Don't Be A Goldilocks!
When you hear someone speak or teach, do you consider who they are or just what they say? There can be merit in both approaches. Sometimes it is good to receive a message or an understanding from anyone – the content is critical. At other times it is important to consider the source … Are You Like Goldilocks? Do they know what they are talking about? Do they know how to do what they are teaching? Do they have experience in this area, or is their understanding based solely upon what they have read or heard?
When you really want to make changes or take new steps in life, you usually want to hear from those who have made the change and have walked in the direction you want to go. Their words carry weight.
But, what if their words seem difficult or require more change than you want to make – will you still listen?
Most people I know are like “Goldilocks;” they continue to search for insight until they find instruction that seems to feel just right. In...
How to Escape the Plague
There is a plague in our land. It is robbing and stealing life from people of all ages. It used to affect only a certain portion of the population, but it has spread to all kinds of people in our country. It is a communicable disease that causes death. It often starts in an undetected way, but usually progresses to destroy spiritual, emotional, relational and physical health.
Because this disease is curable, people often miss its deadliness … until it has ravaged lives. Its innocuous shortened street name is “Busyness,” but its clinical name is “Insidious Busyness.” It is insidious because it often undetected and develops gradually. Its initial symptoms can mask its real effects, even enticing its victims to drink deeper of its intoxicating ingredients. When properly diagnosed, however, it is easy to recognize, and its damaging effects become plain and clear.
This disease is so rampant and so entwined in the values of our culture, many...
Does Your Obedience Feel Burdensome?
Have you “fallen” in love with anyone – I mean really in love? When that thing comes on you, your life changes. Everything else – even important things – seems to wane. Life in many ways gets put on the back burner, and you become practically obsessed. When your mind wanders from your tasks, it generally goes toward the person of your great affection. And, you find yourself willing to pay great prices to be with that person. You are willing to drive/travel long distances and go without much sleep to be with him/her. Almost nothing can hold you back.
This love-behavior is true of our relationship with God, too. "This is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome." (1John 5:3) We ultimately express our love to God through our obedience to Him. Love and lordship are one and the same in relationship with Christ. To love Him is to recognize and relate according to who He actually is, the Lord. We grow through obedience and we...
Today is the Day!
Life can and will be difficult. Challenges and hardships that will seem to be beyond your capacity to process, or even endure, are coming your way. This is not a negative fortune or word of prophecy; it is simply a reality of life in this world for everyone - Christians included.
If tough times come - and they will - what will you do, and what will be your focus? You don't have to wait till they fall upon you to develop your approach. As a matter of fact, now is the best time to chart your general course for when the "bad" times hit.
In John 16:32-3, we see one of Jesus's last conversations with His disciples before He was arrested and crucified. He was giving them crucial preparation for facing times of confusion and hardship. He said, "A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have told you these things, so that in me you may...
Watch Out for Sinkholes
A few times a year we hear about a house, car or building being swallowed up. All at once, the ground gives way and everything above the surface drops and disappears. These sinkholes can be very destructive and terrifying experiences, as they seem to happen with no warning. Engineers, however, say that (particularly in Florida) there are areas where limestone lies beneath the surface. Acid rain and other underground water can dissolve the limestone. When enough stone is melted away the underground cave collapses under the surface weight. It looks like it happens all at once, but the subterranean deterioration takes place over time.
We must tend to the condition and wholeness of our souls, or we may experience a kind of sinkhole collapse in our lives. It might appear that our present circumstances have caused our bondage or our downfall, but often the cause is subterranean deterioration. When we run too fast, push too hard or allow others to have too much sway in our lives, we...
Choose Contentment Over False Contenders
We live in a society that is more resourced and privileged than any in history. Yet, that privilege can easily lead to a complaining posture. Wealth can paradoxically lead to an attitude of complaint and discontent.
When we focus on things, we can subtly start to believe that they will bring us happiness, identity or security. Once we have taken that bait, we can be drawn to attach our sense of self to those things and/or the “need” to get or maintain them. When we don’t have them – or when they don’t provide for
us as we thought they would - we become insecure and discontent.
The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6) This statement is like a math equation: Godliness + Contentment = Great Gain. What, however, does it mean?
Walking in God’s ways, in a state of soul-contentment, is Great Gain. The great gain is walking with God in His ways. It is not tied to circumstance or...
How to Deal With The Log and the Speck
Some people can really get under our skin. Possibly they are very different from us. They may look at life from very different perspectives or they may communicate in ways that seem very foreign to us. This can lead to misunderstanding and misjudgment going both ways. It is difficult to receive someone as they really are if we don’t actually understand who they are.
Other relational irritants sprout from people who are very much like us. They may be dealing with similar challenges, weaknesses or blind spots as plague our lives. We may be unaware of these problems in our own lives, yet somehow keenly aware of them in the lives of others. We can develop unconscious hyper-sensitivities to our own sin/weakness packages that are reflected in others. Our “stuff,” in others, can drive us crazy.
Jesus spoke about this natural propensity to judge others (Matthew 7:1-5). His point is that our judgments can be harmful to others and to ourselves because they are inaccurate and...
How To Live With One Another
What if God designed us to live in meaningful relationship with others? What if He wants us to impact and be impacted by each other so that we might be changed and transformed in the process? If this were actually God’s design and plan, how might it affect how we act toward others and how we receive from them?
God has placed the lonely in households (Psalm 68:6), with families, friends, workmates and possibly most importantly in the household of faith. He has made us to have effect on each other. It is as if our souls have been created with permeable membranes that allow overlap and exchange when we come close to each other. We experience the most exchange with those who come closest. Maybe that’s why we can be so irritated by our spouse, family or good friend. It can also explain how we pick up mannerisms, expressions and worldviews from each other.
The New Testament is peppered with verses that describe how we can best relate to “one another.” They...
What Is Taking Root In You?
What is presently growing in the garden of your soul? Are there weeds that need to be removed – that are choking you deep within? Are there sprouts of life and truth that need to be nurtured inside you?
The Word of God is an incredible and indispensable resource for Kingdom growth. It is a foundational source of spiritual life. God miraculously led the Israelites through the desert for forty years to challenge and teach them that “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)
Jesus made it clear in the parable of the sower that the word of God is like seed that grows within our souls. (Luke 8:11) It convicts, corrects and transforms us as we intentionally prioritize understanding it and applying it in our lives over time. It sinks deeply into our conscious and subconscious perception of life.
This is not just an intellectual exercise, it is spiritual. It involves turning from things and...
Is There Life Flowing From You?
I used to have a poster on the wall of my office that was captioned, “Dead Sea Fishing Club.” If you are familiar with the Dead Sea, you know this is a crazy statement. The Dead Sea has no fish in it. If is the saltiest lake in the world, saturated with minerals and full of all kinds of chloride and bromide. My poster, however, was a kind of faith statement based upon a vision that the prophet Ezekiel had. (Ezekiel 47:1-12)
In Ezekiel’s visionary encounter with an angel, he saw and experienced a river that flows from the temple in Jerusalem for 21 miles and into the Dead Sea, bringing life and healing with wherever it goes. The river even brings life to the Dead Sea. All kinds of fish appear and are sustained, in the Dead Sea, by the river coming from the temple.
This river of life is symbolic of the life and power of the Holy Spirit moving in and through believers in Jesus Christ. Ezekiel 47:9 reads, “… where the river flows everything will...
