Tag Archives: christian living

October 10, 2018 · 5:52 AM

Priorities

When I was in the eighth grade, the 3rd generation of Nike Air Jordan’s came out. I wanted them badly, but my parents couldn’t afford them. They were $100 which was an unheard of price for shoes back then. I went out and mowed lawns all over the neighborhood just so I could buy them. One night, on an overnight basketball trip, someone pulled the fire alarm. The first thing I did when I woke up was to look for my shoes. It wasn’t to try to get out of the building. My desire to be seen with a cool pair of shoes was greater than my desire to get out of a burning building.

We all know the phrase, “Keeping up with the Jones’.” We would probably all say we don’t try to, but what if we looked it it a different way? What if we looked at it as wanting what God didn’t give us? Whether we’re doing it to try to impress other people or because of our own greed, it’s wrong. It’s easy to see this in other people, but difficult to pinpoint in our own lives. We reason with ourselves that we deserve it, or that it will make us happy. So we begin to want things that we don’t have and then do what it takes to get them. The problem is we then have two categories of items: what God has given us and what we’ve gotten for ourselves. We remove God from being our provider.

Hebrews 13:5 says, “Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, ‘I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you’” (MSG). It’s not wrong to want to better yourself or your life or to have nice things. It becomes wrong when that’s all we think about and it takes the place of our desire for God. When we want the creation more than the Creator, we have our priorities out of alignment. If we will seek first the Kingdom of God, all these things will be given to us. What are you seeking first in your life?

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October 9, 2018 · 5:50 AM

Mental Choices

If you ever get a personal email from me, my usual signature is, “Choose to make it a great day!” I’ve learned that if you don’t choose your attitude, either your day or someone else will. I know what it’s like to live under Murphy’s Law where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I had a day once where I was driving about 600 miles. On the way, my car spun out during a snow storm. I ended up 50 feet from the road sunk in mud that was up to my knees. After getting wrenched out, my heater quit working. I got a drive through coffee, but it spilled in my lap looking like I wet my pants. Then both headlights went out at the same time. The store only had one, so I replaced just one. I then got pulled over by the police for having only one headlight. That was a bad day.

I can tell you that it’s hard to have a good attitude on a day like that, but I’ve learned that if I don’t, I can get on a streak of bad days. We tend to bring things into our lives that are most in line with our thoughts and attitude. How we choose to see the world determines what we focus on. If we’ve got a bad attitude, we’ll see all the negative things happening to us. If we choose a good attitude, we’ll see the good around us. As Christians, we need to remember that all things work together for our good (Romans 8:28). Even when bad things come into our life, knowing that God can work it out for our good can change our attitude.

Proverbs 15:15 says, “Everything seems to go wrong when you feel weak and depressed. But when you choose to be cheerful, every day will bring you more and more joy and fullness” (TPT). I like to start each day quoting David, “This IS the day that the Lord has made. I WILL rejoice and be glad in it!” When things go wrong, I repeat it. When multiple things go wrong, I stop and pray for God to open my eyes to see what He wants me to find in it, and to give me the strength to endure. We can have joy on the worst of our days by the mental choices we make, praying for God’s help and meditating on His Word.

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October 8, 2018 · 5:47 AM

Learning To Love

It’s no secret that we live in a very divisive time in history. Our country is split almost evenly among two ideals, and each side believes they are right and the other is wrong. We have turned against each other politically, racially and ideologically. Each side openly mocks the other, and when one side doesn’t get their way, it feels like the world is going to end for them. Our emotions are supercharged to the point we actually think that the people on the other side are our enemies. It has gotten so bad that some think that we are headed for another Civil War.

I recently got to hear Miles McPherson preach. He spoke about how we’ve been placed into groups and how we’ve learned to refer to people by their group name. When you and I pick a side, it automatically puts us against people. Think about that for a second. You and I as Christians have allowed the culture of this world to turn us against people. People that Jesus loves and died for. How can you and I share the Gospel or show what a godly life looks like if we are against people? We’ve been blinded into thinking our battle is against flesh and blood when we’ve been specifically told it’s not.

Malachi 2:10 says, “Don’t we all come from one Father? Aren’t we all created by the same God? So why can’t we get along? Why do we desecrate the covenant of our ancestors that binds us together?” (MSG) It’s time for you and I to take off the world’s lenses and see people as brothers, sisters and neighbors instead of as groups and enemies. We can’t afford to fall into the trap of turning people into our enemies. We must learn to love instead, and to see people the way God sees them…as His creation that He loves and sent His Son to die for.

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October 3, 2018 · 5:51 AM

Jump Out Of The Boat

To me, one of the most interesting decisions anyone made in the Bible came from Peter and the disciples in John 21:3. Peter told the disciples, “‘I’m going fishing.’ And they all replied, ‘We’ll go with you.’ So they went out and fished through the night, but caught nothing” (TPT). Three years earlier, Jesus had called Peter away from the fishing boats to fish for men instead. For three years, they watched Jesus perform miracle after miracle. Then they saw Jesus crucified and resurrected. He wanted them to meet Him in Galilee, yet when they arrived, they went back to their old jobs.

I don’t know how long it was after they returned to Galilee before they went fishing, but it’s very indicative of what we all do. God tells us to wait, we wait, He doesn’t show up during our time table and we do something else. We reason, “Maybe we missed God.” Instead of moving forward, we go backwards to what’s familiar to us. We pick up our old nets and step away from our calling. Just like this night of fishing for the disciples, it’s unproductive and unsatisfying. Once you’ve had a taste of your calling, it’s hard to be fulfilled by anything else. Yet Jesus doesn’t leave us there. He chases after us like the lost sheep and redirects us.

I love in this story how when Jesus tells them to cast on the other side and the nets fill with fish, Peter doesn’t wait to bring them in. He jumps out of the boat and swims to shore. I believe that’s what God is asking each us to do. It’s time we jump out of the boat of the familiar and moved toward Jesus. It may be uncharted waters for you, but the fulfillment you seek is to be using the gifts He’s given you in the calling He’s placed on your life. If you’re in the sea of the familiar right now, jump out of the boat and swim to where God is calling you.

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October 2, 2018 · 5:49 AM

Just Get Started

My son loves the LEGO Architecture series. We’ve built several of them as a family. Normally they take a night or two for us to complete because we’ve purchased small ones. However, recently he wanted one that was about 1,700 pieces. When I opened the box and saw all those pieces, I wondered, “What were we thinking?” Then I saw the book. It was seriously a book of how to put it together. Do you know what the first step was? Putting two pieces together. When we put them together, I jokingly said, “Hey! Only 1,698 pieces to go.”

In Zechariah, God used the prophet to speak to Zerubbabel to begin rebuilding the Temple. It was about 90 feet long and 20 stories high. As he set the first stone in place, people walking by started making fun of him. He began to get discouraged because other people couldn’t see what God has called him to, and they didn’t believe it could be done. Then the Lord spoke to him in Zechariah 4:10, “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand” (NLT).

It’s easy to look at large projects like that and get overwhelmed. It’s even easier to look at what God has called us to and want to never start. But just like the LEGO’s, it starts with a small step, and that is followed by another one. God enjoys seeing us begin to do the work He called us to because He loves obedience. He knows that if He can trust us to be faithful in the small steps of obedience, He can stretch us to take the larger ones. It just takes us to be willing to get past the size of the thing God has asked us to do, and to simply begin.

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October 1, 2018 · 5:39 AM

Shut Up And Listen

Growing up I had a habit of talking too much. I’m not sure I ever shut up. I talked too much in Sunday school to the point that one of my teachers asked if I wanted to teach the lesson. She was surprised when I took her up on the offer. In school, most of my demerits came from talking in class. I came close a couple of times to getting the maximum amount of demerits. One day, a teacher pulled me aside and said, “I love you, but you’ve gotta learn when to shut up.” I eventually learned that being able to talk with others is a good thing, but there’s also a time to shut up. If I’m always talking, how can I ever listen?

One of the stories in the Bible I’ve identified with is Job. I went through a period in my life where I lost everything. Going through that time, I remember thinking this is what Job must have felt like. One big difference was that I didn’t protest my innocence because i wasn’t. Most of the book of Job is he and his friends talking. He demands that he’s innocent and demands that God come down and give him a hearing. After 30 something chapters of their back and forth, God does show up and confronts Job.

Job had been innocent and God allowed Satan to test his faith in God, but because he talked too much, and blamed God, he got a holy visit. After God confronted him, He asked Job what he had to say now. In Job 40:3-5 Job said, “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen” (MSG). Job was very wise and we all could learn from that phrase. There are times when we need to shut up and listen to God. He’d love to talk with us, but we never give Him time to speak. Start trying to make a habit in your prayer time to spend a few minutes listening. You’ll find that God is a talker too, and what He says is worth listening to.

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This Little Light

When you were little, I bet you sang this, “This little light of mine. I’m going to let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Don’t let Satan blow it out. I’m going to let it shine. Don’t let Satan blow it out. Im going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let us shine.” Good times right? I hope this song gets stuck in your head today because it carries a simple, but powerful truth: You have God’s light in you! Think about that. In the midst of any dark situation, you are filled with God’s light. Don’t hide it under a bushel.

Speaking of the light God placed in us, John 1:5 says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (NLT). As a kid, I was worried that Satan could blow it out, but now I know that darkness can’t extinguish it. That means that there’s nothing the enemy can bring against you that will put out the light God put in you. You can walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and not have your light put out. You can be in a hole that either you dug or that life has thrown you in, and your light will still shine.

Today, I was looking at some pictures from the International Space Station. It had pictures of Italy, Spain and several other countries at night. All throughout those photos, there were spots of light. It’s a great visual example of what God is doing. He knows that where there is light, darkness has to flee. Darkness is simply the absence of light. It can’t put out light. It can only exist where there is no light. Just like those photos showed lit up areas in the middle of the night, so should our lives light up the darkness around us.

When we accept Christ, we have the true light living in us. Therefore, wherever we go, darkness has to flee. Whether your light is small and dim or big and bright, it chases darkness away. I know there are days when my light doesn’t feel very powerful, but even on my weakest days, the light in me is stronger than any darkness. In Matthew 5, Jesus said we are like a city set on a hill that can’t be hidden. If you’ve ever seen a city on a hill at night, you know what He’s talking about. Go be that light to someone today – God knows someone needs your light in their life.

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Rise Up

Today’s devotion is a guest post from my wife.

When I was younger, I thought I was Holy and pure. Looking back, I can see it was a lot of self righteousness. I was full of myself which meant there was not much room for Jesus in my life. You see the more there is of me in my life, the less there is of Him. The less there is of me, the more there is of Him, and that corresponds to how much grace I give as well. We live in a world that desperately needs grace, but many of us can’t give it because there’s not much grace in us to give. It’s time for us to rise up, be vocal about the Jesus who lives inside of us, but because of where society is, we back down.

I believe we stay quiet because we are afraid of how we will be attacked by others for our beliefs. 1 Peter 5:8 says that devil roams around like a roaring lion. He isolates us, pretending to be a lion, making us think we will be devoured, but what we forget is that we have the Lion of Judah on our side. He is our protector, our defender and the one whom we should get courage from in today’s world. If He is for us, who can be against us? Yet, even though He is standing with us, we fear what the world will do, so we stay silent.

Psalm 59:16 says, “But I will sing about your strength; every morning I will sing aloud of your constant love. You have been a refuge for me, a shelter in my time of trouble” (GNT). It’s time for us to not be afraid to show the love and grace of Jesus to others. It’s time for us to be free to speak about our faith. The more we love Jesus, the more we should love others. That love should be overflowing from our lives and spilling on to those we come in contact with. If we want the world to change, we need to be showing and sharing His love because it covers a multitude of sins. We can’t be stingy anymore with His love and we can’t stay silent because of our fear of today’s society. We must break out of the silence that society has forced us into, speak out for what’s right, give grace freely and live out loud.

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September 19, 2018 · 5:55 AM

Comfort In Calamity

When I was in high school, my physics teacher gave us an assignment where each of us had to build a bridge out of popsicle sticks and glue. There were some other specifications it had to meet as well. Then, on the date the assignment was due, he put the bridges to a battery of tests to see how well they held up. One test was a weight test. He kept adding weights to the bridge until it broke. Only one bridge in the class survived this test. The rest all cracked at some point under the weights. On that particular one, the teacher ran out of weights to put on it and it was still standing strong.

The book of Nahum in the Bible is a book of prophesy that spoke of a time of calamity and hard times that were coming. Unlike some other books of prophesy, this one was designed to administer peace in those times. Even the name of the prophet God chose to write the book Nahum has significance to the prophesy. It means comfort. I believe God was telling the readers of this book that no matter how bad things get, He is there to comfort us and give us peace.

Nahum 1:7 says, “The Lord is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him” (NLT). I love that first phrase. It’s not a promise, it’s a fact. The Lord is good. He’s also strong. Each of us have a breaking point under the weight of stress, but God doesn’t. He is a strong refuge when we are weighed down. We must learn to trust Him with our burdens and the weights that we carry. Even though at times it feels like we’re alone, He is close to us ready to comfort us in our time of need and able to handle the weight that would crush us.

If you’ve been going through a tough time and have been wondering where God is it how could a good God allow bad things to happen, check out my friend’s book “God is Here” by clicking here.

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September 14, 2018 · 5:58 AM

Complete Surrender

There was a Rich Mullins song that said, “Surrender don’t come natural to me. I’d rather fight you for something I don’t really want than take what you give that I need.” That lyric has always stuck in my head because of how true it is. We like to say we surrender everything to God until He asks us to give up something. It’s almost like we’re the rich, young ruler. We don’t mind following the commandments He gives, but when we are asked to surrender things of earthly value, we get sad. The truth is that being a Christian is truly about surrender because it’s an action of the heart. It’s an inward thing versus the outward showing of following a bunch of rules.

Since the beginning of creation, God has been concerned with what’s going on inside of us. That’s the truth of who we are, and only He looks past our outward displays to see our intention. If we truly want to be a follower of Christ, it starts with surrendering authority over our life to Him. We give up our rights to what He wants. That’s the cost of being a disciple. If God asked you today to sell everything and give the money to the poor, what would you struggle selling? That’s the barrier between you and a more intimate relationship with Jesus. Surrender doesn’t come natural to us, but I believe it’s something we can all get a little better at.

Here are some Bible verses on surrender.

1. For all who belong to me now belong to you. And all who belong to you now belong to me as well, and my glory is revealed through their surrendered lives.

John 17:10 TPT

2. When you live a life of abandoned love, surrendered before the awe of God, here’s what you’ll experience: Abundant life. Continual protection. And complete satisfaction!

Proverbs 19:23 TPT

3. All who seek to live apart from me will lose it all. But those who let go of their lives for my sake and surrender it all to me will discover true life!

Matthew 10:39 TPT

4. Likewise, unless you surrender all to me, giving up all you possess, you cannot be one of my disciples.

Luke 14:33 TPT

5. (I use everyday language because of the weakness of your natural selves.) At one time you surrendered yourselves entirely as slaves to impurity and wickedness for wicked purposes. In the same way you must now surrender yourselves entirely as slaves of righteousness for holy purposes.

Romans 6:19 GNT

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