Month: January 2017

Categories
Christian Living

Courage to Do the Right Thing when Others Push in the Opposite Direction

Doing the right thing will cost you. This is true no matter who you are, but I especially noticed this reality with high school students where the number of people you can interact with is limited to the people in your school and/or class. Any student who is willing to leave their comfort zone to reach out to someone who has very few friends finds out that it can be social suicide. You quickly get labeled as “weird” if you try to be a friend to a person who everyone else ridicules.

Photo by lauramusikanski at Morguefile.com

Any student who is willing to do the right thing, even when everyone else is pushing them to do the wrong thing, is a hero in my book. It takes a lot of courage to do the right thing when your peers are pushing you toward the opposite direction. When I was a youth minister, I saw a few students willing to step up and reach out to others no matter the social pressure, and I was always impressed. I also saw a whole lot of students doing just the opposite – caving to the pressure to do the wrong thing.

How many of us have ever let someone push us down the wrong path, push us into doing something we knew we shouldn’t do, but we let them pressure us into doing the wrong thing anyway?

I had plenty of times where I did just that – let people push me into doing the wrong thing, even when I knew it might get me into trouble and knew for certain that God didn’t want me to do it. Why are we so weak when it comes to standing up for what is the right thing?

One of the areas where we can really mess this up is our striving to fit in. To make sure we fit in, we might find ways to make sure that those who don’t fit in very well are “made fun of” even more. We pick on those who have less friends than us, less money than us, less fashionable clothing than us just so that we can feel better about ourselves. And even if we don’t do it to their face, we find ourselves engaging in conversations behind their backs so that we lift ourselves up and put them down in the eyes of those around us. Why is it that just to fit in, we are willing to join in making fun of others?

Take a stand for what is right. It’ll cost you some social status. But I have found out that doing the right thing often will.

Categories
Christian Living

Seriously? God Expects Me To Give Up My Goals For His?

God, do You really expect me to give up some of what I want for the things that You want?

The truth is that if we are serious about something, then absolutely we will give up things that we want. We see it occur every day, even with students in high school who are involved in activities such as:

kids playing baseball who had to give up some time and effort to play the game
Photo by matthew_hull at Morguefile.com
  • Football players, basketball players, baseball/softball players – Anyone involved in sports – they give up their leisure time, they give up sitting around on the couch, they give up air conditioning so that they can be yelled at by their coach, run laps, sweat buckets, bang into people, hurt their bodies, and engage in practice, practice, practice. Yeah, they give up some of their desires to reach the goals they have with their team.
  • Band members, Choir members, Drama team members – Anyone involved in artistic endeavors – they also give up their free time to be coached by a leader, learn strange body movements or marching patterns, get callouses & blisters on their fingers, hands, and feet from so much practice. Yeah, they give up some of their desires to reach the goals they have with their art.
  • Boyfriends & Girlfriends – Anyone who is in a relationship – they give up time with some of their closest friends to get to know this other person, they give up some of their money to buy things for this other person, they give up some of their own desires to meet the desires of the other person and reach the goal of a great relationship.

    • And as adults, we do this for our jobs, our marriages, and our children. Every day we give up things that we desire to reach the goals that we have in another area of life.

    What God is asking you to do, is to realize that His goals for your life are so much better than any goal that you could possibly come up with in your wildest dreams. And when we come to that realization, we will come to understand the need to give up our own desires to take hold of God’s desires for us. Yes, He wants you to give up your desires to reach the goals that He has for you – because His goals will lead to a life of peace and joy because of your relationship with Him. Not a perfect life – not one without trials or without pain – but a perfect love – the love of God toward us and our love back to Him.

    One of my favorite movie quotes is from Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own – about the women’s baseball league that was started during World War 2. He was talking to someone who was quitting the baseball team. She told him that it just got too hard. And he looked at her and said: “Too hard? It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great.”

    You know, giving up your desires for a greater goal is hard. Many people won’t do it. Many people will never see the need to give up anything they desire for something someone else wants. And yet, that is what life with God is about. Giving up our small desires for a life with grand purpose – a life with meaning, a life with true love.

    To give up your dreams for God’s is hard, but it is worth it.

    Categories
    Christian Living

    Love God With All You Are – Heart, Mind, Soul, Strength

    Jesus said that we are to love God with all that we are – with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
    Sign showing How to love God - with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength
    What does that mean exactly?

    Love Him with your Emotional Life (heart). We will not let emotions rule us. For example, we will not let anger turn into revenge or cruelty; instead we will allow our emotions (such as compassion) to lead us to do His good will.

    Love Him with your Intellectual Life (mind). We will not fill our minds with garbage, as God wants us to think on the things that are pleasing to Him. But so often we fill our minds with trash almost every day – music, movies, tv, internet – I’ve heard it said this way: You can’t “pick up a piece of poop from the clean end” – and yet it seems we keep trying to do that with some of the stuff we are putting into our minds. (Just be glad today’s picture wasn’t tied to this paragraph!)

    Love Him With your Spiritual Life (soul). We will not hold onto any idols. Many want to say, “God I’ll give you everything except for _______.” (Simply fill in the blank with: my money, my relationship with this person or people, my desire for popularity, my dreams, my occupation.) Give God anything and everything that tries to compete with your attention toward Him.

    Love Him with your Physical Life (strength). We will not let our physical desires rule us either – not in lust, not in what we put into our bodies. Instead we will use our physical bodies in a way that promotes purity and self-control and brings glory to God.

    Make the commitment to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength today.

    Categories
    Christian Living

    The Trouble with Lip-Service Christianity

    Okay. We’ve made it all the way to post #2 for 2017. For those skeptics out there as to whether I can top last year – I only have to post 6 more times to surpass my dismal 2016 showing… so I am well on my way! Regarding as to what days to check for new posts, my plan is to send one out three times a week – on Mon, Wed, & Fri mornings.

    I have a few quotes, passages, and thoughts that I had planned to share in 2016 which I never did, so before I move into sharing some newer thoughts for 2017, I am going to strap into my time machine and go back 11 months to pick up some ideas that I jotted down last year when I was a much younger man. Let’s start with the idea of Lip-Service Christianity:

    God doesn’t want a relationship with you where you only talk to Him once a week on Sunday morning for an hour, or where you ask Him for things only when you are in big trouble, or where you pay lip-service to being a Christian but have no actions that back up your words.

    Can you imagine being in a marriage with someone who tells you: “I really care about you, but due to the fact that I am really busy, we will only be able to spend time together one hour a week – let’s say Monday night for dinner – I’ll carve that hour out and we’ll eat together at a restaurant each week – you will have my undivided attention for that entire hour – I’ll even let you choose the restaurant. During the rest of the week, if I need you then I’ll call you. And regarding the weekends, you know that it is important for me to have time for myself for recreation to get recharged for the upcoming week. But it will make that one hour a week on Monday nights really good – something we both really look forward to.”

    How ridiculous. Of course we’d never agree to such a relationship. So why would we think that God wants a relationship with us like that?

    Let’s be honest – He doesn’t.
    photo of person reading the Bible symbolizing the question - does reading the Bible have any value? Is it important?He wants us to spend time with Him every day where He is speaking to us through our reading of His Word. And then He wants us to spent time with Him every moment of the day through continual prayer. And if we do so, then it will change our behavior.

    Move out of Lip-Service Christianity into a relationship with Jesus that changes your life.

    And that will only happen as you make the intentional effort to start reading the Bible. If you aren’t sure where to start, I’d recommend Mark, then John, then Acts. As you read, jot down some ideas to pray about from what you are reading, and when you finish reading, stop and pray for each.

    Categories
    Jesus

    Hello 2017 – Let’s Hit The Reset Button!

    Well Hello. It seems we’ve met here before, but it seems it was a long time ago. Let me introduce myself… again. I’m Brian… and somehow I got lost out on the information superhighway.

    Well, I didn’t actually get lost, but I did disappear! In January of 2015 I set out on a journey with a goal of posting on my website every day (and it then gets posted to email, Facebook, etc.). I didn’t quite meet the goal, but I came close with 340 posts instead of 365. So in 2016, I set out on a new journey with a slightly less ambition goal. I got 7 posts done in January and February toward that goal.

    And then I stopped posting completely. I guess I achieved my less ambitious goal!
    It has now been 11 months since I have posted anything.

    While I could offer plenty of excuses for why I have been absent, it wouldn’t be very thrilling reading material. So instead of boring you with those details, let me just say that it is time for me to hit the reset button. Reset button from Nintendo I now hope to wade back into the waters. I think I will set my new goal to fall somewhere in-between my number of postings from 2015 and 2016 (So I just need to fall somewhere between the narrow range of 7 and 340 posts!). Don’t get excited about me coming back just yet. Let’s see if it actually holds up!

    I did appreciate the kind words from several of you who indicated that you missed the devotional thoughts when they stopped coming. So I’m hitting the reset button and…off we go again.

    Let’s think a bit more about that “reset button.” The reset button is great for gamers. You are playing a game, and it isn’t going the way you want. Hit the reset button… and start over. But we now find the reset button in all sorts of technology. You’re phone isn’t working right because you downloaded a problematic app. Pull out a paper clip, unwind the end, and press it into the tiny reset button hole… and start over.

    Wouldn’t it be great if when life wasn’t going the way you wanted, if life wasn’t working just right because you made a wrong choice, and you could simply hit the reset button… and start over?

    In a way, with Jesus, we can. He offers us forgiveness that cancels out our debts:
    “When you were dead in your transgressions… Jesus made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” RESET!

    Our sins can still have earthly consequences that we may have to face, such as if you were speeding you might still have to pay a fine, but the spiritual consequences of eternal punishment for sin… RESET… Jesus has wiped out the consequences for you by paying for the consequences Himself.

    I’m so glad that God provided me with a “reset” opportunity through Jesus and that I have received undeserved forgiveness through His grace.