Categories
Christian Living

Reshaping Yourself

A lot of us look in the mirror and don’t love what we see. And I’m not just talking about physical appearances. Though you are probably your biggest critic regarding the image that looks back at you from the mirror, you are also the only one who truly knows your heart. And for many of us, we still aren’t pleased with who we are internally. We want to be in the process of reshaping and remolding ourselves, but maybe we haven’t quite figured out how.

Here is the simple answer:

“What do you love? You will certainly become what you love.”

Seriously? How can this be the answer? It has to do with our hearts. What we allow our hearts to pursue continues to shape who we are. That works both for negative habits and traits as well as for godliness. For example,

“Do you love holiness? Then you will become holy. Do you love the Word of God? Then you will become like Christ, the living Word. Do you love the name of Jesus? Then your life will manifest His name before all men.”

I agree with these authors who have simply stated the truth – as you love and pursue God, you will become more godly and righteous.

Not only does God want this for you, but you also owe it to yourself and to your children. You were created to point people to God and as you do so you will find that you love fulfilling that purpose.

“You owe it to God to illustrate His name beautifully before your children. How far are you willing to go to paint that picture? …How committed are you to calling sin, sin?” How willing are you to move toward more holiness and Christlikeness? As you spend more time with Christ, you will see “more clearly than ever that you have no right to stay the same wherever you’re missing the Lord’s mark. You must walk normally like Christ and listen well to the Spirit so that you can complete the task at hand.”

We work out and run and sweat in the process of reshaping our bodies, but until we engage in reshaping our inner self, we will never be satisfied. Reshape yourself into the image of Jesus by falling more in love with Him.

(quotes are from Every Man’s Challenge by Arterburn and Stoeker)

Categories
Christian Living

A New Tradition for Christmas

I recently shared this with my church and thought it would be good to share here as well…

We will all soon be ready to exchange gifts with one another at Christmas. In past years that would mean that Paige and I would be frantically shopping to find gifts for our family members and friends. The funny thing is…none of them ever needed any new gifts. They already had more stuff than would fit in all their closets and shelves. Have you experienced the same thing with your family? So instead of continuing to scratch our heads over what to buy, we decided to take a different approach these past few years.

Not only did we want to focus more on the true meaning of Christmas, we also wanted the children in our family to better understand the gift of Jesus and how His love should change our lives. Therefore, each adult in the now family brings about fifty bucks to put into a “pool” of funds. We then have the children in the family look through a Missions Catalog, such as the Samaritan’s Purse “Help Others at Christmas” gift catalog, to choose how we will spend the money to bless others.

The children have a great time in picking out items to help other children and families around the world – last year they chose baby chickens, a hive of honeybees, a fishing boat, medicine for health needs, Bibles, and more! Instead of searching through a toy catalog to shop for themselves, the children end up searching for gifts to give to other people in real need. This leads to some great “teachable moments” as we discuss with them the needs of others and how missionaries can use the gifts to share Christ with the families they serve. After choosing all the gifts, we say a prayer asking God to use the gifts to bless the families and to draw the family members to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

When we finished our Christmas celebration using this new tradition these past years, we hadn’t just swapped gift cards with one another… we felt that we had helped each other better understand the real meaning of Christmas by celebrating what Christ did for us and how important it is that we share Him. During this Christmas season, I hope that you will continue to think of ways to help your family be “on mission” for God.

And if your family does something special to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, share that with the rest of us. I know I’d love to hear about it and be able to share it with my church family to give them more ideas for next year!

Categories
Christian Living

The Problem of Sophistication

When we read the Bible, we are reading the accounts of people some 2000 years ago that God decided were important life accounts for us to know of and learn from. So if my life account was written down to be looked at years from now, what would it look like?

I imagine it would read similar to the way an author described his life:
“…my early story would have to be recorded along these lines: ‘He did everything exactly as God commanded him half the time, every now and then, whenever it suited him, or sometimes when it was easy.'”

Too often I find that I am living to please myself rather than the One who I’ve called upon as Lord & Master. I need more obedience. I need more sanctification in my life and less sophistication…

“Sanctification is the process by which a man becomes normal in the context of the kingdom of God. The more sanctified you are, the more the fruit of the Spirit will grow freely, and the more normal you will seem to other Christians.”

“Sophistication, on the other hand, is the process by which a man becomes normal in the context of the world. The more sophisticated you are, the more normal you’ll look to [those without Christ]. You’ll fit right into their world. The fruits of sophistication include lust, faithlessness, selfishness, self-absorption, and the love of money.”

“The fruit of sophistication rots the fruit of the Spirit.”

And yet what I often find within myself is a desire to look more normal to the world. If the fruit of sophistication rots the fruit of the Spirit, then what do I need to do to build up more fruit of the Spirit and become more normal in relation to God’s kingdom?

“All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you.”

I think that is it – I just need to obey today.

I need to make a choice to listen to His will for my life today and take that first step of obedience. Then He will show me the next step to take. I don’t have to worry about how I will get my entire sinful life under control all at once. Instead, I need to just ask God what He would have me do first. What to do right now. Do it. And then repeat the process.

(quotes from ‘Every Man’s Challenge’ by Arterburn & Stoeker)

Categories
Worship

The Hard Work of Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving Day!
The one day of the year we are supposed to be thankful.
Then we can go back to being regular ole grumps!

Actually, this isn’t the only time of the year when we are to be thankful, but the thankfulness aspect of today was originally about being thankful for a good harvest. Having a good harvest meant lots of food on the table, so I guess that is why our holiday tradition for today is eating until the point of discomfort!

So the eating isn’t hard work, though having motivation to do much else with that full belly might be. The laughing at the table with family isn’t hard work. The watching of football games with each other isn’t hard work. So what is the hard work of Thanksgiving?

I believe it is keeping a right focus in today’s American society about WHO we should be thankful to.

It will be easy today to say…” I am thankful because such-and-such happened to ME because I was able to use MY abilities to….” And in doing so, we can focus our thanks on self – on I and Me. That is the American way. To go against that grain takes effort.

The hard work is to honestly ask and answer the question – who has ultimately given us these good things to be thankful for? Who has blessed us with family, with the good things that are on our table, with the innate abilities in us to even work and provide for our families?

God.
He alone.
He is the reason you have food on the table.
He is the provider of rain.
He is the provider of life.
He is the reason you are able to take each breath.

The hard work is refocusing today on Him – the author of good gifts. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift come from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

“Will we only give God the things that cost us nothing?” King David was freely offered what he would need to make a sacrifice to God, but David replied: “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not…sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”

It won’t cost us much to be a part of the celebration today, but refocusing our attention on God is hard work. Stepping up as the spiritual leader of your family and asking them to pray with you to thank God might be foreign to you and your family. It is a foreign concept for many in America today. But God desires for you to exalt His Name, and today is the perfect day to do so.

The rest of Thanksgiving won’t cost you much. “But it costs plenty to pray with others. Prayer is hard work, and it takes courage, dedication, concentration, and steadfastness.” As we pray with others, we open up our lives to them – our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs. This is hard work that God desires of us today – to open ourselves up to others in prayer as we honor Him with thankful hearts.

Don’t let the day just be about turkey and dressing, full bellies, football, hunting, or shopping. It will be easy to stop there. Go further. Do the hard work. Refocus the day on the Giver of all good things so that your family members develop a deeper Thankfulness to the One worthy of all Thanksgiving.

Categories
Christian Living

Love in the Face of Treason

Treason…
A distasteful word.
One we’d never want used about our behavior or actions.

When we think of our own lives, we think of ourselves as pretty good citizens… even patriots for our nation. But what if you have dual citizenship – what if you are not only a citizen of an earthly nation, but also of God’s Kingdom? Are you a good citizen in the eyes of the Sovereign King of that realm? How obedient are you to His commands?

We like to think that we are “pretty good” people, but the problem is disobedience to the King… which we term “sin.” And sin is a big deal. Here’s why: “Sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator of the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love him is not trivial — it is treason.”

So because of our unwillingness to bring our lives under full control of the Sovereign King, we are people with treasonous actions and attitudes. Shouldn’t His amazing love for us be enough to drive out our sin? Shouldn’t His love compel us to love Him in return and keep us from being disobedient? Perhaps the problem is that we haven’t thought of our disobedience as being serious.

“We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us.”

Until we can see our disobedience to both the “Thou Shalt Not” Commands AND the “Thou Shalt” Commands as serious acts of rebellion, we will never sense the full weight of His love in the face of our treason. He tells us not to do some things, but He also tells us plenty that we must do – specifically loving our neighbors as ourselves. Our failure to share His story with them and let them know how God wants to intersect and interrupt their lives with His love… that failure is treason against the King.

And yet He loves us still.

He loves us in the face of our treason.

“Today the word sin way too often misses this aspect of God’s heart regarding the Law. When His Word says, ‘Avoid all sin,’ we miss the ‘I love you, my child’ that lies behind it.”

Let us look at ourselves through the eyes of the King and see how far we miss the mark. When we do so and then realize that He loves us in spite of our own terrible thoughts, actions, and attitudes, we will start to see how deep His love goes… and then that love will begin to drive us into deeper obedience prompted by a desire to serve the One who loves us so well.

(quotes from ‘For Your Joy’ by John Piper; and ‘Every Man’s Challenge’ by Arterburn & Stoeker)