Tag: consistency

Categories
Ramblings

Consistency: Good Habits Are Hard To Start Once You Stop

Well, The Inconsistent Blogger is back!

My inconsistency in blogging has me doing some thinking. We all value consistency and faithfulness, and therefore we want to connect with people who are consistent. Inconsistent people are hard to be friends with, because it’s hard to have a relationship with someone we cannot count on.

And this teaches us something about life in general: We need to be consistent!
Image with the statement: Consistency is key.

At the end of 2017 at a family get-together, my sister-in-law Alisha made a humorous comment at the dinner table about my social media presence. She mentioned that she won’t see anything from me for a month, and then her feed will be inundated with quotes and articles from me for the next two weeks. She was absolutely right – it was “famine or feast” with my posting in 2017.

My inconsistency last year spurred me to write 52 posts to use in 2018 before I posted my first one. However, I still didn’t post 52, because my computer crashed at the end of March and I had some ridiculous problems in getting a new one up and running. It wasn’t six months’ worth of problems, but once I stopped posting, guess what? It was easy to keep on “not posting.”

Isn’t that just like the rest of life? If you stop working out due to an injury, it is easier to continue not working out. If you stop dieting when you go on vacation, it is easier to continue not dieting. And in spiritual matters, if you stop attending church worship services or stop reading God’s Word, it is easy to continue not attending and not reading.

But since we know these things are good for us, then we ought to start them back up again as soon as possible.

Restarting Good Habits

And while blogging does not fit into the same category as many other beneficial items, my point is that consistency is important. And so my question for today is:
What spiritual activities have you stopped or been inconsistent about doing that you need to start back up again?

Consistency isn’t natural and takes intentional hard work. Aldous Huxley said:
“Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.” Ha! What a great quote! Yes, the body of a dead person stays in the same place and does the same thing each day. And so the inconsistent life may be more natural and normal in this world, but such inconsistency does not help you move along the path God wants for you.

I hope you’ll choose today as the day to restart a beneficial spiritual discipline!

(And my plan is to post the rest of the year on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

.

Categories
Relationships

Terrible Parenting Advice – Do As I Say, Not As I Do

pointing finger symbolizing a "do as I say" postureUgh.
What miserable advice.
Have you ever had someone use this on you?
Did you want to strangle them after they said it?

There are people in life who we “look up to” with respect. And we expect those people to live consistent lives. We don’t want to hear people telling us to “do as I say, not as I do.” Especially when our parents say this to us during those growing-up years.

As a youth minister, I had numerous teenagers tell me that their parents told them to behave in ways that these same parents were unwilling to live. Parents saying things like “don’t you dare let me catch you ever smoking ” while holding a cigarette, “don’t you ever let me find out you are drinking” while holding a bottle, “you need to go to church” while unwilling to step through a church door themselves.

Now please don’t get defensive over the three things I just used as examples…we can discuss the merits of these another day. These are just some of the things I heard from teens most often. The point is simply that the inconsistency of such statements when paired with the behaviors is hard for anyone to respect. There is just too much hypocrisy in the phrase “Do as I say, not as I do.”

In the same way as children want their parents to be consistent, we also want to see integrity and consistent behavior in our bosses, police officers, judges, president… anyone who is in authority over us. We don’t want people telling us to be honest if they are deceitful. We don’t want them telling us to “obey the law” when they consistently break it. We don’t want someone telling us we should “be forgiving” when they are full of venom and resentment toward others. So how well do you do in this area of consistent living?

“Right will always be right even if no one is doing it, and wrong will always be wrong even if everyone is doing it.”

Our character is very important to God. Your actions should show your character at all times, even when no one is looking. But we are so good at putting up fake fronts – external actions that in no way resemble our inward feelings. We smile at someone and shake their hands, while we inwardly sneer at them. We say things are great and post a glowing Facebook status to indicate our life is almost perfect when we are actually going through terribly difficult struggles. We can do such a great job at inconsistent living.

Let me give one additional area where many of us Christians struggle with consistency – God’s Word.

a photo of a page of the Bible “Do you think that the Bible is important?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think it has information within its pages that is important for your life?”
“Certainly.”
“What if I offered you money in an agreement where you could never read the Bible again or hear any words from the Bible ever again? Would you take one thousand dollars to never read or hear any words from the Bible ever again?”
“No, definitely not.”
“What about if I offered you $100,000? $1 million?”
“No, the information in the Bible is too important for me to never read or hear from it again.”
“Come on. Just tell me how much money it would take?”
“There is absolutely no amount you could offer me to make that decision, because there is important information in the Bible from God and if I choose to never read it or hear it again, then I won’t be able to discover what God wants to tell me – the Bible is obviously priceless to me.”
“Well, if the Bible is priceless to you, then how much time did you spend reading it last week?”

How can we say we have a priceless book – a book with a value that cannot be calculated – and yet not read it at all during the week? Do we really believe that the Bible is all that important? If we do, then our behavior should become consistent with our belief?

Let’s get rid of the “Do as I say, Not as I do” attitude in every area of our lives – including regarding God’s Word.

What are other times when have you heard this phrase used (and therefore wanted to strangle the person who said it)?

Categories
Relationships

Killing Hypocrisy To Bring Honor To God

I see a lot of people growing in a lot of ways – financially, successfully in the business world, in their status and power, but the question is – are you growing in the Lord?

After writing a few things about hypocrisy, I came across this passage during my morning prayer and Bible reading time – Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things (Romans 2:1). Jesus is telling us to avoid the “do as I say, not as I do” lifestyle and words.

Just like the people of Jesus’ day, many of us might say – I would never be hypocritical. And yet:
We condemn murderers; while we still hold onto hate & anger.
We condemn adulterers; while we allow our eyes to wander and provide us with lustful thoughts.
We condemn liars; though we are not fully truthful with many others, including our spouses/kids.
We condemn the greedy; but we are not giving a minimum of 10% of our income to the Lord.
We condemn those who talk about us behind our backs by gossiping about them to others.
We condemn law breakers and criminals; while we ourselves pick and choose which laws we will follow (such as disobeying traffic laws and speed limits; violating copyright laws for illegal music and movies; finding ways to get around tax laws; etc.)
We complain about those who aren’t as “good” as us morally or who are not as religious as us; yet we are not spending any significant time with God in prayer or reading His Word.
We complain about how church leaders & other members are serving; though we are not willing to roll up our sleeves and serve.
We hear what church leaders are saying to us; but we still aren’t telling others about God and His gospel.

And because of all this, we stand in judgmental condemnation (which Jesus condemns), rather than loving reconciliation (which Jesus desires). And though you probably don’t do all of these things, maybe you see one or two in that list above that describes some habit you need to remove from your life.

Paul tells us the problem is this – “you, therefore…who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? … You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written (Romans 2:21-24).

So the problem with hypocrisy in Christians is that those who don’t know the Lord will see such inconsistency in our lives, that they will not hold God in high esteem. This is why it is important that we change these patterns. Instead of His Name being blasphemed, we need His name to be honored because of us. So Jesus tells us to . . . let your light shine before others in such a way that they see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father because of your consistent, honest, moral lifestyle.

Let’s be willing to look inward, to be honest with ourselves, and to root out any inconsistency and hypocrisy that might be in our lives. We need to work on killing hypocrisy – making sure our lives bring honor and praise to the name of God in all that we say and do.

Categories
Christian Living

Integrity Means Letting Your Yes Be Yes

I have enjoyed my blogging experience thus far. As much as anything, writing helps me process my thoughts and learn to be a better communicator. And I was working on a few different posts, but I couldn’t seem to pull any together for a fully cohesive post. So at the end of last week, I just posted a short snippet from one I had been working on. When I started posting to facebook and blogging a few months ago, I did this pretty often. But then it seems that I forgot how!

Because I do enjoy getting more complete thoughts put together before posting, I found myself not able to post as often… making my postings sporadic. So I’m planning to send out more snippets and brief thoughts in the future to keep my posting more regular. And I think that may be better anyway! Even in our own experience of wanting to change the conversations, maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about saying something exactly right as much as we should just go ahead and speak about Him and let our “snippets” have great impact over time.

So here is a brief thought on us having integrity, character, and consistency. Jesus tells us to be people of honesty and consistency. That our ‘yes’ should mean ‘yes’ and that our ‘no’ should mean ‘no.’ That our integrity should be at the highest level. But a problem exists for many of us. We have fallen into the trap, that it is OK to be inconsistent, as long as it benefits us. And that leads to our misunderstanding of God’s word, to our misapplying God’s truth, and down the path toward hypocritical attitudes and beliefs.

For example, due to our lack of consistently living out the Bible, we have reversed a proper understanding of the “do not judge” passages in the Bible. A problem our neighbors and co-workers can have with Christians, is our harsh judgment toward others. Jesus had harsh judgment for only one group – the rigid religious leaders who had no compassion for others. But for those who were sinners without any real relationship to God, Jesus held out compassion and love, hoping to move them closer to God.

hammerGod calls us to “judge” the habitually sinful behavior of our fellow Christian brothers and sisters. He tells us to do this so that we can sharpen one another and hold each other accountable. But God tells us to hold out love to those without faith to help them desire to come into our loving family. Our problem is that we flip these two and get them reversed.

And so not only do we judge the wrong group… too often, we not only want to judge, we want to condemn.
Are you swinging the hammer of condemnation toward those who need love?
Are you staying silent toward your fellow Christian brothers and sisters who need you to keep sharpening them?
Let’s flip it back to the biblical model, the model of Jesus!

Sharpen your Christian family with love, leading them toward more God-honoring behavior..
Hold out compassion and love to all others, leading them toward the kindness and salvation of God.
And don’t get the two mixed up!

Categories
Christian Living

The Hypocrites Motto

“Do what I say, not what I do.” The motto of a hypocrite, perhaps?

“I don’t go to church because there are so many hypocrites there.” You’ve heard it said. Maybe you’ve even said it. Maybe you still feel that way today. It has been said that “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable” (Brennan Manning).

The thing that bothers those neighbors of mine and the reason your coworkers make these types of comments… is that they see people who they know go to church every Sunday use the roughest, foulest language throughout the week; who leer at the opposite sex and make inappropriate comments about them later; who treat their spouse and kids poorly; who badmouth the boss behind his back; and who find sneaky ways to get around the rules and laws – of the workplace, of the school district, of the tax payments. They look at the attitudes, habits, & lifestyle of many Christians and think – “they don’t seem to be anything like the Jesus I’ve heard about.”

Cause most all of the folks around you know a little bit about Jesus, even if they aren’t a follower of Him.
At the very least, they know that He was about love. And they know that anyone who claims to follow Him should also be about love. They know that those who say they believe in God should live a consistent life that is faithful to the lifestyle that Jesus lived.

But too often, they see something different.

Does your life match up with your words? Let’s keep striving toward consistency – being people of the highest integrity and character.