battle with more financial stress than you ever have. Most of you, you've got better

better opportunities to do great things, and yet, you are more empty and more exhausted.

Why? It's because we are filling our lives with things that do not matter. In a word,

idolatry, idolatry. We are elevating good things to become supreme things. We are distracted

by all of the production and worldliness. Gotta have the bigger house, then it may help

our marriage. Gotta have the nicer car, then it will make me feel good about myself, therefore

I have got to get the promotion so I can sustain this lifestyle. Got to be at the meeting so

they will think well of me, because their opinion matters, and my whole self worth hinges

on what they think about me. Gotta have our kids involved in the best of all the opportunities,

because God forbid we invest spiritually in our children, they have got to be great flute

players!

Gotta have the perfect body, because my soul is not as valuable as my body. I've got to

produce more and more and more, because I am so empty. It's idolatry. It's insane and

it's killing marriages and families and people are hurting. It's not what God intended.

So, what we are going to do is we are going to have what I call a 'come to Jesus meeting'.

In the next few weeks, I am going to challenge you and push you like you haven't been pushed

in a long time. Sadly, most of you are not going to change. I've done this long enough

to know, it just breaks my heart. Some of you, though, you are going to see it, you

are going to feel it, you are going to believe it, and you are going to do life not according

to the patterns of this world, but according to the rhythms of God's grace; and you are

going to choose what is better. When it is all said and done, God's going to look at

you and He's gonna say, "You did good, well done, well done my good and faithful servant".

You are not going to have regrets, because you are not going to give your life away to

things that do not matter and do not last. A few of you are going to get it and I am

going to praise God, and I am going to fight for it with you.

Come to Jesus meeting. Here is what Jesus said, Matthew 11:28-29; Jesus said, "Come

to me, all you who are weary and burdened"; (I will add a few words.) Come to me, all

who are stressed out, overwhelmed, can't get it all done. Come to me single parents who

are about to fall apart. Come to me business guy, who feels like you're gonna lose it all.

Come to me mom who has no margin for herself. Come to me those who are overwhelmed and feel

insignificant if they're not busy all of the time. Come to me all of us, Jesus said, and

"what will I give you?" He said, "I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn

from me"; that is what we are going to try to do, we are going to try to learn from God,

learn from Jesus. He says, "For I am gentle and humble in heart," and what will you find?

The Bible says, "You will find rest for your souls." Let that phrase just sink in for a

moment. Rest for your souls; peace, assurance, tranquility, rest for your souls. A lot of

us, we don't even know what rest is, we are going to talk a lot about rest next week.

Some of you go, "I'm gonna go on vacation and rest." Then you bungee jump, sky dive

and shop the whole time. Then you are like, "I'm exhausted, I need a vacation from my

vacation!" Others, you go on vacation and you have six days, and the first three days

you are unwinding and you are trying to stop, and then you go; "Oh my gosh, I've only got

three days to go!" Then you start winding back up and you don't ever really rest for

your souls, rest for your souls. My heart aches for so many of you.

Those of you that are not married, it's interesting how sometimes you can fall victims to this

the most. You feel like, "If I don't have something on my schedule, I am insignificant,

I'm a loser, I've got to have something all of the time or else there must be something

wrong with me." You realize just how sick that is?

Moms, if I can just talk to you for a minute. I talk to moms all of the time, "I don't have

any time for me, I don't have any time for me and if I did something for me, I would

feel incredibly guilty." Do you realize how insane that is?

Men, "Well I've got to make more, conquer more, achieve more, because that is what will

show love to...." idolatry.

Psalm 46:10, it says this; "Be still and know that I am God." Many of you don't know how

to be still. If I come hard on this is because this has been probably a

14-year battle for me, and I am learning to win this battle, I really am. I survived my

second round of counseling for being a workaholic, I've passed, I've graduated, I don't go anymore.

Ninety bucks an hour are freed up, praise God! The very first assignment my counselor

said, is he said; "Craig, here is your assignment, you have got to be still for five minutes

a day. You can't produce anything." I'm like, "Well that's easy, five minutes a day!" I

went there and I'm like going, "Okay, 30 seconds here, I can't do this! This is insane, I've

got things to do!" I talked to him again and I said, "I can't do this!" He said, "Do you

realize how sick that is?" Be still...be still.

That is where we are going to start this week, it's very simple. Your assignment is five

minutes a day, where you don't produce anything. You don't think anything, you just be in God's

presence, just listen. What it's gonna do is for five minutes is it's going to break

the idolatry, where you think you are on the throne of this life and you are going to leave

the laundry undone, the kids knocking, and your emails unchecked, and your facebook will

survive without you looking at it for five minutes; and you are not allowed to twitter

about it. You are just going to be, for five minutes, you are just going to be. It's a

first and significant step into creating a lot more of margin.

Here is where we are going to go in this series:

Week 1: We are introducing the idea.

Week 2: We are going to talk about scheduling margin and we are going to talk about some

extremes, because most of us we do not have time and you are going to say, "But I don't

have time to do that!" No, you have time for what you choose to have time for and we are

going to make some significant commitments next week.

Week 3: We are going to talk about financial margin, because most of us have none; have

none and the pressure is so real in this consumeristic, materialistic world, and I am going to show

you how you can create financial margin. It will be simple, not easy, but it will be simple

and your life can be transformed as we create financial margin.

Week 4: We are going to talk about moral margin, because all over the world people are falling

into dangerous lifestyles of sin, because there is no buffer between them and temptation,

and when our schedules are crushed, and when our finances are tight, all of a sudden we

are so stressed and so many people relieve themselves with sin, that is an escape and

ends up totally destroying their lives. We are going to build moral margin. We are going

to stop seeking meaning from the things of this world, and we are going to find meaning

from the things of God. Here is what He will do:

Isaiah 58:11; as we seek Him, "The Lord will guide you always"; not the culture, not the

expectations of this world, but the Lord will guide you always. "He", not the things of

this world, but "He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen

your frame." And, rather than being parched and thirsty, and empty and barren, and dry

and struggling; "You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."

When you stop living according to the patterns of this world, but instead you live according

to the rhythms of His grace, and you will never be the same.

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