Category: Christian Living

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Christian Living

Problematic Worry

What’s got you worried today? Anxiety is such a problem for so many of us, and it is a bigger problem than we realize. Certainly Corrie Ten Boom was right when she said: “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.”

Worry is sin in that it is a lack of faith – it is the sin of pride turned sideways. It indicates that we believe our situation is somehow more special than anyone else’s and that God isn’t big enough to handle our special situation. We don’t have faith that He is able, so it is lack of faith and pride that leads us into the sin of anxiety and worry.

“Faith ends where worry begins, and worry ends where faith begins.” –George Muellerman seated on a bench in deep prayer or worry or both

With so many of us worried about today – worried about something at work, worried about a relationship problem at home, worried about a decision we made in the past, worried about the future, what can we do?

We can give it to God. We want to give something to God that blesses Him, but “Paul warns against any view of God which makes Him the beneficiary of our beneficence. He informs us that God cannot be served in any way that implies we are meeting His needs…. But isn’t there something we can give to God that won’t belittle Him to the status of beneficiary? Yes. Our anxieties…. God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency” (John Piper).

When we lose all our anxiety by trusting Him fully, then we become fully dependent on Him! Give your anxiety to Him today and trust His promise to take care of you.

Remember – “God’s answers are wiser than our prayers.” Therefore we should certainly pray, but when the answer comes and it is not what we expect, remember that God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom, so trust His answer even more than your request.

With so many struggling with this issue, what advice would you give on how you keep your anxiety level down and your faith in God up?

“You can no more outgrow your need for God than you can outgrow your need for oxygen.” (unknown)

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Christian Living

Amazing Insights from Teens

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… I was a youth minister. At least it seems long ago. As a youth minister I would occasionally hear negative comments about teens – about their attitudes and disrespect and (fill in the blank with something you’ve heard). And though teens can at times be impulsive, they can also have amazing insights & faith in Jesus.

Almost 10 years ago at summer camp, I wrote down a few quotes that students said during our debriefing time (which often seemed to last until about 1 am!). The insights they shared were quite remarkable.

From a student who was striving to improve his boldness in sharing his faith:
“In Luke, Jesus says, ‘The Son of Man came to seek and to save those who are lost.’ I wish people could say of me, ‘the son of Bart came to seek and to save those who are lost.’” (Brett Carr)

Brett’s brother was in college and led our Bible study time that week. As a teen he had worried that some of his past mistakes could be held against his witness. He stated: “When Paul started his ministry, people who had known him didn’t readily accept his message because of his known past. People who have seen your hypocritical life will always be there, but that should not stop us from living our life in Christ.” (Cory Carr)

Two other quotes from two of the young ladies at camp (I think both were high school seniors that year):

“As ‘good’ Christians, we can become prideful about our good and godly life. Pride in goodness is still pride – we must become humble.” (Beth Floyd)

“We spend time with people who make us feel special, so make others feel special with your life so your life and testimony will impact them and lead them to Christ.”

The faith statements of these four young people give a glimpse of what Jesus Christ can do in and through us, even at an early age. But only if we are open to His influence. Let us never doubt what God wants to teach us through those who are younger and who often have an amazing ability to show great faith in Him!

What else have your children (or someone else’s) said or done that showed remarkable faith or insight regarding his or her relationship with Jesus?
blonde-headed young girl picking white and yellow flowers in a field

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Christian Living

Owing God

Do you remember who said, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”?

close up of a visa card representing debtPersonally, I don’t like to be in debt, so I try to pay what I owe a.s.a.p. But I’m having a hard time with this one – God paid off my debt of sin on the cross…that means I owe Him, but I’m having a bit of trouble paying Him back. Can someone give me some suggestions?

John Piper says – “The debtor’s ethic has a deadly appeal to immature Christians…. The Christian life is pictured as an effort to pay back the debt we owe to God.” Too often I find myself slipping into this immature, unbiblical belief that I can somehow pay Him back.

The “debtor ethic” idea has us owing God and needing to pay Him back, but the truth is that God is not a loanshark. He didn’t pay my debt so that I would pay Him back at some outrageous interest rate. He doesn’t have the attitude of “I paid it all, Brian, so you owe Me your all and should pay up out of a sense of duty.” And yet that is often the attitude with which I seem to serve Him. I have to learn to wrap my head around the idea that I should serve not out of a debtor’s ethic but out of gratitude and joy and love due to His grace. I should serve out of love for both past grace received and future grace to come!

Since I have zero ability to pay Him back what I owe, I should just revel in the grace that I have received and joyously serve Him as Lord. The sense shouldn’t be – “You saved my life, so now I should work my whole life to pay you back.” It should be more like “You loved me so much that you saved my life, and that has made me fall in love with You! I love you so much that all I want to do is serve you all my life!”

The Apostle John wrote: “We love because He first loved us.” His love has drawn me into a deep love for Him. And it is from that love that I now joyously serve Him. I hope you are serving Him joyously out of love instead of grudgingly out of a sense of debt.

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Christian Living

Fill ‘Er Up

What have I set my heart on in an attempt to fill it up?gas pump representing the idea of how we want to be filled up with success
Our society and culture tell us that if we set our hearts on success, fame, pleasure, and influence, then we will have enough and will find joy, happiness, & fulfillment. But what if someone who had acquired all these things told you that it was all a lie? That these things still won’t be enough to fill you up?

Famous British author Malcolm Muggeridge stated:
“I may, I suppose, regard myself as a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets. That’s fame; I can fairly easily earn enough money to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue Service. That’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame [I] may partake of friendly diversions. That’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time. That’s fulfillment. Yet, I say to you, and I beg you to believe me, multiply these tiny triumphs by millions, add them all up together, and they are nothing, less than nothing. Indeed, a positive impediment measured against one drop of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.”

The truth is that all of the enthrallment and novelty that I can find in these things is not enough. Because “somewhere and sometime, human enthrallment finds its limit, as does human capacity. God alone is the perpetual novelty—providing wonder, truth, love, and security” (Ravi Zacharias).

So add up all the success that the world offers and it is of no comparison to knowing Christ. Paul found that same thing to be true and said all that he had gained he now counted as worthless garbage in comparison to knowing Christ.

So what should I do? Perhaps, I should try to follow the example of Ezra – “the good hand of his God was upon him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” If I set my heart on God and practice and teach His Word to others, then I will fulfillment in life.

Because, “when man lives apart from God, chaos is the norm. When man lives with God, as revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the hungers of the mind and heart find their fulfillment” (Ravi Z).

Set your heart on God and you will find in Him the wonder of perpetual novelty.

“Christ is a substitute for everything, but nothing is a substitute for Christ.” (H.A. Ironside)

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Christian Living

Where Roots Are Meant To Be

“I was invited to Miss Alice Henderson’s…[in her] there was an effortless beauty…a harmony that seemed to come from having one’s roots down in the place where the roots were meant to be.”

row of majestic old oak trees with great root systemsI want my roots down in the place where roots were meant to be. I want to be known as a stable, rooted person…one who is not given to bending with the changing wind, but who is firmly planted and confident and content in who I am. When I am able to accept myself as a person loved by God, it changes how I view and accept others.

“There was something else I had noticed too: an initial acceptance of herself as she was and [also] of other people with their [shortcomings]. And so she did as little scolding or criticizing of others for their foolish behavior or their sins as anyone I had ever known. It was not that she was willing to compromise with wrongdoing…just that she was a long step ahead of wasting emotional energy on fretting. And she never put pressure on the rest of us to accept her opinions. The secret of her calm seemed to be that she was not trying to prove anything. She was—that was all. And her stance toward life seemed to say: God is—and that is enough.”

That is how I want to be – able to accept others with their shortcoming because I realize my own failures and yet I also know that I still accepted and loved by the King of the Universe. I want to have a simplicity of life to be able to say:
God is—and that is enough.

Are you content in who you are in Christ? Or are you still struggling to accept you?
It will be hard to accept others until you are able to accept yourself.
Remember these words from a Matthew West song – that when regret and defeat try to remind you of what hold they have on you – tell them…

“Hello, my name is… Child of the One True King.
I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, I have been set free.”

When we hold onto this truth, we are set free from so much weight of trying to impress and keep up appearances. We just relax in Him. And that let’s others relax when they are with us.

Let’s put our roots down where they were meant to be – in the foundation of Christ, knowing that we are Adopted Children of the One True King of the Universe!

(Quotes take from the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall)