If you want to move forward, intentionally and effectively toward achievement, you must possess three things: Vision, Intention and Means. This is the acronym VIM. Think vim and vigor, if you’re old enough to know that phrase.

What does deliverance from God look like for you and me? How does He deliver His people and how should I pray when I am in need of deliverance?

In our cultural obsession with celebrities, success, and image, we have forgotten this fundamental principle: Private health precedes Public fruitfulness.

Last Sunday I mentioned in the message on Psalm 133 that having relationships where you attach your heart to others of faith (unity) is one of the four essentials habits of sustained spiritual vitality. 

I want to tell you about all four.

Have you ever noticed that growing older doesn’t always mean growing more mature? We meet people who are mature beyond their years and then we meet others who have stalled out and remain fairly childish, despite the large number of laps they have completed around the sun.

The same is true of spiritual maturity.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In part 1, we concluded that our confession of complete brokenness and desperate and utter dependence upon God is the entry point of effective repentance. Letting your sin drive you to this place and to the reminder of your desperate need of God is the critical first step. Learning to live in this space will also empower us to walk more closely with God, leaning into His Presence and power so that we live for Him more effectively.

Most repentance efforts fail and by failure I mean two things: 1) the repentant person fairly quickly returns to their sin, and/or 2) the repentant person feels continued shame, guilt, and a barrier between them and God even though they have left that sin behind.

Our life transformation begins when we encounter God. This frequently occurs when our pain drives us to consider our need of God, but also happens through seasons of change, or collisions with friends in pain. Or just giving time and reflection to the questions that continue to nag our soul.

Father’s Day is coming soon and I just want to brag on the incredible power of Dads for influence in the world. In fact, when you just study the tragic statistics of this world, you see the high cost of the loss of dads. For example, 90% of homeless and runaway populations and 80% of psych hospital patients are from fatherless homes. There are many more, but let’s not focus on the negative.

I just returned from riding my Harley from Olympia, Washington to Phoenix, AZ and back. My son, Tim, flew here and I gave him my older bike - a 1998 Kawasaki Concours to his home in Phoenix. I rode my new-to-me 2012 Harley Electra Glide Ultra Classic. My friend, Scott, joined us for two days and my friend Dallas rode the entire route with me. On the way to Phoenix, we did some coastal riding in Washington, Oregon and Northern California before heading east to Reno, down through Vegas and into Phoenix. Dallas and I took a different route back through the high desert of California and then up I 5 to home.

Every commitment we make in life shares the same powerful secret sauce - that thing that makes them work powerfully and contribute to our living vibrant lives - or the absence of which makes those commitments brutally difficult and less likely to last.