Posts Tagged ‘living’

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Decisions Determine Our Life Story

August 21, 2014

God must be trying to tell me something. Three time this week so far the message “Your decisions determine your life story” has occurred.

What life story do you want to leave behind? Andy Stanley explored that in this week’s Your Move message. What do you want people to say about you years from now?

Every day you make decisions, large and small–mostly small, that determine your story. Did you decide to help or hinder? Did you decide to stir up trouble or to be a peacemaker?

Aristotle said that we are what we repeatedly do. He went on to say “Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”

Did you know that the word “decision” seldom occurs in the Bible? I just looked it up. In the NIV, there were 27 instances of the word, and all but 4 were in the notes. Proverbs only uses the word once. But the entire book is about the effects of our decisions.

I’ve made perhaps four major decisions in the past year. One was on the whole not good–a business decision that caused me some amount of grief. But most of them have turned out well. They have determined the direction of my life for the next few years. And I’m happy with that. And I think God is.

But I wonder–what other decisions am I facing big or small that God is warning me about by putting that message in front of me this week? Or, maybe I’m just supposed to pass along the wisdom.

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Your Faith and Witness Speak More Than You Know

August 18, 2014

In this era of the US NSA spying on everyone, we should be aware that people are watching us. All the time.

We had the grandkids for a week a few weeks ago. Their sharp little eyes pick up everything. They are watching.

But even 2,000 years ago, people were watching. John (the Elder) writes in the 3rd letter to Gaius that he has heard reports about how good and faithful to the truth he has been. And he talks about another faithful witness and one who is not a true follower.

John was the last of the apostles alive. He was always concerned with the Truth. As the Elder in the church, he was even more concerned that the essential truth was taught–Jesus lived as a human, Jesus died, Jesus rose from death to live again.

John was also concerned with love–a lesson taught to him by Jesus. A lesson that it took John a few years to learn and incorporate into his life.

You see both in the three letters. And you see both as John writes in love to his friend and compliments him on his work and his life.

Paul also was aware that people are always watching. He writes that he is concerned that he might do something because he is free in the grace of God, but that freedom to do that thing (say eat “unclean” food) might corrupt another who is watching him and who has not yet experienced grace.

I’m always surprised when I hear reports back to me that others are talking about me. Happens professionally all the time–“I heard that you….” I think, “Whoa, am I that important that people talk about me?” I just go on my way daily with no thought that people are watching. But they are.

I hope I’ve been good 😉

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You Give Christians A Bad Name

August 11, 2014

Shot through the heart.
And you’re to blame.
Darling, you give love a bad name.

Apologies to Bon Jovi, but I heard a comment recently describing several people known to the commenter. He basically said, “They give Christians a bad name.”

While always ready with a supposedly Christian moral platitude or accusatory word, the private lives of many of that type of Christian often reveals that all-too-human gap between what we believe and how we live.

I mentioned before that I’m studying (with a small group) a book by John MacArthur called Twelve Ordinary Men about how Jesus trained the various apostles. Tomorrow, I’m leading discussion on John.

Have you read the gospel of John? He is one of those “truth-tellers” who divide everything up into black/white, light/dark, right/wrong, spiritual/earthly. John was ready to call down fire on a town that had rejected Jesus. He was one of those people.

MacArthur traces through the Gospels to show how Jesus gradually taught this fierce, fiery, politically tapped-in leader to temper truth telling with love. Not a mushy, sentimental love. But a love that understood people and sought to meet people not to talk at them but to talk with them.

That is something we all need to learn and incorporate as a Discipline–the ability to relate to others and meet them where they are. It’s not about us. It’s about them.

That is the lesson John learned–and taught.

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You Become What You Worship

August 8, 2014

“You become what you think about.”

Earl Nightingale, a writer and radio broadcaster, researched what made people successful in life for his entire life. His thought had a great impact on me.

After many years of reading the world’s greatest thinkers, it occurred to him that over and over he read that our thoughts determine our actions. We become what we think about.

The Menlo Park Presbyterian Church is replaying “Best of…” messages this summer. This week I listened to a conversation with theologian N.T. Wright. I’ve only read one of his books, but he’s now on my shopping list for more.

He dropped this comment into the conversation, “You become like what you worship.” Sound familiar?

Jesus taught that you cannot worship both God and money. Do you worship power (Mars in the ancient world)? Love/sex (Aphrodite)? The ancients knew psychology.

If your thoughts, like the prevailing worldview of the Romans, dwell on power and how you can obtain power over others, you may or may not become powerful in the eyes of the world, but you will become shallow, cynical, not liked, and apart from God.

Many of the objects we worship–even if we don’t call it worship exactly these days–lead us to personal places of loneliness, despair, unhappiness. We just go from experience to experience looking for the next high.

Focusing on God through the disciplines of study, prayer, meditation, service, and so on lead to a personally fulfilling life.

We become like God.

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You Can Choose Your Attitude

July 31, 2014

Are there people who annoy you, but it is impossible to disassociate yourself from them?

Did life just hand you a setback?

Do you feel that other people get all the luck?

Humans have know for thousands of years that what you have power over is the power to choose your attitude in these and all other incidents.

Often people reflect back to you the attitude you show. If your attitude is always negative, you’ll attract negative people. You can all sit around and complain to each other. That’s because people with a positive attitude are out creating their “luck” and avoiding you.

I’ve discovered that you cannot force other people to change. You can only change your attitude toward them. If someone you must see regularly is self-centered for example, then you won’t be able to get them to change to becoming more others centered. At least not quickly. But you can change your attitude toward them so as not to reflect back their negative attitude. You can reflect back to them the humble (other-centered) life attitude that Jesus taught than revolutionized the world.

Your attitude will see you through tough times and you’ll be an inspiration to others. Your attitude will keep you studying and praying through whatever happens.

Your attitude will bring you success–maybe not riches, but success in life which is more important.

Maybe you need a reminder taped to your bathroom wall, or the wall paper on your computer, or a “reminder” notification that pops up on your iPhone at various times to check your attitude and make sure it is the right one.

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There Are Consequences

July 25, 2014

“There was an old lady,
who swallowed a fly.
I don’t know why
she swallowed a fly.
Perhaps she’ll die.”

I was visiting my son’s house and one of his kids said something about swallowing a fly, and I sang that verse.

“You can’t say that anymore,” my son said. “It isn’t PC [politically correct].”

He was being mildly sarcastic about the PC crowd. I didn’t train one of those. He couldn’t remember the revision that someone put forward so that we wouldn’t mention death to a child.

Kids know things die. Bugs die. Animals die. Sometimes they know humans who die. It’s just a fact of life.

There are consequences to actions.

In fact, Jesus followed an ancient teaching about thoughts preceding actions by teaching that what we think about is as sinful as the action. And there are consequences.

Kids must be taught if…then logic as early as possible. If you walk into the street without looking, then you may get hit by a car and die…oops, something bad might happen. If you touch the flame…. If you tease your sibling….

The Bible is full of if…then logic. Almost the entire Old Testament talks about people of God telling the Israelites, If you keep living in this way, then God will do something or allow something bad to happen.

Jesus also taught us about consequences for our actions.

The earlier we learn the truth of that logic, the better off we’ll be.

If I swallow a fly, perhaps I’ll die. Well, not really. Sometimes things are just silly.

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Love As A Way of Being

July 18, 2014

Jesus said that this is how his followers would be known–by their love.

English much to the poverty of its ability to define expression only has one word–love–that means so many things. The Greeks, at least, had three. No wonder we become confused.

We make love–meaning having sexual intercourse which all to often has nothing to do with love.

We say “love you” to end conversations leaving the other person wondering if that is just a phrase like “honey” or “darling”.

We tell another “I love you” when what we really mean is we want something from them.

We use the term to refer to the rush of hormones.

Love rightly understood in the context of the New Testament is the direct opposite of the world view of the Romans, which was the world view of all the societies Rome ruled.

The Roman view, which led to a state of being, thinking and acting, was that of power and authority.

For Jesus, love was the opposite. If you follow Jesus, you are the opposite of a follower of Rome. Love is first of all a state of being–that’s just what you are. You live not in a world of power thinking only of yourself but in a world of thinking of others first.

Love is an attitude we carry with us. It is a way of looking at ourselves and others.

It comes from our relationship with God carrying over from that strength to always being aware of the needs of others and aware of how we can help (serve) them.

In this way, Jesus turned the Roman Empire on its head.

The early Christians added to their groups many just because they actually lived differently from others in the same city and society.

This has not always been the case with Christians. Or people. Even today we have such bitter conflict with the taking of many lives. We ignore or worse punish many who have deep needs. And we say we are Christians.

Would Jesus say of us, “I know you are my followers because of your love”?

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Why Do We Feel The Need To Know the Future

April 24, 2014

Why is it that humans keep reaching for a sense of certainty in a life that has always been quite uncertain? We want to know the future. But even today’s most sophisticated computer models can’t tell us with certainty what the weather will be next week.

Even so, there are people who study the Bible looking for hints of the future. It gets so bad that there was a guy I heard about in the 70s who had figured out the size of the “New Jerusalem” and the cubic feet of gold as described in John’s Revelation and the weight of that amount of gold and multiplied by the price of gold to figure out the US Dollar value of that gold. I was so put off by how much that person (and the people who spouted that off as if it meant something) missed the spiritual point, that I still remember the episode.

I didn’t want to write about Revelation. But the small study group I attend is still in the book. It’s still on my mind.

There are many interpretations of the meaning of the writing. Several interpretations hold that it is an actual description of historical events to come. Even though God is explicit in his condemnation of fortune telling–predicting the future. (My interpretation, picked up from some of the early Church Fathers–who, by the way didn’t agree not only on the interpretation of the book but on whether to even include it in the official canon for teaching–is that it “describes” events that have already happened. Its focus is on the horrors of Rome, the destruction of the Temple, and how God’s people will triumph because God has already won the war.)

Don’t bother trying to argue the points with me. I don’t care. Someone in the group asked why our church doesn’t teach from the book. Well, I don’t teach from it. I can understand others.

The purpose of study is to learn how to live a life that’s pleasing to God–the with-God life. If a writing is so open to conjecture and argument, how can we learn from it? Paul condemned idle argumentation. I go with him.

Jesus said, “Follow me.” He said the Kingdom of God was there. I’m with him.

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I Do What I Don’t Want To Do and I Don’t Do What I Want To Do

April 15, 2014

The title might sound reminiscent of something Paul wrote when he was letting himself get complicated again. But did you ever notice that one part of your brain knows something and another part of your brain does something different?

I know about warming up before exercise. I know about staying warm between bursts of exercise. I know about stretching afterward.

But, did I do that Sunday? Nooooo.

Last weekend was the first weekend I spent mostly outdoors this spring. I was out in the sun and wind Saturday as a timer for the pro soccer referee fitness tests. Then out again for yard work in the afternoon.

Then Sunday, I refereed two adult men soccer games. It was warm and windy. The field was slightly soft. It was my first outdoor running of the year. I met one of the other referees and we chatted. Then the third came. Then it was time to inspect the players and get the game going. No warmup.

Between games, we stood around for 15 minutes or so, then took off to do the second game. I needed to do a sprint right away. The legs said, No you don’t. Took some time to get loosened up again.

After the games, I got in the car and headed to McDonalds for some carb replenishment. But no stretching. Two phone calls instead.

I know better. I teach it. But I didn’t do it.

We are like that often in our lives. We know and we don’t do. Our brains can hold both thoughts simultaneously and never see a contradiction. Heck, I’ve seen politicians (nameless for this post) who could say something to one group, something totally different to another and never personally appear self-contradictory. Their brains could hold two dissimilar political ideas yet convince the person that there was no contradiction. The person appeared whole.

Like Paul, I know I need to learn to do what I know is right. It’ll save me much grief.

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What Was Your Intention

March 25, 2014

There is s guy I know who often talks about living with intention—pray with intention, decide with intention, live with intention.

While driving home after a weekend get-a-way Sunday, I rather absent-mindedly set the cruise control on my car. A scenario flashed through my mind in an instant:

Stopped by a Highway Patrol officer, “what was your speed?” “I don’t know. I set the cruise control.” “At what speed did you intend to set it?”

Intention. That was the word.

I shouldn’t just push the button to set the speed when I sort of felt like it was time. I should have given the matter a little thought and then set the speed with intention. OK, so it was 7 over the speed limit…

When you leave home today, is it with intention? Do you intend to meet new people? Help someone? Be kind? Be loving?

My friend suggested praying with intention for things to happen. I once listened to a teacher on a podcast (I think it was Bill Hybels) who said to pray spcifically and with expectation. Pray intentionally that God willl lead the right people into your life.

Sometimes I see people. Look at their demeanor. Look into their eyes. They are lost. Not just in the salvation sense, but just lost. No direction. No motivation. No intention. Just drifting through life. Lost.

Then I see people with living with intention. Living with purpose. Friendly, helpful, doing good.

Choose life with intention, or wind up lost.

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