Category Archives: grow

Marriage Is Cake

18 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by in Challenge, grow, Marriage

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We’re in a brand-new teaching series at Skyline Church that we’re calling Relationship Rehab. Coming out of Covid and lockdowns and all the anger and division that has been going on, we need to look at our relationships from a biblical perspective. What does God say about our relationships? Our relationships can truly use some rehabilitation.  

Marriages and Relationships

For the first several messages we’ll be looking at marriages. While I titled this blog Marriage Is Cake, we know it can be anything but. However, there are some key ingredients that will make a sweet marriage. 

For some people this series will be review. For others it will be marriage saving. The Bible clearly lays out our responsibilities as couples. It tells us how to have thriving relationships. However, we don’t always follow the advice God gives us. 

These principles are not only for couples. Single people will gain a lot from these messages because the biblical principles for great marriages are also biblical principles for any relationship. During this series I will be addressing singlehood as a Christian specifically as well. 

This last Sunday, I used the illustration of making a cake. Just like there are key ingredients to making a great cake, there are key ingredients to making a great marriage. In the next couple of weeks, I will be laying out all the ingredients, but this week I named three primary ingredients.  

Communication

The first ingredient to a sweet marriage is Communication. You’ve got to have good consistent communication if you’re going to have a good marriage. I asked people to rate themselves on how they’re doing with communication in their marriage. How they personally think they are doing, individually, not how they think their spouse is doing. The goal is to have each person take the evaluation and then come together over lunch or dinner and talk about it. What you’ll notice is that each couple likely has a different number on the scale of 1-10. It’s a conversation starter to get couples moving toward more consistent communication.  

Consideration

The second key ingredient is Consideration. If you’re not being considerate in your marriage your marriage is falling apart. Being considerate of one another is not optional. When we first start dating, we’re so considerate of one another. Guys, we open the door for her (we still should) but little things like that get lost and instead of opening the car door for her we think consideration is waiting for her to get both legs in the car before taking off. Things can change over time. But that’s why we must be intentional in our communication and in our consideration.  

Compromise

The third ingredient is Compromise. In every relationship there must be compromise. When you get married, you quickly realize it cannot all be about your wants and desires. Marriage is a school of teaching you unselfishness. 

There are many compromises we must make in marriage. If marriage is going to be about “WE and not ME” you have to compromise on what kind of vacations you take, how you’re going to raise the kids, how much time you spend with the in-laws, what restaurant you’re going to, the list goes on and on. If it’s “my way or the highway” over time, the highway will be calling. 

The Purpose

God’s purpose for your marriage is not happiness. Sure, that can be a benefit to marriage, if you do these things we talk about in this series, you will be happy, that is a benefit of marriage. But it is not the purpose of marriage. God’s purpose for marriage is holiness, not happiness. It’s to make you more and more like Christ. The more sacrificial and serving you are in your marriage, the more Christ-like you are becoming. Truly one of the goals in marriage is to out-serve and out-sacrifice the other. When two people are doing that, you’ll have a very happy and holy marriage. 

This Sunday …

These are just the first three ingredients. This coming Sunday, I’m going to give you the next three. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these first three and how you’re doing with them. Share some of the practices that have made your marriage successful and share some of the things you’ve learned if you’ve had a marriage that didn’t work out.  

For example, do you and your spouse communicate consistently? Where and when? What is your typical weekly communication routine? Also, comment below if you took the evaluation after each point and how it went when you talked with your spouse. I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts on how it’s going and tips and tricks you’ve used in your marriage. State how long you’ve been married and share your thoughts in the comment section. Who knows, you might just give me a great illustration for Sunday! (you will remain nameless) 🙂 

Repentance

04 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by in Challenge, comfort, grow, Prayer

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Repent! Nothing like that word to turn someone off to what you’re going to say next. But, hang with me … We’ve all got issues and problems that we deal with in life. Sometimes the source of our problems keep us from repenting and moving on.

Where do the problems in our life come from?

Are we causing them?
Is Satan the culprit?
Is God testing us?
Is it the Government?
Is it my upbringing?
Is it other people?

We can wrestle with these questions all.day.long. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where they come from! What does matter is what we do with our problems!

God can use the difficult circumstances in your life if you let Him. It’s not what happens to us, it’s what happens in us that matters. For some people, problems bury them. But, think about it … if God is going to make us more like Jesus, then He’s going to take us through some of the similar struggles that Jesus went through. Our perspective of the “junk” in our lives should be viewed as character-building opportunities because that’s EXACTLY what God is doing with us in the midst of trials and tribulations.

God has not promised that all things are good or will be good on Earth. But, He has promised to work out all things FOR good (Romans 8:28). When Jesus walked the Earth, He experienced temptation, loneliness, accusations, difficult people, being misunderstood, being unappreciated, and so much more. If Jesus wasn’t spared from problems in His life, we won’t be either. In America, we are always striving to up our level of comfort. However, God is always more interested in your character development than your comfort development.

What do we do with our problems?

For some people, the problems in life pile up like junk in a junkyard and it becomes discouraging and can even become a crutch or an excuse in life. “Well, look at what’s happened to me … look at all the problems in my life …” At some point, you and I have to make a decision between Jesus and the junk in our life. For some, it’s a big step of faith to be sold out for Jesus. But the most miserable place to be is on the fence. If you have one foot in the faith, and one foot out of the faith, you don’t really have faith, you have confusion. When is straddling a fence ever comfortable? Am I right? You’re not going to grow spiritually trying to live between two different commitments. To really benefit from what Jesus has to offer, you have to commit to Him. You have to be all in, sold out, and totally committed to Him! The best way to let go of your junk and be all in for Jesus is to repent.

Repent

“Repent” isn’t a word we hear every day. It’s pretty counter-cultural. All it means is to admit we’re wrong and God is right. In a world that is constantly attacking absolute truth, you need a strong foundation of authority in your life to point you in the right direction. While the world wants you to point the finger, Jesus teaches us to look in the mirror. God has always been more interested in the condition of our hearts. “… The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart,” (1 Samuel 16:7).

When a difficult person or situation in your life arises, you can choose to act in love and humility (Colossians 3:14). No matter how much “ground” we believe we have to point our finger in the opposite direction, God is concerned with you. If there’s even a speck of doubt, insecurity, pride, anger, idolatry, deception, envy … you know when you’re wrong … we’re called to repent of this. Even if we do not act on these ugly inward thoughts, God is concerned about your heart, because everything we do flows from the heart.

Next time you’re in a conflict where someone else is 99% in the wrong, ask yourself what your 1% is in the situation. We should always be compelled to take individual ownership and admit that 1% to the person. Many times, they will then admit their part. Now, that doesn’t mean you need to become a martyr, you just admit your part. One of my favorite quotes on humility says it like this, ”Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less,” (C.S. Lewis). We simply need to accept that we ALL have areas of our life that need improvement (without taking it personally). In order to be more like Jesus, we’re going to face conflicts just like He did. And it’s through these conflicts that we have the opportunity to grow spiritually.

Let’s take it one step deeper!

The Bible teaches us in Acts 17:30 that, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” God already knows what you’ve done wrong, but He’s waiting for you to admit it. Our wrongdoings (sins) separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2, Romans 6:23). But the Good News is that when you repent and put your faith in Jesus, you get immediate forgiveness! You get the freedom to live your life to the fullest without a bunch of junk in your spiritual trunk weighing you down.

God wants you to be able to wipe the slate clean. It’s when we repent that we can move forward and God can build a faith that empowers you to tackle problems instead of being sacked by them. So let me ask you this … where are you stuck in a rut? What problems have come up in your life this week, this month, or this year that are weighing you down? What do you need to repent of today?

Repentance is simply this in a nutshell: Say it. And stop doing it. Give it to God, and let Him grow your character. Since no one lives a perfect life, the goal is progress, not perfection, the reality is you’ll need to do this often … so just repent and repeat… Amen.

I would love to hear your thoughts on repentance. Is this a regular habit for you? Is this difficult for you? What are your thoughts on our Prayer Pattern (A.C.T.S.) Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication? Has this worked for you? Do you practice the 10 minutes of A.C.T.S.? What has been most challenging and/or rewarding for you in having or trying to establish a regular prayer life? 

Spring Training Fundamentals

30 Tuesday Mar 2021

Posted by in Baseball, Christian Habits, grow, Padres Baseball

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Baseball is back! Opening Day is scheduled for April 1, and while I had my doubts with it falling on April Fool’s Day, I’m so excited for the Padres to finally kick-off the 2021 season! We came close last year, but THIS year … this is the year! Just like every other team, the Padres went through Spring Training for the past six weeks. During this time, they worked on the fundamentals of baseball that prepared us for the year we win The World Series!

Baseball Fundamentals

Rich image of professional baseball player, Fernando Tatis Jr., executing fundamentals of hitting a baseball.

Back when I used to play for the St. Louis Cardinals, we took Spring Training very seriously. And every year we’d look forward to our Farm Director’s (I spent my 10 professional seasons in the minor league ‘farm’ system) speech that starts off the season. (The Farm Director is who tells you whether you’re going up or down the farm system levels.) 

He’d start his speech with the most basic fundamentals, saying, “Gentlemen, this is a baseball. It’s 9 inches in circumference. It’s 5 ounces, made of cowhide, and it has 108 red stitches strung around it … ”

Oh yeah, he’d go into detail! Next, he’d say, “Men, this is a baseball glove …” Then, he’d explain, “This is a baseball bat …” No matter who you are on the team, you attend Spring Training and you get back to the basics. I can imagine the Padres locker room … you have people like Fernando Tatis Jr who recently signed a $340million contract for the next 14-years listening to a similar speech. With money like that, it would be easy for anyone to forget the most basic principles of the game.

You throw the ball. 
You catch the ball. 
And you hit the ball. 

But our Farm Director would finish by saying, “And men, the team that does that the best will win the World Championship!”

Christian Fundamentals

Rich image of Seven Steps class at Skyline Church that teaches about Christian fundamentals and more

Can you tell me why 300 million dollar players enter Spring Training to do the same drills we did in Little League? Or why players like Tatis even have coaches?!

Because the fundamentals are the essentials! It’s the same in the Christian faith. There are basic habits that shape our faith that have to be present for us to experience what it’s like to be a Champion for Christ. At Skyline Church, we discuss these habits in our Seven Steps for Spiritual Growth Class. If you’ve been in the faith very long, you know that a devotional time lays the groundwork for God to move in your life. You’ve also experienced that the habit of prayer is in essence primary to growing in relationship with God. You know that regular giving is pivotal in transforming your heart. In addition to what we do privately, we get together as Christians regularly!

It’s essential! Because no matter how long you’ve been in the faith, we all need to consistently get back to the basics. And while we don’t have a $340 million contract, as years tack on, we too can get comfortable in our faith and neglect to participate in the fundamentals of our faith.

We have devotional time.
We pray!
We give!
And we gather!

Ladies and gentlemen … the believers that do this the best are what I call a Champion for Christ!

Commitment

I’ll finish with this …  when I was a young guy, I liked going out on Saturday night.  Even as I became a Christian I lived in that tension of half-hearted commitment. I had one foot “in the world” and one foot “in Christianity.” That never works. There came a point when I started leaving gatherings with my friends and teammates to go to church. They wanted to know why I was doing this “church” thing so often. I had a decision to make. And, it may seem shallow, but I didn’t have the theological answers at the time. So, I just said, “It makes me feel good.” 

There’s going to come a time where you have to choose between your old habits and some new Christian habits. Some habits may be bad habits that you always knew you needed to let go of. But there are also going to be some “okay” habits that aren’t necessarily bad, but they are prohibiting you from becoming a Champion for Christ. No one makes it to the Major Leagues without sacrificing something. You may sacrifice staying out late with friends to go to church, eating out to give more, sleeping in to have a devotional time … we all have secondary pleasures that get in the way of our primary goals from time to time.

It’s in these moments, that we need to prioritize our commitments and decide what our main goal is. In these moments we need to get back to the basics and practice the fundamentals. 

Applying The Fundamentals

Ask yourself today, what is your main objective in life? Have you decided to prioritize your relationship with God above all else in life? Are you executing the fundamentals of your objective regularly? If you will apply the fundamentals you can bet you’ll be a Champion for Christ.



*Read more blogs and articles from Dr. Jeremy McGarity at JeremyMcGarity.com!

The ACTS of Praying

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in grow, Prayer

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Do you pray? According to The Pew Research Foundation, 64% of Americans do not. But, my question is not for them, it is for you. Do you pray? How often, how long? My guess is if people were to answer I’d have responses from prayer warriors and prayer beginners and even those who have lost that praying feeling.

Here’s the reality, praying can be challenging for even the most seasoned Christian. This is why we launched the 10 Minute Prayer Challenge on Sunday. When a national survey was conducted from thousands of Christians the question was asked, “What is the biggest disappointment in your Christian journey?” 86% of the respondents said, “My prayer life.”

Many respondents said they just don’t know where to start, what to say, or how to go about it. They end up feeling like it’s a waste of time trying to think of things to pray or say. Or, they feel like they pray the same general things and the redundancy just causes them to quit after a while.

I think we want to be more connected to the Lord, we want to dig deeper in our faith and sense a closeness to the Lord like David in Psalms. But, there’s something I believe that hinders most Christians. It is the ideal over the real. Too many Christians think that in order to have a genuine prayer life or a genuine prayer experience that it must be INTENSE.

Some people think if they’re not crying or screaming or sweating they must not be serious about prayer. The truth is, God is looking for consistency over intensity. To be sure, there may be times of intensity, but that is the exception, not the rule. When the Apostle Paul said, “Pray continually,” (1 Thes. 5:17) he was thinking of consistency not intensity.

The key to understanding how to be consistent is found in ACTS. Not the book of Acts but the prayer pattern known as A.C.T.S. This is a pattern that has been utilized by countless Christians over the years to help jump start their prayer life and help them stay consistent. The pattern is this:

A-doration
C-onfession
T-hanksgiving
S-upplication

When it comes to the 10 Minute Prayer Challenge, take 2 minutes on each of these prayer categories. Literally, you can put your stopwatch to it. You’ll be encouraged at how fast the time goes by and it will be a catalyst to more time spent in prayer over the year.

When beginning the ACTS prayer pattern, make sure to start with 2 minutes of clearing your mind. Have a notepad or a phone app with you to mark down the “to do” tasks and other distractions that come to your mind. That way it is captured and it won’t be a mental distraction. This may take longer than 2 minutes, but make sure you take time to quiet your mind and heart as it says in Psalm 131:2.

Adoration is simply worshipping God. Take time to focus on His greatness. Acknowledge Him as the Creator of the Universe and the One who created you. You might pray some of the psalms. Many of the psalms are simply prayers of King David. We can recite those same heartfelt prayers. Or, you might sing or listen to some worship songs. The goal is to put your heart and mind in a place of worship.

Confession is simply admitting what we’ve done wrong. We need a clean slate every day. We need to confess sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission are the ones we know we did wrong. Sins of omission are the ones we committed and didn’t realize. We simply come to the Lord in prayer and admit we’ve done some things we realize and we may have done some things we did not realize and we ask for His forgiveness. During this time, God may bring to mind people we need to reach out to and apologize with a call or a text. 

Thanksgiving is self-explanatory. We need to take time to be thankful for what God has done and for what He will do. We need to be thankful for the people and the things in our life. This is one of the healthiest things you can do mentally. A plethora of scientific studies have shown the incredible health benefits of having an attitude of gratitude. God told us this thousands of years ago and I’m so glad science is beginning to figure it out too.

Supplication is simply asking God. After you’ve taken time to worship God, confess sin, and give thanks, it’s OKAY to get out the “shopping list.” And let me encourage you … BE SPECIFIC. Have a prayer journal or app. Write down specifically what you’re asking God for. It is such an encouragement to your faith when God specifically answers your request. Write down the answer, the date, and any other details of God’s answers. You will be able to return to this time and time again to encourage your faith when you need it.

2 minutes: Clear your mind

2 minutes: Adoration
2 minutes: Confession
2 minutes: Thanksgiving
2 minutes: Supplication =
10 minutes of consistency in prayer.

By praying the pattern of ACTS you begin to develop a consistency in your prayer life that will absolutely deepen your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly you will never be the same … now that is INTENSE.

Next Step

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by in grow

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One of my goals as a pastor is to help you take your NEXT step of faith. Everyone’s got a “next step.” Whether you’re new or have been in the faith for a long time, we believe it’s important to never feel like we have “arrived.” We don’t want to coast in our relationship with the Lord. Whenever we’re coasting, we’re always going downhill. What’s your next step of faith? Everyone’s next step is different and we want to help you with yours, whatever that may be.

Remember, it’s never about perfection, we say it all the time at our church, no perfect people allowed. Even when we take two steps forward and one step back, that’s okay! We’re looking for progress. In a world that is full of discouragement and condemnation, you need a place where you don’t have to pretend you have it all together. We want to encourage you…seven days a week.

Remember this, YOU matter! Your story matters to God and it matters to us!
Recently, in order to spread the message so many people need today, I started sharing the encouragement you hear at Skyline each week on K-Praise radio.

I actually remember a time, about 25 years ago, when I was traveling with the St.Louis Cardinals baseball team. It was a lonely time in my life. I remember using this radio at my bedside, and of all the voices that came through the speaker, thousands of miles from my home, was my hometown pastor! David Jeremiah was the very first pastor I had in my life and hearing his voice while out of town and on the road, really helped me get the encouragement I needed at that time. I never forgot how powerful that moment was for me. And now here we are, years later and I’m honored to be able to do the same to K-Praise listeners who are looking for an encouraging message that they can apply to their lives. I can only hope it encourages others as much as those messages by Dr. Jeremiah encouraged me.

Sharing God’s Word weeknights over the radio is just one more way we can help people stay in the Word of God. We also have a short daily devotional called Today Matters that you can tune into on our Skyline Church YouTube Channel or download the Skyline Church App and get it there. Today Matters also airs throughout the day on K-Praise.

When it comes to next steps, it’s easy to say, “Hey you need to take your next step.” The hard part for so many people is knowing what that next step is for them. Because of that,  I’ve created a next steps program for our church members called Seven Steps. These are classes that take you step by step through topics like Christian Habits, Spiritual Gifts, Oikos, Doctrine, and more. If there’s any way we can give people the resources they need to dig deeper into their faith with confidence, we want to make it happen.

For a lot of people, the Bible can be very intimidating. But we want to break it down into bite-size, digestible chunks to give you the resources you need to grow in your faith. We’re a bunch of imperfect people trying to figure out how to walk a life of faith together. This is about a relationship with Jesus Christ, not a religion. It’s something we want to do, not have to do.

Our purpose at Skyline Church is to help people find and follow Jesus seven days a week. So often, we see people make faith a part of their lives one day a week … Sunday, and that’s a good start. The problem is this type of faith becomes compartmentalized. What I mean by that is, we walk the talk on Sunday, but don’t apply what we learned on Monday (or the rest of the week for that matter). We don’t want you to become stagnate in your faith. Because the reality is, we’re either growing, or we’re coasting. We want to help your faith grow into an everyday kind of faith. I’m always looking for practical ways we can apply the Bible to our everyday life. After all, isn’t that the point? To live a changed life because of the grace of Jesus Christ. Because of His grace, we are changed and able to grow step by step!