Greg Peters Live

Everybody has their critics – that is true of you and that is true of me. I read something recently that has caused me a good bit of thinking, I don’t remember where I read it but here is the quote, “Wise people let their critics become their coaches”. Now if you are like me, my first thoughts were about picking apart that quote and disproving it at several levels. After all who wants to think of their critics in a positive light. But the more I have thought about it the more the quote makes sense, at least at the big picture level. Why would you agree or disagree with the quote?

Just a few random things I am thankful for – no particular order

1. God’s grace and truth in my life
2. Eternity
3. My family. Denise and Seth’s love is so life giving.
4. The homemade pie a friend gave us for our 19th anniversary the other day.
5. Some real good friends!
6. A hard working, sweet spirited staff.
7. Tremendous leaders who have embraced our mission
8. Cold a/c in summer florida heat.
9. The opportunity to expand our building and reach more people.
10. Summer vacation

A rather common statement made by Christians is that they “want more depth”. While that statement can mean different things to different people, I think we need to be careful when we make that statement. I am all for growing deeper and expanding knowledge as long as it is not for knowledge sake alone. “Knowledge puffs up” if we are not careful.

Recently I made the statement in a sermon that “we are educated way beyond our obedience”. I was commenting to someone today about how I will discover a “new or deeper” truth, teach that truth, be totally excited from several different angles about the deeper truth and in a few weeks I can’t even remember what I sudied, discovered, prepared and taught. Perhaps that is a statement about my preaching but I think it is more about my memory. It also serves as just another reminder that I need to be concerned about doing what I know and not worry about the deeper truth that I have forgotten. If I never learned another biblical truth, I would still  not be able to obey all that I already know.

Pastor Steven Furtick had a recent post where he touched on a similar topic. He said, “The greatest problem of American Christians when it comes to the Bible is not that we are not deep in God’s Word. The problem is that we are not active in God’s Word. We have a lot more revelation than our current level of active application. And revelation without application leads to stagnation”. You can read his entire post by clicking here.

• leadership development
• faithfulness is under-rated and skills are over-rated
• leadership training this Sat
• Leadership and Self-deception, it’s a book
• Passing the Leadership Baton, another book
• who am I handing the baton to
• I really need to grow as a leader
• Systems create behavior
• We need better systems
• Can’t expect what you don’t inspect
• What gets rewarded gets repeated
• Empowering leaders should be more rewarded
• great leaders have character, strong theological world view and relational skills
• elder expansion
• thankful for my team of elders and staff
• need to wrap up one important thing before we move forward to build
• pray that happens soon
• need to wrap up Easter sermon today
• pray MANY will be saved
• good weather for sunrise service would be a bonus

• Don’t forget to set your clock ahead one hour this Saturday night – spring ahead!
• Can’t wait for this weekend – we will be looking at a passage that seems it was written specifically to us!
• I am very thankful for all the people God has placed around me – such a great team of leaders!
• Tomorrow I will pass along a great post from one of our people.

Relationships are a ton of fun, awesome times are often had and phenomenal memories are made; but the downside is they require a massive amount of hard work.  As we have been working through our series, Relationship Rehab, I have been reminded of just how much work relationships take.  I have labored so much over the last couple weeks messages because there is no simple solution and the topics of pain and forgiveness do not come with simplistic, cookie cutter answers. Last Saturday night about 90 minutes before the evening service I deleted all of my notes to my fourth point, which was the work of a couple hours of study. It had been a real long time since I was tweeking, rearranging and rethinking a message so much – that sermon was a ton of hard work. I do not say those things for your sympathy or applause, I say it because it is simply indicative of  relationships – they are hard work.  If relationships were easy it would be easy for me to write sermons about relationships and it would be easy for you to enjoy the benfits and fruit of relationships. Let’s just admit it – Rleationships Are HARD WORK!

Although they are hard work, relationships also bring incredible rewards.

Monday morning I had breakfast with a friend of almost 20 years and he talked about the joy of our friendship and how he is glad we have recently had a little more time together.  This morning at 7:45 I spoke with a friend from Texas for about 15 minutes.  Before he hung up he mused about what our friendship would be like when we are both grey headed (After I hung up I laughed because for neither of us is our problem greying hair, but keeping what hair we have!). I have also had a lot of fun lately with my best friend, Denise. She makes me laugh, she is a great hostess (she threw a mean Super Bowl party), she is an awesome mom and there are many other things I enjoy about her! But all of the friendships I just mentioned have taken me alot of hard work.

Just so you don’t think I am patting my self on the back, I also have screwed up alot of relationships. In fact, for whatever reason, I have a frinedship right now where I can’t get a returned phone call. I also told my wife a couple weeks ago that I was too hard on a friend and left them feeling drained when our conversation was over. I have another friendship where an apology is owed by me. Just typing this paragraph brings me stress.

Thankfully, hard work brings even greater rewards. Let’s do the hard work this week!

• We must pray for the people of Haiti! We are collecting breakfast bars and peanut butter/cheese crackers. They will fly out of Orlando on Monday and will go to 3 Angels Orphanage – a Christian orphanage with 300 children in Port-a-Prince. You can bring the supplies to the weekend services or during business. The collection deadline is Sunday at 2pm.
• Tonight is Volunteer Appreciation night!!! About 200 volunteers are coming for a phenomenal night of celebration! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND TONIGHT IS FOR YOU!!! See you at 6:30.

During the holidays our waistlines grow and our wallets shrink. As a result, I have a few thoughts to share. Perhaps only waistlines today and wallets tomorrow.

Random thoughts on waistlines:

• To lose weight it requires a one, two punch – diet and exercise!!!!!
• I pretty much hate exercising, although I do love the positive benefits, mainly physical and emotional energy.
• I am a horrible eater – I love everything that is bad for me and hate everything good for me ( a little exageration but not much)
• Denise is trying to help me eat better.
• Some things I have eaten in the last few days – oatmeal with honey, fish with multi grain rice, celery and peanut butter, peanut butter sandwhich with 8 grain bread, scrambled eggs with hot sauce, sloopy joe with ground turkey on some wheat thin bread thing (actually was delicious), a lot of chicken. Yes, I have also had pizza, soda and some desserts but I am trying to do it in more moderation.
• Soda is so good and yet so NASTY for your health. I am drinking more water this year!
• For me the current goal is to run 10 miles a week. Last week I ran 7 and most of those were in temperatures around freezing.  Even though I didn’t hit my goal last week, I will shoot for it again this week.
• I currently weigh around 203 and would like to get to 190. Saying that makes me a little more accountable.
• Some good books I have read are – Body by God and Heart Health for Men.
• Our bodies are a gift to us from God and also His dwelling place, we need to take good care of them.
• One of the things we can give our spouses, children, friends and co-workers is a healthy self.
• You are responsible for yourself. Nobody can take care of your body but you!
• There are some of you at church who have lost some weight – Here is a SHOUT OUT to you – you look amazing! Way to go!!
• What are you doing to get healthier and trim your waistline?

I promise, I will get to waistlines and wallets – in fact, I have several things on my “to post list”. Before I get to those,click here to read a great article by Mike Wise and click here to read a great post by Mark Batterson.

I know I said I would post waistllines and wallets, but this was too good not to post first. Click on the link below.

Brit Hume on choosing Christ