Category: Devotional Blog

Profound thoughts, often challenging the Christian.

Posted on

Word Up.

I just wanted to touch base with everyone about the past few days of my life. I’ve been in Indianapolis (still am) for a worship convention. It has been fantastic.

Just imagine, if you get several hundred worship leaders in a room and want to lead them in worship — you can expect the worship leaders are TOP NOTCH (although they wouldn’t need to be – I mean the worship leaders should be okay with a vocalist and a kazoo… if you’re too big to be led you’re too small to lead). They have a few worship leaders here that I’ve never heard of – Joel Auge (from Canada) and Mia Fieldes (from Hillsong). There was also the guys at Lakeview Church in Indy (Eric Cooper and Nathan LaGrange), and Ross Parsley and Jared Anderson from New Life Church in Colorado Springs. All of their ministries were top notch. Mia Fildes blew my socks off; her voice is spectacular. If you’re in my worship team you can expect to see some chord charts with her name at the top. 🙂

This is a worship conference by Integrity Media. Integrity is unique because they have.. integrity. They’re the only Chrisitan music supplier that’s not owned by a secular company. I’ve been told by several people that they aren’t out to “sell me stuff,” they want to “resource me.” That’s exactly how I’ve seen it as well. Another thing that sets them apart is that they don’t generate new worship “artists.” They aren’t a label that looks for the greatest band … they’re a label that searches for churches that have got “it” going on, and then network with them. I just love Integrity. (Attention Integrity Staff: if you send me free stuff, I’d be happy to write more blogs about how great you are… HA!!)

I’ve been greatly challenged at this conference. When I came down here I was more-or-less “vision-less.” I searched and prayed, but I couldn’t see where the worship in my church was going anymore. I seemed to have ran out of this leadership fuel about 2 weeks ago. But like I said, I’ve been greatly challenged.

I’ve been thinking about a lot of different things regarding worship at New Hope. Some of them weird and diverse. I’ve got so much to think and pray about.

Posted on

Gimme That Relevant Faith …

Do you remember the old song that was simply sang:

Give me that old time religion. <br>Give me that old time religion. <br>Give me that old time religion. <br>It’s good enough for me.

What kind of song is that? I sang it repeatedly when I was younger, but now I’m thinking about it and I can’t help but laugh out loud. If you love this song I am truly sorry, but lyrically this does not have good implications. (It’s quite possible that this song meant something completely different 40 years ago and had very DIFFERENT implications than what I will be discussing in this blog. But as everything else, this is how I see it.)

On a positive note, it’s truly important that we look at the roots of our faith. God gave instructions in the old testament for His people to look back and remember the paths that brought them to where they were. That’s still important today; no question.

But this song seems different – almost defiant. It’s almost like it could be said, “My grandfather’s expression of faith was right. Yours is wrong.” Or worse yet, “I want a religion that’s so deeply rooted in old time history that I will stay negligent to the lost world or even bother to look around and notice that my religion is no longer effective.” Wanting “old religion”can only imply that you are rejecting any new expressions.

Any song that supports the widespread belief of the world that Christianity is irrelevant is a horrendous abomination.

In case you were wondering, my random rant of this song has absolutely nothing to do with anything anyone has said or done recently. I was just brainstorming “old songs” from my childhood and I thought of this one, and then realized how unbiblical it could be taken.

We need to be cautious of the songs we sing in our churches. Choosing songs based solely on the beat or musical construction is simply a horrible idea. People are singing and experiencing their theology during a music worship service — that’s no small priority.

Posted on

Quenching The Move of The Holy Spirit

1 Thes. 5 gave Christians instructions on how to handle a great move of the Holy Spirit when it told us us, “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good…” “Do not quench the Holy Spirit.” That means that we should be careful not to “shut down” the Holy Spirit if He’s moving in our group. Now you might say, “If God wants to do it, then he’ll do it.” Although I’ll never argue against the supremacy of Christ, I believe there are seven very common ways that Christians can stifle what God is doing in the Spirit:  

Control – Refusing to make room for the Spirit’s manifestations and activity. There’s nothing wrong with planning for a smooth church service, but we should be careful not the plan the Holy Spirit right out the door.

Exhibitionism – This is a lot like “control” but with a different motivation. This is when we add to the Spirit’s manifestations and draw attention to ourselves.

Neglecting the Word – This is neglecting to test all things by biblical standards. Some “trust” the Spirit’s leadership in a non-biblical way by trusting Him to uphold the Standard of the Word in our midst. 

Prayerlessness – Some “trust” the sovereignty of God in a non-biblical way by “trusting” God in their prayerlessness to do the part that He has assigned to US (prayer!). This is not trusting God, but rather it is presumption. Some people totally screw up the truth when they think if God wants to do something, He’ll just do it. But God has given us a dynamic role in determining things with our prayer and fasting. Take the farmer for example, God provides the sunshine and rain … but the farmer has to plant and pull weeds. Don’t expect the Holy Spirit to move if you’re not praying. 

Despising – We must not despise the times when God’s power is released in small measure. We walk in the tension of being grateful and faithful in the days of small things while continuing to be desperate to seek God for the full measure. We continue to pray for the fullness of revival because we see what we lack. However, we operate in faith by seeing what we have in God now.

Laziness – Some refuse the work and effort that required to regularly pray for people in need. It’s not easy, dude. 

Compromise – You can’t grieve the Holy Spirit and flow in the Holy Spirit at the same time. We should seek to fully obey God by living out the Sermon on the Mount. We must seek to live without compromise by declaring war on all known sin in our lives. Prayer and fasting are never a substitute or lack of obedience. The pursuit of full obedience is different than attaining it. There are powerful dynamics that occur in our heart when we aim at pursuing 100% obedience. Sesame Street taught me to always compromise. That’s fine if all that’s at stake is 5 minutes with a Tonka Truck, but a compromise in your spiritual life is a bummer. “You never win when you compromise.”

Posted on

Hang On To Your Belt. He’s Coming.

I typically would say a phrase like, “If God sends a great spiritual awakening . . .”

Just now I caught myself saying, “When God sends a great spiritual awakening . . .” and I had absolute confidence, NO DOUBT IN MY MIND, that it would happen very soon.

It’s later than its ever been. We’re closer than we’ve ever been before.

Posted on

I Want to Get Wasted.

Recently I’ve been extremely busy. Now let me reiterate that … extremely busy. When I get stressed like that, I tend to do a hard shift to “Control Country” when it comes to my life and I get tunnel focus. Seriously – if it doesn’t help me accomplish something on my calendar or to-do list, I don’t do it. I’m not saying that’s good – I’m just saying that’s what I do. When this goes on for several days it gets to an unhealthy state… I start thinking things like… (I’m not even joking here…):

“I don’t have time to eat a meal — that’s time wasted.”

“I’ve needed to use the bathroom for 2 hours, but I can finish these three other things before I take that break. Urinating wouldn’t be the most productive use of my time – it’d be time wasted.”

“24 hours in a day – I’ll spend 8 at my office and 10 working at home. I can relax with the remaining 6 hours.”

Obviously with this pattern, it would be easy for me to have this “wasted time” mentality when it comes to my God time as well. But that’s the worst thing I could do. In the stressful times is when I need the God time the MOST.

So last Friday night God was dealing with me about this, and I just came to the conclusion that if my “God time” was wasted time, then I want to get wasted. I want to absolutely ruin and waste my life if that’s the case. All the stuff that’s “me” can be ruined and wasted if it means being closer to Jesus. I love Jesus.

Immediately after that moment, I started shouting out my prayer and promise to God. Then I began spontaneously singing it to a melody that I had actually written 8 months ago.

I want to be wasting my life seeking You. I won’t let anybody get in my way of reaching You. I want to be wasting my life finding You. And I won’t let the devil get my focus away from You.

It took me several hours figuring out how to use my new recording equipment, but I used this song to experiment with the features. I’m posting the whole deal… including a long and snazzy hip-hop keyboard solo and some very out-of-tune background vocals (sorry…). There’s some rough spots, but give me a break its the first thing I’ve ever done on my new equipment. Give it a listen, click here.

Lyrics and Recording are copyright Adam Diehl 2008…. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST! 😀

Posted on

God is Bugging Me.

Earlier today I was hungry, so I went to “Steak ‘N Shake” and took care of it. The Frisco Melt platter took care of my hunger.

This past week I spent on vacation in Kansas City where I spent time at the International House of Prayer. This is a prayer meeting that started in September 1999 and has never stopped – 24/7. We’re talking over a hundred people praying all the time – even in the middle of the night. It was an incredible experience. The first day I arrived in the evening so I just spent a short hour and a half with God at the IHOP before I was tired and needed to sleep. The second day I was there for 3 – 4 hours. By the end of my trip I was so hungry to just be with God that I would stay at the IHOP prayer room for 14 hours straight. There was nothing that I wanted to do besides be with God. The more I was with God, the more I had a hunger for Him. I learned that you never really “finish” at the IHOP, you just “leave.”

Before my vacation, I would often spend my evenings doing more work (or at the very least planning for the upcoming days). Now that my vacation is over, my brain is trying to get back into my typical work patterns – I keep trying to think of another project I can work on, but I’m constantly distracted by God.

That’s right – I’m distracted by God. I guess you could say that God is bugging me right now. My brain wants to “get stuff done,” but my Spirit is so excited to spend more time with God. I need my brain to understand that spending time with God is the most important thing in the world.

Often we consider prayer the boring thing every Christian must endure. That’s not at all the paradigm of prayer (and worship) that David shared in Psalm 16, “You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.” (Emphasis mine).

Eternal PLEASURES? Yea… pleasure.

I like pleasure. I’m going to go get me some.

Posted on

The Great Treasure Hunt.

Two years ago I talked about playing hide and seek with God. I want to add a little more emphasis on our need to take initiative and go find him. Proverbs 25:2 says,

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

I love this verse; I can’t think of a better sentence to describe our relationship with God. The contrast is totally killer. God likes to hide from us, he actually HIDES. He doesn’t hide so hard we can’t find him, but he hides enough that we have to search for him.

Gosh, I’m such an idiot sometimes. If I need guidance or direction from the Holy Spirit I will ask him for help, and then immediately crowd my life so full of distraction (usually more work) that I wouldn’t be able to hear God if he was standing in front of me with a bullhorn. I ask God for help, but I don’t listen for His voice and I immediately start worrying about it. It’s like I expect God to physically slap me on the back of the head and say, “ADAM, I WANT YOU TO …”

That’s such a disappointment! It’s God’s glory to hide. But its our glory to search for Him.

Posted on

For Worship Teams
Unity and Teamwork.

My worship team is a really weird group of people if you think about it. Some of them are tall, some of them short. Some of them wear their feelings on their cuff, others of them are content never saying an extra word. Some would like to express their worship by jumping up and down, others would prefer to quietly meditate. Each of them have different musical strengths and weaknesses. Each of them have a significantly contrasting emotional makeup. My first inclination is to see differences as a weakness because we all tend to think others should be like us. Every time I really ponder on how everyone on the worship team is so different from everyone else I can’t help but say out loud, “Yea, I’m pretty sure I serve with the best worship team in the world.” (That’s no joke, I say that nearly every weekend).

I’m glad my worship team has figured it out. I hope we always remember the importance of unity on a worship team. In 2 Chronicles 5:11-14 there is an example of how the Holy Spirit totally knocked the Believer’s socks off when the worship team was in complete unity.

The number one destroyer of worship is a dis-unified worship team. Staying unified takes more work, but if we don’t do it – we’re kind of like the Amazing Precision Marching Band. Check out this video

Posted on

Something I Wrote Down.

I was recently cleaning up my desk and I found a blank sheet of paper folded in half with some notes written all over it. Not sure where they came from, I think I took these notes while listening to John Bevere speak. I liked it… so I figured I’d post it here:

A sinner has a sinful nature and can’t help but sin! We (Christians) often get mad at them for sinning, but they’re sinners – its what they do! Sinning is in step with who they are. But for a Christian to live in habitual sin just doesn’t make sense — its out of step. 

Saying the prayer and confessing Christ does not change the NATURE. Christianity requires a nature change. You can’t just join the “born again club” with an initiation statement. 

“Jesus, I relinquish my rights to live for You — whatever You want.”

FOLLOWING JESUS COSTS YOUR FREEDOM. 

We proud Americans don’t like to hear that – we like to focus just on how Jesus gives us FREEDOM from sin. That is great — Jesus DOES give us freedom from sin and that is wonderful! But I’m talking about how we Christians must give up our freedom to do what we want to do for what God wants us to do. We relinquish our right to do what we want. That process is called sanctification.

Posted on

Am I A Christian Fraud?

I’ve pretty much decided that sometimes I need to “fake it ’til I feel it.”When I first started seriously learning classical piano in college, I had to practice several hours every day. Sometimes I was excited to work on the music – other times I looked for ways out of it. On those days where I didn’t feel like practicing I learned that I had to just fake it – I had to tell myself, “Adam, you want to practice.” Once I got practicing, I began to feel like it again. But I had to fake it before I felt it.

Can we translate that into our spiritual lives? Can we fake our Christianity? I say, “absolutely!” — I frequently fake my Christianity (Don’t freak out just yet – let me explain myself!)

You see, our faith doesn’t come from our feelings. Our faith comes from obedience. My obedience cannot be the result of my feelings. So, I’ll fake it.

Right now I really don’t want to go read my Bible. I have no desire to pray or seek God. I just don’t want to.

But I’m going to go fake it ’til I feel it. I’m sure that if I am just obedient and chase after God even when I don’t feel like it, the feelings will follow. I’ll feel like it after I get going. But to get going, I’ll fake it.

This post was inspired by a blog by Steven Furtick.ÂÂ