Modern Devotion

I wrote a blog entry for www.livetwentyten.com. Live2010 is a campaign that we are doing at Red Mountain Christian Center to help people spend 20 minutes in prayer a day and ten minutes reading their bible to read through the whole bible in 2010.

Here is a portion of that blog entry:

2010 (MMX) is a common year that started on a Friday and is the current year. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2010th year of the Common Era or of Anno Domini; the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 1st of the 2010s decade. There are a lot of interesting things happening this year, like Chevrolet releasing the Volt, a new electric car, or even greater things such as the Space Shuttle program will be retiring NASA and replacing it with Project Constellation (go read some of more 2010 changes here).

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The first three numbers; 0’s, 1’s and 2’s. Simple numbers that almost all 2 year-olds know. This idea of 20 minutes reading and 10 minutes praying brings a few thoughts to my mind, neither of which are trying to figure out whether the proper pronunciation is twenty ten or two thousand and ten. Although I think twenty ten is correct .

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We live in a day of technology. An ingenious software called YouVersion is celebrating their users collectively reading 1 billion minutes on their iPhones, iPods, Blackberrys, cellphones, the mobile web and the internet atwww.youversion.com with 41 translation and 22 languages, again that is 1 BILLION minutes, or 16.7 million hours, or check this out, 19 CENTURIES. What about listening to the bible in audio format in your car or on your iPod. To give you an idea I read from Genesis through Deuteronomy in as little as a few weeks listening to the bible while driving to and from work in about 15 minutes each way. People also use all kinds of bible software like Logos that Pastor Jeff, myself and others use that allows about three hours of Bible study/research in as little as a few minutes...

Go read the rest here!

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Spiritual ADHD Part 1

Just started a 4 week series called Spiritual ADHD. It is comparing the struggles and experiences of a person who has ADHD with what those struggles may be like for Christians if they happened to have Spiritual ADHD. Make sure to click on the link to read the rest of this post!

ADHD Mind from Shaun Mayfield on Vimeo.

Video Above: Experience the inside process of a mind on ADHD when a simple task like thinking of a persons name that you are related to... you know something really easy. Daily repetitious thoughts are tough enough but when we really got to think this is what happens in our minds.

The four struggles of a person that we will focus on the next few weeks are:

• Spiritually Drifting Off
  
• Spiritually Tuned Out
  
• Spiritually Impulsive
  
• Spiritual Hyperactivity

[Drifting Off]
What happens when we drift off spiritually and lose track of what we believe and drift out of our race that we are running? In Greek, the word for drift as it's found in Hebrews 2:1 talks about a leaking bucket, that we are slowly leaking out what God has put into us.

The next couple of verses talk about the reason we are not to drift is because of what we have 'heard', which is in Hebrews 1. It talks about who Christ is, that he is God in all His majesty, that he is heir to all things, maker of all things, express image of God, he upholds all things, he forgave us of all our sins by dying and after that was seated at the right hand of God. He is higher than all the angels.

Hebrews 2:3 talks about salvation being spoke by those who have believed. If you jump to Hebrews 11 it is the chapter of faith heroes who are those that have spoke in the past, then chapter 12 begins with saying that now all those who have spoken are no longer speaking but are now cheering us on so that we don't DRIFT. That is powerful, they no longer have a voice for speaking of faith but now they are screaming your name out, saying you can make it, keep fighting, keep running, keep up the endurance!

Don't be a drifter, do not leak. God has the task of filling us and we must be careful to allow Him to patch us up as we become leaky vessels. I am cheering you on, all those that have believed that are in heaven are cheering you on as a cloud of witnesses. Run, don't grow weary, don't tire out, don't drift into other lanes. Don't get disqualified.

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Faith Makes Failure

To say that faith "is" or "makes" failure would be a sad ignorant definition but allow me to elaborate on faith becoming failure. A person must know faith makes things happen. Faith creates blocks. Those blocks then build structures. Our faith has the ability to create dreams, they have the ability to make masterpieces.

Many things in life that is powerful typically has the ability to be a power for good or to be a power to do harm/evil/ugliness. Faith is one of those things. I can have faith that a good person will make a good choice but I can also have faith that a bad person can make a bad choice. Most speak positively of faith and how it brings something out form within that one may have never have seen or felt inside. However we shouldn't fool ourselves to think that faith can't also be a destructive force.

For many, the problem is that faith for them has lowered their own expectation, or I should say their low expectations has changed their faith. Now they still have faith but their faith has a new target (maybe faith is similar to a habit, never destroyed only replaced). Maybe it is you, maybe your low expectations for yourself has begin to cause you to have faith that you will fail. The problem is that some of you have faith that you can't do anything so you fulfill your expectations. You typically live to your level of faith.

If I have faith in God I will live like their is a God (imagine that life lived out). You see my life will begin to change. If I live like I can overcome then I will be a champion. Whether you believe in God/bible or not, James in the bible talks about this, he says in chapter two, "do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?" He is saying that faith is lived out, what you believe is then turned into action. My best definition for faith is, "belief in action."

Check this out, a few verses later it says, "You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove." Here is the dilemma, if you have faith that you will fail, faith that you cannot overcome, faith that you will fall short then it is highly probable you will fail. James is almost willing to wager, set up a little gamble that you cannot do one without the other. True faith will cause action in your belief system.

Be careful for what you believe you will fail at, it might come true...
| but even bigger |
be aware [beware] at the world that you can change if you believe that you are a world changer!
[Maybe the world needs to beware of you]

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