Month: June 2013

Categories
Sharing Jesus

Celebrating Failure

Fireworks are one of the ultimate expressions of celebrations. We are getting close to July 4th where many people will set up some amazing firework shows to celebrate the independence of our nation. We might also send up some fireworks for other personal celebrations, such as a birthday. But we don’t usually light off the fireworks when we experience some sort of failure. …Could that be a mistake? Fireworks representing our need to celebrate our failure in witnessing

Thinking about the issue of teaching our children how to fail (yesterday’s post) got me to thinking about another type of failure – the failure of sharing our faith and getting a “no” answer when asking if someone is ready to confess Christ as Savior and Lord. Is it possible that we should be celebrating our “failures” in witnessing?

Christians want to be obedient to share their faith beliefs with others. We want to share, and we want to lead others to know Jesus. But I have heard that it takes a person at least 8 times to hear the message about Jesus before they are open to the idea and in a mindset where they understand it well enough to even consider a personal relationship with Him. So from a statistical standpoint, that means that at least 7 out of 8 Christians need to be willing to share their faith while knowing that they will NOT lead the person they are speaking with to know Christ at that precise moment. But if we know this to be true and choose to be willing to speak the gospel message anyway, our “failure” has the possibility of moving them one step closer to trusting in Christ.

I know that sharing your faith is not a matter of math, but we need to realize that the statistics indicate that sharing your faith will lead you to hear the words “no” more often than “yes” when you ask for a response. But if we let that discourage us, we might stop witnessing all together. In fact, maybe that is one reason so many people do not share their faith… the fear of failure.

So maybe we start celebrating our failures and encouraging each other to fail more often. Maybe we say: “Hey celebrate with me – I failed in three different conversations with people about their desire to know Jesus!” And other believers would respond: “Hurray! Keep it up! We need more failures! More failures lead to more ‘yes’ decisions in time!” The more failures that we are willing to endure, the more chances that we will have a success. Let’s plant seeds no matter what the soil conditions, because if we choose not to plant due to our fear of failure, we will continue to find this next statement to be truth: With no planting comes no harvest.

“Time is too short; and the weather is too turbulent for business as usual in our Christian community.” (Mississippi Pastor Nathan Barber)

— brian rushing

Categories
Parenting

Teaching Children To Fail

Are you teaching your children to fail?
A paper with a grade of F = fail
K-Love has “Life Change Moments” and one from earlier this year was a good reminder of a powerful lesson that we all need to teach to our children – Teaching our children to fail well.

The statement made was that we go get our child ice cream they win the basketball game with the final shot, celebrating their victory. However, if they miss that last shot, we hang our heads and try not to talk about it, indicating to them our shame and disappointment. What we need to do instead is to teach that failure is part of life. We need to be honest and transparent with our own failures, telling our children at dinnertime about the bone-headed mistake that we made at work today.

I agree with this “Life Change Moment.” I’m not saying that we need to congratulate our children’s failures, but that we should be realistic and let them know that failure is normal and not shameful. I’ve seen too many children & teens brokenhearted due to seeing their parent’s intense disappointment due to the child’s failure (or lack of success) at a sporting event or some other competition. It is so easy to show our disappointment with our children’s failures and poor choices without ever letting them know that we adults also make poor choices and have failures. So let’s be honest and transparent and teach our children to fail well – learning not to be shamed, but rather to use failure as an instructor and motivator to help us learn how to succeed in the future.

God, Help Us To Change Our Conversations – even with our children!

Parents, any practical suggestions on how to do this?

“Spare the rod and spoil the child – that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.” –Martin Luther

— brian rushing

Categories
Evidence for Christ

You Be The Judge

The courtroom.
A jury of 12 common people with no law experience.
A judge and two lawyers with expertise in knowing, arguing, and debating the law.
Why do we trust the verdict of these 12 common folks over the trained & educated scholars who have specialized skills in understanding the law?
a courtroom with paneled wood judge's desk
G. K. Chesterton tells us:
“Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. If it wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”

Twelve common men who weighed the evidence and it transformed their lives. They became bold witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Ravi Zacharias: “You be the judge. The jury has already recorded its conclusion in the pages of the Bible.”

I hope you have agreed with the decision of the Apostles and confessed Jesus as Lord.

G. K. Chesterton:
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

— brian rushing

Categories
Christian Living

Spin the Wheel on the Game of Life… find Success!

The spinner from the boardgame Life symbolizing the chance of success The spinner on the Game of Life… I used to love spinning that colorful, numbered wheel. Perhaps if I could spin it just right, I could land on the right squares, score an occupation with a high salary, become a millionaire, and “win the Game of Life.” If only winning at real life was as easy.

But it takes a bit more to be a success in this life. Gaining tremendous wealth takes more effort than the chance spinning of a small, plastic wheel. And for many that is the full definition of success – making money. But is that really the definition of success? How should I define success? To have all that my heart desires? To have more than my neighbor? To be envied by others?

The problem is that the wrong definition of success leaves us empty – and too many of us have chosen the wrong definition.

Ravi Zacharias states: “One of the most common refrains we hear from those who have reached the pinnacle of success is that of the emptiness that still stalks their lives, all their successes notwithstanding. …judging by the remarks of some who have attained those higher standards, there is frequently an admission of disappointment. After his second Wimbledon victory Boris Becker surprised the world by admitting his great struggle with suicide. Jack Higgins, the renowned author…has said that the one thing he knows now at this high point of his career…: “When you get to the top, there’s nothing there.””

And another famous American business tycoon who achieved success in all of the ways that the world defines it indicated: “Here I am in the twilight years of my life, still wondering what it’s all about…. I can tell you this, fame and fortune is for the birds.”

“This…is one of the more difficult of life’s realities to accept. Those who have not yet experienced the success they covet find it impossible to believe that those who have attained it find it wanting in terms of giving meaning to life” (Ravi Z.).

Success based on wealth, material possessions, and fame have been found to be so empty that over and over again celebrities at the pinnacle of this type of success look for happiness in drugs and alcohol. The depression of reaching the top and finding nothing there can be so overwhelming that many of these celebrities attempt suicide. “For many in our high-paced world, despair in not a moment; it is a way of life” (Ravi Z.).

Thus, success by this definition is fatally flawed. So I’ve chosen to define my success by knowing and doing the will of God. I have found this to be so much more fulfilling. How about you? How do you define success?

God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves. (Dwight L. Moody)

— brian rushing

Categories
Missions

Distinct Marks of Christians

People who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks:
      1. they are facing only one direction,
      2. they can never turn back, and
      3. they no longer have plans of their own.
                                                        -A.W. Tozer

Unfortunately I find that too often, I don’t do well at any of the three.

a no u-turn nor left turn sign symbolizing one of the distinct marks of not turning backThough I only face one direction at a time, I sure like to change that direction from one minute to the next. I not only turn back, but sometimes I even run in the wrong direction. And I am quick to ask Jesus to step down off the throne of my life so that I can sit there again and make all sorts of my own plans, even though I told Him that He would be King.

So I need to pray: God, help me to face one direction – toward You. Help me to never turn back, not even to take a quick glance behind. And help me to give up all of my plans for Yours, because Your plans for me are better than the dreams I have for me.

He has told me to have a heart for the lost and be on-mission for Him no matter where I am going. But what I find is that I will never be a missionary until the lostness of another grieves my heart.

I am so glad that my lostness grieved the heart of God and therefore Jesus came to earth to serve, to suffer, to be rejected, to be beaten, to be despised, to be crucified, to die – and to take my place as the substitute for my evil choices.

So now it is my turn to have a missionary spirit because the lostness of others without Christ grieves my heart. I’ve been where they are – without Him – now it is my responsibility to help them come to where I am – saved by His Amazing Grace.

I need God to break my heart for the things that break His heart. That requires me to get rid of selfishness and become selfless – a difficult feat in a society that tells us that the key focus should be on ME.

Tozer also said that the true follower of Christ will say, “This is truth. God help me to walk in it, let come what may!” May this also be my plea.

Are there other distinct marks you would add to Tozer’s list of three?

— brian rushing