1.Use all gifts and blessings from the Lord on yourself and your immediate family.
2.Find a way to work into conversation that that you have completed all the Lifeway Bible Studies, even if you just watched the videos.
3.Care more about what you wear to church than what is being said at church.
4.Make sure all your friends go to your church and that you are reaching out to all the “cute” people.
5.Continually put down the other churches around town, because we all know they aren’t biblically sound and we are just protecting the integrity of the church.
6.Make sure you don’t drink, cuss, or smoke. Gossip is okay, it is only so we may know how better to pray for those around us.
7.Gauge your life by the behaviors that others see you performing and never tell your secret sins to accountability partners. Frequently remind yourself that those around you are idiots; therefore, you don’t need their input in your life. Evaluate your behavior on your actions and not on Christ’s work on the cross.
8.Surround yourself with people who look, talk, and act like you.
9.Don’t waste your time serving people of a different social class, but tell others when you give money to feed the homeless or you give to Lottie Moon.
10.Most importantly, spend your life increasing your kingdom: your house, cars, job, position and don’t spend your resources building His Kingdom.

Finally, don’t ever pray, “Lord, break my heart for what breaks Yours!”

You ask, "How does she know how to be a 'Christian Snob?'" I was and am one. I repent. Amen. 

I was privileged to share our story this morning at a ladies brunch and I wrote a commissioning for the women to read over them before they left.

To Know You

Our desire is to know You,
in all we say and do.
Our prayer when we walk out,
is to live our life by Your cue.
That we would be women,
who take every situation we face,
and allow it to be metamorphosed by Your grace.
That in every trial and temptation our lust,
would be to encounter a place of trust.
That we won’t cocoon ourselves from the pain,
Knowing You is our true gain.
Give us strength to struggle well,
then all the world we will tell,
with Jesus, It is WELL.

Our oldest has started spring practice for football. For you non-football people, this means early morning and late night practices. Today, while driving him across town at 6:15 in the morning, I asked him what they could possible do for that many hours of practice. He went into a long list that I will not bore you with but one agenda item really stood out to me, watching film. This activity consists of the team sitting around with the coaches and watching the practice from the day before. I asked him if it bothered him to sit in a room with all his buddies while the coach picks apart how you played the day before? He simply said, “That's football, you have to get used to it; however, they don’t just tell you what you did wrong but they also encourage you in what you did right!”

We need friends like this. We need a time to get together and share the films of our lives. We need accountability for the good and the ugly. The beginning of James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” When we allow others to study our lives, to spur us on in the good and call us out on the sinful, we are making room for healing in our lives.

Who do you have around you that you allow to watch your life unfold?

How can you be more transparent with the people God has surrounded you with?

Last week I served some beer and this week God served me up some humble pie. It didn’t taste too good but it was something I needed to swallow.

Honestly, serving beer last week was much easier than serving my family right now. It is much easier to pop a top than to wash cups for the hundredth time. It is effortless to sit next to a grieving widow as opposed to cleaning up the same reoccurring mess. It is a no-brainer to quietly absorb my neighbors grief but a bit more difficult to silently listen while my husband shares his burdens (I like to fix things and I have a tendency to share my solutions). It is more gratifying to clean her house than mine.

The truth is, we need to learn to serve the ones closest to us with as much care and compassion as we do strangers. It is easy in ministry to go and shine His light to the world and come home and darken our family discouragement and deprecation.

I have a heart that breaks for the lost world around me. I get many kuddos when I am off serving in my neighborhood or in a foreign country and I receive blog comments and facebook messages telling me what a great job I am doing. Serving those in my house isn’t quite as sexy. Serving my family when I don’t feel like it doesn’t illicit a huge response.

God served me up some reality today in showing me that I need to serve them with the same love and intensity that I serve those outside my home. God spooned His Word into my heart, reminding me that EVERYTHING I do, I do for His glory whether that is serving beer or washing clothes.

I Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

Yesterday, I spent a few hours of my day serving beer to my neighbor. Now, that is a sentence I never thought I would open a blog post with but such is my life.

I came home from school to find our neighbors house flooded with cops, ambulances, and all manner of peeps. I am friendly with our next door neighbors but don’t know the intricacies of their lives but when trouble hits, I am there.

As soon as the last car pulled away, I quickly ran over to hug my neighbor. She cried out that she had just returned from burying her mother to find the love of her life had passed away on her living room couch. Two deaths in less than a week. Just like that, the people that she loved the most were both gone.

I grabbed her a chair and we sat in the shade under a tree in her front yard, just the two of us. There were moments of pure silence and there were eruptions of deep anguish. I listened as she groaned about the fear she faced and I allowed no reaction from me to surface when she screamed curse words.

I cried with her.
I sat beside her.
I served her beer. It was all she wanted and refused anything else. We just sat there in two red chairs and grieved. Two women who have both experienced devastating losses.

I waited for family to show. A cousin came and went. I waited for friends to show. One came and went. I watched the clock as church came and went as we sat under the tree in the Louisiana heat. Finally the cousin returned to take my neighbor to her friends house for the night. We hugged and I watched as this devastated figure climbed into the truck and drove into the night.

I have noticed a trend lately in Christian circles, we are more concerned about behavior than the person. We are offended by the curse words and care little of the heart condition. Some of you are mad I served a beer. Some of you haven’t been around anyone who even curses. Some of us have spent so much time inside the church building that we forgot we are to go out and BE THE CHURCH.

It is time to get in the trenches with people. It is time to sit next to our neighbor and quietly serve them. God will open their hearts to the gospel of Jesus Christ and give you an opportunity to share.