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Christian Living

Sorry For the Month Long Hiatus! Maybe I Need More Conviction.

Im-Back-But-Where-Have-I

Yeah, Where HAVE I been? I’m not quite sure… It seems like the first month of 2016 has disappeared in the blink of an eye. Am I losing my mind? Ha!

My last post was on January 1, explaining that I was going to cut back just a bit on my posting this year, but I certainly didn’t plan to go a whole month without posting anything.

Instead of posting, I ended up spending a lot of time catching up on some relationship-building, especially with one good friend who was back in the States for the month. I will say that it was quite nice to be off of social media for the month. I think breaks like that can be quite healthy as we change up our routines and get off the “fast-track.” But my friend has headed back south to another country, and my life is getting back to its normal routine. Therefore, it’s time to get back into writing and sharing some of my thoughts. So here goes…

When Was The Last Time You Were Convicted?

I’m not talking about being convicted by the justice system of our nation (which doesn’t require a heart change). I’m talking about being convicted by God Himself – a conviction that causes deep repentance in your heart and mind.

“Conspicuously absent today in many churches is conviction concerning sin…. The average believer says, “Yes, I trust Christ.” But he has no real conviction of sin in his life at all. It is absent in contemporary church life. It is seldom that we come forward with tears – convicted of our sin before a holy God that cannot accept us as we are….

“Someone has said that the modern pulpit has become a place where a mild-mannered man gets up before a group of mild-mannered people and urges them to be more mild-mannered…. No wonder the world has passed by the church. We don’t need reforming; we need to be regenerated. We need to be born again.”

These two paragraphs by J. Vernon McGee remind us that we need convicting. I’m not sure what sin or sins you have been struggling with lately, but pray to God that you would see your sin as He sees it. Ask Him to help you be truly heart-broken over the ways that you do not imitate Christ.

May we truly know the conviction of the Lord that leads us to repentance and into more holiness.

Categories
Ramblings

Day One 2016: Time for a New Year and a New Plan

Day One 2016 - Happy New Year with fireworksWow… another year over and done. And a new one about to begin. We come to Day One 2016, what will take place this year?

The quick review of my 2015 plan:
Though I had selected 365 quotes to share through the year, the actually number of posts I made was slightly less than that due to me not posting on several mornings. I had all sorts of great excuses for those days I missed: the issue of my computer dying, then I had the A/C at the house go out, and there were a few days I didn’t post when I went out of town for various reasons. Whatever the excuse, instead of meeting my goal of 365 daily posts, I ended up with about 340 daily posts, and I learned a number of lessons.

The main lesson I learned is that it takes a lot of work to post something every single morning. I remain impressed by those who do so with such consistency.

But the other key lesson I learned is that I didn’t feel I could flesh out some of the ideas as much as I would like due to me pushing myself to post something each day. Of course, the only one who put the pressure on me to post each day was myself because I set a goal and wrote about it at the beginning of last year. So for this new year of 2016, I am going to cut back and I plan to post less often than I did in 2015 but more often than in ’13 & ’14. That means that I plan to post something about three days a week. I hope that doing so will allow me to put more thought into the posts, and therefore make them more meaningful to everyone who takes the time to read them.

Thank you for reading and for encouraging me throughout the year. And I hope that this year is one where you will grow closer to God than you ever have before.

On Day One 2016, that is my New Year’s Resolution – to grow deeper in my relationship to Jesus Christ than ever before – and I hope that is also the commitment you are making to Him this year.

Categories
Quotes

This Is God’s Promise; This Is How Good He Is!

Today brings to a close another year. Tomorrow we begin a new year with new opportunities and new experiences. How will we know what to do? Where will we get the proper guidance for making God-honoring choices from the first moment of the year to the last? J. I. Packer discusses the issue of God’s guidance toward us and how God’s promise to us is a blessing:

    …it appears that the right context for discussing guidance is one of confidence in the God who will not let us ruin our souls. Our concern, therefore, in this discussion should be more for His glory than for our security — for that is already taken care of.

    Guidance, like all God’s acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us His way, that we may tread it; He wills also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensuring that, whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safely home. Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God’s promise; this is how good He is.
–J. I. Packer

How wonderful to remember this truth as we move into a brand new year… That God is so good that as He guides us this year, even if we slip and stray from His guidance, He will bring us safely home if we are His children! His strong and mighty arms are beneath us and He will catch us when we fall to rescue and and restore us back on His path.

Do your very best to try to follow God’s guidance throughout 2016, but when you find that you’ve missed the mark, realize His grace still covers you and He still loves you and wants to put you back on the right path. Repent of errors, and once again make the choice to always do the next right thing!

Categories
Quotes

Becoming Highly Relational and Highly Intentional

The second greatest command is: Love your neighbor as much and in the same way as you love yourself. We are relational people who are called to intentionally build relationships.

Here are two quotes to help us think through more of what that means:

Compassion is born when we discover in the center of our own existence, not only that God is God and humans are human, but also that our neighbor really is our fellow human being.
–Henri Nouwen

Both words — intentional and relationship — are necessary. As with many dialogues, we swing back and forth on the pendulum. We either become so programmatic we lose sight of people and relationships. Or we become so purely relational that we don’t accomplish anything. And the place to be is not just in-between, but at both ends: both highly relational and highly intentional, with neither one watered down for the sake of the other.
–Bob Logan and Tara Miller

We must become people of compassion that truly care for and love our neighbors – the other people who share this planet with us. Not only must we be people of compassion, we must also be people of action who are highly relational with others (involved in their lives in a personal manner) and highly intentional about ministering to them and discipling them.

I pray that you are constantly looking for new people to begin a new relationship with – people with whom you can share more about your love for Jesus. And I pray that you will be intentional in thinking about how you can disciple them toward a deeper imitation of Jesus Christ.

Who is God putting on your mind for you to become highly relational and intentional with?

Categories
Quotes

Resolution Question – Are You Planning to Study the Life of Jesus Next Year?

You are only a few days away from the New Year. Will you make any resolutions?
Here is a resolution you can adopt that comes from 500 years ago:

if we wish to be truly enlightened and free from all blindness of heart…
Let our chief effort…
be to study the life of Jesus Christ.
–Thomas à Kempis

If you make no other resolution this year, at least make one – that this year you will make your chief effort to study the life of Jesus Christ.