Image Is Nothing, Desire (Thirst) Is Everything!

You probably can't read the next line without knowing exactly what it is:

"Image is nothing.
Thirst is everything.
Obey your thirst."

Back in the summer of 1996, Sprite, who is made by Coca-Cola was realizing that the old campaign of "I like the Sprite in you" was time to retire. They feared that it was not catching the ears of "Generation X".

"We were looking for something hip, something fresh, something that would appeal to the younger generation," stated Coke spokesman Bob Bertini.

Sprite realized they didn't have the answer so they hired Lowe & Partners/SMS, a New York based advertising agency known for its ability to appeal to the younger masses (Lowe also handles the entire Reebok campaign). Surprisingly within one week the "obey your thirst" motto was proposed and accepted by Coca-Cola.

I promise I am going somewhere with this but check out this first. It was hugely successful. Sales increased by about 9% since the introduction, especially in the younger age groups. 93% of 18-24 said they were effective. Amongst all the consumers, 83% said the same. That is HUGE!

Donald Rifkin was the genius behind the slogan. His inspiration for the slogan came from an old political speech he had run across in his free time.

"I just love looking through artifacts of political history. I chanced across this one particular speech, and the speaker made an aside about thirst that absolutely just stuck in my head. I felt that I could use it somewhere, so I jotted it down. A month later, when Sprite came calling, the match almost seemed too easy."

In 1971, former President Ronald Reagan, then the Governor of California, was addressing a gathering of the Boy Scouts of America on a particularly scorching Southern California day. As he neared conclusion, Reagan paused briefly to take a sip of water. Noticeably refreshed, upon returning to the microphone, he told the audience, "Now, I certainly have spoken on a number of different topics today. However, if you are to remember one thing, and only one thing, it should be this: Speeches are nothing. Thirst is everything. Always remember to obey your thirst."

There is a great line in the Bible that says, "To obey is better than sacrifice." There are so many things in our life that we are forced to obey. Our simple needs to survive includes, but are not limited to, breathing, eating, sleeping, etc. From an early age we are taught to obey our parents. School teachers, law enforcement, most people in uniforms, etc, demand our obedience, at least expect it. For the average person all these areas of obedience are accepted to a degree.

However where most people lose out on their desire to obey comes in their relationship with God. I see many people in the church that sacrifice so much, give so much time and effort, they give monetarily, and they justify it off by saying I am offering my life as a sacrifice to God, they measure how much they are giving. God clearly declares that if we simply lay our lives out in obedience then allow the sacrifice to follow then it works better. Isaac shows this best as his dad Abraham lays him on the altar to sacrifice him in Genesis 22. For the son, Isaac honored his dad in obedience to death. For Abraham, he honored God in obedience that led to what he thought would be the sacrifice of his son until God provided a ram.

We need to allow our obedience to create the arena, the altar of personal sacrifice. As we begin to live that way we will begin to see lives affected as we the eikons of God love in action and truth instead of just words.

How will your day look differently because of your obedience instead of sacrifice?

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Shallow Waters Devotional 2

Here are some of the most challenging, thought provoking devotionals from some of the most thoughtful minds of our culture. I am honored to be the newest member of their tribe and to even associate with such modern minds! This is one of my greatest friends Sam, check out his blog here!

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Dorothy and Earl

I wish I had a picture to show you there beautiful faces. Dorothy, 75, and Earl, 82, are precious and proud.

As we sat to eat at Arby's for lunch with a couple pastors and interns we were being the typical annoying loud people in the corner that most would be upset at us. As Ryan jumps up to do a little dance this quiet elderly couple look over and instead of a frown or look of disgust Dorothy made the comment, "we once were able to move like that, praise God for you young folks". She began to ask us if we were believers in which we responded yes. She was happy and began to get emotional and filled with joy that young people were laughing and having fun and that we loved God. I spent a few moments talking with them as they introduced themselves to me and asked for prayer because they were not doing good. See Dorothy had just had a double by-pass and a stint put in and didn't know how long she would be around. She swore Satan was trying to shut her up because she said she is bold and will never stop telling people about Jesus. She said that Earl is in worse health and that they need each other. I said I would pray for them. Earl said that as soon as they saw us they knew we loved God and that they could feel the presence over us.

As they were about to leave they came over and began sharing the love of God with us loudly and boldly in the middle of Arby's. As she talks Ole' Earl is trying to chime in and give his perspective of seeing a bunch of Christian 'kids' and how happy and moved he was. She then said how much she felt the spirit and shared some scriptures with us. Then with her boldness in that small 75 year old frail frame she said we need to pray. I notice Earl's old weathered hands reaching for his hat and I figured cool, I guess we will pray right now. Dorothy began to pray, not one of these little prayers, "Lord bless these youngens". No, it was a prayer of passion, she truly was praying over us and asking God to use us and care for us. Then we blessed them and they left.

We hurried back to the church because we had staff prayer at one and I told them I would pray for them so I did and began to think and meditate on what happened. I'm not sure everyone that I was with truly got what was happening. Here is some complete strangers yet not caring about anything or anyone around and some were probably missing what was really happening.

Here area a couple saints that are probably close to finishing their race in life and are so filled with God's spirit that they care nothing about public opinion. For many of us we are so worried about what others might think and it changes our actions. I would hate to think that I would become bold when I realize my life is almost over and I have nothing to lose. The bible says that we shouldn't worry about tomorrow because there is no guarantee that tomorrow will even come. If that is the case how come most Jesus-followers don't have the boldness to approach people, don't have the boldness to pray for people in public, to raise our voice for indecency, to not stand up for the impoverished, the hurt, the broken, the neglected, the needy, homeless, drunk, abused and invisible people that are all around us living in the shadows? May God put a burden on us that causes us to hurt like He does, to be broken for the lost like he is! Prior to Dorothy and Earl leaving they talked to another elderly couple and asked them how they were doing and she asked the gentleman who's watching over him and she said, "Is God?" He responded I hope so, and she said, hope so, you better know, do you know Jesus? I realize that todays approach is far different than yesterdays direct, "do you know Jesus?", and that most salvations come through relationship but are we willing to be up front with people, to talk to total strangers?

Pray for Dorothy and Earl, I know they would appreciate it, but also most importantly pray that you get their zeal and energy to do Kingdom Work in your day to day life journey.

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Sometimes I Never Feel Good Enough

Demands. Expectations. Needs. Realizations. Schedules. People. Lives. Hurts. Pains. Goals. Ambitions. Oh and a baby.
My perspective.

It seems with all the things that are demanding of my time all seem to have the need from someone else. It seems I am being pulled into every direction that is requiring my time. It seems like I can't make certain people happy. Unfortunately the people that I let down are the people that matter the most.

Unbalanced. Preoccupied. Selfish. Lazy. Blurred. Unfocused. Narrow-minded.
Their perspective.

Call me what you want. The truth is none of those are true but peoples preconceived ideas and perception unfortunately define you more then the one who knows you best... yourself. Too bad people around me can't look into my life and be able to communicate with me their thoughts and what they are thinking of you. That would help but nonetheless, this is the life that we are given and need to figure out how to work with those parameters.

Well regardless, I am going back to my demands, expectations, fulfilling needs of being unbalanced, preoccupied, selfish lazy, blurred, and narrow-minded life.

See ya.

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through him who gives me strength.
God will equip me and guide be to be balanced and not marginalized.

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Not Forgetting God

I have been moving out of one house into a new house and it is amazing how many things I have found that I didn't realize I even had. Every time I cleaned out an area I found more and more stuff. Some junk and some forgotten things that brought back memories. I realized that I had to throw out a lot of junk and clean a lot of things up. I realized how many things I forgot about. How dumb am I to forget about so much.

Then I realized that memories never "leave" our brain. Everything that we have ever heard or seen or known is in our memory. In psychology you learn that your memory is literally infinite. So you never "forget" you just have "memory recall failure". It's like going to a door and trying to get in and you have tons of keys on your ring and you can't figure out which key it is. Our problem is linking the memories. you just have to get the right link. I realize sometimes vital information or good memories get put on a shelf or behind that door and what was only suppose to be for a moment becomes "lost".

My question to myself is what does it take for people to really want to experience God. What holds us back? Why are we so calloused to the spiritual things of God? Some guys asked Jesus once, “Which of the commandments (or laws) is the most important?” In other words they were saying that they knew there was no way they could uphold all of the laws with perfection. So which one should they definitely try to nail? Jesus replied, “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hinge all of the laws of the prophets.” Maybe our calloused hearts began one day when we put God on that one shelf. You know that shelf that is right by your door. Maybe you said to yourself I will pick it up later. Later never came, and now we are comfortable without him. God became irrelevant because we lost focus on him. He just began to collect dust and was meaningless to us. Not because we don't need him but because he isn't the first and primary focus in our life. See after we put God on the shelf only intended for a moment it turns into a day, then a day turns into a week, then he gets covered up and forgotten. That's Jesus' challenge to us, to never put him on a shelf. Jesus knows that if we love our God with ALL of our body, soul, and mind we would never forget him. Furthermore if we love him first then love others all other things fall right into place.

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