You Don't Know You're Beautiful

I know what you are thinking why is a grown man quoting the title to a One Direction song in his blog? I catch myself saying the same thing... My 4 year old daughter has fallen in love with this song and she sings it every time it finds its way into our radio, and as I started to listen to it I thought to myself, "Man, I wonder if God looks down at us and says, why cant you see that you are beautiful, I cant believe that you don't see you're beautiful!" God spent some time in crafting us, he loved us so much that he created us in his image both male and female (as it tells us in Genesis). I am pretty sure that in our uniqueness every time God created us and planned us out before we were even conceived he looked at what he made and said it , "You are beautiful,what a beautiful and good creation is this!" The best way to illustrate this point is for us to take a look at Psalm 139, David is talking about how power of The Lord and how he is our creator, he says, "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me! (Psalms 139:13-18 NLT)
IF you have been walking around down in the dumps because of the comments of others or even the comments you have for yourself, maybe you need to read this again, David says, "How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!" God thinks so highly of us, he loves us and likes us so much he cannot be away from us, when we are asleep he is still there, and when we wake he is still with us. His thoughts about us are like glowing remarks that a proud father has of his children and he cant help but saying them to everyone he meets. Like when I meet someone and they see the picture of my daughter and sons, I cannot help but share the many ways I am blessed by my children, how Beautiful and handsome they are, and how they complete my life. So to be contrary to the song it is not the fact that you think you arent beautiful that actually makes you beautiful, you are beautiful because God made you that way. Your most quirky feature is precious in his eyes, your faults, your strengths, that one hair that never likes to follow the rest of the group, or for some of us the hairs that no longer like to grow on your head, were made by God and daily he looks down upon you and says, "THATS WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL!"
I hope today you start seeing yourself and others through the eyes of God, we are each made beautifully for a purpose, and our beauty becomes more and more apparent when we are living these created lives to serve our Lord and Savior. We do this by following one easy command by Christ, "Love The Lord your God with all your HEART, Soul, Strength, Mind, and love your NEIGHBOR as yourself."

May God Bless You Today And Make His Face Shine Upon You and Give You Peace

I am taking a poll and need responses

Hey everyone, it seems that there are a decent amount of people that are checking out this blog or maybe one personal likes to look at posts a lot, I am not sure, I was thinking about doing a podcast or a video cast and was wondering what people would prefer, this would be a weekly bible study that would probably be topical with hopes of being applicable to your lives and mine for that matter. So the poll would be, what would you all want a video cast so you can see my lovely face or a podcast that you could listen to wherever. Leave comments or emails to ghavinn.crutcher@elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

Body of Christ Sermon Series

Ive been writing post about the importance of Christians claiming to be the body of Christ, this sermon series challenges us to start acting like it. This series is inspired by the Casting Crowns song entitled "If We Are the Body" I hope this speaks to you, if you have any questions please ask i will do my best to answer them, if you want to visit us and see what the Elk Grove Church of Christ is all about please join us on sunday, visit www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.org, below are the links to this sermon series for you to listen to, this sunday we will be talking about our feet moving, will be a blast hope you join us.


If We Are The Body

If We Are The Body: Arms Reaching

Feet Going

Words Teaching

God Bless

No Regret Sermon Series

Click on the link below to hear my sermon series on living with no regrets, we learned the verse that moses spoke in his only psalm, "Teach us to number our days aright so we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12 this scripture and the book 1 month to live inspired this sermon series. i hope thee bless you and help challenge you to live well and live fully the way God has intended for you.

LIVING OUT THE DASH

LIVING PASSIONATELY

LOVING COMPLETELY

LEARNING HUMBLY

LEAVING BOLDLY

if you like what you have heard and live in the sacramento elk grove area join us on sundays, visit www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.org for more details. if you don't live close and these sermons bring up questions for you please leave comments or email me directly you can find my email on the website listed.

If we are the Body, Where are our feet moving?

We are continuing in our study of being the body of Christ, today I wanted to discuss our movement. When I walk into churches in the area I can truly tell which families are actively moving towards something and those that are complacent and sitting in the park position. In revelation Jesus asks john to write this letter to the church of Laodicea discussing what they must do to find favor in Him. It reads "“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. (Revelation 3:14-17 NIV)" How often as a body do we ride the fence, we talk about being Christ to the masses on sunday but when we leave the building we just become another member of the world. As a body we need our feet moving, moving toward the goal, which is Christ and on that journey pick up some folks along the way. I would like to believe that we should be viewing our journey like the school age game the blob, where our goal is to get every player involved to become part of a bigger unit picking up more and more people until everyone is apart of the blob. Wouldn't that be a great idea, as Christians as we walk around through this world our excitement for God is so huge that we cant help but to pick up more and more as we carry on through our lives. I hope with all of my heart that we as a body not just in Elk Grove but all over the world can be a church that is on fire for Christ, one that wont be spit out of the mouth but savored in it because of its amazing flavor. How do we do this you may be asking? We can start by moving our feet toward those who are hurting, those that need help, those who are hungry for whats missing in their lives, we move to them instead of sitting in our safe buildings waiting and hoping for the day they come through our doors and move toward us. Have you been moving toward your co-workers leading them with your actions to Christ? Have you moved toward your family member that has been distant, showing them the comfort they need that only comes from Christ? have you been moving anywhere at all in your actions for serving the father? This week my challenge is for you to notice your feet, make an effort to move in a direction that can lead others who are following behind you as individuals and as a church , that you will lead them to the cross and as they sit under its majesty they can't help but to bow before it and say "God, I am ready to accept you in my life, I am ready for you to lead me, guide me, and yes I am ready, so ready, to be forgiven!" what a glorious day that will be.


God bless you this week

Reach out and touch The Lord

In 2007 I was blessed to take s group of 10 people to South Africa for a mission trip. This trip was amazing, one of the things that made this trip amazing was a stop at a church in one of the "black" (as they call it) town ships. This church was very passionate about their worship to God like many other "3rd" world countries. During our time there they sang a song titled "reach out and touch The Lord" they sang this song through a few times and each time more and more passion came through them. One of the lines out of this song is "reach out and touch The Lord as he passes by you know he is not too busy to her your cry, he's passing by this moment your needs he'll supply, so reach out and touch The Lord as he walks by." It got me thinking, we need to understand that Jesus as he walked by spent so much of his time reaching out and touching others, and on the occasions when others reached out to him even without asking for healing, received it because of how strong their faith was. How many times have you reached out to Christ in faith and prayer for healing, guidance, marital help, emotional fulfillment or whatever. I feel it is rare that we reach out to God and have faith that he isn't too busy to hear our concerns, yet instead as he is walking by we watch him carry on because we lack the faith to reach out and ask for his help. Don't be too full of pride that you can't ask for help, God reveals himself in mysterious ways don't miss your opportunity to be in his presence.

Body of Christ part deux

How many of you have decided that you weren't good enough to do something at church because so in so does it better. Or maybe you had great ideas or talents but you couldn't use them because someone was already doing that job. If you have felt this way I want you to read through 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. Paul is talking to the church of Corinth and letting people know, hey guess what every piece of the body is important from the toenails to the hair on your head. The body won't be complete without all parts working together in unison. God blessed you with certain talents some of us talk well, other are huggers, encourages, givers, preachers, singers, cleaners, cookers, etc... We all have gifts each are equally important because through our gifts people can find God. With all of this said I want you to realize how important you are and that God made you great for his kingdom. Don't take it for granted but use your gifts until you can't anymore and when you can't teach others to carry it on.

Join us www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

Are we taking seriously being the BODY of Christ?

There is a song by "Casting Crowns" Titled "If We Are The Body" and it talks about a few things that i want us to delve into these next few weeks. The line goes like this, "If we are the body why aren't his arms reaching, why aren't his hands healing, why are his words teaching, and if we are the body why aren't his feet going, why his love not showing them there is a way." I want us to think about this for a second, we call our selves the body, a group of people that meet to declare that the Lord Jesus Christ came and DIED on the CROSS for our SINS! However ultimately we declare this only to a bunch of other people that already know this information and rarely do much more than that. We may see someone that is hurting and disheveled and instead of reaching out to them we cross the road because we don't want to be on the same side of the street as that kind of riff raff. Or how many of you have done this one, where you know someone is looking for someone to talk to but you know its going to take a long time and you don't want to "deal" with it so you scoot out the back door, or find something to take your time away from them so you won't get "Stuck" with them. How about we don't beat around the bush here, you talk a mean Christian and know all the right things to say but ultimately what outsiders see is just a "Mean Christian." Is this ringing home; over the next few weeks we are going to get back to the basics, we are going to see how Christ used his earthly body to show us that there is a way. A way to a better life, a way to healing, a way to be lifted up, a way to be forgiven, a way to heaven, and Jesus is the way. Through this discussion and topic i hope we see that Christ used his body to reach out to the unreachable, to forgive the unforgivable, to touch the untouchable, and to heal the unhealable. Christ's body was constantly at work and found new ways to engage others at their level of learning so they couldn't deny his wisdom and power. i hope that in our lives each and everyone of us can reach someone at their level accepting them helping them understand there is a way, I found my way through an amazing mother that wanted to emphasize a life with Christ is better than any life without him. a Mother that wouldn't force us or give us standards we couldn't reach but instead, reached out with her arms and hugged, put her hands on us and kissed away out hurts, walked with us in our journey, and used her words often in a way that would teach us and impact us for a lifetime. My mom understands she is a vessel for Christ, I am hoping to take that example and let my kids and the generations that is following me to live that example out as well. Hopefully you have someone like that in your life that helped you find your way and if you did, pay it forward there are many who are hurting and empty inside looking for the way, the hope of being fulfilled. do me a favor and write down some names of people you have been putting off talking to about Christ, and look at that name pray everyday for the rest of this week that you will gain the strength wisdom and opportunity to talk to them about Jesus. We are not guaranteed tomorrow it maybe the time today to help people find their tomorrow in Christ.


questions or comments leave them here or email me ghavinn.crutcher@elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

MAY GOD KEEP YOU AND BLESS YOU AND MAKE HIS FACE SHINE UPON YOU AND GIVE YOU PEACE!