Posts Tagged ‘Study’

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How Close To God Do We Wish To Be

July 22, 2015

Recently during a small group discussion one man in the midst of a discussion said, “You know, we can be as close to Jesus as we want to be.”

That was a profound statement that just passed over the group.

I brought it back up at the end of the time. It is worth careful consideration.

The doctrine of prevenient grace states that God is always pursuing us and ready to accept us.

But…

The question for us to think and then act on is whether we are pursuing God.

Another man said that he had started a practice of praying at the office before work. The other day he forgot to in the busyness of getting ready for the day.

Guess what, he had a bad day.

Spiritual practices exist for a reason. Thousands of years of experience by seekers after God have shown that setting up a routine of study and prayer especially early in the day is a perfect way of reminding us to pursue God and his ways in our daily life.

We can get as close as we want. How close to God do we want to be?

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Every Day Is a New Day

June 10, 2015

She wakes up in the morning already tired. The cares of yesterday already dragging her energy. One day just proceeds in dreary succession after the previous.

We have been there. We lose hope for anything better. God? We used to be aware of his presence.

A saying of a Desert Father who said that every  single day he made a fresh beginning.

How can we break that cycle of despair and make a fresh beginning of each day? We still have those old problems.

One thing we can do is breathe. In the Greek (actually as in other languages) the word for breath is either the same or similar for spirit. Ancient people have consistently paired intentional breathing with inculcation of the spirit.

We arise early. it is a dicsipline–also can be made a habit. 

We find our favorite chair or maybe floor pillow. We sit. Breathe. Deeply inhale. Slowly exhale. We focus our mind on our breath. We relax.

That is one way to begin a morning fresh.

Then we can read. Read in the Bible. Read a devotional book. Read a motivational book. Something for the restoration of the soul and nourishment of the mind.

With the perspective we gain, we can look at yesterdays problems with fresh eyes. We can look at what we can change and what we can ignore and what we can live with.

Every single day we can make a fresh beginning.

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When Studying Practice Discernment Using Sources

May 20, 2015

Look at this, she said bringing out a printed page from a Website. Look at what they say.

“The NIV [New International Version] says this.”

This Website says this.

I’m not sure when they removed rigorous study from university undergraduate courses. These days, I often think many graduate courses of study are the same.

Not that I was a great scholar back then, but I have met and hired people for many years who will tell me, “I took a course on that in college, so I am an expert.”

My comeback in 1982 is what I would still say today, “You took an undergraduate course. You barely have an introduction to that field.”

More and more I’m coming across people with seminary degrees, M.Div., who seem to have only a superficial understanding of the Bible. Take a look at the curriculum of many seminaries today. What in the world are they really learning? Are they getting a proper foundation for a strong faith with ability to teach. (Not to mention my real pet peeve–no leadership training and experience. They send their students into churches to be leaeders when they have no clue. And those of us in the congregateions are much the poorer for it.)

But with Bible studies popping up like dandelions in the spring, where are the teachers with a background of serious study?

Oh, let us just Google it.

Google helps us find stuff that you could never find. When I was a graduate assistant, my professor had me researching for a chapter of a book he was writing. I lived in the library for a while. Found little.

But….

Google is only discerning when it brings you ads that the algorithms suggest would be interesting to you. Especially in Bible study, it will give you what it finds.

If you are using that for your education, you could easily be led astray. Theories and half-truths abound like an exploding rabbit popoulation. 

Picking your best guides should not be left to chance. Don’t believe everything you read. As I writer, I understand the irony.

By the way, the footnotes in your study Bible–they are not part of the Bible. They are the words of a scholar. Mostly they are of great use, but still consider the comments carefully.  And paraphrases. Beware.

Take care. Use your God-given brain to think about things before just clinging to a theory.

Again I warn, be careful and think thoroughly about what you read.

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Reading The Bible From Different Perspectives

May 4, 2015

We were walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. So many events had happened over the past few days, that we just couldn’t get our heads around them. What did they all mean?

Was Jesus really the Messiah? It certainly didn’t appear so. He didn’t fulfill any of the Scriptures that we had been taught about the Messiah. Yet, after he was cruelly beaten by Pilate, he was killed by crucifixion. Stranger still, his tomb was mysteriously empty.

We talked and talked, but we just could not figure it out.

Then a stranger joined us. He asked what we were discussing as we travelled. We asked where in the heck had he been the past few days. Hidden under a stone?

Then the stranger, obviously a man of great learning, explained to us the very scriptures we were trying to understand. It was so obvious when he explained them. When we stopped for the evening, we shared a meal. When he broke the bread and offered a blessing, then we recognized him.

Often when I read the stories in the Bible, I like to read as if I were there. Just like reading a good novel. You become part of the action. I invite those in my classes to do the same.

There is a man I read fived days a week, Jon Swanson at 300 Words a Day, who has a doctorate in communications. I didn’t even know you could get a doctorate in that. Even more, he can actually communicate!

He likes to share the Bible as story. His new video series on YouTube, The Bible for my Friends, is worth watching.  He is working on 52 ways to read the Blble. Some of these are sure to resonate. And maybe even lead to a deeper understanding of God.

Let go. Read with imagination instead of intellect or emotion for a refreshing change.

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Practice Active Listening

April 9, 2015

Neurotic president of the company, “Gary, nobody listens to me.” Smarta** VP, “Huh?” President, “Nobody listens to me.” VP, “Huh?” President, “Nobody listens to me.” VP, “Huh?” President, “Ohhhhh.”

Active listening is a skill. It is essential for leaders. It is essential for parents. It is essential for spiritual seekers.

Believe it or not, the idea (duh!) for Googling “active listening” came from the instructor of a class I was taking on improving my skills as a soccer referee assessor and mentor. The results were staggering. Today, I bring you tips. “Improve your active listening techniques,” with James Manktelow & Amy Carlson.

Tip:

Good communication skills require a high level of self-awareness. By understanding your personal style of communicating, you will go a long way towards creating good and lasting impressions with others.

Tip:

If you’re finding it particularly difficult to concentrate on what someone is saying, try repeating their words mentally as they say them – this will reinforce their message and help you stay focused.

Becoming an Active Listener

1. Pay Attention
2. Show That You’re Listening
3. Provide Feedback
4. Defer Judgment
5. Respond AppropriatelyBe candid, open, and honest in your response.
Spiritual Response The same works spiritually. Sometimes when I’m reading my Daily Office or from Scripture, my mind wanders. Sometimes (often?) in my meditation and prayer, my mind wanders. Sometimes God speaks and I wasn’t practicing active listening. What opportunities for learning and service have I missed by being too absorbed in me and not enough in active listening to the spirit?

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To Get Spiritually Fit You Must Practice

January 2, 2015

A friend recently spoke against “Spiritual Disciplines” because he saw them as a list of check boxes–sort of like tasks to complete on your way to salvation.

My response is that if anyone views disciplines, or practices, that way, then they have missed the “spirit” so to speak of the practice. These practices–study, worship, prayer, mediation, celebration, fasting, service, and the like–are things you can do to strengthen and deepen your spiritual life.

Paul often uses athletic language to instruct us in that regard. He tells Timothy (1 Tim 4:7) to train in godliness” for example.

Dallas Willard writing in The Spirit of the Disciplines says, “Just as with the physical, there is a specific round of activities we must do to establish, maintain, and enhance our spiritual powers. One must train as well as try.”

Another way of looking at this is to consider these as habits you’ve intentionally cultivated.

I have an ecosystem of practices that help me exercise daily. It involves going to the gym and then showering and getting physically ready for the day. It’s something I do to maintain as healthy a body as I can.

Similarly with spiritual life. Rising a little earlier (for the past few years, it’s been 5:30 am–without an alarm), I have time for study, meditation, writing before going to the gym. Study, prayer, meditation are woven into the fabric of my morning. Worship, celebration and service happen intentionally at other times of the day or week.

One key is intention. I am intentional about maintaining this routine. It is not rote habit, but habit intentionally chosen and reinforced.

I still have many personality problems to overcome, but this routine has changed my life over time. I expect it will continue to do so.

One thing that it really does is deepen my faith. To be spiritually fit, you have to practice.

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Thankful With An Undivided Heart

November 25, 2014

“11 Teach me your way, O LORD,
that I may walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your steadfast love toward me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”
–Psalm 86

Jesus was always concerned with the status of our heart. No wonder. That theme runs throughout his entire Scriptures.

Here, the Psalmist asks God to teach him the ways of God. Why? So he could have an undivided heart. Why have an undivided heart? So that he can give thanks to God.

Many Christ-followers find themselves with divided hearts.

We are attracted to this thing, or that attitude. We watch TV and see the “good life”. People are attractive. Having fun. Drinking beer–all the time. Thanksgiving is all about eating turkey. Christmas, which we’ve already begun preparing for, is all about the joys of buying.

Behind the scenes of all that TV goodness are people with torn hearts. We don’t see the recovery groups, the torn relationships from self-centered indulgence, the wreck of our financial life.

We can ask God to teach us His ways so that we can enter this season with a whole heart. Thankful to God for healing us from all the wrecks we’ve had or keeping us from a certain train-wreck in the future that would result from our indulgent behaviour.

As we center on God through Jesus, by study, meditation, prayer, listening, celebrating with others, we heal the heart.

True thanksgiving comes from a healed, undivided heart.

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Love Discipline Love Knowledge

October 17, 2014

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge
But whoever hates to be rebuked is stupid.

Psalms 12

The story I received as a young person was that the Methodist Movement was so named by the habits of the founders. It seems that while at the University, John Wesley and his brother Charles and a small group of friends arose early every morning to study and pray. They were “methodical” in their approach–hence, methodists.

Story after story can be found of people who became dissatisfied with the direction of their lives (rebuked comes to mind) and decided to change. They began getting up earlier in the morning so that they could study and pray.

“Fifteen minutes in the chair” is a phrase famous among Willow Creekers. It comes by way of one such man who was convicted of the way his life was going. He began getting up early, sat in his favorite chair, read from the Bible, and prayed. He grew in knowledge and wisdom. The change was noticeable.

I’ve heard of men whose careers were going nowhere. They were frustrated. Disillusioned. Then they got up 15 minutes earlier than normal to read. Then the 15 became 30. Then an hour. And the discipline changed their lives and their success.

It is perhaps time to pause and reflect. When is the last time we felt rebuked by God for a pattern of life that is leading nowhere? When is the last time that we changed what we were doing or what we were thinking because of a rebuke from God (or from someone speaking for God at that time)?

Forget the early bird versus night owl stuff. It’s all a pattern of life. The real pattern is to practice discipline and gain knowledge. And with knowledge, wisdom.

Where is your chair?

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Temple, Exile, and Messiah

October 3, 2014

Temple. The Jewish writers who chronicled the time of Solomon talked of the Temple filled with the glory of God. It was also affiliated with a king who ruled over a not-insignificant empire.

But the lineage of Jewish kings was weak. They strrayed from their God. The nation was defeated by the Babylonians and the Temple was destroyed. The people went into exile

We’ve read about Ezra and Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the Temple under the Persians. But writers never referred to that Temple as filled with the glory of God. And it also never signified the seat of a powerful King.

I am 40% through book one (out of two) of N.T. Wright’s, “Paul and the Faithfulness of God.” Three chapters. Almost 300 pages. So far we’ve gone through the background scholarship and worldview of the times. Already I’ve learned a lot.

By the 200s BC, there was a tremendous longing in the Jewish people for return from exile, a Temple filled with the glory of God and a strong political leader–just like the times of Solomon. Several men claiming to be the Messiah of God appeared. They all failed and died.

Then comes Paul who reinterpreted the entire scenario in light of Jesus.

That was from Wright. Now I’m contemplating what is to come. The Temple is no longer a building where God lives. Our bodies are the Temple where the glory of God lives.We are in exile through sin and find a Messiah who reveals God’s grace

And Paul went back to all the many Scriptures that pointed out that salvation was not only for the Jews. But that they were to be the light to the world. The guides toward God’s salvation of the world.

With that legacy, why do we not try to re-connect with that God. To seek his indwelling Spirit through reading His Word and prayer?

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Trust As Faith Foundation

September 30, 2014

Yesterday I was meditating upon why it is that some people display such insecurity and lack of confidence.

Then I listened to Andy Stanly discuss trust as a foundation.

When Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, he faced the leadership challenge of introducing a people who had known only slavery for 400 years to freedom. He had to form a nation. At every step of the way from God’s first call to Moses to his entire leadership God just told them, “Trust me.”

The introduction to the 10 Commandments and then the first Commandment dealt with trust. “You shall have no other Gods before me” and “I am the Lord your God”.

It important that we come to deeply understand and feel this presence of God. Through this we should be able to gain confidence and trust.

How do we get to that point if we are not already there?

  • Read, study, meditate on the Bible and other spiritual writing
  • Spend time daily in silence focusing on God and inviting God’s presence
  • Join a community of worshipers for celebration, worship and support

Daily Spiritual practices will get you back on track if you have slipped off the rails. They will also fortify and deepen your existing faith.

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