You can read the whole text here: https://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Are you keeping your eyes on aging family members and calculating what you will get when they die? Are you ready to fight with other people to get what you think should be yours? Why are you doing that? So many family divisions have happened over stuff. People value the money and the things more than they value the family relationships. It’s greed. It’s a lack of faith. It’s storing up treasures in the wrong place. It’s putting stuff before people, which is ultimately putting stuff before God. In Matthew 19 we read about the rich young ruler. Jesus said to him, “Follow Me,” but the rich young ruler chose not to follow Jesus. Why? Matthew 19:22 says it was because “he had great possessions.” It makes me wonder, “How great were they, really? Great enough to literally turn your back on Jesus so you could focus on your stuff?” You know, it wasn’t long until that man died and then what happened to all his stuff? Did his kids fight over it? Or maybe he didn’t have any kids because having kids would have taken away from his wealth. Now I’m thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. He had no children, and when he died, the servants came in laughing and grabbing the spoils, not even caring that he was dead. In Luke 12 we read about brothers who were in a big fight over their inheritance. It was so divisive that one of them came and presented his case to Jesus. I don’t know what he thought Jesus was going to say, but Jesus certainly didn’t give him the answer he wanted. In Luke 12:15 we read what Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Then he told the parable of the rich fool who horded up stuff for himself, only to die and someone else got it. God called the man a fool, and Jesus said that’s what everyone is who “lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” In the very next verse Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?” Jesus concluded by saying that our heavenly Father knows what we need, and that when we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be provided. God has an unlimited supply! Pastor Adrian Rogers said, “Which would you rather have, a storehouse full of bread, or a Father who is a really prolific baker?” Our Father is a prolific baker! He will provide for us daily as we seek Him first. And seeking Him first means loving people. That means putting people before stuff. It means putting our family relationships ahead of the family spoils. Let them have the stuff! What are you going to do without? God says that as we seek Him, we will NOT go without anything that we need. When we realize that God will supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory, we can relax! We can let the other guy have some! We can let the rest of the family have the spoils without us blowing up the family just to get our share. God is our provider, and that sets us free to love others and let them have the stuff instead of fighting them for it. So if you have your eyes fixed on those aging family members and the potential riches you might grab onto, stop it. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Set your eyes on things above, not on things on the earth. We don’t have to scratch and claw and bite and fight with the family. We love them! And then we trust in God to supply what we need, and the great news is… He has an unlimited supply! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I’ve spent a good portion of my life disappointed with God.” That’s what he said, and it got me thinking. Am I disappointed with God? Have I been disappointed with God? Was I ever disappointed with God? I can’t think of a time when I was ever disappointed with God. Oh sure, there have been a thousand times when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go, but that didn’t make me disappointed with God. Why not? I guess it is because I always just figured that if things didn’t go the way I expected, it’s because I didn’t really know how things are supposed to work. For example, there was the time as a baby Christian when I concluded that I didn’t have to lock up my bicycle anymore because God was going to protect me from theft. Then I came home one day and found that my bicycle was gone! Of course, I was disappointed, but I wasn’t disappointed with God. I was just disappointed with the situation. I thought things worked in a way that they actually don’t work. I just recalibrated my thinking and moved forward in my walk with God. A more serious example is when I was a Christian radio DJ, on the air daily, playing Christian music and ministry live on the radio, taking requests, talking to people, encouraging people in the faith, etc. I also had a wife at home, and an increasing number of mouths to feed. And being a little Christian radio DJ is not a great way to provide for a big family. There’s an old joke in the radio industry: what do a DJ and a large pizza have in common? They can aaaaaaalmost feed a family of four. I was praying things like, “God, I believe You have called me to this radio station, and yet I’m not making enough money. I thought You were going to provide for my needs as I do Your will.” Meanwhile, the owner of the station wanted me to get into advertising sales to help support both the station and myself. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to focus on the on-air ministry as a live DJ. Yes, that led to some frustrating days where I was expecting God to provide more money, meanwhile I was turning down my boss’s encouragement to get into sales. Then I finally realized, “Well, I guess this isn’t how this is going to work. God isn’t going to suddenly drop in money from heaven. But meanwhile, I do have this opportunity.” So in the summer of 1992, with our fourth child on the way, I went off the air as a live DJ and began working in sales. And that turned out to be a positive change in every way, for that whole ministry as well as for my family. Disappointment with God never took root in me. I just figured, hey, that’s not how this works. Let’s move on. And I would say, yes, God provided. I saw it over and over. But He provided through open doors and opportunities that came our way over and over and over again, thank You, God! Have you ever been learning something new, and it was frustrating, and at times you wanted to quit? I remember when I was first learning graphic design, using a computer program called CorelDraw. I didn’t go to school for this. I was already raising my own family, but the opportunity came. I suddenly found myself editing a small newspaper, and I didn’t know what I was doing! I was sitting at Kinko’s in Carbondale, Illinois late one night, because they had a computer with CorelDraw on it, and I had to get this newspaper edited before the deadline. There was a certain ad that I needed to change, but I couldn’t change it. Every time I clicked it, the whole thing highlighted and moved, but I couldn’t click just the text to change it. I was going out of my mind! It was late at night. There was no Google to ask. The Kinko’s worker didn’t know anything about it. Back then you couldn’t even right click for a context menu. Plus I was so tired by then. Finally. FINALLY I realized that the text inside the ad had been GROUPED TOGETHER. I had never heard of things being grouped together. I didn’t know you could group things together. Did I become disappointed with the CorelDraw corporation? No. I was just frustrated because I didn’t know how it was supposed to work. And I think that is how people end up feeling disappointed with God. It’s not that God is disappointing. It’s that we don’t know how it’s supposed to work, so we burden our relationship with God with all these expectations, and then when our expectations aren’t met, we feel disappointed with God. Some people walk away from God altogether for this. What if I would have walked away from graphic design just because I didn’t know about grouping? That would have been dumb, right? When things don’t work the way we expect, we don’t quit. We figure out how they are supposed to work! The same is true in our walk with God. Of course it’s hard to figure out. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Romans 11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” In Job 11 it says, “Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven…their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” Psalm 147 says God’s understanding is infinite! If we don’t even know how everything works in our favorite computer app, what makes us think we understand the workings of the infinite God? There’s no room for disappointment. We don’t get disappointed. We just realize, “Hey, I guess that’s not how this thing works. God, please teach me and show me and lead me. Your ways are higher than my ways, so I put my faith and hope and trust in You. Please help me to hear and to follow You every step of the way for the rest of my days…in Jesus’ name…” Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) How can you have more freedom by living with more restrictions? It sounds counterintuitive. It sounds like nonsense. We want to be free to do whatever we want, whenever we want. The more limits, the less freedom, right? It’s a one-to-one ratio. Yet we find a different concept in the Bible. Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.” The precepts are God’s commands, His laws, His principles, His boundaries, His guidelines. It’s God’s blueprint for how to live. It says we can have liberty and freedom as we seek to live within His boundaries. But there is something inside of us that doesn’t want boundaries. Tell a man not to cross a line and some part of him is itching to do it. And God lets us cross the line. We have the free will to crisscross His boundaries all day long. But there are consequences for crossing God’s boundaries, and one of the big ones is: less freedom. “No, Doug. That sounds like MORE freedom.” I know that’s what it looks like. I’m trying to live within God’s boundaries, and let’s say someone else isn’t. They can do things I won’t do. They can say things I won’t say. They can ingest things I won’t ingest, watch things I won’t watch, listen to things I won’t listen to, do things with their body I won’t do. They sound way more free than I do, right? And that’s what makes this Bible verse sound absurd, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.” Now let’s look at what Jesus said in John chapter eight. In verse 34 He said that whoever sins is a slave of sin. Sin is anything outside God’s boundaries. We are all free to exercise our freedom INSIDE God’s boundaries, but as soon as we step OUTSIDE of His boundaries we are now in a territory called sin. And Jesus said that whoever steps into that territory of sin becomes a slave of sin. And being a slave is the opposite of being free. That’s why Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.” When we seek His precepts, we are seeking to know God’s boundaries. Where are the lines? I want to know where the lines are so I can stay in freedom and out of sin so I don’t become a slave of sin. Now when we think of slavery, we think of being forced to do things we don’t want to do. Sin, on the other hand, is often what we DO want to do, so how is that slavery? It’s slavery because listen: sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in. I’ll say it again. Sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in. That’s the slavery. So yeah, you might think of a sin and how much you want to do it. That’s called temptation. It’s the treat inside the trap. It’s the bait hiding the hook. God said don’t do it, but you WANT to do it, and you want to be free to do it, and God seems like a killjoy when He says, “Don’t.” You can go ahead and do it, but if you sin, you’re going to find that there’s always WAY more to it than the thrill on the surface. Sin ALWAYS traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in. That’s why God gives us boundaries. He wants us to be free, and His words help us to live free. Psalm 119:103 says, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Verse 44 says, “So shall I keep Thy law continually for ever and ever.” And verse 45 says, “And I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Yay, it’s time to go to the festival! Thankfully you have an umbrella stroller for the baby. Just unfold it, strap him in, and off you go. Watch out for rocks, though. And uneven sidewalks. And sticks. In fact, just watch out for everything, because the wheels on an umbrella stroller are so janky that even a pebble can potentially block the wheel. On the other end of the stroller spectrum is the jogging stroller. You can actually run with a jogging stroller and its big wheels will easily roll over all the little obstacles, giving baby a smooth ride. This is a good illustration for life, because as you know, life is full of little obstacles that can stop you in your tracks. But listen: they don’t have to. You can approach life as a little janky hard plastic stroller wheel, or you can approach life as a big shock absorbing jogging stroller wheel. When little hard wheels hit an obstacle there is a noticeable lurch. It can even stop you in your tracks. And that’s how some people are with little offenses. They take the hit. It stops them in their tracks. It gets them off course. They get upset. They get angry. How dare you! But some people have learned how to be the big stroller wheel. When little offenses come their way, they roll right over them, hardly even noticing. There is no lurch. They aren’t stopped in their tracks. They don’t get knocked off course. They don’t get upset. They don’t angry. They don’t scream, “How dare you!” They just keep going because, like a big stroller wheel, they had the ability to glide right over all the little offenses. You can tell the little stroller wheels because they are prickly about everything. All the little offenses stop them. And they have to stop and talk about them, over and over. “I’ll never forget what so and so did to me.” It’s so much better to be the big stroller wheel and just roll past offenses. You have things to do, places to go, missions to accomplish. You can’t be stopped by every little offense, so like a big stroller wheel, just smoothly roll right over them. Proverbs 19:11 says a wise man is slow to anger and overlooks offenses. That’s the big stroller wheel! It just rolls over offenses and keeps going. If you want to make your life so much better, get rid of the umbrella stroller attitude. Stop getting hung up on every little offense. It’s not worth it, and babies get dumped in the process. Instead, be the big stroller wheel. Be the wise person from Proverbs 19:11 who knows when to overlook an offense and just keep rolling. You’ll get farther. You’ll go faster. And no babies will be harmed in the process. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “The bathtub has arrived!” A huge man waddles in carrying a heavy bathtub. It’s a new house. The walls are up. The smell of sawdust is in the air. And it’s time to install the bathtub. The man sets it down in the only place it can go, touching the walls on three sides. Then he looks down the drain and says, “Uh oh.” Uh oh. That is something you never want to hear. You don’t want to hear it from your dentist. You don’t want to hear it from your potty-training toddler. And you sure don’t want to hear it from your plumber. What happened was, he set the bathtub down, looked down the drain hole, and what did he see? He should have seen nothing but a black hole, but instead he saw the floor. No hole. No drain. What he didn’t know was that a few weeks earlier, when his assistant was installing the tub drain pipe, he didn’t follow the blueprint. He installed the drain where he THOUGHT it should go. He followed his gut, not the blueprint. That’s a disaster, right? But we do that daily with the blueprint of life. What is the blueprint of life? Jesus talks about the blueprint of life at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven. He actually gives us a construction analogy. He said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house…” There’s your construction analogy. He compares building our life to building a house. And he compares His teachings to the house’s blueprint. A blueprint tells you how to build a house, and God’s word tells you how to build your life. A blueprint is drawn up by an architect. The architect is the designer. In life we have an architect with a capital A. It’s the Lord God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. And we have a blueprint with a capital B. It’s the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Bible. But we often don’t treat the Bible like a blueprint. We treat it like an optional book of wisdom that we don’t really have to pay all that much attention to. And we pay a price for it. To the degree that we follow God’s blueprint is the degree to which we build our life well. And to the degree that we don’t follow God’s blueprint is the degree to which we build our life poorly. A good architect thinks of all the details ahead of time. He fits everything together perfectly, but the builder has to follow the blueprint or things WON’T fit together perfectly. In fact, if the builder messes up just a few things, that building project will become a royal disaster very quickly. The same is true for our life. If we follow God’s Word fairly well, but we decide that we know better in just a few things, it’s not going to work. Some people say, “Oh, I don’t want to be all LEGALISTIC.” But imagine this. You’re spending a half a million dollars to build your new dream home, and your architect has cooked up a beautiful blueprint. Do you want the builder to be legalistic about following your blueprint? Of course you do! This is your home and you want it done right. And when it comes to our life, don’t we want to build well? Don’t we want a good life that is solid and holds up under the pressure of the elements? Jesus told us how to do that. “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.” We can build our life well if we build according to the Blueprint with a capital B, drawn up by the Architect with a capital A. And this is what I call The Construction Principles of the Carpenter. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Jesus said something that sounds almost cruel. He said, “Whoever has, to him more will be given, and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” That sounds like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. So let’s look at this verse more closely. It’s Luke 8:18 and it says, “Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” This can be a hard verse to understand, but the key is in the beginning when Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear.” The words “take heed” are a warning. It’s saying watch out, be careful how you listen. Are you being careful how you listen? You can’t just open up your brain and dump everything in! You have to listen with an ear toward wisdom. Proverbs 2:2 says, “incline your ear to wisdom.” The NIV says: tune your ear to wisdom. On your radio you “tune in” to a radio station. When listening we need to tune in for wisdom and truth. Be careful how you listen. Take heed how you hear. So what did Jesus mean when He said, “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him”? It all starts with this tiny bit of wisdom to listen carefully. You have to be smart enough to know that not everything is true. Not everything is wise. Not everything is godly. Not everything is helpful. You have to be smart enough to know that some things you shouldn’t listen to at all. There is poison. There are lies. There is foolishness. There is evil. You have to be careful how you hear. If you start there, then when you listen you will be tuning in for wisdom and truth. And when you tune in to hear wisdom and truth specifically, you will hear it! This is what Jesus meant when He said, “To him who has, more will be given.” When you listen for wisdom and truth, you will hear it, and you will learn, and you will grow. More will be given to you. And the wiser you grow, the more wise you will be in discerning what you hear. It has an exponential effect. But what about the poor guy who apparently doesn’t have anything, and even what he seems to have is taken away from him? That’s the guy who DOESN’T take heed how he hears. He isn’t careful about what he listens to. He listens to any old thing and lets it take root in his brain. It can SEEM like he has wisdom and truth because he has a lot of DATA. But if he isn’t careful about it, he is letting in a host of foolishness and ignorance and even lies. Steve Taylor wrote a song that said, “He’s so open minded that his brains leaked out.” If he keeps letting all this in, eventually even what wisdom he SEEMED to have will be gone. Any wisdom he seemed to have will be washed away in a flood of information. Proverbs 1:5 says a wise man will hear and increase learning. The only way that happens is if you listen with a discerning ear. If you are careful about what you listen to. If you take heed how you hear. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I was talking to an evolutionist, the kind that believes that everything evolved from nothing after a big bang. I said, “Just look at food, for example. You think it just evolved on this big rock hurtling through space after a big bang?” “Well, it took billions of years,” he said. “Always with the billions of years,” I said. “Incredible complexity rising from simplicity after starting with nothing, just given enough zeros on the calendar.” I said, “Look at this banana.” “I’m looking,” he said. “Look at this astounding bright yellow color. It’s magnificent! It’s beautiful to the eyes! I’m so glad it evolved into something beautiful.” But wait. There’s more! When you pick up a banana, it’s smooth to the touch. When you peel a banana, it’s ready to eat! No special preparations needed. And when you eat a banana, it tastes good! You’re saying that by some miracle of evolution a banana evolved so that when we eat it, it tastes good? Okay, not everyone likes bananas, but get this. Bananas are the biggest selling item at Walmart. Let that sink in. So they taste good, but here’s where it really gets deep. Bananas are good for you! I’ve read that bananas have actually helped keep much of the world alive. To say something is “good for you” sounds trite, but look at what it takes for something to be good for you. It takes a miracle! You can eat this thing, your body receives it gladly, it goes into your stomach, your stomach perfectly knows how to handle it, and your body turns it into all the vital things that bananas provide for us. So you would have to say that the human body evolved perfectly to have eyes to see an attractive banana, have hands to get that banana, have taste buds to enjoy that banana, a stomach to digest that banana, and then at the micro level all the things the body does after that at an increasingly smaller level to keep us alive and well. And that’s just the banana. We could talk about apples and oranges (by the way, Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined, just sayin’). We could talk about potatoes and peanuts and on and on and on. We live in a world exploding with food glorious food! If you don’t like this or that, there’s plenty more! All this bounty and no one to thank…except the processes of evolution times billions of years. I don’t think so. I want to give credit where credit is due. I thank our Creator God for His abundant creation, so astounding in every little detail: food that looks good and tastes good and is good for us. And our bodies that know what to do with it. So yes, I bow my head to pray before a meal. I do it at home, and I do it in public. I’m just so thankful, and so impressed and amazed at how it all works together, and God did it! Isn’t He wonderful? He gave us food glorious food! Thank You, Heavenly Father, for Your wonderful work in creating food for us to enjoy. Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) A highway is a road built up to make travel easier. That’s what the footnote in my Bible says under Isaiah chapter 35 verse 8. That verse is talking about a highway, so the footnote tells us what a highway is. It’s a road built up to make travel easier. You aren’t going through the mud on a highway. You aren’t going through the briars and the thorns. My grandma called it “the thicket.” A highway makes travel easy. It’s a piece of cake traveling on a highway, so smooth and level and wide. It’s a pleasure. It’s a joy! On the other hand, traveling OFF the highway is NOT smooth. It IS muddy. There ARE thorns and thickets. You have to slow down and stop and keep getting your bearings. “Where am I now?” You ask that question a lot when you get off the “hard road” as Grandma called it. “Where am I?” So a highway is a road built up to make travel easier, and Isaiah 35:8 is talking about a highway. This highway has a name. It’s called The Way of Holiness. Sometimes we get weird with this word “holy” and “holiness,” but it’s not weird at all. It’s a road built up to make travel easier. What??? That doesn’t sound very doctrinal and theological. Well what is holiness? It’s a purity, a moral purity in the presence of God. We get weird about the word purity, too, but put it in the highway context. Do you want your highway to be pure, to be as free as possible from bumps and cracks and potholes? We want the highway department to make the highway as smooth as possible. Well on the highway of life, it is holiness, it is purity that makes the road as smooth as possible. If you want to travel fast and light, the Highway of Holiness is the way to go. Isaiah 35:8 says that the unclean, the evil-minded will not travel on the way of holiness. Of course they won’t, and they suffer for it. To the degree that you are not living a holy life, that is the degree to which you are driving off the road. No wonder it’s bumpy and scratchy and leaves you wondering, “Where am I?” You’re off the road. Traveling on the Highway of Holiness means living within God’s parameters. Highways have boundaries. When you drive within the boundaries, it’s a smooth ride. When you think, “I’ll be free! I’ll drive wherever I please!” you’re asking for a really bad ride. And if you’re paying attention, you see that it’s true. Sin brings bumps in the road. Big sins bring big bumps in the road. Living a life of sin is just full of obstacles. It’s not a highway at all, or even a road. It’s like driving into a thicket and thinking you’re going somewhere. You aren’t. My grandma is looking at your car in the thicket and asking, “What are you doing?” The highway is a road built up to make travel easier. Isaiah 35:8 talks about the Highway of Holiness, and when we steer our life within God’s holy boundaries, wonderful things happen. Isaiah says there are no lions or ravenous beasts on that highway. It’s a smooth and clear path for the redeemed. On the Highway of Holiness there is singing and everlasting joy! Sorrow and mourning will flee away, and the people will be filled with joy and gladness. How can that be? Because the Creator, God the Father Himself, is ever present on the Highway of Holiness! He is there, full of life and love and joy and peace. His mercy is forever. He loves us and has created a highway for us to live on, a highway that’s built up to make travel easier. It’s the Highway of Holiness, and when we live within its boundaries, we will find that traveling through this life has never been better. Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Why is Home Depot on lockdown? I just wanted to run in, buy a new weed eater, and go home. But that’s not how it works these days. Why? Because Home Depot is on lockdown. What I mean is, some of their stuff is now literally chained up behind bars right there on the shelf. Am I in one of those big cities with looters and riots? Hardly. I’m in sleepy Tallahassee, Florida. And yet here I am, looking at weed eaters, not Rolex watches, chained behind bars. I will have to wander around the store and find an employee to unchain it for me. Now why would they do this? Because of theft, of course. They didn’t want to do it. It’s a pain for them, and a pain for their customers. They wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t have to. That means the theft was getting so bad that they had to invest in anti-theft measures, and that makes me sad. Now let’s talk about our local Walmart. When was the last time you went in to buy shaving cream? Guess what. It’s locked up, too. Shaving cream! Walmart didn’t want to do that. How many customers just said, “Forget it. I’ll order it from Amazon before I’ll track down an employee to unlock the shaving cream.” And don’t think you are going to walk down the makeup aisle at Walmart without being recorded on high definition security cameras. Why would they invest so much money to record you in the makeup aisle? They didn’t want to. They had to because so much of it was being stolen. Last Christmas I talked to a security guard at Walmart who was standing near a back door, an emergency door. He didn’t really look at me while we talked, because his eyes were scanning the people around me. I asked him how it was going and he vented a little. He said, “You know we have about 3,000 people in the store right now.” No, I hadn’t even thought about it, but wow, that’s a small town. He said, “And these people don’t realize how much theft hurts everything. Everyone has to pay more because a few people just won’t be honest.” I said, “Why are you standing back here where there aren’t as many people?” He said, “Because believe it or not, people will grab items and run out this back door. They’ll even try to run right past me just to steal something. I have to chase them down.” This was a big man. I would not have wanted to test him, but apparently others were willing to. Now let’s look at one thing he said. “These people don’t realize how much theft hurts everything.” Of course, when people steal, they aren’t thinking about its impact on everyone else. They just want to have something without paying for it. And there’s a certain thrill about getting away with the big heist. Yes, your big shaving cream heist. Why is this happening? Because more and more people are willing to steal. Why would that be? Let’s look at the big picture. Almost everyone in the history of the world knows that stealing is wrong. It’s a universal concept. No one wants their stuff stolen from them, and everyone whose stuff is stolen cries “foul!” Many people believe that God created the world, and that He created it to work in a certain way, AND, important for this discussion, God is the policeman and judge of His creation. The God of the Bible says that we will reap what we sow. What we do to others will be done to us. Some call that karma, what comes around goes around. And we who believe in God believe that God Himself enforces these rules. He makes sure that they work just as He says. With that in mind, you don’t want to steal because if you do, God is going to make sure it goes badly for you. And that’s true whether you get caught by the human authorities or not. If you dart out of Walmart with your stolen shaving cream, and the big security guard doesn’t catch you, it doesn’t matter. You are already caught by the God of the universe and He is going to make sure that you reap what you sow. If you are paying attention, you see that it really does work that way. But again, why is theft increasing, even if the thief reaps what he sows? I think it is because more people don’t believe in God, don’t believe He is watching, don’t believe it will come back to bite them, and think if they don’t get caught, they are actually ahead in the game. If you take Creator God out of the equation, and you think our life here is a random chance, then just living for today, grabbing what you can and making a run for it might make sense. But of course stealing still doesn’t make sense. Look at all the stores that are closing entirely in certain cities because of theft. The idiot thieves can’t even go in and steal anymore because their idiocy killed the whole store. And all the honest shoppers lost a good store, too. And the business is hurt by having fewer stores to sell their wares. And there are fewer jobs in those neighborhoods, meaning more poverty. Stealing literally hurts everyone, and most especially the thief. Because God IS real. He really IS watching. And He really IS enforcing the laws of the universe He created. The thief really WILL reap he sows. It really WILL come around to bite him in the end. And that’s bad for him, and it’s bad for all of us because we need every person doing their best to make this society the best it can be for all of us. I’ll close with these powerful words from Ephesians 4:28, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) A man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps. That’s what it says in Proverbs 16:9. We see a great example of this when looking at Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus. Jesus was crucified. He declared, “It is finished.” And Mary Magdalene was part of the crowd who watched. Joseph of Arimathea took His body down, and he and Nicodemus prepared it for burial and placed it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. And they rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb. Then Matthew 27 verse 61 adds this interesting part of the story: “And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.” The crowds were gone. The sun was setting. The great Jesus was in the tomb. And there was Mary Magdalene, sitting opposite the tomb, watching. Observing. Thinking. Feeling. Fast forward and we find Mary Magdalene and other women returning to the tomb with spices to anoint the body of Jesus. They had plans. They thought it through, made preparations. set the time, got together, and went to the tomb. But when they got there, Jesus was gone! Mark 16 says that inside the tomb there was a young man in a long white robe who said, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples – and Peter – that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.” Mary Magdalene had a very clear idea of what she was going to do that Sunday morning, but God had other ideas. She had her plans, but what she didn’t know is that God had a mission for her. And I believe God has a mission for each of us. Yes, we are to do good. We make plans and organize our days, that’s all good. But watch for it. Watch for God to intervene and give you a mission. Maybe you have a dream of what you want to do with your life. Maybe you are making a list of pros and cons. You’re making plans. But watch for it. Watch for God to intervene, to interrupt your plans and in their place give you a mission. Because a man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt…” Speaking with grace might seem obvious, but what does it mean “seasoned with salt”? Here’s one way to look at it. Seasoned with salt makes it delicious and people want more of it! How do most people feel about potato chips without salt? Yuck…that’s how they feel about it. How about peanuts without salt? Or meat without salt? Or maybe worst of all…popcorn without salt! On and on it goes. But put a little salt on those chips and look out…you can’t stop with just one. You want more and more. Why? It’s the salt, man! So the question is…is our speech like that? Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt…” Ephesians 4:29 says that our speech should “impart grace.” Does our speech impart grace? Does the other person feel the grace when we speak? Are we imparting grace if they don’t feel any grace? Here’s one way we can know if we are speaking with grace and imparting grace. People will want more! True grace is a balm to our soul. When we get it, we love it, and we want more. Just like a person wants more of those chips seasoned with salt, they want more of those words seasoned with grace. Sometimes in the church we lean on harsh words and judgment and criticism. We think people are going to get better when we lay down the law, and yet Romans 2:4 says that God’s KINDNESS leads us to repentance. It’s God’s grace toward us, giving us what we don’t deserve, and NOT giving us what we DO deserve. That’s grace. So let’s do better. Let’s fill our speech with grace that it may impart grace to the hearers. And instead of pushing people away, they will be drawn in and want to hear more, because speaking with grace is like adding a hint of salt. It tastes so you good you just want more and more and more. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Have you ever heard of mesothelioma? Most likely you’ve heard of it from the class action lawsuit ads on television. The ads are run by lawyers who want you to sign up for the class action lawsuit, IF you are one of the people negatively affected by the defendant. If you answer the ad, sign onto the lawsuit and join the “class,” then you are in line for any benefits that come from winning the lawsuit. But what happens if you don’t answer the ads? You don’t sign onto the lawsuit. You never join the class. No one even knows that you, too, were a victim of the defendant. What will you get if they win the lawsuit? Nothing. You didn’t join the class, so you don’t get the benefits of being in the class. Sometimes I think of salvation this way. It’s like Jesus has already won the case and is paying out benefits to anyone who joins the class. He has put out the call far and wide, all over the world, come and join the class! The price has been paid, the case has been won, benefits are already being paid out by the truckload, just come and join the class! And millions of us have already done it. We were damaged by sin. We got the raw deal. It was a rip off. Then we heard about this offer from Jesus. “Come to Me,” He said. “I will take care of that sin problem. I will forgive you. I will wash you clean and make you whole. I will restore your soul, and your relationship with the Heavenly Father. Then I will give you My Spirit to fill you and walk with you for the rest of your life here. And then I will take you home to heaven to be with Me forever.” Those are the benefits of this class action! All we have to do is sign on. How do you sign on? Tell God you want to. Say, “God, I’m in. I want in on this deal. Please forgive my sins and wash me clean. Make me new and whole. Make me that new creation You talk about. I’m sorry. I repent. I’m ready to leave sin behind and come to You. Sign me up for this class!” Then you’re in! But what if you don’t? What if you never do? What if you never turn to God like that? Then you’re not in. You’re not in the class. You can’t get the benefits of the case if you don’t sign onto the class. There’s almost nothing sadder than finding out there was a huge payout in a class action lawsuit that you should have been a part of, but you weren’t, simply because you didn’t make the effort to sign on. So…sign on today! Turn to God and say, “Here I am! I want in!” Like the old song says, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me…O Lamb of God I come.” But keep this in mind: like all class actions…this is a limited time offer. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) What is sin? The Greek word for sin in the Bible is ἁμαρτία which is pronounced ham-ar-TEE-ah. It’s literal meaning is “to miss the mark.” Sometimes we whitewash sin. We give it different names, like adultery becomes “having an affair.” We try to minimize the impact by acting like it’s not so bad, if it’s even bad at all. So let’s look at it from a different angle. Let’s look at it through Jesus’ construction analogy at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7 Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house…” That’s a construction analogy. He “builds his house.” When you build a house or some other large structure, you build it using a blueprint. The expert creates the blueprint, then the builders build what they see designed on the blueprint. So when the wise man builds his house, as Jesus said, what is his blueprint? Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine…” That’s the blueprint. The Word of God is the blueprint. It’s the blueprint for building our life well. When we follow the blueprint closely, we build well. When we stray from the blueprint, we build poorly. So back to this definition of sin as missing the mark. If you are spending your hard-earned money to build your dream house, how many times do you want the builder to miss the mark on the blueprint? None! You want him to NEVER miss the mark. You want him to follow the blueprint precisely. So when it comes to building our lives, why would we ever want to miss the mark, if missing the mark means building poorly? Sin often happens after some alluring temptation. We fall for the lie that “it’s going to be so good and fun.” But if sin is missing the mark and building poorly, it should be easier to avoid, because who wants to build poorly? It’s a waste of time and resources. It ruins your reputation. Poor buildings even hurt people, and sometimes people even die due to poor building practices. There is much more to this topic, but today let’s stick to this one slice of it. What is sin? It is missing the mark. God has a blueprint for building our lives well, and whenever we sin, we are disobeying the blueprint and building our life poorly. As for me and my house, I want to be the wise man who built his house well; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was built precisely according to God’s blueprint. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “The other driver got aggressive, so I got aggressive, too.” That’s what my friend said. He continued, “But I don’t do that anymore. The Bible says, ‘Don’t return evil for evil,” so when another driver gets aggressive, I just let him go his merry way…even if I feel like speeding up and tracking him down!” Have you ever been there? You felt like letting someone have it, but because you know God doesn’t really want you to go around letting people have it, you back off and let it slide. That’s a great first step! But now let me show you a better way. The better way is love. In Matthew 5 Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies…” The better way is love. That aggressive driver? Yes, it is better to let him go and not follow your impulse to get aggressive back. But the better way is to love him! It is better to love all of your fellow drivers on the road today. First Corinthians 12:31 literally says now let me show you a better way, a more excellent way. One translation says, “Now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.” And what, pray tell, is best of all? First Corinthians 12:31 leads right into First Corinthians 13 which is also known as the love chapter. That is the best way of all, the way of love. We should be able to look at every person around us and say, “I love this one and this one and that one and him and her and all of them.” That is the better way. We really can’t do that on our own, but this is where the fruit of the Spirit of love comes in. As born again believers with God’s Holy Spirit inside of us, HE will bear the fruit of love in our life. And He will do that to the degree that we let Him. Our part is to humbly submit to Him, as sheep to a shepherd, and follow as He leads. And this is where He is leading. He is leading us to a better way of living. It’s the way of life that is best of all. The NIV says it is “the most excellent way”! It’s the way of First Corinthians 13. It’s the way of Jesus. It’s the way of love. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) The laundry basket crashed at my feet. I looked up the stairs and saw my mother-in-law at the top. She had literally thrown her laundry basket down the steps because it was too hard for her to carry it down. That was a clue that it was time for us to move to a house without stairs. But as you know if you’ve done it, finding a new place to live is a huge and important decision. I wanted to come up with a prayer my wife and I could agree on. I had recently memorized Matthew 18:19 where Jesus said, “If two of you agree on earth concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” What’s the weak link in that prayer formula? It’s getting two people on earth to actually agree on something! So I wanted to come up with a precise prayer for our housing that my wife and I could agree on, but what would it be? I was thinking of all the things we could ask for in a new house, but I was also thinking, “What do I know?” I don’t know the future or what we will need and how life will play out. But God does. Matthew 6:8 says that God knows our needs before we even ask! Then I got to thinking about a basketball game. What if I was the coach, and time was running out, and the game was on the line. And oh yeah, Michael Jordan is on the team! Would I try to draw up some elaborate play out of my own thinking and tell them what to do? Or would I simply hand the ball to Michael Jordan and say, “Here you go. Just do what you do.” God is far more capable than Michael Jordan, so why would I come up with an elaborate prayer to tell God what to do? So this became our prayer for a new house, “God, please, just do what You do regarding our housing.” No, we didn’t sit back and do nothing. My wife was on the hunt, diligently looking at what was on the market. And I think she just liked looking at all the houses, which is something I don’t really care about. Then one day she took me to see a house, and when I saw it from a distance, something “pinged” inside of me and I thought, “This is good. This could be the place!” And it was! It turned out to be the perfect place for us and our needs and even what was coming in the future that we had no idea about. Proverbs 3:5-6 says: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…” Yes, many times I pray very specific prayers, “letting my requests be made known unto God.” But other times, like in this housing situation, I just trust the Lord, put the ball completely in His hands and say, “Here you go. Here’s the ball, Lord. Please, just do what You do, and I know it’s going to be wonderful. It’s going to be the best it can be!” So if you need a short prayer of faith today, and one we can easily agree on, here you go. Just pray this prayer with me. “God, please, just do what You do.” Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) What do you do when you doubt? Did God ever do anything for you? Did He save you? Did He spare you from the net of the fowler? Did He forgive you and shine His grace upon you? Did He give you wisdom when you lacked it? Did He ever bring conviction on you that led to repentance? Did you ever read the Bible and feel like God was speaking directly to you? Did one of God’s people ever minister to you at just the right time, like they were on a mission from God Himself? This is what you do when you doubt. You go back and remember what God did in the past. Maybe you aren’t feeling His presence right now. Maybe He seems far away. Maybe He let you down. He didn’t do what you thought He should. Maybe you are starting to believe those who say there is no God at all. What should you do? Go back and remember what God did in the past. Or as one old Gospel song says, go back to the old landmarks. There’s another old Gospel song called Jesus Gave Me Water. The chorus says, “Jesus gave me water and it was not from the well.” It’s based on the story from John chapter four about the woman at the well. Jesus and His disciples went to a city of Samaria called Sychar. Outside the city was Jacob’s well. Jesus sat by the well while His disciples went into Sychar to buy food. Then a woman came out to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her for a drink, and ended up talking to her about “living water.” Jesus told her that whoever drinks the water from the well will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks God’s living water will never thirst because it will “become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” That goes along with what Jesus said in John chapter seven. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Then verse 39 explains that when Jesus said living water He was talking about the Holy Spirit, “whom those believing in Him would receive.” The woman at the well believed in Him. And she brought a bunch of people from Sychar and they believed in Him as well. And those who believe in Him would receive the Holy Spirit, which is the living water. Did you ever have the living water of the Holy Spirit flowing like a spring of water within you? Maybe it is hard to remember, so go back to the old landmarks. Think back to what God has done for you in the past. What do you do when you doubt? Think back! Back to the song Jesus Gave Me Water. Later in the song there is a line about doubt. It says, “every time she doubted.” Now you’d think the woman at the well would never doubt, right? I mean, she talked in person to Jesus and He read her mail. He prophesied to her. What’s to doubt? Or maybe she never did doubt. It’s just a song, right? But doubt has a way of creeping into everyone’s life at one time or another. Even John the Baptist in prison sent a message to Jesus saying, “Are you the Coming One or do we look for another?” And that’s the same John the Baptist who announced, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” So back to the song. What did she do every time she doubted? It says… “Every time she doubted, she’d start to think about Him, The Man that gave her water, and it was not from the well.” When you begin to doubt, go back to the old landmarks. Think about what God has done for you. For the woman at the well, at least according to the song, she would remember when the Lord had her shoutin’ and there was no room for doubtin’, that Jesus gave her water and it was not from the well! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Why doesn’t God just do everything? Why does He leave anything up to human beings? I don’t know, but He does, and one great example of that is the story of Paul and Ananias. We can read the story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9, chapter 22 and again in chapter 26. He was called Saul at the time, and he was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians. Suddenly Jesus Himself spoke to him from heaven! I know that is strange by itself, but something even stranger happened. Jesus Himself spoke to Saul, but He didn’t give him the whole message. God didn’t just do everything. He got other people involved, including a Christian named Ananias. In Acts 9 verse 6 Jesus said to Saul, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” Jesus could have just handled everything Himself, right there on the spot, but no. He sent Saul into Damascus with only a vague notion of what was going to happen next. Meanwhile, in Acts 9 verse 11 the Lord appeared to Ananias in a vision, called him by name, and told him to go see Saul. And oh yeah, God gave Saul a vision of someone named Ananias coming to minister to him! God could have just taken care of everything Himself, right? But He didn’t. He got Ananias involved in His work. What does that have to do with you and me? All Christian believers are members of the Body of Christ, and when God wants to do a work on earth, He uses the Body of Christ, His people, to carry out His plans! You’ve heard the old saying, “We are His hands and His feet.” That’s what this is, the Christians, the Body of Christ, His church, doing His work as He leads us. And listen – each believer has an EQUALLY VITAL PART in the Body of Christ. Sure, we have different gifts and callings, different backgrounds and different experiences. But each one of us is important to God’s work. There’s Saul, who would become Paul, and reach the Gentile world for Jesus and write a good portion of the Bible, and yet God chose to include little old Ananias in His grand master plan. I have no idea why God uses people because we are generally an unreliable lot. Nevertheless, here we are, God’s people, His vessels…and His vassals! He has work He wants done in the earth, and He’s not going to do it all by Himself. He’s going to use people, and you and I are one of them. And listen: it’s about to get exciting! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) To obey is better than sacrifice. What on earth does that mean? We find this phrase in First Samuel 15:22. It’s the prophet Samuel talking to King Saul, the first king of Israel. Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” Saul insisted that he HAD obeyed, he just hadn’t TOTALLY obeyed. What was the big deal? Apparently it was a HUGE deal. The very next verse, First Samuel 15:23 has some of the most sobering words in the whole Bible. Samuel said to King Saul, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.” So back to this phrase “to obey is better than sacrifice.” There is something inside of us that glorifies sacrifice. We give up something. We lay down something. We sacrifice something, and it’s a noble thing to do. We often think of our veterans and how they sacrificed their lives, many of them to the point of death…a noble sacrifice for the rest of us in the country. Now think of this in military terms. Which is better: sacrifice or obedience? What do we want our soldiers to do: to wake up each morning and decide what they are going to sacrifice for their country, or to wake up each morning and do what they are told? Do we want a national defense plan where everyone does what they think is best, or where there is a unified plan with commands from the top that the soldiers carry out? Imagine a soldier is told to stand guard and watch the horizon for planes coming from the west. But instead of just standing there, watching the sky, he decides to really sacrifice himself and go clean the latrine, a disgusting job that no one wants to do. What a noble sacrifice, right? But wait. What if it’s December 7th, 1941, and no one is watching for planes and we end up with the disaster of Pearl Harbor? Sure, it was a sacrifice to clean the bathrooms, but it would have been far better for him to obey his commands and stand watch. This is why it is better to obey than to sacrifice. We’re not saying sacrifice is bad. In fact, you have to sacrifice in order to obey. The key here is that obedience is BETTER than sacrifice. We don’t just make up what we want to sacrifice and then tell God, “Oh, I’m sacrificing for you.” That’s what King Saul did. He was preparing a wonderful sacrifice for God, but he did not OBEY God. So yes, as Christians we need to be prepared to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice, as it says in Romans 12:1. But we do that, not by coming up with something to sacrifice, but by obeying God. Even Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, didn’t just decide one day to do something sacrificial and give up His life for the sins of the world. Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus became “obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Romans 5:19 says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” Yes, Jesus was sacrificial, but more importantly, Jesus was obedient…obedient to the Father’s will. “Not my will, but THY will be done,” Jesus said. So as we go about our day, we don’t say, “Gee, I’m going to do something great for God. I’m going to sacrifice and give up something just for Him.” Instead we say, “God, what do You want me to do? I want to obey You. I want to follow You. Not my will but Your will be done. Lord, help me not do MY thing, but help me be obedient. I want to fulfill my part in the body of Christ and carry out Your perfect plans. Not my plans, but Your plans.” It’s not about sacrificing something for God. It’s about obeying Him…because to obey is better than sacrifice. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I was sitting in the garage, crying my eyes out. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because I wanted to kill someone, but since that was not an option, all that was left was crying. I was playing an older boy in basketball, and he beat me mercilessly, and it was so frustrating. I grew angrier and angrier, and if there is such a thing as murdering someone in your heart, I did it repeatedly that day. My mom finally came out to help me settle down, but that day was the apex of my hyper-competitive childhood. I wanted to win, to always win, and I hated losing. One time I was wrestling a friend, which was fine, it was competitive, but then his brother jumped in and the two of them pinned me to the ground. I was spitting mad…and this was my best friend! Why was I hyper-competitive? I have no idea. I guess I could say I was born that way. After that tearful, angry basketball game I started to get better control of my competitive nature. I realized it’s just a fact of life, you can’t win every time. But it was definitely still there, under the surface, a beast waiting to rise up. It really wasn’t until God came in and began changing me that I was able to shift away from wanting to win at everything, all the time, and be able to just enjoy a game and enjoy the friendship and camaraderie of spending time with others. For example, if you and I went and played a game of tennis today, and you played great and beat me every time, I could still enjoy the game, and even be excited for you and your skill and the great shots you made. But there was a time when I would have been tempted to smash my racket to smithereens…though rackets cost money and I’m very frugal, so I would never actually do that. I bring this up to say that, just because we might say we are born a certain way, with certain desires, doesn’t mean that is actually who we are. Those feelings are not our identity. There is a movement in our culture today that says if you have certain feelings, then that is who you are, period. If you don’t roll with those feelings, then you are not being your authentic self, and you are even going to end up a psychological mess, if not downright suicidal. Have you ever gotten lost? Have you ever felt like you were going north but you were actually going south? Have you ever felt like eating a cookie was exactly what your body needed? Have you ever felt like life would hardly be worth living if you couldn’t live it with that one certain person? Have you ever felt like, “If I don’t win this game, someone is going to have to die”? Feelings are great, but they’re a terrible compass. They can just as easily lead you in the wrong direction as they can lead you in the right direction. What we need is an actual compass. When it comes to life, I have found an effective compass in God’s Word in the Bible, and in listening to the still, small voice of His Holy Spirit. Being hyper-competitive, even though it was a dominant feeling, and even though, as far as I can tell, I was born that way, according to the Bible it wasn’t leading me in the right direction. Galatians 5:22-23 talks about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When I was being hyper-competitive, I had none of those. So which was right, the feelings I was born with, or the Bible? Which was better? I can tell you that being hyper-competitive was vastly worse than having those qualities that God brought into my life, as I listened and received from Him. Thank God I didn’t believe the lie that my feelings, even if I had felt them from as far back as I can remember, were my identity. God had far better plans. In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God knows best! He made us, and He knows what’s best for us. So listen. You are not your feelings, even if you’ve had those feelings for a long time. If your feelings don’t line up with God’s Word, then it’s time to go to God and ask Him to help you go from living by your feelings to living by His eternal truth and according to His plans, which are much better. Sure, you don’t have to take my word for it. All I can say is that I was born a certain way, with certain feelings and certain desires that didn’t line up with God’s Word, and when I decided to come to God, surrender my feelings to Him and do things His way…THAT’S when it finally started getting good, and I started seeing God’s great benefits in my life, including a boat load of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after Thee.” That is my daily prayer, based on Psalm 42:1. I just want more of God and His wisdom and goodness and guidance in my life, don’t you? But how to get it? How to get “me” out of the way to create more room for Him? Jesus gave us some powerful insight when He said in Luke 9:23 that if we want to follow Him, we must first deny ourselves. So, what are we denying ourselves? It almost seems un-American to deny ourselves anything, and yet there it is in black and white, or in this case, there it is in the red letters, “Deny yourself.” One way people denied themselves throughout the Bible and throughout history is by fasting. It has been a simple formula throughout the ages. You want to get closer to God? You fast. Fast what? That’s a little open ended. Yes, you can fast all food, but only for so long. What I like to do is choose things I can fast - and keep on fasting - perpetually. Right now I’m fasting 16 things, and number one on my list is this. I’m fasting all beverages except water. I started that in December, 2022 when I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like God was downloading a new plan for me, and that new plan included fasting all beverages except water…which I started doing immediately. And what a blessing it has been! How so? Well first of all, it felt like a gift from God, and it felt like freedom! Yes, there was the usual withdrawal from caffeine for a couple days, and the much longer withdrawal that comes when changing daily habits, but once I started to break free from those, it has been nothing but good. Yes, it means denying myself all the other beverages, but once you break free and get used to drinking only water, it’s no big deal, and your body loves it! Your body loves working with water and not having to filter through all the garbage we typically drink. It also means you aren’t drinking any calories, which is great for losing weight. Drinking only water will also save you lots of money. No more expensive drinks in restaurants. No more high dollar coffees. No more stocking up on drinks at home. You just made your shopping trips easier and less painful because hey, you’re only drinking water! Does anything you’re drinking have a hold on you? Are your beverages the boss of you more than you are the boss of the beverages? First Corinthians 6:12 says, “I will not be mastered by anything.” Are your beverages mastering you, in any way? If so, consider fasting all beverages except water. Your beverages might be mastering you if… --if you drive way out of your way for a certain beverage, --if you are spending more money than you wish you were spending on beverages, --if you have shirts or hats or other products to connect your identity with that beverage, --if you are waiting in the drive through right now just to buy that special beverage, --and here’s a huge one, listen…if your body goes into withdrawal without that beverage, then your beverage is mastering you, and you are not mastering it. First Corinthians 13:11 says, “When I became a man, I put away childish things.” Are you making your beverage decisions with childish reasoning? “Hey, it’s what I feel like drinking.” If you’re ready to take it up a notch, consider fasting all beverages except water. God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, and fasting is one way we diligently seek Him. Jesus said in Matthew chapter six that when we fast our Father will reward us. What are you fasting? If you’re looking for something to fast, something you can keep on fasting perpetually, something that is helpful and beneficial in every way, physically, financially, spiritually, mentally…then prayerfully consider this. Consider fasting all beverages except water. I’ve been doing it for quite a while now, and I highly recommend it. It has changed my life for the better in many ways, and I think it will do the same for you. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/ +++++++ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) You can’t just sit on your rear end and do nothing. “But Doug, James 1:5 says, ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.’” Yes it does. I’m a huge fan of James 1:5, and I’m asking God for wisdom daily. But I’m also a big fan of Proverbs 4:5. Do you know what that one says? It says, “Get wisdom!” In some translations that comes with an exclamation point. Get it! So yes, James 1:5, but in the meantime Proverbs 4:5. In other words, yes, ASK for wisdom. Then don’t just sit there. Rise up and go get wisdom! Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.” One way to get wisdom is to find someone who already has some and ask them to share it with you. Of course, reading the Bible is going to give you a lifetime of wisdom. Psalm 19:7 tells us that the Word of God can make even foolish people wise. Daily I’m asking God for wisdom in every area of life, but then I don’t just sit back and wait for wisdom to come slap me upside the face. I take Proverbs 4:5 seriously when it says to “get wisdom.” So yes, James 1:5. James 1:5 all day long! But in the meantime, Proverbs 4:5…rise up, take the initiative, and go get it! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) It was like a shotgun of glass in my eyes. Would it ruin my vision? It all started on a typical Wednesday when I packed our baby in the car seat and went to pick up a little old lady for church. It was a winter evening in Illinois and already dark. As I was driving down the highway, suddenly there was a blast of glass as my driver’s side window exploded. I don’t recall much about what happened after that. It turned out that a deer had been streaking across the highway and slammed his head right into my window. It was like a shotgun of glass to my face and eyes, and the baby was covered in glass but uninjured, thank God. Someone rushed me to the hospital, and they spent a good amount of time getting the glass out of my eyes. Just blinking felt like my eyes were full of gravel. Finally, they sent me home with an appointment to come back in the morning. My wife was driving me home, and I just sat there in the passenger seat with my head leaning on the window, drained. And God met me there. I just felt His grace and presence so sweetly. I was thinking, “God, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it doesn’t matter. Even if I go blind, I’m going to follow You and do whatever You want me to do.” God’s grace and peace and presence were so powerful in that moment, it was truly like the Bible says in Philippians 4:6, a peace that passes understanding. Thankfully my eyes healed, and everything turned out fine, but at the moment BEFORE I knew how it would turn out…God met me there, and it was beautiful. I’m calling this message A Tale of Two Broken Windows, so what’s the other one? It’s the story of a much cooler car than my little Toyota Tercel. It’s about a 1966 Chevy Chevelle which my friend Rodney Rowland completely restored. I mean, that car is a thing of beauty! He fixed it ALL up. It was perfect. And he was taking it to the 2023 Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach, Florida, which if you know anything about car auctions, the vehicles at this event are incredible, I mean millions of dollars of amazing vehicles, all in perfect condition…and very shiny. They don’t get that way by accident of course. Rodney had spent countless hours bringing that car from basically a crusty shell to perfection. April 2023 rolled around and he loaded it up on his trailer and hit the road for Palm Beach. He submitted this super cool Chevelle to the auction inspectors, and uh-oh. What did they just say? The windshield…is broken? What??? It was perfect when it left Tallahassee, but now it was cracked at exactly the worst moment, right before going on the auction block at this huge, worldwide sale. Does that mean all that time, all that investment was going down the drain? Did it mean pulling out of the auction altogether? What should he do? This is where the grace of God settled on Rodney in a powerful way. He felt the peace to just go ahead and put it into the auction, even with the cracked windshield. He said, “God, I’m going to praise You no matter what happens. If it sells for a lower dollar amount than I need, so be it. God, You are my provider and I will praise You either way.” No, it’s not natural to say such things. It’s not natural to face maybe losing your vision and saying, “God, it doesn’t matter, I’m following You.” It’s not natural to face potential financial disappointment and say, “God, it doesn’t matter, I’m praising You.” It’s not natural. It is supernatural! It’s what happens when the Spirit of God gives you His grace and peace and presence. All the usual values and concerns fade in the presence of God! I was raised in the Lutheran church, and at the end of every service the pastor would quote the benediction in Numbers 6:24-26, “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you His peace.” That is exactly what happened in this Tale of Two Broken Windows, for both Rodney and me. We lived it. We experienced it. In a time of stress and potential loss, we felt the Lord’s presence, His grace, and His peace. And God can do this for you, whatever you are facing today. How? I like what it says in Isaiah 26:3, and I like the majesty of the old King James, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.” As we keep our heart and mind turned towards God and His Word, trusting in Him, then He blesses us with His peace and grace and presence, even in the middle of our trials. ESPECIALLY in the middle of our trials. And that is how we can have peace, even when the glass is breaking, and say, “God, I’m going to follow You and praise You, no matter what.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I will NOT be taken advantage of.” That’s what we say. “I will not be made to look like a fool. If someone’s going to get the short end of the stick, it’s not going to be me.” No one wants to get the short end of the stick, but in almost every human interaction you could easily say, “Wait a second. I’m giving more than they are, and I’m getting less.” The short end of the stick. It’s hard to imagine Jesus complaining about getting the short end of the stick, which He certainly did when He died for me. So the example of our Lord is to give, to go the extra mile, and to even find joy in it. But how can we do that? No one wants to feel ripped off or taken advantage of. It’s demeaning, even humiliating if you think about it too much. Well I have a plan, a new way to look at it that really flips it on its head. I call it Give the Gap. What does that mean? I’m holding my hand up here in front of my chin. This is how much I think I am getting. Now I’m holding my other hand up to my forehead. This is how much I’m giving, so as you can see, there is a gap between how much I’m giving and how much I’m getting. The gap is the problem. Marriages have been ruined over the gap. Families have been wrecked; whole wars have been started over that gap. So what can we do when there’s a gap between how much we are giving versus how much we are getting? Give the gap. And here’s an example. A friend of mine wanted to sell his truck. A friend of his wanted to buy it. He told his friend the price, and his friend tried to bargain him down. That made the first man angry because he told his friend the price and his friend didn’t take his price seriously but wanted a lower price. There was a gap between their prices. I watched as their relationship became seriously damaged over that gap, but it could have been solved if either one of them would have been willing to give the gap. Both of those men were good Christian men and members of the same church. They both gave a lot of money to their church and other good causes. They were givers! But for whatever reason they didn’t extend their giving ways to this truck deal. Neither one of them wanted to be taken advantage of, and it damaged their friendship. It could have been avoided if one of them would have been willing to give the gap, and here’s how it works. You say you want $5,000 for that old truck, and I only think it is worth $4,000. Instead of wrecking the friendship, I can go ahead and pay your full price, and that one-thousand-dollar difference? Instead of feeling cheated, I’m going to GIVE it to you! I’m going to Give the Gap. Let’s say you are at work and the boss asks you to do something and you don’t think it is your job. Yes, you could start a big brouhaha, or instead you could give the gap…the gap between what you think you should give and what they think you should give. Now instead of it being part of your job, you are giving it as a gift! The Bible has much to say about giving, like it is better to give than to receive, and “give and it will be given unto you,” God loves a cheerful giver, and even, “go the extra mile.” Hebrews 13:16 says to do good and share, “for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Philippians 2 says we are to have the same attitude of Jesus who, though He was God, humbled Himself to becoming a human, a servant, even dying as a criminal on a cross. So when we see a gap between what we are giving and what we are getting, we can simply convert that gap into a gift! Our attitude switches from, “I’m getting cheated,” to, “I freely give this as a gift, knowing that God wants me to give, and that when I do give, I will receive back and even more, as Jesus said in Luke 6:38, “pressed down, shaken together, and running over.” No one wants to be taken advantage of, but everyone is called to give, so when you start to see a gap between what you are getting and what you are giving, instead of getting mad…Give the Gap. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Have you looked down your bathtub drain lately? It’s probably just a black hole, and as long as the water drains you don’t even think about it. But you know what? A lot of things had to be done just right for that drain to work. Think of a typical ranch house here in Florida built on a concrete slab. An architect designs the house and creates a blueprint. Then every person that works on the house works off the blueprint. One thing on the blueprint is the plumbing. Before they pour the concrete slab, a plumber has to install all the pipes in the exact right places, including that bathtub drain. That drain has to be in the perfect spot. He can’t just eyeball it. He can’t just say, “This feels right.” He has to put the drainpipe EXACTLY where the blueprint says to put it. Why? Because they are going to pour concrete around it. It will literally be set in stone. Yes, it can be moved. I was part of a drain moving operation at a church one time, and it involved jackhammers and sweat and grumbling. No one in their right mind would choose to put the drain in the wrong place so that they could move it later. It would be what we call in the south “ig-nernt.” That bathtub drainpipe has to be in the exact right spot because one day a guy is going to walk in carrying a bathtub. He’s going to set it down, look down that drain hole, and he’d better see nothing but a black hole, perfectly lined up. Can you imagine how well the plumber has to do his job for the bathtub drain to be perfectly lined up? It’s a marvel! But that’s what the blueprint is for. The plumber doesn’t go in and try to figure it out on his own. He doesn’t ask his buddy, “Hey, does this look good?” He has to follow the blueprint. And now listen. We have a blueprint for life. Life on this planet was created by the Architect, with a capital A, and He has a blueprint for how everything goes together. If we follow the blueprint, our life works properly, and if we ignore the blueprint, it doesn’t work right. Jesus used a construction analogy at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven. He basically said that if we follow His blueprint, His teachings, then we are like a wise man who builds his house well. But if we don’t follow God’s blueprint, we are like a man who builds his house foolishly. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to forgive. Our blueprint for life is to “forgive men their trespasses.” Forgiveness works! It’s in the blueprint! But what if we don’t feel like forgiving? What if we have a hundred reasons to not forgive? The plumber might have a hundred reasons to put the bathtub drainpipe somewhere else, but he MUST put it where the blueprint says to put it or it won’t work. He will have missed the mark. What is another word for “missing the mark?” Sin. In the original language, the word sin comes from the Greek and Hebrew words which mean “to miss the mark.” To sin is literally to miss the mark. It’s putting the pipe anywhere but where the blueprint says to put it. If we don’t forgive, we are missing the mark, ignoring the blueprint, and building our life poorly. This applies to everything God told us to do. His words are the blueprint. What if you don’t like words like sin and obedience. Well, think of it in terms of Jesus’s construction analogy. Sin is missing the mark, which is not following the blueprint, which is putting the pipes wherever you feel like. Obedience is hitting the mark, following the blueprint, putting the pipes right where the blueprint says to put them. For some reason we think of obedience to God as optional, but we sure don’t want the plumber thinking of the blueprint as optional when he’s building our house. Why not? Because we want it built well, not poorly. And the same is true for our life. We want it built well not poorly, and for that, we have to follow the blueprint of the architect, with a capital A. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “You must have a lot of faith to believe in God like you do.” Actually, I don’t think I have all that much faith. Think of it like this. Last night I was working in the yard, pulling weeds and picking up sticks. Suddenly it dawned on me that I was really thirsty. Thankfully I had prepared a nice cup of ice water before I went out to work. So I went and took a big drink and it was so refreshing! How much faith did it take to drink that water? Not much because I have had many great experiences of drinking cool, refreshing water when I was thirsty! That pretty much describes my faith in God. In the early days I would read something in the Bible or hear something from another Christian and I would try to put it into practice. I would also hear things from the Holy Spirit, and I would put those things into practice. It didn’t even take all that much faith in those early days because I would hear something and try it. For example, I read in the Bible that we are to forgive people, so I started forgiving people. It didn’t take a New York minute to realize, “Hey, this is refreshing!” So how much faith did it take the next time I needed to forgive? Hardly any! I had already tasted and seen that forgiveness is a great way to live. The other day we had a bunch of grandchildren at the house. They were running around and playing, and then my wife pulled out a beautiful, fresh watermelon. The kids stopped in their tracks and flocked to the watermelon. Why? Because they had already tasted and seen that cool watermelon on a hot Florida day is wonderful! See, it doesn’t take all that much faith to trust an experience you’ve already had a good experience with. And that describes my walk with God. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good…” I HAVE tasted, and I HAVE seen that the Lord is good, over and over! So while it may look on the outside like, “Gee, that Doug Apple has a lot of faith,” I would say no, not really. I have just tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and after that it doesn’t take much faith to keep walking with Him, knowing that even more good things are on the way! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) We know we are supposed to love people, but how? Love one another. Love your neighbor. Even love your enemy, but how? Do we just work harder at it? Do we need a new book, “Five Fantastic Strategies for Loving People More in Just Five Days!” I want to propose a new way, a better way, and it starts with this: I don’t know how to love people. Oh, I can think of ways to love people more, but is that really what they need? Are my ideas the best ideas? No. So the question remains. We are supposed to love people, but how? Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love. The Holy Spirit will quite naturally bear the fruit of love as we do what it says in verse 16, “walk in the Spirit.” And verse 18 talks about being “led by the Spirit.” So we will love people more when we are led by the Holy Spirit. So how can we “walk in the Spirit” and be “led by the Spirit” in order to bear the “fruit of the Spirit”? Imagine a large, healthy tree with beautiful green leaves. Now imagine looking underground and seeing the humongous root system supporting that tree. That root system is like our relationship with God. As we tend to the root system of our relationship with God, then the tree of our lives will quite naturally be healthy and fruitful. This means that if we spend time with God, what I’m calling “doing the root work,” then we will quite naturally begin to love people more, because that is the fruit of the Spirit. What would happen if you planted an apple seed in a small pot? It would start to grow, but the growth would be stunted because the roots would have no room. For many of us, our personal time alone with God is the tiny pot. If we want our relationship with God to grow, we need to make room by spending more time with Him. In Matthew 6 Jesus said that when you pray, go into your room, shut your door, and pray to your Father. This means get alone with God. Enter His gates with thanksgiving. Pray. Talk. Worship. Sing. Read the Bible. Intercede. Even just sit before Him in silence. You can call it your devotional time, your prayer time, your abiding time, your extravagant daily time with Jesus. Call it whatever you want. These days I’m calling it “doing the root work.” The point is to expand your time alone with God as a way of expanding your root base. When you do this, your root system will grow stronger, and out of this, quite naturally and even effortlessly, you will bear more fruit of the Spirit, and that includes loving people. So how to love people more? Don’t worry about working harder at it or developing new strategies for it. Instead, begin to spend more time alone with God, and as your relationship with God grows, so will your love for all people, because He will do it. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would teach us all things, and that includes how to love people. So do the root work! Get alone with God and let the adventures in loving people begin! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I’ll walk you to your car. I need to ask you something.” That’s what the man said as he caught me leaving the church one day. He said, “They’ve asked me to teach a class in a few weeks, and I was wanting to get your advice.” I’ve been teaching adult Sunday school classes and Bible studies for over 30 years, so I should know a thing or two, right? He said, “What is one piece of advice you would give me as I prepare for this class?” Well, how would YOU answer that? There are many good answers, of course, but here’s what I said. Like the Old Testament prophets, stand in the presence of God, then deliver His message to the people. Instead of thinking of creative ways to teach a Bible lesson, get alone with God, sanctify yourself to Him, set yourself apart for Him. This means get alone with God. Have regular quiet time with just you and God and the Bible. Ask Him to lead you and show you things while you read the Scriptures. And part of sanctifying yourself to God is setting aside some things of this world. “What things? You mean, like, sin?” Of course, sin. You should repent of all sin and come clean with God whether you’re a Bible teacher or not. That’s a given. To really press in and seek God and sanctify yourself to Him, it means denying yourself some things. It means setting them aside to clear out time and space in your life for more of God. Jesus said that if we want to follow Him, we must first deny ourselves. You can deny yourself watching TV. You can deny yourself social media. Deny yourself secular music or books or whatever. And you can pray and ask God, “Lord, how can I sanctify myself for You?” The point is to pull ourselves a little more away from our “usual” in order to seek God more diligently, knowing that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, as it says in Hebrews 11:6. Jesus said go into your room, shut your door, pray to your Father. In other words, get alone, shut out distractions, talk to God. If you want to be a better Bible teacher or preacher, that is one tip. Instead of trying to be more creative or witty or modern, my one tip for you would be to get alone with God and His Word, diligently seek Him, sanctify yourself to Him and see where He will lead. Then you will be able to come out of your time with Him with a calling, with an anointing, and what the old timers called an “unction” to speak God’s words to God’s people in the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through you. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “She put the Bible there on my nightstand…right next to my ashtray.” Bibles and ashtrays. I knew this story was going to be good! I was talking with Mike Sharman and I asked him the simple question, “How did you come to faith in Christ?” It didn’t come until he was deep into life, married, making money and advancing professionally. His wife had become a Christian, and he had attended a Bible study with her, but spent most of the time finding things to argue about, so he quit going. But his wife had taken that one simple step, putting a Bible on his nightstand, and there it sat, like an ancient treasure chest just waiting to be opened. Then came the night he was lying in bed, his wife fast asleep, and he heard a voice, a resonating voice. It simply said, “I exist.” He wasn’t sure what he’d heard, or even if he was dreaming, but he heard it a second time, then a third time, and he quickly came to the decision that it was God. Well. Now what? Mike was open at this point, and ready for what might come next. What came next was the voice saying, “Pick up that book,” and he knew what “book” was being referred to: the Bible on his nightstand. The voice said, “Pick up that book. Begin at page one. Read as though you believe.” Well Mike had picked up “that book” before, but here was the key, the instruction to “read as though you believe.” In other words, God was saying, “Set aside your bias. Put away any anti-Bible or anti-Christian bigotry you may have and simply read the Bible ‘as though you believe,’ and see what happens.” And he did. And the rest is history. And Mike Sharman has been following Jesus and making a difference in the world and in the Kingdom of God for many years now. So what about you? Perhaps this is God’s word to you today. Pick up that book. Begin at page one. Read as though you believe. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I don’t think God cares if I go or not.” That’s what one woman told me. She was trying to decide whether she should make a certain trip or not. I said, “Well…pray about it.” She said, “I don’t think God cares if I go or not.” I said, “It’s not that He’s going to zap you for making the wrong decision. I just mean that He might give you some wisdom about the decision.” I realize not everyone thinks like that. I just really want God’s wisdom in everything. Someone told me, “You’re the kind of guy who probably stands in front of his closet and says, ‘God, what should I wear today?’” I said, “No…but some people SHOULD do that.” I got to thinking, “Why DO I think this way? Why do I want God’s wisdom so much? First let me say that I don’t just sit around and do nothing until I get hit by lightning from heaven. But my thinking is rooted in Romans 12:2 where it talks about discerning God’s will…His good and acceptable, pleasing, and perfect will. I want that. I want to live within God’s will, His parameters, His guidelines. I want to build my life on a solid foundation, with good life-construction principles. How to do that? That same verse, Romans 12:2, talks about being transformed by the renewing of our mind. Let me just share with you all of Romans 12 verses 1 and 2, in the NIV since that’s where I first memorized it: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” I want God’s will for my life, my family, my work, everything. How can I get it? According to Romans 12:1 and 2, I offer my body as a living sacrifice to God. Here’s something I do each morning when I roll out of bed. I take a knee, point a finger toward heaven and say, “Reporting for duty, Sir.” That is me offering up my body once again as a living sacrifice. “Lord, I’m all Yours. I’m all in.” Then I seek to follow Him, and not the ways of the world, and in the process He is renewing my mind. And through all of this, it says, I will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. Then I got to thinking, “Why is Romans 12: 1 and 2 so foundational in my life.” And I got to thinking about the Christian Campus House at Eastern Illinois University. When my wife and I were dating we decided to go there and take their discipleship class. The head of that ministry was Roger Songer and he had us memorize Romans 12:1-2 among others. Out of all the Bible, why do I operate out of Romans 12:1-2 so often? It’s because Roger Songer emphasized it in his discipleship class. So here I am, decades later, taking a knee each morning, offering up my body as a living sacrifice to God. My heart is more passionate for God’s will than ever before, and I hope I’m having a positive, Godly, spirit-refreshing influence on everyone I come in contact with. And some of the credit for any good I’ve done has to go back to Roger Songer and his influence in those influential days. It reminds me of the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” George Bailey wished he had never been born and his wish was granted. Clarence the angel then showed George what the world would look like if he had never been born, and it was quite a bit worse. Finally, Clarence said to George, “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” Yes, each of our lives touches so many others, and that’s why our decisions are so important. We don’t know how the future will be changed by our decisions. This is why I want God’s will so much. I don’t know the future, and I don’t know the best thing to do. But God does, and that’s why I daily offer myself up to Him as a living sacrifice and seek His wisdom. Maybe you don’t think God cares whether you go on that trip or not, but I still say, “Pray about it,” because your decisions are making a difference in every life you come in contact with. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) And say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” That’s an encouragement…and a warning. It was for Archippus in the Bible, in Colossians 4:17, but it’s for us, too. Take heed to the ministry with you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it. Are you fulfilling the ministry you have received in the Lord? Are your answering the call, doing what God wants you to do, what He has gifted you to do, and told you to do? “Take heed,” was the message to Archippus. That means “give this serious attention.” It means, “make sure it’s done to avoid bad results.” I don’t want bad results, so I’m determined to “take heed” and seek to do what God wants me to do. Philippians 3:12 says, “…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” If you are a Christian, then at some point Jesus “took hold” of you, and you have a ministry to fulfill, a vital role in the Body of Christ. Whatever it is, do like Philippians 3:12 says. Press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you. Do like Colossians 4:17 says, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” What happens, though, is that we can lose our focus. There are so many distractions, so many bells and whistles, so many trinkets and sparkly things. We are easily drawn away from God’s calling toward something else, like Demas. Demas was on mission with Paul, but something drew him away. In Second Timothy 4:10 Paul wrote, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.” I want to cry out, “Demas! What was it? What was so shiny and attractive? What drew you off course? You were dead in like five minutes and standing before your Maker. Was it worth it, forsaking your mission for a minute’s worth of worldly pleasure?” Jesus called His various disciples with these words, “Follow Me.” And they followed Him. Well there was one man to whom Jesus said, “Follow Me,” and He didn’t. We call him the rich, young ruler, but his name isn’t recorded. Whatever fame he had at the time is long gone. Mark 10:21 says that Jesus “loved him, and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.’” But he couldn’t do it. Verse 22 says he was sad, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. I want to cry out, “Dude. Rich, young whatever. What was so great about your stuff? Was it really that great? You passed on the chance to follow Jesus and for what? Some stuff? Really? And yet we all get hit with similar temptations, and it’s all garbage. Better to have the attitude of Paul in Philippians 3:8 where he counts the trinkets of this world as garbage. He counted everything else as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus. So what to do? Don’t be led astray by the sparkly trinkets of this world. Instead, press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you. And like Paul said to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Cindy’s fiancé died in a workplace accident. She was a dedicated Christian, but the loss was immense. Her family was worried about her and how she would cope. In her B.C. life, Before Christ, she relied on cocaine. Now that life was in the past. Or was it? One night the pain was so great, she picked up the phone and called her former drug dealer. He said, “Wait a minute. I thought you were some kind of ‘Jesus Girl’ now. I’m not selling to you.” She said, “Look, I’ve got cash. You’ve got drugs. This is how it works.” He said, “Did you know that your dad threatened anyone who ever sold you drugs again?” She did not know that. Then he said, “Cindy, what you need to do right now is get down on your knees and ask God to help you.” She said, “You’re a drug dealer. What are you doing, telling me to pray?” She hung up the phone, more determined than ever, and walked out the door to go find some drugs wherever she could. What she didn’t know was that God was working behind the scenes. Earlier that evening, Cindy’s friend was across town, praying. Then her friend felt like God was telling her to do something kind of weird. In her prayer time, God told her that she needed to go spend the night with Cindy. So she packed up her pajamas, her sleeping bag and a pillow and headed over there. Right when Cindy was walking out the door, determined to hit the street and find some drugs, there was her friend, walking up the sidewalk, ready to spend the night, not even knowing that Cindy was right on the verge of a great fall. God sent a friend to help Cindy right at her time of great need. Who is God sending you to today? May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple. *This testimony is included in a GriefShare video, and you can find out more about GriefShare here: https://www.griefshare.org/

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Don’t say holy cow.” “No, not holy mackerel, either.” “And definitely not holy cra….you know what.” “Look,” I told my grandsons, “Holy is a word. It has a meaning. A serious meaning. To say it any other way is to say it in vain, which means to water it down.” “What does it mean? Well, I think of holy as being separated, like separated from sin. God is separated from sin and He wants us to be separated from sin, to be holy, to be righteous, to not sin.” “Plus, when you say, ‘holy…whatever,’ that’s not what you really mean anyway. You mean something else, like, ‘I’m shocked,’ or ‘That’s amazing,’ or ‘What a surprise.’ So why not just say what you mean instead of using the word holy in vain?” One grandson said, “Because it’s more fun!” I said, “When you say it, does anyone laugh? Does anyone even smile? Do you even smile? It must not be that fun.” “And if you want to have fun, then make up your own exclamation.” Then I told them about former Florida State Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden and how he used to say, “Dadgummit.” Then I told them about my dad, their great-grandfather. I never heard my dad say a single bad word. Ever. I remember one time when I was a young teenager, and Dad was at home, off work, and a call came in from work. You could tell it was something stressful, some kind of problem he had to solve. It was the kind of moment where a mom shushes all the kids or scuttles them out of the room. Dad needs space to solve this problem I was listening closely. What was going on? What would Dad say? Here’s what he said. This is the exclamation that came out of his mouth. He said, “Jim dandy billy goat.” Ha ha, okay, that’s about the extent of my dad’s blue language. Jim dandy billy goat. So if you must exclaim something, and you don’t want to say the words you actually mean, please don’t fall into the age-old traps of cursing or blue language or taking the Lord’s name in vain. Don’t even take the word “holy” in vain because it’s a real word with a serious meaning and we don’t want to water it down. Instead, come up with some fun words of your very own. Or you could just say it like my dad said it, “Jim dandy billy goat.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I remember going out on Friday nights with high expectations. “It’s going to be the best time ever!” There were high expectations of fun, of making memories, laughter, good times, great music, and stories to tell. But at some point I started thinking thoughts like, “It’s never really all that.” Even in the best-case scenario I began thinking thoughts like, “There’s got to be more.” I didn’t know it at the time, but those thoughts were laying the foundation inside me for something huge. What it did was finally put me in a place where I was willing to respond to God, willing to move in His direction and find out more. So do you find yourself thinking thoughts like, “There’s got to be more”? If so, what’s happening is that your heart and mind are getting ready for a change. You are going seek out something new, and I want to recommend this to you: seek God. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” Hebrews 11:6 says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Jesus said, “Come to Me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” He said, “I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.” Isaiah 42:3 indicates that even if your light is barely burning at all, He will not put it out. Instead, He will come along and fan it into a flame, giving light and warmth and fire to your life! Isaiah 1:18 says that though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. This is what Jesus will do in your life…when you come to the place of dissatisfaction with this world and a place of hunger for something more. Your motto used to be “eat, drink and be merry,” but Romans 14:17 says the Kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking, but instead it’s about something vastly more substantial: righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Have you been thinking these thoughts lately, thoughts like, “There’s got to be more”? Well I’m telling you there IS more, WAY more, and you can begin finding it by simply saying, “Heavenly Father, please show me the way.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Take an apple seed from the next apple you eat. Plant it in a little pot on your desk. How long until you are eating apples? Just guess. You don’t have to be a botanist. A year? Five years? Ten years? Well here’s your answer. Never. You will never be eating apples from the seed planted in the little pot on your desk. Why not? Because it doesn’t matter how great the seed is. It doesn’t matter if it gets the perfect amount of water and the perfect amount of sunlight and it’s in the perfect soil. You will never be eating apples from it. Why not? Because the pot is too little. It can’t grow a proper root base so the growth is stunted. And that’s where your Christian walk might be right now. Stunted. Stuck in a tiny pot. Unable to bear much fruit. So what can you do? You’re gonna need a bigger pot. What does that mean? It means you’re going to have to spend more time with God. In John 15 Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” What does it mean to “abide” in Jesus? It means to live with Him, to stay with Him, to spend time with Him, to walk with Him. Are you spending time with God? Do you have a prayer time, a devotional time, a Bible study time? Or let me call it this: abiding time. The root system of our spiritual life is our relationship with God. When that root system is strong “below ground” so to speak, then we will quite naturally bear the fruit of the Spirit above ground. But if your pot is too small, in other words, if you aren’t spending much time with God, then the root system of your spiritual life becomes “root bound,” and your growth is stunted. So how to unstunt your growth? Spend more time with God. I teach what I call The Matthew 6:6 Principle. Follow this principle and your spiritual life will grow. In short, it says this, “Go into your room. Shut your door. Pray to your Father.” This means get alone with God, shut out the distractions, and commune with Him. Talk to Him. Pray for things. Enter His gates with thanksgiving. Open up the Bible and ask Him to teach you. All of these things while committing time alone with God are going to build your root base. You are doing the root work, and your tree is going to grow and bear much fruit over time. So if you find your walk with God stunted or stuck or even going backwards, well, you’re gonna need a bigger pot. You’re going to have to increase your time with God. You need to nail down a time and a place to regularly, consistently draw near to God, knowing that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Your next level of growth is right here, ready for you! But to get it, you’re gonna need a bigger pot. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I want you to do a self-test over the next week.” That was the assignment from our Sunday school teacher Rodney Rowland. “I want you to observe your thoughts and see how much of the time you are spiritually-minded compared to how much of the time you are carnally-minded.” So I did it, and the results surprised me. Here is what I discovered about myself, that many times my first thought on a matter was carnally-minded. In other words, it came from the sin nature, the selfish nature, the flesh, the old man. It was unredeemed thinking. But then the carnal mind was overcome by the spiritual mind. It was redeemed thinking. I would say it was the Holy Spirit rising up within me and giving me truth and light and understanding. That brings me to this Bible verse, Ephesians 4:22, which says, “…put off…the old man…” What does that mean, to put off the old man? “Wait a minute, Doug. I’m a saved, born again Christian. Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. Why should I have to put off the old man? I thought he was already gone.” Ephesians was written to “…the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus.” They were certainly redeemed, born again children of God, and yet Ephesians 4:22 tells them to put off the old man. Other versions of Ephesians 4:22 say it like this: “…throw off your old sinful nature…” (NLT) “…put off your old self…” (NIV) “…lay aside the old self…” (NASB) So the old self is still there, trying to sneak in with his stupid thoughts, but thank God the Holy Spirit is also there, speaking truth and life! The question is, which nature are we going to let govern? I like that word “govern.” It shows up in Romans 8:6 where it says, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” (NIV) So what does it mean to put off the old man? It means don’t listen to him. It means ignore his input. It means don’t let him govern, because the old man is going to take you downward. Instead, we listen to the voice of the Holy One! His sheep hear His voice! He redeems our thinking and brings us to the place of wisdom. One final thought: I’ve noticed that putting off the old man is not a one-time job, like taking off an old shirt and throwing it in a fire. I guess the old man will still be with us as long as we are in these bodies of flesh, but the good news is that, through Jesus, we are no longer slaves to sin! We have been set free from sin so that we can follow God and walk in His ways that lead to life and peace and holiness, bearing all the good fruit of the Spirit we read about in Galatians 5:22-23. So we put off the old man. We do it daily, even moment by moment, as we see him raise his ugly head and tell us some great idea he has, only to be obliterated by the Holy One who rises up within us and says, “That’s a terrible idea, don’t do it.” And when we don’t do the terrible idea, but instead follow God and His ways….THAT is how we put off the old man. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32) If you’re being bombarded today, you need a bigger shield. If the flaming arrows are pounding your life, you need a bigger shield. If you are feeling vulnerable and weak, and you’re running low on resistance, you need a bigger shield. What is this shield I’m talking about? I’m talking about the shield of faith.   Ephesians 6:16 says the shield of faith will “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” Do you want to be more protected?  Then use the shield of faith. Now we know how a physical shield works.  If you’re shooting actual arrows at me, I’m completely defenseless just standing there.  Pretty soon I’m going to be riddled with arrows.  But if I have a shield, I can protect myself.  The shield comes between me and the arrows. And the bigger the shield, the more protected I am. That’s how a physical shield works, but how does the shield of faith work? First of all, we’re talking about faith in God, not just some random faith.   When we put our faith in God, that is the shield of faith:  our faith in God. Now here’s an example of the shield of faith in action. One day you have the temptation to steal.  The opportunity is there, and you can get away with it.  It’s a fiery dart of temptation. But instead of letting it hit you, you throw up the shield of faith.  You say, “I’m putting my faith in God who said, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’  Yes, maybe I need the money, but I’m putting my faith in God that He will provide what I need.  Not stealing is a good thing, it’s obeying the Golden Rule.  Ephesians 6:8 says that whatever good I do, I will receive good back from the Lord, so instead of giving in to this temptation, by faith I am trusting in God.  He will provide what I need, and He will reward my obedience.” And the fiery dart of temptation is quenched by the shield of faith. Another example.  You’re flipping through your social media feed, and here comes the fiery dart of the temptation to covet.  So you throw up the shield of faith.  You say, “God, I’m putting my faith in You as my provider.  Good Shepherd, I am trusting that You will lead me to the green pastures and the still waters, that You will provide all my needs according to Your riches in glory, and I need not covet or be envious or jealous of anyone else, because You are my God and my King, and You’ve got me.” And the fiery dart of temptation is quenched by the shield of faith. I could go on and on, showing how the shield of faith will save us from the flaming arrows of the evil one. But right now I want to talk about how to build a bigger shield of faith. The more we put our faith in God, the bigger the shield will be. The more we act on our faith in God, the bigger the shield will be. One sure fire way to build your faith is to spend time with God.   Hebrews 12:2 talks about “…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…” James 4:8 says draw near to God and He will draw near to you.   Hebrews 11:6 says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Matthew 6:6 says that when we pray, our Father will reward us. And now here’s a very practical tip for building a bigger shield:  have a time and a place. I encourage you, I beg you, to nail down a time and a place to spend time with God. If you told me that you exercise, and I asked you the time and place where you exercise, you could tell me…if you are actually faithfully exercising. The same is true about prayer.  Over and over the Bible talks about being faithful and consistent and persistent and diligent in prayer.  That is really hard to do without setting a time and a place to pray. So I beg you, nail down a set time and a specific place to draw near to God in prayer and praise and thanksgiving and intercession and Bible study. When you do this faithfully, your faith will grow, your shield of faith will be bigger, and you will be far more protected from all those fiery darts of the enemy. So if you’re being bombarded today, build a bigger shield. If the flaming arrows are pounding your life, build a bigger shield. If you are feeling vulnerable and weak, and you’re running low on resistance, build a bigger shield. Your shield of faith. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Cringey statements. We’ve all made them. We’ve all heard them. Cringey statements are those things we say that make other people cringe, and they often make US cringe when we think about them later. Here is a statement I hear Christians say sometimes. “I love them…but I don’t like them.” I get the point. You’re talking about a person who says or does things you don’t like, but as a Christian, we’re supposed to love them, so what do we say? “I love them, but I don’t like them.” But you know what? No one is feeling the love here. “You love me, but you don’t like me?” I’m not feeling it. “Well Doug, how can I like someone who is so unlikeable?” Look. As Christians we don’t divide the world into the likeable and the unlikeable. That would be terrible. God wants us to love people, all people, every single person. We can walk down the street and in our mind say, “I love that guy and that guy and that guy. I love her and her and her…all of them…likeable and unlikeable…agreeable and disagreeable…every single person.” That is God’s calling and His desire for us…to love one another, to love our neighbor, to even love our enemy. Love is the natural state for God’s people, but we pile on so much baggage that it almost becomes unrecognizable. Like when we talk about “liking” someone. This isn’t the first grade playground. “I don’t like Joey because he’s mean.” As grown up Christians, we’re supposed to love people, even mean people, and God has put inside of us all the love in the universe in the form of His Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. So do we just ignore all the mean things people do? No, but we need to separate their actions from their being. We can dislike, even hate their actions. And yes, there comes a time when we can’t be around someone, when they are so corrupt that they will suck us into their vortex if we get too close. So we abhor those actions, but the person is someone made in the image of God, whom God loves, whom Jesus died for, and the Holy Spirit inside of us wants to love them through us. So we stop making the cringey statement, “I love them, but I don’t like them.” No one’s feeling it. If there’s any love there at all, it is nearly unrecognizable. But here is something we can say instead, and it really is a powerful, biblical, positive and loving statement. Instead of saying, “I love you, but I don’t like you,” we can say this. “I love you, and I want God’s best for you.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “And God I forgive everyone for everything, past…present…and future…” That’s my daily prayer. I pray through the Lord’s Prayer and when I come to the part about “…as we forgive those…” I stop and say, “God, right now, I forgive everyone for everything, past, present, and future. I preemptively forgive everyone for everything they might do or say, so that I’m free to love them like You want me to love them, with the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through me.” Yes, we know we are supposed to forgive people, but it doesn’t end there. The big goal is to love people. Forgiveness gets all the offenses out of the equation which sets us free to love people. I often say this. I forgive people so that I’m free to love people the way God wants me to love them, to want God’s best for them, and to even rejoice over them! My friend said, “Well, I’m not going to rejoice over the man that just murdered my daughter.” No, his daughter wasn’t murdered. He was just making a point. And I get the point. But nonetheless, Jesus told us to love our neighbor, and our enemy. I’m not sure you can properly love someone you haven’t forgiven. And what’s this idea of rejoicing over them? The Bible talks about God rejoicing over His people. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “He will rejoice over you with gladness…He will rejoice over you with singing.” That was a prophetic word for the future, because at the moment God’s people were rebellious and disobedient. God was certainly not rejoicing over their sin, and we don’t rejoice over other people’s sin. So what are we rejoicing over? We rejoice over the potential in people! God really does have beautiful plans and possibilities for people who will turn their lives over to Him, and for that, we rejoice over them! And we love them toward their destiny in God. And yet it is so hard to love people, right? For the most part it seems impossible to love everyone. So how can we do it? “By the power vested in me…” I love that little phrase. You often hear it at weddings. “By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife.” Well we, as Christian believers, have the Holy Spirit inside of us, and listen to what Second Timothy 1:7 says about that Spirit. It says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” By the power vested in me, the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of power and love and a sound mind, I can love everyone God brings into my path. Galatians 5:22 says “…the fruit of the Spirit is love…” God has given us a spirit of love! And of power. He’s given us the power to love! And to clear room for that power to work, we have to get all offenses off the table and out of the equation by forgiving everyone for everything…past…present…and future. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Your faith is not in your faith. Your faith is in God. Your faith is not in your prayers. Your faith is not in your purity. Your faith is not in your pastor. Your faith is in God, and He is trustworthy. Your beliefs and knowledge about God are probably not 100% trustworthy, but God is trustworthy. We just don’t know enough, believe enough, obey enough, and follow closely enough to put our faith in any of that. What that leaves is putting our faith in God. I say this because many times we put a thermometer into our faith and see if it measures up. And especially other people will put THEIR thermometer into your faith, and wow, you REALLY don’t measure up. And that hurts. And it’s frustrating. And God isn’t doing what you thought He would do, and why? It must be because of your lack of faith, some people will say. But then you don’t know how to build up your faith, and it is hard to build up your faith when it’s weak. Now you don’t even have enough faith to build up your faith. There was a man like this in the Bible. He carried a great burden. He stepped out in faith. God didn’t come through like the man thought He would, and it all became so overwhelming it left him in tears, crying out to God. We find the story in Mark chapter nine. This man had a son, and the son did the craziest things, even from a young age. He would throw himself into a fire, or into water. He would fall on the ground and foam at the mouth, basically seizures. It was horrifying for the father to watch. Then the father heard about this “Jesus movement” and decided to see what Jesus could do for his son. He took him to find Jesus, and he found Jesus’s disciples, but not Jesus. But the disciples were good enough, right? In Mark six Jesus gave them supernatural power and they went out and healed people and cast out unclean spirits. So, the man brought his son to the disciples, and guess what. They couldn’t heal the boy. I imagine they tried, used different approaches, but nothing worked. Then the scribes got involved and the arguing began and the crowd swelled around them and it was a whole “thing.” And the father was there with his son, and all he really wanted was for his son to be healed, but all he got was disappointment. He must have been thinking, “Why did I even bother? This is worse, not better, and now my son is a spectacle.” Then Jesus showed up, with Peter, James, and John, and started to get to the bottom of things. He finally said, “Bring the boy to me.” But when the boy was approaching Jesus, the Bible says that “immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.” Any parent whose child has had seizures is feeling this father’s pain right now. And worse, it was happening in front of a big crowd, and in front of Jesus and His disciples, the very people he thought would help his child and didn’t. Do you think this man’s faith level is very high right now? Maybe it was when he first decided to come to Jesus, but at this point everything seems worse, not better. Finally, the father said to Jesus, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Now I know some people who would say, “Uh oh, that man said the I-word. He said IF. God doesn’t have to do anything for you when you dare to say the word if. How much lower can your faith go than when you say to the Lord of the universe IF?” Jesus’s simple response was, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Many people find this verse encouraging, and many find it discouraging. And some people use it as a weapon to club other peoples’ faith. “See? IF you believed, your child would be healed. Your prodigal would be saved. Your marriage would be restored. So apparently you don’t believe because good things aren’t happening for you.” Well guess what. The father himself heard Jesus’s words, and he hit rock bottom. He knew he had nowhere else to go but to Jesus, but when he brought his son to Jesus, he wasn’t healed anyway. His faith was not rewarded. It was actually brought to a new low. Mark 9:24 says, “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’” I’ve heard some people say that his prayer was wrong. That you should never show any signs of unbelief in your prayers, or you should not expect anything from God. But remember, your faith is not in your faith. Your faith is not in yourself at all. Your faith is in God, so if you say, “Lord, help my unbelief,” that is actually a prayer of faith! Because people who don’t have faith, you know what they pray? They don’t. So, if you are praying to God, you do have faith! And if you are asking God to help you in your areas of unbelief…that is a prayer of faith! You are putting your trust in God that He will help you in those areas, that He will help your unbelief. In the end Jesus did heal the child, and I don’t know what happened to that family after that, but this father’s words echo down through the centuries, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” He was at the end of his rope. He had stepped out on faith and even that didn’t work. He took his child to the men of God, and they couldn’t help. It seemed to come down to this: did the father believe? Or did he believe enough? And when he realized that his son’s lack of healing might be due to his lack of belief, it almost drove him mad. It drove him to tears. He lost his composure and just cried out to Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” And that is a prayer that you and I can legitimately pray today. Of course, your faith isn’t perfect. Of course, it’s not 100%, but that doesn’t matter. God is what matters, and we are free to cry out in whatever faith we have, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) The word “obedience” sounds harsh to some people. They think of abusive parents, or schoolteachers with paddles, or military drill instructors. We can be leery of obeying anyone because we are free Americans and we bow the knee to no one. Plus, if we put ourselves under anyone’s authority, they might take advantage of us. There is truth to all of that, but what about when it comes to obeying God? Well…some people put obeying God into the same category. They don’t like the word obedience, period, even when talking about God. So today I want to put obedience into a different light. Actually, I’m not doing it. Jesus did it, in the Sermon on the Mount. At the end of that famous sermon, He talked about obedience in a completely different way, by putting it into construction terms. Now think about construction. When you are building a building, there are certain principles you have to follow, or your building will be garbage. The very first principle you have to keep in mind is gravity. All construction principles revolve around gravity. If you don’t build it right, gravity will pull it down. The second principle is the elements, including rain and wind. If you don’t build right, rain and wind will destroy it. And with rain comes erosion. The third element is going to be critters. Whether it's termites and wood bees, rats and snakes, raccoons and bears, if you don’t build it right, other creatures are for sure going to move in and destroy it. Now back to obedience. When you pay a builder to build a building for you, do you want him to be strictly obedient to good construction principles? Of course you do. You don’t pay your hard-earned money for someone to build poorly. You want it right. You want it well built. Now back to Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. At the end He said, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them (that’s obedience, by the way), I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock (in other words, using solid construction principles). Then in Matthew 7:26 He said, “But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them (that’s disobedience), will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand (in other words, using bad construction principles). If the word obedience gives you the willies, then think of it in terms of construction. How do you want to build your life? Do you want to build it well, with the best life-building principles? Then build your life using God’s construction principles in the Bible. I have found that it works. To the degree that I do what Jesus said, I see my life being built well. And to the degree that I see people NOT doing what Jesus said, I see their lives being built poorly, often with one dramatic calamity after another…so much drama. So if you don’t like the word obedience, even when it comes to obeying God, try casting it in a different light. The results will be the same, and the illustration comes from Jesus Himself. Do what God says and your life will be built well and strong and stable and enduring. Don’t do what God says and your life will be built using sloppy construction principles which leads to wreckage and drama and calamity and failure every time. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Jesus said, “Love your neighbor.” But what if your neighbor is driving his car too close behind your car, like he would push you off the road if he could. Do you love him now? Jesus said, “Love your enemy.” What if your enemy isn’t someone trying to kill you. They’re just trying to pass you on the highway. What do you do when someone who has been tailgating you now tries to pass you? No, you don’t speed up! You’re a Christian, and a Christian is supposed to love people. So when they try to pass you, you love them and want them to pass you quickly and safely, so you certainly shouldn’t speed up. More likely you should slow down a little so they can pass you safely. We’re talking about Christians in Cars today. Jesus said, “Love one another.” But if your “one another” just dinged your car in the church parking lot…your new car!...do you love them now? Romans 12:10 says, “Honor one another above yourselves.” So you’re in the grocery store parking lot, and look, there’s a great parking spot! And there’s a person behind you also looking for a good spot. Would you ever, on your best day, honor that person above yourself and actually let them have the good parking spot and take the worse spot for yourself? We’re talking about Christians in Cars, and Christians in Cars should behave differently. Lovingly. Kindly. Graciously. Humbly. Second Corinthians 13:11 says, “…encourage one another…” When someone else’s driving isn’t up to your standards, will they feel encouraged by you? Or will they feel embarrassed, or called out, or honked at? Raise your hand if you’ve ever honked at someone simply because their driving was annoying you. Galatians 5:13 says, “…serve one another humbly in love.” When you hit someone else’s car in a parking lot, what do you do? Leave as fast as you can and hope no one saw you? Or do you serve them humbly, in love, leaving them a nice, humble note with your phone number? Ephesians 4:31 says, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you…” How do you feel about that person who doesn’t know how to drive in a roundabout? What about that person who just refuses to turn right on red? Then there’s the person in the left turn lane who won’t pull out into the intersection so they can make it through. Now there’s the person honking at you, because they think YOUR driving is bad! Are you still putting away all wrath and anger and evil speaking? Or does it come leaking out of you while you’re being honked at? Ephesians 4:32 says, “…be kind to one another, tenderhearted…” How do you feel towards the police officers? How about the officer who just pulled you over? Are you feeling kind and tenderhearted? If we really love people, including police officers, how should we conduct ourselves on the highways? “But Doug, that officer pulled me over and he was wrong. I didn’t break any laws.” When someone wrongs us, as Christians, what are we supposed to do? Ephesians 4:32 goes on to say, “…forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Yes, the world is full of bad drivers, distracted drivers, even foolish drivers. Like the comedian Tim Hawkins said, “That girl almost hit me. She was so distracted, fiddling with her phone…I about spilled my cereal.” Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and, “by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.” That’s not just true for Christians in church. It’s also true, especially true, for Christians in Cars. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I’m tempted to…” Stop right there. If you are tempted to do something, stop. Temptation is bait on a hook. It’s a lure seeking to get you off track for a short term benefit. It’s ALWAYS a short term benefit that sacrifices long term good. The problem is…that short term benefit can seem SO GOOD. That’s the temptation. The fish looks at the worm, and even though it looks strange, dangling in the water with a hook in it and a line reaching to the sky, still, it looks so yummy! Years ago there was a country song that said, “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?” That’s the problem with temptation. Listen. Temptation ALWAYS includes a cloud of deception. If you let temptation linger, you enter the cloud of deception. You will only see the short term benefit and you will be blind to what you’re really going to get. Jesus put it in construction terms. If we live within God’s principles, we are building our life on a solid foundation. But when we don’t live within God’s principles, we are building on sand. Yes, you can build on sand all day long. Some people do. But sand makes a terrible foundation. It’s affected by wind and rain and critters. But rock. I mean, look at the pyramids. In fact, there are huge structures made of massive stones throughout the world that have been standing strong for thousands of years. What does that mean? It means they did not compromise the construction. Look. You are building a life. You are building a legacy. You are building an eternity. Your marriage. Your family. Your work. Your integrity. Build these on rock – live within God’s principles – and the construction will be solid. But watch out for temptation. It will try to get you to cut corners, to compromise. It will come with little lies, like, “It won’t matter,” and, “What’s the difference?” The difference is that when you give in to temptation, you are compromising your construction, and compromised construction ALWAYS FAILS. I like this word they used when talking about the Titanic a hundred years ago: it FOUNDERED. It failed. It sank. It was ruinous. It was a disaster. That’s what temptation leads to. Your ship will founder. All temptation leads to bad construction. But as Jesus said in Matthew 7:24 and 25, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not…for it was founded on the rock.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I can’t memorize!” I hear that all the time, and I get it. Memorizing is work. But memorizing is like anything else. The more you do it, the better you get. And memorizing Scripture is different than memorizing some random school assignment you despised. Jesus said His Words are Spirit and Life. God’s Word makes wise the simple. It’s a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. It’s food for your soul. As the comedian said about Pop Tarts, so I say about God’s Word: how do I get that goodness in me? By memorizing. And if you say you can’t memorize, remember that even tiny children with their teeny little brains can memorize. You can do it! As one old timer used to say, “Don’t ask me if I CAN. Ask me if I WILL.” It’s not a question of if you can. It’s a question of if you will. So how do I personally do it? How do I memorize Scripture? One new verse per weekday. I memorize verses in a row, whole chapters, whole books, not cherry-picked, not random verses here and there. I don’t memorize verse numbers. Some people are amazing at that, but for me that would be an impediment. My goal is not to be able to quote chapter and verse to you, but to get God’s Word inside me. So I add one new verse per weekday, and I also review each weekday. My friend Dr. Edith Davis wrote a book about The Micro-Spiral Method. You start small, and then keep circling around in bigger and bigger review cycles, always reviewing to help establish the words deep into your memory. You may think you can’t do it, but just start small and keep reviewing and adding a little more, reviewing and adding a little more, and you will be amazed at how much you can actually accomplish over time. Back in 2008 I said to myself, “The years are going to go by, one way or another. What will I wish I had done? I will wish I had memorized more of God’s Word.” I started with the book of Ephesians, adding one verse per weekday. The days and months went by, as they would anyway, and pretty soon I had the whole book of Ephesians memorized. Amazing! Then I did the book of Colossians the same way. Then I decided to bite off a bigger chunk of the Bible: the book of John. On December first, 2009 I started with John chapter one, verse one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I kept the same plan, adding one new verse per weekday, taking off weekends and vacations, and maintained a review cycle to keep bringing it back to my brain. On February 28, 2013 I finished memorizing the book of John. It took me 3 years and 3 months, but guess what? Those 3 years and 3 months would have gone by anyway, but in this case I had done something a normal person thinks they can’t, or won’t…memorized the entire book of John! And I’m not that smart. No, I can’t sit here and quote the entire book of John to you, but I bet some people can, and maybe you would be one of them, if you would just make the decision to start. Thy Word I have hid in my heart that I might not sin against You. (Psalm 119:11) I want to let God’s Word sink deep into my ears. (Luke 9:44) I want to abide in Jesus’s words. (John 8:31) I want to hear Jesus’s sayings and do them, like a man building his house on a rock. (Matthew 7:24) I want to let the Word of Christ dwell in me richly! (Colossians 3:16) My delight is in the law of the Lord! (Psalm 1:2) I want to take heed according to His Word! (Psalm 119:9) And one huge way I do that is by memorizing Scripture – one verse per weekday. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Doug, what’s on your bucket list? What do you want to do before you kick the bucket? Before you die? Before your life is over, kaput, fini, muerto?” All right, well, it’s a short list. In fact, my bucket list can be summed up in one painting by Yongsung Kim, one of my favorites. It’s a wintry scene in the country. It’s a cold but sunny day and a man is out for a walk. In the painting he has stopped walking and is looking up to the sky, as if he’s pondering the weather, or something greater. The man is painted to look like Jesus, in His robe and sandals, with a walking stick. And behind him is a sheep, one solitary sheep. They aren’t moving. They are just standing there, Jesus looking up to the sky, and the sheep looking up to Jesus. The sheep isn’t running off on his own. The sheep isn’t pushing the shepherd to hurry up. The sheep is just watching the shepherd, waiting for him to move. The shepherd has led him to this place, and the shepherd will lead him to the next place, wherever that might be. And that, my friend, is my bucket list in its entirety. I want to closely follow the Good Shepherd wherever He leads. As the song says, “Where He leads me I will follow.” “But Doug, don’t you want to travel? Aren’t there things you want to see before you die?” You know…Jesus never went to Rome. Isn’t that interesting? It was the greatest empire the world had ever seen, with the greatest sights and greatest achievements. People still flock to Rome today! And yet Jesus never went. Rome offered many advantages, so why didn’t Jesus go? Jesus answers that question in John 5:19. Verily, verily, I say unto you. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever the Father does, the Son also does in like manner. In John 12:49 Jesus said that He didn’t even speak on His own, “but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.” Then He said in verse 50, “…whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.” Back to this painting by Yongsung Kim. He titled the painting Heavenward, and it looks like Jesus is looking heavenward, like He’s looking toward the Heavenly Father, watching, listening, tuning in. And there is the sheep, looking at the shepherd, and waiting. The sheep isn’t going anywhere without the shepherd’s leading. And that’s my bucket list, to keep my eyes on the Good Shepherd and to follow Him wherever He leads. “But Doug, then you’re going to die and that’s the end and you will have missed out.” Well, I’m already looking way past the death of this mortal body. I’m already looking heavenward, toward eternity with God, and I’m not waiting until then to walk with Him. I’m walking with Him now, and when the day comes I will walk right out of this body and into eternity with Him where that relationship will continue in whatever new and exciting ways He has planned. Walking with God. Following the Good Shepherd. Listening for His voice. Watching for Him to move. That’s my bucket list, and I’m already doing it. And I can’t think of anything more exciting or fulfilling or everlasting. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Three losers and one winner, and I want to be the winner! But how? In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus said four people heard the Word, but only one of them “got it.” I want to be one who gets it! He described the first three as being soil where the seed of the Word couldn’t really take root. There were different excuses and reasons, but the end result was the same: no fruit. No growth. No blessing. Then in Mark 4:8 Jesus said, “But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” Then He said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Man, I want to be one who hears, don’t you? But how? I want to be that good soil, the best soil I can be, but how? So instead of wondering or thinking about it, I decided to pray about it. I just said, “Father, how can I make myself good soil?” And immediately an answer came to me: “humility.” Humility will make you good soil. In Luke 18 Jesus talked about two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was proud. Yes, he thanked God, but listen to how he did it. He said, “God, I’m so thankful that I’m not like other people” ha ha ha. With soil like that, it’s no wonder the seed just bounces off of it like glass. But the second man stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even look up when he prayed. And he cried, “Oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Now THAT is good soil. God can bear good fruit in soil like that. Humility is the key to making yourself good soil, and the only way to bear good fruit is to make yourself good soil. In Matthew 19 we read of the rich young ruler, and wow, who wouldn’t want to be those three things, rich, young, and in charge! It’s like the old country song, “Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.” But…he was not good soil. The very literal Jesus, standing right there, planted the good seed of the Word directly into the rich young ruler and what happened? Tink, tink, tink. Like a seed bouncing across glass, the Word of the Lord was of no effect, because why? Because he was lacking humility. He was lacking need and want and hunger and desire. So when Jesus speaks to me, through the Bible, through the Holy Spirit, through other parts in the body of Christ, will I be ready? Will I be good soil? Yes, I will, I must, there’s no other way that works. So I humble myself before God. I say, “Lord, You are the only way. You only know how this thing is gonna work. You only know what I really need to be doing, what to think, what to say, how to behave. Lord, I bow to You. I submit to You. I surrender to You. You are the Potter, I am the clay. You are the Shepherd, I am the sheep. You are the King! And I am your humble servant, just wanting to do what is my duty to do. God I need You in every way.” Humility. It’s the key to making yourself good soil, and becoming good soil is the only way to bear an abundance of good fruit for this life, and for the next. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Can you name even one person who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying? That’s a provocative question, and it comes from Jeremiah 23:18 in The Living Bible. God was talking about the false prophets in Jerusalem, and He said, “Can you name even one of these prophets who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen?” The answer was no, and the result was going to be judgment on Jerusalem. Now the question comes down to us today. Can you name even one person who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying? That got me thinking about this. What does it even mean to “live close to God”? What would be the keys to living close to God? Here’s what I came up with. Number one: repentance. God is holy and our sin keeps us away from Him, so we need to repent and be forgiven in order to live closer to God. That means we are sorry for our sins, we ask God to forgive us, and we walk away from our sins and toward God. Number two: draw near to God. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” It’s really quite simple. I teach what I call The Matthew 6:6 Principle, which is “get alone, shut out distractions, and talk to God.” So the first two keys for living close to God are repent and draw near to God. Number three is: listen for Him to communicate. Romans 8:16 says His Spirit bears witness with our spirit. John 14:26 says the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. The problem is not God speaking. The problem is what we read in Jeremiah 23:18, does anyone even care enough to listen? I like the advice given to the prophet Samuel when he was boy. Just say to God, “Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.” Of course we can’t make God speak to us on command. He is the Shepherd, we are the sheep. He is the Potter, we are the clay. WAITING on the Lord is a key to listening. Here are three catalysts for hearing from God: --His scripture --His people --His creation. So what we do is read the Bible and listen for the Holy Spirit inside of us to speak to us through something we read. We listen to God’s people, our fellow members in the body of Christ, and as we listen to them, we listen for the Holy Spirit inside of us to speak to us through something they say. And we observe God’s creation, His wonderful world and universe, and we listen for the Holy Spirit inside of us to bring revelation to us as we marvel at God’s creation. So far we have three keys for living close to God: repent of sin, draw near to God, and listen for Him to communicate. And the last key is this: do what He says. I have found that most leaders, including God, are not keen to communicate new things if we haven’t done the previous things. So there you go, four keys to living close to God: --repent of sin --draw near to God --listen for Him to communicate --do what He says. Then when someone says, “Can you name even one person who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying?” you can answer with this, “I’m trying!” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Do this one thing and your life will be radically changed. I call it The Matthew 6:6 Principle. In short it says, “Go into your room. Shut your door. Pray to your Father.” Or I word it this say, “Get alone. Shut out the distractions. Talk to God.” When we do that, Jesus said the Father will reward us. I want that, don’t you? And the great thing is, it doesn’t say we have to be great at it. It doesn’t say we even have to be good or decent at it. It just says we have to do it. Get alone. Shut out the distractions. Talk to God. Matthew 6:6 says, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” “Okay, Doug, how does this reward thing work, because I did this the other day and nothing happened.” Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a seed. Over and over Jesus compared Kingdom things to organic things. God works in organic ways. God works in seedtime and harvest, sowing and reaping, things happening out of sight, underground, over time. This is where faith and trust come in. Seeking God isn’t like searching Google, where you hit enter and you have your answer. Seeking God is more like planting a seed. If you want to enjoy some delicious tomatoes later in the year, you plant a bunch of tomato seeds earlier in the year. Hebrews 11:6 says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. It doesn’t say we have to seek Him perfectly, or even righteously. We just have to seek Him diligently. I can do that! James 4:8 says draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Psalm 100 verse 4 says “…enter His gates with thanksgiving…”. I can do that! Are you wanting a better life, a more fulfilling life, a new adventure? Do you and your family have needs that just seem out of reach or even impossible to meet? Are you trying to figure out what to do in this next season of your life? Then here is my advice. Take hold of The Matthew 6:6 Principle and put it into practice daily, and it’s so simple. Go into your room. Shut your door. Pray to your Father. Or as I say it, “Get alone. Shut out the distractions. Talk to God.” And when we do that, Jesus has offered us this guarantee. Our Father in heaven will reward us. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Someone passed me a joint at Lollapalooza.” That’s what the young man said. He had gone to the big festival in Chicago to check out the scene. “Did you smoke it?” “No,” he said. “I don’t know whose mouth had been on that thing.” Good point. But I was thinking about a bigger point. You don’t know what’s in it. A stranger hands you something to put in your body. What’s a good reason not to? You don’t know what’s in it. And this is true for so many things in life. We make decisions based on assumptions and limited knowledge, but so much of the time, we don’t know what’s in it. Should I go to this school? Should I take this new job? Should I move to that other place? Should I date this other person? We can do our research. We can list the pros and cons, but in end, we just don’t know what all is in it. Think of the young woman sitting in the bar, talking to the cute guy who just handed her a drink. She doesn’t know what’s in it…what’s in the drink…or what’s in the guy. This is why we seek to be led by the Holy Spirit in every area of life, because we don’t know what’s in it. We don’t know what’s around the corner. We don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know how our decisions will impact our own life, let alone generations to come. Jesus told a story, The Parable of the Rich Fool. His farm was producing tremendous crops, far more than he needed. What should he do? He decided to build more barns to store up his crops. He said to himself, “You have many goods laid up for many years…eat, drink, and be merry!” But he didn’t know what was in it. He didn’t know what was right around the corner. Luke 12:20 says, “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be…?’” The future: we don’t know what’s in it, but God does. He can lead us through the mine field of life. He can give us the wisdom we need. Romans 8:14 talks about being led by the Spirit of God. Galatians 5 talks about being led by the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. In John 14:26, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would teach us all things. Colossians 2:3 says that in God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So when the grass looks greener in the other side, be careful. You don’t know what’s in it. When you envy someone else’s life, be careful. You don’t know what’s in it. When you wish you could win the lottery, be careful. You don’t know what’s in it. So we pray. We seek God diligently. We study what Jesus said. We find wisdom in many counselors. We walk circumspectly. Because like that peaceful-looking jungle you drive by on vacation… Like the serene water around your boat in the ocean… Like the joint you get handed at Lollapalooza. You don’t know what’s in it. But God does. And He will lead us as we surrender to Him. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “What do you think about those little Christian fishes people put on their cars?” I like ‘em. “Why? Who cares?” Well, here’s why, and I can sum it all up in one word: acknowledge. Acknowledge basically means to accept something and to announce it. I can accept that my wife is a better ping pong player, but if I never announce it, then I’ve never acknowledged it. So this is why I like Christian fishes, and Christian bumper stickers and Christian t-shirts and a host of other Christian things that some people mock and scorn and disdain. I like them because they are a simple way to acknowledge God. When a Christian athlete points upwards in a reverent “thank You,” he is acknowledging God. When a Christian press secretary stands on the podium very purposefully wearing a gold cross necklace, she is acknowledging God. When I go to the gym wearing my “Lean and Clean for the King” t-shirt, I am acknowledging God. Proverbs 3:6 says, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him…” I’ve been studying through Hosea in the NIV and the word acknowledge shows up in some powerful ways, mostly prophetic proclamations that God’s people are refusing to acknowledge Him. Hosea 2:8 says that they did not acknowledge that God is the one who gave them their grain and new wine and oil, and in fact they used those very items to worship the false god Baal instead. Hosea 5:4 says, “A spirit of prostitution is in their heart: they do not acknowledge the Lord.” In Luke 12:8 Jesus said, “Whoever publicly acknowledges Me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God.” In both John 9 and John 14 we are told about people who actually believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but because they didn’t want to be persecuted, they refused to acknowledge Jesus. The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, or acknowledge, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Why wait until then? I want to acknowledge it now. I want to acknowledge God in all my ways, and then He will direct my paths. I’ll do it in big ways, like right now, on the radio. And I’ll do it in small ways, like making my own phone case with something about God on it. So yes, I’m all about these little Christian items, no matter what anyone else thinks of them, because I’m thinking of them from this one angle. It’s one very simple way for us to acknowledge God. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Just give me one thing to do,” she said. We were talking about Christianity and faith in God and salvation, you know, all the basics of the Gospel. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she wanted to. I said, “God created the universe, and He created people in His image.” She said, “Okay, I don’t have any problems with that.” I said, “So He created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden and they had great freedom, but they had one rule, and they broke it.” She was familiar with the story. I said, “So sin came into the world, and it became a barrier between us and God, because God is holy. So Jesus came and shed His blood and died and rose again, paying the price for our sin, and now through Jesus we can remove the barrier of sin that separates us from God.” We talked about belief and repentance and forgiveness, and she said, “Okay, let’s say I’ve done that. What does God really want from me?” I said, “God wants to have a relationship with you,” and I brought up Micah 6:8 where it says, “What does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” I said, “God wants to walk with us, to be with us, to have a relationship with us. Because He is Spirit, that makes it different, but that’s what Micah 6:8 says He wants, for us to walk with Him, which basically means to live in fellowship with Him.” She said, “Okay, the Bible has like a thousand things for me to do. Can you give me just one that I can focus on? Just give me one thing to do.” I said, “Okay, here is one thing, just one simple thing you can do, every day. Just thank God. And I don’t mean just have a thankful attitude. I mean talk to Him and literally say, “God, I thank You for…whatever. Thank Him you can walk and talk. Thank Him you can breathe. Thank Him you can eat. Thank Him for your shoes. You can thank Him for anything.” Psalm 100 verse 4 says, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving…” First Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God…” So if you’re feeling overwhelmed today, or you don’t know what God wants from you, and you just wish there was one thing you could focus on, here’s a good one. If, like this woman, you would say to me, “Just give me one thing to do,” here it is. Talk directly to God and tell Him “Thank You” for all the things you are thankful for. This is our personal relationship with God, and one of the most important things to be said in every personal relationship is this, and it’s so simple. Just say, “Thank You.” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Fun was my gold standard growing up. Everything was measured by how fun it was. “How was school today?” “Boring.” “How was the birthday party?” “Fun!” “Would you like to go visit Grandma?” “Does she have any new toys?” Yes, it was the old days when we were kicked outside all summer, but I can tell you we weren’t looking for work. We were looking for ways to have fun. That’s not so bad when you’re a kid, but when you hit the teenage years it starts to get a little thorny. I was not a great athlete, but I loved playing sports. PLAYING sports, not WORKING sports. “Okay, you wanna play on the basketball team? Time to run around the gym 500 times.” “What??? Where’s the fun in that?” “You need to get a job.” “Where’s the fun in that?” “You know, you should try to be friends with that guy over there. He’s new in town.” “Yeah, but he’s not very fun.” Good Lord in heaven, if I could only go back in time and take out some of the stupid, I might have been a halfway decent person. But thank the good Lord in heaven that He reached down and saved me from myself. And one thing He radically changed is my value system. I moved away from valuing everything (and everyone) by how much fun it was. I began to grow into God’s value system, and wow, it was so much better. Now on the surface, living according to God’s values can seem un-fun, or boring, or even like a lot of work, and for what? So I want to share with you this one catchy little line that you can use on yourself, or on anyone else who says living for God doesn’t sound very fun. You can say this: Fun? It’s better than fun. It’s rewarding! Yes, there is something better than fun. It’s when something is rewarding. Man, I sure missed that point in all my growing up years. I really didn’t work hard at anything except having fun. I didn’t work hard at school or sports. I was in the band and was even halfway decent, but since I didn’t think it was all that fun I hardly worked at it, and that’s a shame. I didn’t even work hard at work, and that got me fired from a couple of jobs, and I probably deserved to be fired from the others. But thank God when He grabbed me He also instilled in me a work ethic that just wasn’t there before. And immediately my life began to bloom and bear good fruit. My relationships improved across the board. My grades improved. My satisfaction level grew. I was no longer measuring everything by how fun it was. I wasn’t even thinking about that anymore. I had a whole new set of measurements to live by, and they were astoundingly better. I could go on and on about this, but I’ll just leave you with this one catchy little phrase. If you ever hear that little voice that says, “Living by God’s values? That sure doesn’t sound very fun,” you can have this trusty answer at the ready. It’s better than fun. It’s rewarding. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) You are not your body. You have been given a body to steward. You are not your body. You have been placed by God into a body, and one day soon you will leave that body. You are not your body, and that means your worth, your value, your self-esteem, your identity are not wrapped up in your body. Your worth, your value, your identity all come from our Creator God, our Father in heaven, and He values you highly. Listen to this. America’s founding fathers talked about our inalienable rights. Well, you have inalienable value. Your value is solid, unmovable, eternal as a creation of God, and it doesn’t matter what has happened to your body. You are not your body. You have been given a body to steward. Maybe you don’t think it’s the best body. You should be taller, prettier, stronger, faster, better. Well, guess what. The most beautiful people in the world all wake up one day and look in the mirror and say, “Oh my God, what happened?” And they probably aren’t praying to God when they say it, but they should be, because He has a message for them. You are not your body. You have been given a body to steward. Yes, I keep saying this steward thing. What am I talking about? Our body is like any other gift from God. He gave it, like raw materials, and He expects us to use it for His glory and for the good of His creation. In radio I work with voices, all kinds of voices. I wish I had a dollar for every person who said, “I don’t have a good voice.” I tell them, “You have the perfect voice. You have the voice God gave you, and now you are the steward of that voice, called to improve it and grow it and use it for His glory and for the blessing of others.” Are you getting older and not liking what you’re seeing? Don’t worry or stress about that for one more minute. Take what you have and steward it the best you can. A steward is not the owner. A steward is a manager, responsible for handling something well on behalf of the owner. We are to be good stewards of our body. Yes, eat right and exercise. Yes, take care of your teeth. Yes, stop smoking or taking drugs or whatever thing that’s bad for your body. That’s bad stewardship. Yes, try to look good, but not for ego’s sake. You try to look good because God has called us to beauty and order and function. “Well, Doug, I guess my body was built more for function than beauty.” Well praise God for it! But keep in mind that you are not your body. Your identity and self-esteem should not ride one minute on how your shell looks on the outside compared to all the other shells walking around on the planet. That is a losing proposition for every single one of us. Another thought: if you were to tragically lose a limb in an accident, how much of you would be left? All of you would be left because you are not your body. You are still 100% you, even if your body loses some of its abilities. And your value to God is still 100%, never forget that. Second Corinthians chapter 5 talks a lot about our body, this “tent,” this “tabernacle” in which we dwell for a while. Then verse 8 talks about the day when Christians will be “absent from the body” and “present with the Lord.” First Corinthians chapter 6 talks a lot about our body, and the last verse concludes, “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body…and in your spirit…” Your spirit is you, the real you. Or you might call it your soul. Different people define these words in different ways, but my main point is this. You are not your body, so whatever there is about your body that you don’t like, don’t fret about it. Don’t think less of yourself. You are of the most extreme value to God your creator. He gave you this body and He wants you to use it, to make the most of it, being the best steward of this wonderful gift. “But Doug, I was born in the wrong body gender.” No, God put you in the exactly the right body gender. “But Doug, I have feelings of attraction that go against what the Bible says is right.” Well, maybe your feelings are lying to you. God has given us the framework for living in this body and for interacting with the rest of His creation. Then First Corinthians 5 talks about what will happen when we leave this body. Verses 9 and 10 say that we should try to please God while we are living in this body, because one day we will leave this body and appear before the judgment seat of Christ where there will be an accounting for the things done in the body, “whether good or bad.” So your body is of great value to God, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. And He is watching us closely to see what we will do with this incredible gift. Another great thing would be if we would stop valuing other people based on their appearance. But that’s another lesson for another day. For now, just soak up the powerful truth of these two statements. You are not your body. You have been given a body to steward. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Should I take this sandwich home?” That’s what my co-worker asked when I walked in the kitchen and saw the ponderous look on his face. “Should I take this sandwich home, or leave it here for tomorrow?” Instead of answering outright, I gave him a priceless tool for decision-making. I said, “What will you WISH you had done?” He said, “Well, if I get home and decide that I would like to eat the sandwich, I will WISH that I had brought it home.” I said, “There’s your answer. And if you don’t eat it tonight, you can always bring it back tomorrow.” Last week a friend of mine in his mid-forties had quadruple bypass heart surgery. He was a smoker and if you asked him, “What do you WISH you had done 20 years ago?” the answer would be, “Stop smoking, immediately.” This is a powerful tool for decision-making. Ask yourself this simple question, “What will I wish I had done?” As you make plans for another year in your life, how do you know what to do? When you come to a fork in the road, how do you make the decision? One way is to ask, “What will I wish I had done?” Time always goes by. The future always arrives. Reaping always follows sowing. When that time comes, what will you wish you had done? In Matthew 25, Jesus told The Parable of the Talents. Verse 19 says that after a long time, the master came to settle accounts. Accounts will be settled. What will you wish you had done? Second Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ…” What will you wish you had done? As we raised our four kids, I would look ahead and think, “What will I wish I had done as their father?” And then I did it, instead of only wishing that I had done it. I’m working now to build a relationship with our grandchildren, and you know, little kids can be troublesome! But I’m looking ahead to when they are teenagers, and twenty-somethings, and they start giving birth to our great-grandchildren. What will I wish I had done? I will wish I had taken time to build a relationship with them when they were little, and so I am. I think you will find this question helpful in nearly every area of life. It helps you set your eyes on the big picture, on the long run, instead of looking only at what might satisfy your lazy, no good carnal flesh right this minute. Another year of life is coming up. Another trip around the sun. And when that time comes, and it always does…what will you wish you had done? “It was a great decision,” my co-worker said, smiling. “What decision?” I said. “The decision to take my sandwich home last night,” he beamed. “Great decision!” And there it is. Another wise decision made after asking the simple but life-changing question, “What will I wish I had done?” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) You’ve heard of the Prayer of Jabez? Well, this is the prayer of George. George Bailey, that is, and I pray it all the time. George Bailey is the guy in the classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” His life was going down the drain, and he found himself in a bar one snowy night trying to drink the edge off. Everyone else was preparing for Christmas and enjoying some holiday cheer, but not George. He was on the verge of being arrested, even though it wasn’t his fault, and the pressure was unbearable. So he sat at the bar, and under the weight of it all he finally asked God for help. Now if you’ve seen the movie, you know that it actually starts in heaven, BEFORE George prays his prayer. The preparations in heaven are being made LEADING UP TO George’s prayer. Other people are already praying for George. Heaven is well aware of George’s troubles, and heaven is ready to respond…WHEN he prays. And finally, he does pray. And it’s very simple. He says, “God. Oh God. Dear Father in Heaven. I’m not a praying man, but if You’re up there, and You can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God.” Nothing seems to happen. In fact, things only seem to get worse. But behind the scenes we know that George’s answer is on the way. So what is the “prayer of George Bailey”? It’s just this simple, and I pray it all the time. “Lord, please show me the way.” Do you find yourself in situations where you don’t know what to do? You don’t know where to go? Then pray The Prayer of George. “God, please, show me the way.” You could also call it The Prayer of David. King David that is. He wrote in Psalm 25:4, “Show me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths.” It’s a type of prayer we see often in the Psalms, “Show me the way.” You know what…I don’t know what to do each day. What is the best thing to do? What does God want me to do? What will be the best in the long run? What is best for eternity? What is best for my loved ones? What is best for the generations to come? I don’t know. How could I know? But God knows. And that’s way I’m constantly praying the prayer of the Psalms, the prayer of King David…The Prayer of George Bailey. “Oh God, please…show me the way.” May God show you the way today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I was never good at fasting. I tried it off and on for years and never had what I thought were good results. I’d make the commitment, “I’m not eating anything from this time to this time. I’m really going to seek God and dedicate myself.” I gave it the old college try, and then would just feel cranky and hungry and scattered. My work suffered. Probably my family suffered, and for what? I saw other Christians fasting, seemingly successfully, but I felt no fire in it, no visitation, no moving of God. That’s not required of course, but to me, fasting felt like a wasteland, without value or fruit. Then we moved to Tallahassee at the end of 2005 and went to a church that declared a fast to start the year 2006 – but it was a different kind of fast, a “Daniel fast.” Surely I had heard of that before, but I don’t recall it. I thought there was just one way to fast, and that was to eat no food, none. So this Daniel fast was a new idea to me, where your eating was limited, but not eliminated. So the church announced this Daniel Fast, but we had just moved to a new city and I had my hands full. I didn’t want to mess with a new fast right then, but I said, “If they do it next year, I’ll do it.” Then I had the idea for a different kind of fast, so I went on a shopping fast. What does that mean? It means I bought nothing for myself, no clothes or shoes or toys or electronics or whatever. Yes, I bought necessities like food and deodorant, but nothing extra. And I did that for two years. It was humbling, and brought discipline and strength of mind, and turned my heart even more to God saying, “You are my provider.” And I learned one big thing about myself: it’s hard for me to pass up a good deal! For example, I would see a shirt I liked, and hey, it’s 50 percent off! It’s 75 percent off! IT’S 90 PERCENT OFF! But no, I couldn’t buy it because I was on a shopping fast. Like all fasting, it was hard at first, but then I learned and grew and became a better, stronger person. And it was the first fast in my life that truly felt satisfying, like it mattered, it worked, it had value, and God was in it. Then January, 2007 rolled around, and the church once again called for a 3 week Daniel fast, and I was in. Then I found out that there really isn’t one set way to do a Daniel fast, but the overall goal is to deny yourself certain pleasant foods and drinks. I wanted my Daniel fast to be easy to figure out, where I wasn’t getting nitpicky about ingredients, so I came up with these 5 guidelines: --drink only water --eat no meat --eat no bread --eat no sweets --eat nothing fried. I don’t know what I had been doing to my body before this, but I was quickly plunged into a dull, yucky headache. I wasn’t particularly prone to headaches, but I did get them sometimes, and this one was constant. It didn’t even go away after I slept. Now listen to this. While I was in the middle of that headache, probably a sugar and caffeine withdrawal, I felt God rise up in me and say, “Do it all year.” And in my foggy-headed headache I said, “Yes, I will do this all year.” Eventually the headache went away, and listen to this. It was YEARS before I had another headache of any kind, and to this day I never get headaches like I got them before I went on the Daniel fast. The Daniel fast was hard at first, because I cut out those certain foods, but I didn’t have good replacement foods. I lost weight to the point where my wife was like, “You’re clothes aren’t fitting right.” But it was an exciting journey! I spent a lot of time hungry, but unlike a no-food-at-all fast, I was free to eat and get nourishment, just from a limited number of sources. One thing I really learned about myself was that, even though I didn’t have one big monster sin or problem that had its hook in me, it was like I had a thousand little hooks in me, jerking me this way and that, meaning I didn’t really have full control over myself. It was like, “Oh, M and M’s, yes! I need some.” “Oh, a Big Mac and fries. I need that.” “You know what I really need right now? A Coke! Better go get one.” “You know what sounds good right now? A HOT FUDGE SUNDAE!” I realized that I had spent most of the days of my entire life being jerked this way and that by every appetite, every whim and desire. And this Daniel fast was slowly cutting all those fishing lines and setting me free from their hooks. Now I’m thinking of Philippians 3:19 where it says, “…their god is their stomach…” The New Living Translation says, “…their god is their appetite…” I was there, man, with every little appetite acting like my god and telling me what to do, and I was doing it! “I need some chips and dip, right now!” In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says that when we fast, our Father will reward us. I did that Daniel fast for 3 years, and the Father truly rewarded me. In the middle of that 3 years I felt His Spirit rising up within me and calling me to get locked back in to Bible memorization, so I started memorizing one verse per weekday, and you know what? I’m never going to stop. And that is just one amazing product of that Daniel fast. Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” The question is, what are we denying ourselves? So often the answer is, “Nothing.” It almost seems un-American to deny ourselves anything! But to follow Jesus there must be self-denial, and one obvious form of self-denial is fasting. “God, I’m giving this up because I’m so hungry for more of You.” I’m fasting secular music. I’m denying myself whatever pleasures that might bring in order to set my mind on things above. I’m currently on what I call a “frontline soldier beverage fast.” Yes, now I’m making up my own fasts. But I’m praying, “God, I’m denying myself all beverages except water and black coffee because I’m so thirsty for You. As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after Thee.” A while back our church once again called for a 3 week fast to start the year, but it was open-ended. You pick what you want to fast. So I prayed, “God, what should I fast?” And I left it there. I didn’t want to conjure up something to fast. I wanted God to tell me what to fast, if anything. I was willing, but I wanted Him to tell me. It didn’t happen right away, but at some point it suddenly popped into my mind, “Fast breakfast.” So I started fasting breakfast on normal workdays, and within the first few days I really felt like God had given me a gift. Yes, I was hungry, but I was going to eat after noon anyway, so it was very doable. And I did something different. I did not pick an end date for the breakfast fast. I just renew it day by day. No promises. No commitments. Just, “Today, I’m doing it. I’m fasting breakfast today.” And I’ve been doing it for years now, with no plans to stop. Like I said, it really feels like God has given me a gift, a blessing! And that’s how I now feel about fasting. It’s a gift. A blessing! What I formerly would have called “The Tortures of Fasting” I now call “Adventures in Fasting.” My early years felt unprofitable, even negative. But these later years have been a true joy, an exciting adventure in denying myself in order to follow Jesus every day as closely as I can. And I pray that you will, too. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Maybe don’t be in such a hurry to flee the church building after service. Maybe your interactions with people in the hallway are as important as the service itself. I call it Hallway Discipleship. You can also call it “loving people.” It’s interacting with people in the hallway, your brothers and sisters in Christ, your family members in the family of God. It’s informal. It’s casual. It’s not structured. But it’s just as valuable as formal discipleship. It’s Hallway Discipleship. It’s taking time to look people in the eye, say hello, ask how they’re doing, and being in no hurry. It’s listening to them, hearing about their day, their life, their family, their work. It’s not looking past them to rush off to the next thing. When we do this, when we actually listen and care, here’s what it does. It earns us the opportunity to plant a seed. This is where Hallway Discipleship happens. Discipleship is helping someone follow Jesus more closely. In Hallway Discipleship, we help someone follow Jesus more closely one seed at a time. And God’s Holy Spirit is deeply involved in Hallway Discipleship. Don’t take these hallway encounters for granted. Take them as God moments, divine appointments, meetings arranged by God Himself. God is in it! And God cares about how we handle these opportunities. Do we take advantage of them, like the first two guys in the parable of the talents? Or do we bury them like the last guy, the one Jesus referred to as “wicked and lazy”? Eek. I don’t want to be that guy! Galatians 6:10 says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” The household of faith…that’s the people in the hallway! More than once the Bible says, “especially the household of faith.” It’s hard to love and care for the household of faith when we are in such a hurry to get away from them. So slow down. Take it easy. Take some time. Talk to some people. Have some casual conversations. Let God lead, and you’ll be amazed! It’s not a waste of time. It’s Hallway Discipleship. And you’ll find God Himself right in the middle of it. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32) What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth? Jesus said to worship in spirit and truth, but it’s so mysterious.  What did He mean? I don’t have all the answers, but let’s look at the context. In John chapter four Jesus was talking to the woman at the well.  At one point she tried to pull a fast one and told Jesus, “I have no husband.” This is important.  When we come to God, we must come to Him in truth.  This woman did not. She was quibbling.  She was being deceptive while not outright speaking lies. But Jesus called her out on it:  “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” Boom.  You don’t come to Jesus quibbling, being evasive, being deceptive. Then she took another strategy.  Change the subject.   She said, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Then Jesus said, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.” So we are looking at the question, what did Jesus mean when He said we must worship in spirit and truth. I said look at the context, and the context is that the woman at the well was asking about the proper physical location on earth where we should go to worship God. But Jesus didn’t give her a physical location.  Instead, He gave this mysterious answer, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…” I take that to mean that we don’t have to go to some specific physical location to worship God, because worship is our spirit rising up in worship and adoration to God, and that can be done anytime, anywhere. That seems simple enough, right?  Sometimes we think of worship as singing in a congregation at a church service in a church building, and that certainly can be worship. But worship can also be at home, at midnight, lying in bed, in silence, not uttering a single word out loud, but worshiping “in spirit.” Now what about “in truth”?  He said to worship “in spirit and truth.”  What does it mean to worship “in truth”? It probably has layers of meaning, but back to the context.  The woman did not initially come to Jesus “in truth.”  She was quibbling.  She was evasive, and for a lot of good reasons.  But we are told to worship God “in truth.”  I think that means we come to God with no guile, no falseness, no ego, no pride, no hidden motives.   I think of the old Billy Graham altar call song, “Just as I am…oh Lamb of God, I come.” So what does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth?  I think it means we don’t have to go to some certain place to worship God.  We can worship Him anytime, anywhere, in spirit, from our hearts.  And we come to Him in truth, wide open, in honesty and humility, because He knows it all anyway, and that’s just another reason to worship Him.  He knows us, and He loves us. Praise God. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32) You can’t do everything. You aren’t even supposed to.  You weren’t designed to. There’s a whole body for that. I’m talking about the church, which is the body of Christ. Jesus is the head, and all of His followers make up the body. Yes, Jesus has humongous plans for His body, such as reaching the whole world and loving every person and teaching them everything He taught. But that doesn’t mean that YOU have to do all that.  You are just ONE PART, one cell in this body of Christ. You know, there’s a difference in your physical body between brain cells and white blood cells.  They are different organisms with different purposes. If you watch white blood cells under a microscope, they might not appear to be doing much, until some attack takes place and they rush into action. Now imagine the brain cells coming along and trying to talk the white blood cells into abandoning their jobs and helping out the brain cells for a while. It would be a disaster.  White blood cells have a design and a purpose, and the body works best when they stick to their job and do it to the best of their ability. The same is true with the individual parts of the body of Christ.  We have callings and giftings.  We are each unique parts.   Now suddenly the call goes forth that such and so needs to be done.  The trumpet is sounding!  Will you answer the call? Wait a minute.  There’s a whole body for that.   The lesson here is, every single body part doesn’t respond to every single call to action.   This is where guilt comes in, and burnout.  It’s why some people leave the local church altogether, because they can’t do it all. Of course they can’t do it all.  There’s a whole body for that. Pastors can’t do it all.  Deacons can’t do it all.  No one can do it all, and they aren’t supposed to. I love what it says in First Corinthians 12:11.  It is the Spirit of God who distributes all the gifts in the body of Christ, and He distributes them to each one, just as He determines. Ephesians 4:16 talks about the body of Christ and uses this phrase, “…as every part does its share.” What is your share and my share in the body of Christ?   We each need to do our share with all of our might.  No laziness.   No excuses. But what about all the duties and callings and missions that aren’t our part in the body?  Who’s going to do them?  Things will be left undone! You can’t worry about that.  Don’t be guilted into leaving your post to go do something else.  Don’t shirk your own part in the body to go elsewhere. I have some good news today!  You don’t have to take on the whole burden of the worldwide work of the church, and here’s why.   There’s a whole body for that. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

+DESCRIPTION+ I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)   Not keeping your word is like pouring gas on the grass.   Have you ever accidentally spilled gas on your lawn?   You’ll know if you did because the grass will die a terrible death.   Right now I have a big dead circle in my backyard, and I’m blaming the grandkids.   When we moved into our current home, the previous owner left a lot of random stuff in and around an old shed in the backyard.   One day the grandkids were exploring and dragged an old metal gas can out from under the shed, and proceeded to empty its contents…where?  Not in the dirt, of course, but right on the beautiful grass, and now it’s dead, dead, dead.   That’s the way of gas on grass.  It’s a killer.   I remember the first time I learned this lesson.  We were renting a house and the owner was proud of the lawn.  He fertilized it and gave me just two instructions, “Keep it mowed, and pull any weeds that come up.”  What he forgot to say was, “And whatever you do, don’t try to gas up the mower while the mower is sitting on the grass.”   I mean, it was only like a drop or two of gas, right?   But it still left a distinct dead spot in the middle of his luxurious lawn.   Now imagine this.  The lawn is your reputation, and the gas is when you don’t keep your word.   Not keeping your word is like spilling gas on the grass.   It puts a dead spot in your reputation.   Now imagine what happens if you break your word multiple times.  The lawn of your reputation starts to look spotty.   Now you have to start saying things like, “I PROMISE I’ll be there,” “I SWEAR I’ll do it,” “You can count on me.”   You know what?  People who keep their word don’t have to promise and swear because their word IS their promise.   Let me say that again.  Your word IS your promise.  You should never have to say, “I promise,” because your word IS your promise.   And the bigger the promise, the bigger the dead spot if you break it.   When someone breaks their wedding vows, for example, it’s like pouring gas on the whole lawn.  And then you wonder why it takes so long for people to trust you?  The more gas you pour, the longer it takes for the grass to return, if it ever does.   And remember, gas doesn’t just kill the grass.  It also contaminates the soil underneath.     When you break your word to someone, it sinks in.  They counted on you, and you let them down, and it sinks in.  And if you do this repeatedly, you aren’t just killing the grass of your reputation.   You are contaminating the soil underneath your reputation, and that’s really bad.   In Matthew 5:37 Jesus said let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no,” “no.”  “For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”   Proverbs 10:19 says that the more we talk, the more likely we are to sin.   If you find yourself having to talk a lot to convince people to trust you, it’s probably because you have killed your reputation by not keeping your word.   The old timers used to say it this way:  your word is your bond.   And the thing is, you don’t have to say it.  You don’t have to make a commitment.  You don’t have to announce, “I’ll be there at 7 p.m. sharp,” or whatever.   You don’t have to say it, but once you do, you better move heaven and earth to keep your word, because not keeping your word is like pouring gas on the grass.   May God bless you today.   I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Sometimes God uses little scraps of words to speak mountains of truth. I think that’s what’s happening in the song “In Awe” by Hollyn. If my sources are correct, this song wasn’t written in the usual way. The singer Hollyn was literally put into a vocal booth in a sound studio and told to just sing. She said, “I didn’t have any words at first, so I took my time, closed my eyes, and for a solid hour thanked God for what He’d been doing in my life.” And out came the song “In Awe.” James 4:8 says that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. It sounds like that’s what Hollyn did in creating this song, and that is definitely what I feel whenever I hear it, like I’m drawing near to God and He is drawing near to me. And the lyrics say that. The song opens with these words: Can’t speak, So close I can feel You breathe, You’re so holy and worthy, You know where I’ve been. Can’t move, So close to You I’m see-through, No, not innocent like You, Oh God, I’m sorry. It reminds me of Isaiah chapter 6 where the prophet Isaiah sees the Lord, high and exalted, and Isaiah’s reaction is to realize his own sinfulness in the light of the holy God. In the song “In Awe,” the singer is drawing into the presence of God and begins to feel the weight of His holiness, and listen to that line again: You’re so holy and worthy, You know where I’ve been. God knows where you’ve been, my friend. He knows where I’ve been. He knows EVERYWHERE we’ve been. He knows any shame, any sin, any hurt, any anger and bitterness. He knows where we’ve been, and it’s an awesome and terrible thought. The song continues: So close to You I’m see-through. God sees it all, including any dark places. There is no hiding before the living God, and listen to the singer’s response to the presence of God: I’m not innocent like You. Oh, my friend, we are not innocent, and we stand in stark contrast to the high and exalted, holy and worthy almighty God. No wonder Isaiah, the mighty prophet of God, cried out in agony, “Woe unto me. I am ruined.” We are see-through in His presence. He knows where we’ve been. He knows it all. The singer almost whimpers in God’s presence, and the song goes on: No, not innocent like You, Oh God, I’m sorry. What else can be said? What else can we say but, “Oh God, I am so, so sorry.” But oh my friend, listen to this Bible verse. Psalm 34:18. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. Yes, our hearts break for our sin in the presence of God, but as soon as they break, He rushes in. The song continues: I’m living in awe, You don’t need me at all, But You couldn’t love me more. Oh man, let that sink in. God, You don’t need me at all…but You couldn’t love me more.” First John 3:1. What great love the Father has LAVISHED on us, that we should be called His children. The song continues: Your love is overwhelming, Your love is overwhelming, It’s only You and me here. Your love is overwhelming, Your love is overwhelming, I can hardly breathe here. I’m living in awe, ‘Cause You don’t need me at all, But You couldn’t love me more, You couldn’t love me more, You couldn’t love me more. Hallelujah. Praise God. Thank You, Father, for the love You have lavished on us, in spite of ourselves, in spite of our sin, in spite of where we’ve been, but You couldn’t love us more, and we bow in Your holy presence and we love you back. We love You back. We love You back. Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) There’s Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree. How did he get there? He climbed, which must have been a funny sight. I have 13 grandkids. We see them in trees all the time, but we never see older people in trees. And we NEVER see older rich people in robes up in trees. But that was Zacchaeus, an older, rich, short man in robes, climbing up a sycamore tree just to get a glimpse of Jesus who was coming that way in what basically must have been like a parade. Why was Zacchaeus so interested in Jesus? Why is ANYONE so interested in Jesus? In fact, why on earth are millions of people on earth still to this day so interested in Jesus? It can’t be because he was a local phenomenon, flash in the pan, 15 minutes of fame guy. Nobody is that interested in someone like that. Rich guys in robes don’t climb trees for that. So why was Zacchaeus there? That’s one of the oddities in this story of Zacchaeus. Why was he there? Luke 19:3 says he “…sought to see who Jesus was…” So it sounds like Zacchaeus was doing the seeking, desiring to know more about Jesus. Then comes another oddity in the story. Luke 19:5 says that when Jesus came to the place where Zacchaeus was, “He looked up and saw him, and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.’” As a child, I remember standing outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis and watching the players arrive. There they were, in the flesh, all those stars I had seen on TV and on my baseball cards. None of them ever turned to me and called me by name and said they were coming to my house. It would have blown my mind! “How did they know my name? Why are they coming to my house?” But that’s what happened to Zacchaeus. Jesus looked up into the tree, called him by name, and said, “I’m coming to your house.” The life of Zacchaeus is transformed in the presence of Jesus. He gives half of his possessions to the poor, and he pays back fourfold everyone he has taken advantage of. Then Jesus says something so joyful and jubilant, “Today salvation has come to this house!” Man, that’s just like Jesus, just going in and revolutionizing someone’s life, turning them around in just moments in His presence. And He’s still doing it today! He did it for me and He’s done it for millions. And here’s the final and grandest oddity in the story of Zacchaeus. It’s right at the end, almost an afterthought, and yet it puts the entire story of Zacchaeus into a different light. In Luke 19:10 Jesus said, “…for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Wait a minute. The story starts with Zacchaeus seeking Jesus. But at the end we find that Jesus was seeking Zacchaeus! Wow. That explains Jesus stopping right at the tree and looking up and calling him by name. It explains Jesus’ offer to go to his house. It wasn’t that Zacchaeus was seeking Jesus. It was that Jesus was seeking Zacchaeus! One more Scripture before I close. In John 6:44, Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…” Why did Zacchaeus run ahead and climb up into the sycamore tree to see Jesus? Maybe he thought he was just curious. And maybe you think you are just curious. You want to know more about Jesus. But you know what? You aren’t just curious. Zacchaeus wasn’t just curious. God the Father was drawing him, and if your heart and mind are wanting to know more about Jesus, God is drawing you. He stands at the door and knocks, and if you will answer, He will come in, and just like Zacchaeus, a little time in the presence of Jesus and your life will be changed forever. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) It’s one of the most exciting times in life. It’s when opportunity presents itself. It’s exciting because you have to make a choice, and you know that your choice will affect your future, and maybe the future of many others. It’s exciting, and nerve wracking. In fact, some people are scared of opportunities precisely because of the possible huge ramifications. They think, “Well, if I don’t choose at all, at least I won’t make the wrong choice.” Tell that to the man in Jesus’ parable who hid his talent in the ground instead of using the opportunity wisely. Ah, now that’s the key: using opportunities wisely! So how do we do that? First of all, the Bible tells us not to “give opportunity” to the flesh, or to the devil. So when we are looking at an opportunity and deciding what to do about it, we clearly want to avoid things that are sinful. We don’t become unequally yoked. We don’t cheat people. We don’t take advantage of people. We don’t enter into win-lose situations where I win and you lose. That may be taking advantage of an opportunity, but it’s wrong and sinful. Galatians 6:10 says, “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all…” So how do we handle opportunities? One thing we are looking for is how we can use this opportunity to do good for all, not just me. We’re looking for opportunities to create win-win situations, where everyone’s situation is improved and no one comes up a big loser. One question to ask is, “How can I use this opportunity to solve problems, both my problems and other people’s problems?” Proverbs tells us that lazy people ignore opportunities, and ignorant people don’t even notice them. I think God often brings opportunities into our life. Back to the parable of the talents, in Matthew 25 Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” Like what? It’s like a rich man who gave opportunities to his servants, and he wanted to see how they would handle them. Maybe you never thought of it that way. I think God brings opportunities into our life, and then He watches, like a patient Father, to see what we will do with them. What He wants is for us to take advantage of the opportunity in order to do good. Next comes the question of which opportunities to work on, because in this day and age the world is crawling with opportunities and you can’t possibly take on all of them. Back to the book of Galatians. Galatians 5:16 tells us to “walk in the Spirit,” which means to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:18 tells us to be “led by the Spirit.” Galatians 5:25 tells us to “live in the Spirit.” As Christian believers, we have to learn to discern the leading and speaking of God’s Holy Spirit inside of us. And then when opportunity presents itself, we can watch for God’s Spirit in us to rise up and put a fire in us that says, “Yes, there it is. Go for it.” Yes, it can still be nerve wracking, because it’s important! But don’t be like the lazy and ignorant and even wicked person who lets opportunities pass by, ignoring them while supposedly “playing it safe.” It didn’t work for the man in the parable of the talents, and it won’t work for us! So when you see the opportunity arise, take a good look, pray for wisdom, listen to the Holy Spirit, and be ready to strike while the iron’s hot, going forward in faith and trust that God is with you, and He will help you turn it into a winner for everyone involved. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I’ve shared this parable with a bunch of people lately. Jesus was often asked about the kingdom of heaven, and I can imagine Him looking up, hand on his bearded chin, pondering and saying, “What is the kingdom of heaven like, and to what shall I compare it? Hmmm…” “It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and put in his garden, and it grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.” Question: how long does it take a tree to grow from a seed? A long time. How long does it take the kingdom of heaven to grow inside of us? A long time. So my message is: have patience with yourself. Mighty trees take a long time to grow. In Luke 17 the Pharisees were asking Jesus about the kingdom, and Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” How is the kingdom of God within you? Here is a quick breakdown. We’re all born in sin. We are all sinners. Jesus died for our sins. When we turn to God and receive His forgiveness for our sins, that takes care of the sin problem that separates us from God, and then a glorious thing happens. He puts His Holy Spirit inside of us. That is the kingdom of heaven “mustard seed” being planted in us. This is God beginning His good work in us, and Philippians 1:6 says that He who began His good work in us will be faithful to complete it. In other words, that kingdom of heaven “tree” is going to grow. The kingdom of heaven tree is going to bear fruit, the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If you look at your life and say, “Wow, I am lacking in the fruit of the Spirit,” then I say, “Have patience with yourself.” It takes a long time for a tree to grow. Back in the day The Hemphills had a powerful little song called, “He’s Still Workin’ on Me.” It said: There really ought to be a sign upon my heart, “Don't judge me yet, there's an unfinished part,” But I'll be perfect just according to His plan, Fashioned by the Master's loving hands. He's still workin’ on me, To make me what I ought to be, It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars, The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars, How loving and patient He must be, He's still workin' on me. Yes, God is still workin’ on me. He’s growing that tree of the kingdom of heaven inside of me. It’s going to bear the good fruit of the Spirit, but trees take time. They have to grow roots. They have to grow limbs and leaves. They have to weather the seasons, but watch. In time they will bear the good fruit the Creator has designed for them. And so will you and I and all of God’s people, because His Spirit is inside of us, working on us, growing us, and raising us up to be full grown, fruit-bearing people. So if you find yourself falling short of where you want to be in your walk with God, just remember that mighty trees take a lot of time to grow, so… Have patience with yourself, because God’s still workin’ on you. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Your boss is taking advantage of you.” “What? I’m just walking his dog.” “Yeah. That’s not part of your job. You’re a radio station manager, not a dog walker.” “Okay, well, call it my senior citizen ministry. I’m helping the old guy out.” “Call it what you want. You’re being taken advantage of.” “No. What I’m doing is loving my neighbor. If someone shows you how you can love them, and you can easily do it, just do it.” “But doing personal favors is not your business.” “Mankind is my business!” Okay, so now I’m quoting Marley talking to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, but mankind is our business. Jesus said something oh so powerful in the Sermon on Mount. In Matthew 5:41 He said, “…whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.” This is where we get that phrase, “Go the extra mile.” How it worked back then was, a Roman soldier could legally tell you to carry his gear for a mile. So Jesus said, “If that soldier makes you carry his gear for one mile, go ahead and carry it for two miles.” Now that’s next level Christianity! Serving others should come as naturally to a Christian as playing ball does for a ballplayer. I’m thinking of Ernie Banks, the hall of fame baseball player for the Chicago Cubs. In fact his nickname was Mr. Cub. He also had another nickname, “Mr. Sunshine” because of his positive attitude. Ernie Banks had a popular catchphrase he was known for. He would say, “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame…let’s play two!” Now I imagine a lot of ballplayers probably hate doubleheaders. It’s twice the work in the same day. But Ernie, with his go-the-extra-mile positive attitude was like, “Let’s play two!” Imagine Ernie back in Bible days. A Roman solder barks at him, “Carry my gear for a mile,” and Ernie cheerfully responds, “Let’s go two!” I know it seems to go against our rights, and a law like that wouldn’t fly for a hot minute in America today, but listen for a second. Sometimes clinging so tightly to our rights is actually a burden that keeps us from freely loving and serving others. So watch for it. Suddenly an opportunity to serve someone will appear. The door will open, and what will we do? We can ignore it. We can go ahead and serve them but with a bad attitude. Or we can cheerfully, with the joy of the Lord as our strength, choose to go the extra mile and say, “Why stop at one? Let’s go two!” May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand in the presence of kings! That’s what it says in Proverbs 22:29. Are you skilled in your work? Are you improving your skills? It’s a lifelong effort. We never stop improving. Jesus’ parable of the talents tells us the value of taking what we have and growing it. Matthew 25:23 says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” So the question is, are we being faithful with what we’ve been given? It’s a requirement. First Corinthians 4:2 says it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. Are we being faithful? Are we growing what we’ve been given? Are we improving our skills, taking them to the next level, moving towards mastery? Ecclesiastes 9:10 says whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Colossians 3:23 says whatever we do, we should do it with all of our heart, as if we are doing it for the Lord. Here are some Bible verses I often apply to my work, taken from Luke chapter 3, “the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth.” In your work, are there crooked places and rough ways? It’s time to make them straight for the Lord! Sometimes I say it this way, “Set the bar high…for the Most High!” Philippians 4:8 says, “…if anything is excellent or praiseworthy…” That should apply to our work! When people want to think about something excellent or praiseworthy, our work should come to mind. Show me a man who is skilled in his work and I will show you a man who will stand before kings! And the most important king is the King of Kings! So, are we skilled in our work? How can we become MORE skilled in our work? How can we meet the requirement of being a faithful steward of what God has given us? One way is by locking this mindset into our brains. Set the bar high…for the Most High! May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “If You are the Son of God…” That’s what they shouted at Jesus while He was on the cross. They said, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” He could have. He could have avoided the cross altogether. When He was arrested, Peter pulled out a sword to fight, but Jesus told him to put it away. Then He said, “Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” He could have avoided the cross, but, He said to Peter, “How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?” God had a plan, but Peter didn’t see it. Even when God announces His plans, people often don’t see it. In John chapter 2, while Jesus was at the huge temple in Jerusalem, some leaders asked Him for a sign, so He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The leaders were like, “What? It took 46 years to build this temple, and you’re going to raise it up in three days?” But Jesus wasn’t talking about that building. He was talking about His own body being raised up in three days after the crucifixion. But they didn’t get it. Even when Jesus did announce the plan, they didn’t get it. But they did use His words against Him. When He was on trial, Matthew 26 says, “…two false witnesses came forward and said, ‘This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’” They used these same words against Him while He was on the cross, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” But you know what? I think we do the same thing today. We lack understanding. We don’t see God’s plan, so we say dumb things like, “If You are really God, You’ve got to do thus and so.” And it doesn’t seem all that unreasonable. To tell Jesus to come off the cross if He’s the Son of God is not all that unreasonable. But it is ignorant of God’s plans. Much of the time we are ignorant of God’s plans, and that’s where this word “trust” comes in. When Jesus told Peter to put his sword away, He was saying “trust Me.” When Jesus told Peter to go back in the water and let down the nets, even though Peter had fished all night and caught nothing, Jesus was saying “trust Me.” And Peter did trust Him. At one point, when a bunch of fair-weather followers left Jesus, He turned and said to His disciples, “Do you want to leave, too?” Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter didn’t know what all was going on, but he did trust Jesus. So what about us? We also don’t understand what all is going on, but will we trust Jesus? God has plans, and He’s never been in the habit of revealing them in detail. But there is something that God is very much in the habit of: asking us to trust Him. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding…” Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.” I don’t want to be one who says, “IF You are the Son of God, here’s what You have to do…” Instead, I want to be one who says, “You ARE the Son of God. And even though I don’t understand what all is going on, I put my full faith and trust in You.” Amen. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) There are some things we shouldn’t think about. That almost sounds un-American, like, “What about my freedom, man?” But our thoughts, like most everything, if left to themselves, will just meander downward. I love the imagery of “take every thought captive.” It means you don’t let your thoughts go anywhere they please. Captives don’t get that luxury. The idea comes from Second Corinthians 10:5 where it talks about taking every thought captive and bringing it into the obedience of Christ. So how do we take every thought captive? The Bible has some guidelines. Let’s start with Philippians 4:8, “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” That knocks out a bunch of the stuff we see online, and a bunch of stuff we hear in gossip. We shouldn’t think about them because they aren’t excellent or praiseworthy. It also knocks out a whole category of self-talk, because this also applies to our thoughts about ourselves. Some people are in a horrible rut of thinking awful things about themselves, yet Philippians 4:8 says to think on the good things, and Second Corinthians 10:5 wants us to bring all the negative self-talk into the obedience of Christ, who loves us and wants the best for us. So I recommend memorizing Philippians 4:8 and bringing all of our thoughts captive into that wonderful, biblical, positive corral. Here’s another biblical guideline for taking every thought captive: Philippians 3:13. It says to forget what is behind. We are to forget the past and press on toward the future that God has for us. That knocks out a whole category of thinking that some people never get beyond…those things in the past. Some people can’t get past that wrong that was done to them, and some people can’t get past that victory way back when, so they end up stuck in the past. But Philippians 3:13 says to forget what is in the past. We don’t think about the things in the past. Instead we press on toward what God is doing now and in the future. Along this same line is our next guideline found in First Corinthians 13:5. It says that love keeps no record of wrongs. That’s another whole category of thinking that we need to take captive for Christ: all the wrongs that were ever done to us. We need to stop thinking about them. And if they come to our mind, we don’t dwell on them. We take them captive and submit them to Christ who wants us to love our enemies, which is nearly impossible to do as long as we are thinking about how they did us wrong. Colossians 3:2 tells us to set our minds on things above, on heavenly things, Godly things, holy things. We take our thoughts captive and train them to think on eternal things, like loving God and loving people, things like God’s Word and God’s plans. I’ve been talking about my motto of living “Lean and Clean for the King,” and this is a subcategory of that: keeping our thoughts lean and clean by taking every thought captive for Christ and by not thinking about a bunch of things that don’t do any good anyway. So, if we’re ready to go to the next level, this is one thing we’re going to have to do: take every thought captive. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Lean and clean for the King. That’s my personal motto. What does it mean? It means I want to cut the fat, the dirt, even the dust from my life so I can operate lean and clean for the King, by which I mean King Jesus, the King of Kings. A serious athlete puts his body in peak condition. It means cutting some things from his life. Serious actors go to great lengths to prepare for certain roles. It means cutting some things from their life. And serious Christians will cut some things from their life to become all that God wants them to be. I want to cut the fat from my body so it can be a fully functioning vessel. I want to cut the fat from my schedule so that my time is used wisely. I want to cut the fat from my thinking, taking every thought captive, and stopping my brain from running off in every direction. “But Doug, that sounds like work. I thought we were saved by grace, not by works.” Ephesians 2:8-9 literally says that. We are saved by grace…but then what? But then keep reading. It says we are saved BY grace…FOR good works. What are we supposed to be doing, now that we are saved by grace? Good works! And if we want to be great at doing good works, we have to cut the fat, get in shape, and get prepared to run the race. “But Doug, what about my liberty in Jesus?” Yes, thank God, we have liberty in Jesus! Now look at Galatians 5:13, “…ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Yes, we have liberty, but we don’t sit back on our fat liberty and indulge the flesh. That’s stupid. It’s wasteful. It’s selfish. We have been created for good works. We have been called to love and serve one another. That is the race. It’s the high calling. It’s the most fulfilling. It’s what we were made to do from the foundation of the world. And to do it, we need to get in shape for it. We need to cut the extraneous, the bloated, the unruly, the undisciplined parts of our life and bring it all under submission, in humility, through His grace, and for His glory. And for me, I sum up the whole process in this one little phrase. Lean and clean for the King. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Why did Christians threaten John Lennon? He was a 20-something year old pop star for the Beatles in the 1960’s when he made an offhanded comment about Jesus. It stirred up the ire of many Christians, even to the point of John Lennon getting threats, even death threats. Why would Christians threaten John Lennon? Maybe they were thinking, “Who does he think he is, making cracks about our Lord and Savior? We can’t let him get away with it.” Interestingly, we find a similar story in the Bible. In Luke chapter 9, Jesus and His disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, and they were going through various towns. Verse 52 says, “…and as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans...” So the disciples enter this Samaritan village and guess what happens. They reject Him. They don’t want Jesus coming to their town. I can see why the disciples would be angry. Jesus does nothing but good everywhere He goes, and you reject Him? How dare you! And that’s what some Christians were saying to John Lennon in the 60’s. How dare you! Back to Luke chapter 9, the disciples James and John are so angry that they go up to Jesus and say, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Wow. That’s not just a little threat on a single perpetrator. That’s a threat to wipe out a whole town. And Jesus responds accordingly. He turns on them and rebukes them and says, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” That’s a lesson we all need to learn. What do we do when someone speaks badly about Jesus, or about the faith, or the Bible, or the church? We love them. We speak the truth in love to them. We treat them honorably as humans made in God’s image. We shine the light and hope and peace of Jesus. And one thing we don’t do is threaten them, because Jesus did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. Did all the threats on John Lennon lead anywhere close to saving him? Do any threats we might make today lead anyone anywhere close to salvation? The goals of Jesus are redemption, salvation, freedom, hope, and a right relationship with God. And these do not come from threats. So how did the story in Luke chapter 9 end? Verse 56 simply says, “And they went to another village.” And that’s the lesson for us. If someone is speaking ill of Jesus, we don’t threaten them. We don’t get all worked up about it. Jesus didn’t. What He did get worked up about was His own followers making threats against those who reject Him. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is what should be shining through all of God’s people out to everyone, even to celebrities who make less than positive comments about Jesus. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) What do you do best? Do it for God. Those things you are good at, even if they don’t seem to be “churchy,” offer them up to God as an offering. “Lord, I offer this up to You. I love You so much, and I’m so grateful for everything.” I’m not talking about anything sinful, of course, but I am talking about the host of things that people are good at besides preaching or teaching or singing or whatever else is on the short list of obvious Christian ministries. What if you are good at computer coding? What if you’re good at auto mechanics? What if you’re good at sewing? What are you good at? Do it for God. First Corinthians 10:31 says whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. Colossians 3:17 says whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father. Colossians 3:23 says whatever we do, we should do it with all of our heart, and do it for the Lord. Romans 12:11 says never be lazy, never be lacking in zeal, work hard, keep your spiritual fervor, and serve the Lord enthusiastically. So what do you do best? Do it for God. Are you gifted in certain ways? You’re better at some things than others, right? Where did those aptitudes come from? James 1:17 says that every good and perfect gift comes from our Father in heaven. If you have a good gift, God gave it to you, and the best thing to do is to offer it back to Him as an offering, as a sacrifice of praise, using it for His glory, growing it for His glory, blessing other people with it, for His glory. That seems obvious with the more churchy gifts, but it’s less obvious with the rest. When my kids were in a Christian elementary school, the parents all pitched in, and one job I took was cleaning the bathrooms every Tuesday and Thursday night. I figured it was a disgusting job (it was) and that one gift God had given me was that I don’t mind doing disgusting jobs. So I did it, I did it well, and I offered it up to God as an offering. I prayed for the kids and the school while I cleaned. And I especially remember one night when God’s presence just overwhelmed me. I was cleaning a toilet, and tears of joy rolled down my face. I felt so full in my soul. God did it, and I think He did it because I was offering my best to Him, even in a humble, non-church situation. What do you do best? Do it for God. Offer it up to Him as a sacrifice of praise. Busy with small children, changing diapers, cleaning up messes, doing laundry? Do your best. Do it as unto the Lord. Do it for Him and watch Him fill your soul. If you don’t know what you do best, ask around. Ask your family, your friends, anyone who knows you, and soon enough you’ll get the picture. Then take that and grow it, work it, expand it, make it great, and all the while offer it up to Him, back to Him, with thanksgiving and praise. So I’ll leave you with this question to ponder, one more time. What do you do best? Then do it…for God. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Do you want to be a follower of Jesus? If so, He gives a prerequisite. Jesus said if we want to follow Him, we must deny ourselves. So the question is, what am I denying myself? It’s almost un-American to deny ourselves anything. King Solomon denied himself nothing at all, and it wrecked his kingdom. I approach this in a childlike way. I just say, “God, I am denying myself this because I’m so hungry for You.” Deny myself what? It’s been many things over the years, and it’s always something. Yesterday a friend said, “Would you like a muffin? Or are you fasting muffins now? I can’t keep track of what you are fasting.” Well, right now I’m fasting candy and cookies and frozen dairy treats. I’ve actually been fasting candy and cookies for three years now. I pray, “Father, I’m denying myself these things that are pleasant in this world because I’m so hungry for the things of the Kingdom of God.” I’m currently fasting all beverages except what I call the front-line soldier beverages of water and black coffee. I pray, “Father, I’m fasting all drinks besides water and black coffee because I’m so thirsty for You. As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after Thee.” I don’t really know exactly what Jesus meant when He said, “Deny yourself,” but I’m pretty sure that if I’m denying myself nothing, I’m not meeting the standard. So like I said, I approach it like a child. I just pick some things and deny them to myself. I fast from them. I do it out of a heart and a passion to follow Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. I want to be a sheep that follows closely. I’m desperately hungry for that, to follow as closely as I possibly can. And He said that if I want to follow Him, then I must deny myself, so that is what I’m doing, in my own humble, child-like, sheep-like way. And I hope you consider doing the same. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) So you want to have a radio program. We have a few rules, and here’s one of them: no bashing on other people. Yes, you can talk about what is true. You can talk about what is being done wrong. You can even talk about people who are doing wrong, but the rule stands: no bashing on other people. * “But Doug, what about their politics? What about their lifestyle? What about their bad doctrine? What about their evil ways, their deceptions, their cunning, conniving, crafty, criminal lives?” I don’t care what they’ve done. I don’t care what they’ve said or what they’re promoting. If they are out of bounds you can point that out, but you don’t trash them in the process. Why not? Where does that come from? Is it even possible? In First Peter chapter 2 verse 17 we encounter three of the most powerful words you will ever read in all of the Scriptures. It says, “Honor all people…” Honor all people. Now why would that be in the Bible when there are clearly people and actions and ideas that are dishonorable? It’s because God, as always, is setting for us the very highest standard. Do you want to live at the very highest standard? Are you ready to rise above the fray, to live at a new level in your walk with God? Then honor all people. And what about their dishonorable attributes? Do we ignore them? Skip over them? Make light of them? Of course not, but we approach every single person on the planet with honor. Why? Because they are people, creations of God, created in His image, and thus they are worthy of honor. Listen. Every single human being is an image bearer of God, and that alone makes them worthy of honor. And then to whatever degree each of us is living outside of God’s boundaries of what is truly honorable, then that is where God’s redemption must come in and do its work. And if we really want to open the door for the good news, the glad tidings of God’s redemption through Jesus Christ, we have to realize that it won’t happen by bashing on people. Romans 2:4 says that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Is there anyone on the planet whom you disrespect, even despise, and you would rejoice at their downfall? Then stop it. There’s a better way. There’s a higher way. Are you ready to live at the very highest level of Christianity? Then here’s the thing to do, and it’s found in these three simple words in First Peter chapter 2 verse 17. Honor all people. May God bless you today. I’m Doug Apple. * We speak the truth in love. We let our speech always be with grace, that it may impart grace to the hearers. One side note: Peter wrote this at the time when Nero was living his abominable life as the emperor of Rome, and that included doing terrible things to Christians, and yet the last three words of that same verse say, “…honor the king.” Wow.