Live Free with Josh Howerton - Pursuing Life Upstream | Ep. 25 | Friday March 10, 2023

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

It’s time to turn your life around. Don’t just go with the flow of what everyone around you is doing. In today’s episode, Pastor Mike talks about how important it is to pursue God, the one who can give you the life you’re looking for. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. All right, good morning, everybody. Good evening. Good afternoon. It's kind of sounds like Jim Carrey in the Truman Show, doesn't it?

Whatever time it is, wherever you are. Thanks for joining us for a daily dose of encouragement and hope. My name is Mike Bro, and each day we're to spend a little time in God's Word together, just allowing him to transform us into his best version of us. And we're hanging in a chapter of the Bible called Romans 12, just taking a small chunk of the time, and learning together what it means to live the kind of life that Jesus wants described as life.

to the full, the kind of distinctive life that reflects the goodness and the love of God. When I think of a distinctive life, I think of a time that I took a bunch of high school students on a canoe trip. Nothing says disaster quite like high school students and canoes. But before we got started, the guide kind of gave us a briefing on safety stuff. You know, what to do if you happen to turn your canoe over, which is going to happen, swamp the canoe, you know, lose your life check. All the kinds of, he's briefing us on a lot of kind of. kind of stuff. Once he got done with the safety briefing, he looked at this captive audience of

high school students. He said, listen to me. People that canoe this river, the easy way is just to go downstream. And if you go downstream, you just go like with everybody else, where everybody else goes. And so, but good canoeists, I'll tell you, expert canoists, they like to turn a canoe around and go upstream because they paddle upstream against the flow. They get to see things that no one else gets to see. And if they keep on going, they end up at the source of the water. He goes, and he looked at all of me, because, listen, I want to challenge you guys today before you take off. Turn your life around. Don't just go with the flow like everybody else is doing in your high school.

Don't just go with all your friends. Just turn your life and paddle upstream. Be different. Paddle toward the source, which is God, who can give you the kind of life that you're looking for. And I understand her going, dang, canoe guy. This is good stuff, man. Thank you for sharing this with our students. And that's what Paul in this Romans chapter 12 was trying to get us to do, to turn our life around and paddle upstream to be different type of people.

I love the way the message puts the first couple of verses of Romans 12. He says, so here's what I want you to do. God helping you, take your everyday ordinary life, you're sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around life, and just place it before God is an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God and you'll be changed from the inside out. Here's Paul saying, listen, don't just go with the flow. Paddle upstream.

Humbly embrace this walk with God and let him transform you. And the verses were hanging in, beginning with verse number nine, kind of paints a picture of what that upstream life kind of looks like. We made it all the way down to verse 13 today, and it says this. Share with Lord's people who are in need. Practice, hospitality. That's the life of people that are built different. They've got an open home, an open fridge, an open table, an open invitation, an open wallet.

In fact, those ought to be the hallmarks of a Jesus follower. You know, one of the ways to prevent relational stress fracture from developing is just to be a generous person. He's saying here, don't be the get-off-my-law guy in your neighborhood. Don't be that guy. Instead, be the kind, friendly, helpful, what can I do for you, good neighbor? Practice hospitality. You know, one of the values in my home growing up was dinner around the table. And it wasn't so much about the food as it was the people around the table.

And so raising our kids, we made sure that we had dinner together. That wasn't always possible. But most nights, man, we throw something on the grill or we whip up some stir fry or something in the crock pot. Or we just order pizza and all sit down around the table together. We got a lot of memories around the table. In fact, so many friends and neighbors and small groups and basketball teams and extended family members have spent a lot of time there. Again, I don't remember too much of the actual meals that we consumed, but the laughter and the friendship and the sharing and all the significant announcements that were made around that table, the important conversations around that table, they're pretty unforgettable. In fact, did you know that studies show that eating with people has enormous benefits?

For instance, research shows that when children and teenagers eat regularly with their families, they experience healthier eating on into adulthood, they have a lower risk of developing eating disorders, they have less drug and alcohol use, they have higher self-esteem and less depression, they do better with school posting higher scores on achievement tests. And again, it's not the food, it's the table and the community and the security and the sense of belonging that is fostered there.

I like how in their book right here right now, Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford write, sharing meals together on a regular basis is one of the most sacred practices we can engage in as believers. Missional hospitality, I love that term. Missional hospitality is a tremendous opportunity to extend the kingdom of God. If every Christian household regularly invited a stranger or a poor person into their home for a meal once a week, we would literally change the world by eating. They're just power around the table where love and belonging are served up as the main course. My wife has the gift of hospitality and not in a, you know, HGTV kind of way.

She's not a fancy entertainer. We've got paper plates standard at our house. But she just has this way of making people feel at home. And I know many of you listening right now are probably like her. Debbie is also an extrovert, so people just fuel her. It seems like there's always somebody. at our home. And we've had someone living with us on and off, most of our marriage. My wife's favorite verse is a verse from the book of Psalms that says,

The Lord sets the lonely and families. She just loves it. And her favorite quote is from Mother Teresa when she said, The problem with the world is we draw our family circles too small. So our verse today is reminding us that as followers of Jesus, we ought to draw a big, big circles, the way he did. There was such a warm inclusivity about Jesus and has his followers. The same should be true of us. So know anybody that might be lonely? Can you think of anybody that you might share with?

Think of anybody that could use a table, could use a loving family circle? So my challenge to you today is just ask God to bring that person to mind, or just be aware today of someone that he puts in your path. And let's practice hospitality. I'll try to do the same. Have a great day. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship,

join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out. For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe.combe.com slash daily drive.