Tag Archives: live differently

September 3, 2018 · 5:48 AM

Changing Our Behaviors

Have you ever noticed when you’re watching TV with your child, if they say a bad word, your child repeats it? They don’t repeat anything else except the one thing you don’t want them to. The other thing I’ve noticed that happens is they go to school and come home with some bad habits. You did everything you could to raise them right, but they see one kid act a certain way and they imitate their bad behavior. Those moments can be frustrating for a parent because you spend so much time trying to educate your child and train your child to be good, but they see one bad behavior and it’s all out the window.

I wonder if God feels the same way at times with us as His children. One of the main messages throughout the Bible is that His people are to be set apart and live differently. It’s full of verses on what Living His way means, but for some reason, we end up imitating things we see in the world. Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,” but we find ourselves, along with many other Christians doing just that (NLT). I wonder if God is constantly asking us, “Where did you learn that?”

When we accept Jesus to be Lord of our life, we are saying we will no longer live like we did before. We are agreeing to allow Him to show us how to live, then submitting to His authority in our life. His love should change us from the inside out, and because of His holiness in us, we should live differently than the world. 3 John 1:11 says, “My dear friend, do not imitate what is bad, but imitate what is good. Whoever does good belongs to God; whoever does what is bad has not seen God” (GNT). Start today by asking God what behaviors He wants you to change in your life. You’ll find that just like every other Christian, there are more things we can do to be more like Him and less like this world.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

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September 18, 2017 · 5:46 AM

Be An Example


One of the things my dad has said my whole life is, “Do as I say. Don’t do as I do!” He’s always said it jokingly, but now that I’m a parent, I get it. My son mimics everything my wife and I say or do, especially the things I wish he wouldn’t. It’s hard to discipline him when he says, “But you just said that.” As a parent, I wish he’d follow my instructions instead of my example a lot of times. Parenting would be a lot easier!

We’ve heard it said our whole lives, “Actions speak louder than words.” We can say things all we want, but if our actions don’t back it up, people won’t believe what we say. I’m sure right now you are thinking of people in your own life who are guilty of this. When our actions don’t back up what we say, we lose credibility. When we lose credibility, we don’t have a leg to stand on. That’s why Paul was adamant in his letters to Timothy and Titus to be good examples.

In Titus 2:7, Paul wrote, “In all things you yourself must be an example of good behavior” (GNT). He wasn’t talking about being a parent though. He was talking about our Christian life. The world has too many “Christians” who profess Jesus with their mouth, but deny Him by their life. How can we win the lost if our lifestyle is no different than the world’s? When we accept Chris, we become a new creation. Our old way of living is gone.

Paul writes over and over about how we should live as believers. What He’s telling us is that our life should be an example of what Jesus can do. He can take all of our brokenness and mess ups and make us new. It’s not saying we won’t fail or sin again. That’s going to happen because we’re all human. When we are being led by His Spirit rather than our flesh, we become the examples that the world needs to see. We won’t have to tell them, “Do as I say, not as I do.” 

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December 26, 2016 · 5:33 AM

The Great Exchange


December 26th is the second busiest day for retail stores. It’s second only to Black Friday. This is the day after Christmas, and people flock to the stores to return or exchange the gifts they got the day before. Some people feel like returning and exchanging gifts is being ungrateful and rude. I’ve been in that camp, but if you think about it, wouldn’t you want them to have something they’d actually use? The old gift is going to sit there and be worthless unless they exchange it for something better and more suited for them.

We know that we celebrate the gift of the birth of Jesus at Christmas. Because He was born into our world, lived a sinless life, died on a cross for our sins, and rose to life again defeating death, hell, and the grave, you and I can exchange an eternity in Hell for one in Heaven.when we accept Him as our savior, we exchange our old life for a new one. That’s one of the great things about Christianity. You are not stuck with a life you don’t like or an eternity without God.

II Corinthians 5 is all about the exchanges we receive when we accept Christ. Verses 17 and 18 say, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ” (NLT). If you don’t like the life you’re living now, you have the ability to exchange it, and receive the life you were meant to live. You’re not stuck with it. Jesus came to give you a new life and a new way to live.

What’s more is, that same chapter tells us that one day, we will exchange these mortal bodies for spiritual bodies. We will not be stuck for eternity with the flaws and limitations our current body has. Paul said that to be present in this body is to be absent from the Lord, but one day we will take off this corruptible for the incorruptible. God’s desire is that you and I take advantage of the exchange policy He put in place with the birth of Jesus. It’s one exchange that we all need to make. 

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March 2, 2016 · 5:41 AM

Eat Your Broccoli

  
If you’re like me, you like to be given a choice. You don’t like to be told what you’re going to have. I guess it stems from my childhood. When my mom said, “You can’t leave the table until you eat your broccoli.” I usually sat at the table all night watching the TV from there. Knowing you can only whip a child so much, she tried a different strategy. She’d say, “You can eat your broccoli or you can go to bed.” I didn’t like either choice, but at least I had a say.

She learned that even if I didn’t like the choices, I liked having the chance to choose. God gave Israel a choice, and He gives the same one to you and I. In Deuteronomy 11:26 He said, “Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse!” (NLT) It seems like an easy choice on the surface. Who doesn’t want to be blessed by God? But choosing the blessing in this scenario was like eating your broccoli.

The blessings that God gives come when we surrender our life to His will. We have to give up living like we want to live like He wants. God was telling the Israelites and us, “If you will live the way I’m telling you to, I will open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessings on you. But if you live like everyone else on earth and choose a life that is not different, you will be choosing the curse.” The blessings come at a cost, but that cost is good for you just like the broccoli.

In II Corinthians 6:17, Paul reminds us that God said, “Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the LORD.” We are called to be in the world, but not to live like the world. We are held to a higher standard as children of God. When we are willing to live the way God wants us to live, our lives will produce love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and faithfulness. The choice is yours and no one else can make it for you.

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August 10, 2015 · 5:18 AM

The Smell Test

Guys are famous for wearing clothes that pass the smell test. To get dressed, they will grab clothes off the floor, or wherever else they’re laying, smell them and then wear them if they don’t stink too badly. The clothes can smell some, just not too much. When clothes get too stinky, they go in another pile. This cycle continues until they either buy new clothes or are forced to do laundry because they’re broke and out of clothes.

To some of you, this sounds sick. But to many guys, this is a way of life. Now imagine if a guy had a closet full of new clothes and started putting on the clothes from the floor that passed the stink test. It’s one thing to be out of clean clothes, but if you had clean clothes and you still put on your old ones, people would start to question you. This is the illustration Paul used in Colossians 3 for Christians who go back to their old way of life.

In verses 9-11, Paul was referring to how you lived before you became a Christian when he said, “It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom made by the Creator, with His label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. (MSG)” You’ve been given a new way of life since you accepted Christ and a new wardrobe. It doesn’t make sense to live like you used to.

We shouldn’t be sniffing around our old way of life to see if it doesn’t stink too badly when we’ve got tailor made clothes freshly made for us hanging in the closet. When we left that old life for the life Christ gives, we need to leave that wardrobe behind. Even if it doesn’t stink too badly, it’s still not the clothes that God made for us to wear. That wardrobe consists of compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength discipline, being even tempered, and quick to forgive according to verses 13-14. With these clothes on, we’ll look and live like disciples of Christ.   

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