a great desire to be like those who we consider to be our 'idols', role models etc.
this problem is not new and the children of Israel had the same issue. they requested for a King for only one reason.
1 Sam 8:20 That we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles. God's desire is that we may be different. Moses Prays a prayer that we shoul emulate today: ...What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" Ex 33:16.
The question I want to ask you today is why do you want that (job, friend, dress, car, etc name it!) will it make you you or will it make you be like someone else?
THANK GOD! I AM NOT EVERYBODY ELSE

Dealing with apathy

Matt 11:17. We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
Apathy is a state of being impassive, unresponsive, indifferent to the environment. It is also a state where the individual shows  suppression of feelings or emotions e.g. excitement, motivation and passion and  absence of drive, interest or concern to emotional, social, or physical life.
Jesus says that these children are telling their peers that we have tried to provoke you to the two extreme emotional poles but you did not respond!
As christians we cannot afford to be apathetic about what is happening around us we are the salt and the light. These two elements can never be in an environment and fail to affect it. We cannot just sit back and say que sera sera!

Why smith?

There were no blacksmiths in the land of Israel in those days. The Philistines wouldn't allow them for fear they would make swords and spears for the Hebrews (1 Sam 13:19 TLB)
The enemy has a strategy in our days to disconect God's people with a man who can:

1. Fashion a weapon, tool or implement from the ore
2. Sharpen the existing tools

So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plowshares, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened (vs 20). They went down! I refuse to go down and they did this for a fee!
This means they depended on their enemies to sharpen their cutting edge. Ofcourse the enemy would not give them the best deal.
So in the day of in the day of battle, there was no sword! they lost the battle not because of lack of soldiers, training or leadership but because of being disconected with a smith!
The Lord has laid in my heart the calling of a smith. He has given me two Major tools! Jeremiah 23:29 ...a fire? saith the LORD; ...a hammer...!