Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

Matt Pavlik

Increase Motivation By Developing Conviction

Increase Motivation By Developing Conviction

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Convictions produce motivation to accomplish goals. A laundry list of goals is not motivating in itself. To maximize motivation, you need to know how important something is to you and why it is important. When you are motivated from within like this, the motivation cannot easily be taken from you.

What is apathy and what causes it? Apathy is the opposite of motivation. If apathy is a lack of concern, then motivation is concerned enough to act. The energy required to act is worth the effort because the cause matters to you.

Burnout Saps Motivation

Other concepts related to apathy include depression or burnout. Burnout results from attempting something that is beyond your capacity to achieve, refusing to give up, and ignoring self-care. Burnout does not happen overnight. Take a look at this 12 stages of burnout infographic.

People become burned out when the cause is motivating but the goal or timeframe is unrealistic. For example, wanting to feel better self-worth by working harder is a no-win situation. Working harder cannot permanently build self-worth. It might temporarily feel better, but the feeling will wear off when the achievements slow down.

Imbalance Saps Motivation

Becoming overfocused on superficial pursuits can also drain motivation. The activity can be positive like exercise or negative like alcohol consumption. In extreme use, anything can become unhealthy. Anything that becomes a substitute for connecting with God is unhealthy in the long term. That’s because life becomes imbalanced.

Exercise up to a point provides great benefits, but if pushed to an extreme it becomes harmful. The body wears out. The time is not well spent. Other underutilized activities have untapped potential.

In the case of exercise, the effect is directly physical. In the case of stress (burnout), the effect is indirect, but no less demotivating. Hope thrives on seeing results from the effort spent. If nothing you can do will produce results, the situation is hopeless. Progressing in burnout moves toward increasingly diminished margins of return.

What is conviction? It’s not really any different than faith.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Faith is conviction. The most important things in life are the spiritual unseen realities. If you have faith in a bridge, you will cross it. If you are fearful you won’t. Having conviction about the strength of a bridge means you are convinced that the bridge will support your weight. Therefore, you can see that faith leads to motivation and motivation to good works. If you fully believe something is true, how can you not act on what you know?

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James 2:14-17 ESV

So then, what if you are not motivated? What if your life feels directionless? What if you suffer from apathy or depression? Some situations like losing a loved one or losing a job naturally result in grief. While grieving, people are expected to feel motivated. So there is definitely a time to put activity aside and just be. Aside from grief and a physical health problem, there is a good chance that feeling lethargic is a lack of conviction.

Conviction is faith and faith will always point to some action. Maybe this is what Jesus meant when discussing having even a small amount of faith. The smallest amount of pure faith is largely motivating!

Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.

Matthew 17:19-20 NLT

Learn more about the difference between being stubborn and being tenacious.
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A Correct Theology Is Life Changing

A Correct Theology Is Life-Changing

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Given that life can often be challenging, a robust theology is one of the easiest ways to save yourself from unnecessary heartache.

Imagine going on a journey and coming to a fork in the road. Should you go left or right? The two paths might appear to go in the same basic direction, but over time they diverge. If you make a wrong choice early on in life, it can take years to backtrack and go the right way.

If you read the Bible the wrong way, you can end up seeing only what you want to see or what you think it says, instead of what it actually says. The Bible is the only source of truth that describes the reality of creation. But, it is also authored by God so that only with the help of His Spirit, can we understand what it says.

Correct Theology Requires Accurate Interpretation

Developing a theology means conducting a review of the Bible’s main teachings about God and life.

The Bible’s words of truth must be interpreted. The challenge with any written word is determining what the original author meant. Words are simply labels for concepts and meanings. What you call something matters very little. But the meaning we feel and understand in our hearts, our heads, or our spirits — that is everything. As you might see, this is why communication can be so prone to misunderstanding. Words can mean totally different ideas to different people.

Each person has a distinct identity (or personality). Each person also has their own unique experiences. The combination of unique experiences and the interpretation of those experiences creates diversity. Diversity can increase the potential for rich experiences, but as it does, it can just as easily increase the potential for gross misunderstanding. When you are trying to communicate with others, pay attention to how your experiences shape your understanding. Be patient with the time it takes to synchronize your inner meanings with someone else’s perspectives.

Correct Theology Leads To Confident Living

A correct theology keeps your mind in sync with your creator. Confident living doesn’t mean perfect living without mistakes or difficulties. But it does mean peaceful living because God is in control. Knowing the truth and walking in it is confident living. God handles the errors. God makes the corrections as needed to keep us on the right path.

The LORD directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they stumble, they will never fall,
for the LORD holds them by the hand.

Psalm 37:23-24 NLT

How to Develop a Correct Theology

Read the Bible and ask the Holy Spirit to help you interpret. If you go to the source, you will have the best opportunity to understand the truth. However, it’s also possible to be blinded by particularly negative life experiences. These experiences can inject false beliefs and motivations into our lives. They cloud the truth, making it difficult to see clearly.

The Christian journey is not meant to be traveled alone. God gives us other people with various and diverse gifts of the Spirit to help the community of all believers to thrive. I believe it’s important to develop convictions about the major teaching of the Bible in areas like the following:

  • God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. My study of the Bible has led me to conclude that God’s sovereignty has greater significance than man’s free will. God, as creator, can change man so that man’s will is in line with God’s heart. But man, without God’s complete help, cannot overcome sin. Yes, man has free will, but only within the system of life that God has created. It is an illusion to think that man can have complete free will apart from God. God holds creation together by His power (Colossians 1:16-17).
  • Are believers eternally secure in their salvation, or can they lose it (and potentially gain it back again)? See my other posts for my views on why believers have eternal security, even though they must still persevere in their faith.
  • Does a non-believer use faith to believe in God? Or does God initiate regeneration, giving people the faith to believe? See 1 Peter 1:3-5 below which shows that “God caused us to be born again” and it is “by God’s power we are being guarded through faith for a salvation.”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV

I found 40 Questions About Salvation by Matthew Barrett to be instrumental in explaining the theology of the Bible with regard to salvation. When you study the Bible to develop correct theology, I guarantee it will be life-changing.

Learn more about interpreting the Bible.
Learn more about eternal security.
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Jesus Will Never Reject His Children

Jesus Will Never Reject His Children

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Reading time: 4 minutes

How would it change your life if you knew that Jesus would never reject a believer like you? Life is hard with many difficult situations to endure (death, pain, suffering). God asks us to believe He is perfect love despite sometimes allowing terrible circumstances. Real faith is required to look beyond life’s negative events and see God’s love.

Fortunately, God gives us His Holy Spirit, enabling us to see God by faith. He makes profound promises about His relationship with us. If you are a believer, uncertainty and rejection die with your belief in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Certainty and acceptance are possible as faith sees the reality of God’s kingdom in the present moment, even though it isn’t fully realized, yet.

Never Rejected, No, Never

Jesus explains the kind of salvation he offers in John 10.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

John 10:27-29 ESV

In the clause “and they shall never perish” John uses the double negative with the aorist subjunctive, which is a very emphatic way of declaring that something will not happen in the future. Jesus is categorically excluding the slightest chance of an apostasy by his sheep. A literal translation would be something like, “They shall not, repeat, shall not ever perish in the slightest.”

Christian Theology, M. J. Erickson, Baker Book House, 1985, pg. 992

This kind of assurance is truly Good News. The Gospel, without such security, would be a different gospel than the Bible teaches. Can you imagine believing you will be in heaven today, but tomorrow fearing God’s eternal wrath believing you have been ejected from God’s family? Then with repentence the next day believing you will be in heaven? Then rejected again when you sin? The Bible says this is impossible because Jesus’s death was sufficient for all time (past, present, future). If it lacks the power to keep a person saved, Jesus would need to die all over again (Hebrews 6:4-6). Thankfully, God is all-powerful rendering such worries unwarranted.

Never Rejected, But Doubting

Even with such direct statements of eternal security, believers must contend with the spiritual forces of fear and doubt. God would have us strengthen our trust in Him against these principalities and powers.

What might cause someone to doubt their salvation? It’s typically a sin. It’s hard to face when we do something cruel to someone else. The guilt can cause us to believe God will reject us. Jesus’s sacrifice means there is no longer condemnation for believers. Such forgiveness can seem to be too generous to believe, but that is the Good News of the Gospel! When this wonderful generosity is accepted with humility, it creates a heart response of gratefulness rather than a desire to sin more (Romans 5:20–6:3).

What about when someone sins against us? We might learn (come to believe) that we are not worth being saved. Present-day experiences can trigger memories of events that were intensely harmful. Following are some situations that might dig up the past:

  • Being lied to
  • Being ignored
  • Being interrupted
  • Waiting (uncertainty)
  • Being teased
  • Being criticized
  • Invasion of personal space

What do these have in common? They all can communicate insignificance (some directly and some more subtly):

  • Being lied to -> can’t trust or be trusted
  • Being ignored -> not worth the time or engagement
  • Being interrupted -> voice is not important or worth hearing
  • Waiting (uncertainty) -> don’t deserve good things
  • Being teased -> inferior
  • Being criticized -> defective
  • Invasion of personal space -> don’t have a valuable self that is worth protecting

These will likely cause everyone some distress, but people who have experienced abuse might recall the deep distress of older abuse. Some people have become resilient enough to overcome negative experiences. The difference has to do with a person’s self-image. The weaker the self-image, the easier it is to allow negative spiritual forces to overwhelm with falsehood, intensifying the pain to crushing levels.

The combination of (1) significant past negative treatment (2) current triggering negative treatment, and (3) preying spiritual forces can be enough to cause people to question their status before God.

But as we have seen, Jesus is emphatic that believers are securely His. The song Love Still Bids You Welcome captures this well. Even though we sin, God holds onto us with a grip that does not slip. Anyone who has tasted God’s goodness would never want to let go of God, but even so, because of our weakness, we must rely on God’s strength.

He will not cast you out. Whoever enters in will forever dwell with Him. God cannot reject a believer; he or she is a child of God forever.

Learn more about God’s goodness amidst tragedy.
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The Mind-Blowing Good News Gospel

The Mind-Blowing Good News Gospel

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Reading time: 3 minutes

What is the Good News of the Gospel? Those who believe God raised Jesus Christ from the dead and testify to this publicly will be saved (have the assurance of eternal life). The Good News is nothing short of astonishing. When it is considered at face value, it should sound unbelievable. Can I really have freedom for free? Believing (having faith) doesn’t cost us anything, but it cost Jesus His life.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.

Romans 10:9-10 NLT

Good News is Permanent

Believers have eternal life. Eternal life is unending because God transforms us from spiritual death to spiritual life. Eternal life starts the day you first believed. Christ’s work on the cross cuts away our sin and forever destroys the record of our sin. Christ living in believers provides them the hopeful assurance of sharing in His glory (Colossians 1:27; 3:3-4).

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 2:13-14 NLT

Good News is Complete

God forgives all our sins, not some. All includes past, present, and future sins. If it didn’t include future sins, Christ would need to be crucified again. It would mean that His death was not sufficient. But Christ has defeated death once and for all time. He has forever changed how believers relate to God. We have a new relationship with God as friends, not enemies. This new relationship is based on love, not fear.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

Colossians 1:21-22 NLT

Good News is Faith-Based

Having been reconciled with God, we are close to God. We can approach Him with boldness. We have no need for fear, doubt, or uncertainty. We can know with full assurance that we are blameless. This has nothing to do with our efforts, but only with Christ’s effort on our behalf. We must fully place our trust in Christ for salvation. There is no room for the belief that our effort in any way has the power to save. To consider other options is to deviate from the Gospel message found in the Bible.

But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.

Colossians 1:23 NLT

Did any of us earn the right to be saved? No. Was there anything we could do to persuade God to save us? No. It is only because of Christ’s initiative and plan to defeat death that being reconciled to Him is possible. Once a person becomes aware of God’s goodness, love, and mercy, there would be no reason to give that up. There is no better love, no higher power to run to. Once saved and adopted into the family of God, there isn’t anything a believer can do to become unsaved. The gift of salvation is that amazing.

More about eternal security.
More on understanding Colossians 1:23
How Paul supports eternal security in Colossians
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People Fall In Love And Break Up For A Surprising Reason

People Fall In Love And Break Up For A Surprising Reason

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Reading time: 5 minutes

Have you ever wondered why relationships end in heartbreak? Frequently, people fall in love and break up for one and the same reason.

People fall in love because of a strong desire to be loved. They break up when they are faced with their or their partner’s inability to love. The challenge of loving well is that people need to be loved for who they are, not for their level of performance. Believers in Jesus will grow in their ability to love, but there are no guarantees of a perfect love. Only God is capable of that. Pursue a romantic relationship because of what a partner can realistically offer based on who God made him or her to be. Seeking a partner while hoping for what is unrealistic only perpetuates an illusion of love.

Don’t Fall in Love Based on an Illusion

An illusion of love is enough to draw you into a relationship, but it’s not enough to keep you in the relationship. You will feel awesome when you first connect with someone and feel mutual appreciation. The initial connection is extremely important, but it’s only one essential part of a healthy relationship.

What fuels the illusion of love? Because you need love, it’s easy to assume your partner must have the maturity to provide it. Don’t confuse your need for love with your partner’s ability to provide love. Character is revealed over time under both ideal and tragic circumstances. It’s easy to fall in love with being in love, especially when it’s portrayed as a magical experience. We see it in movies, read about it in books, and hear about it in love songs. This idealized version of love sets a painful trap that can be difficult to resist and equally difficult to escape.

When you fall for what you imagine a person can offer before truly knowing a person, you set yourself up for disappointment. You can build up unrealistic expectations and project your desires onto your partner, hoping he or she can fulfill your every need. You can become so fixated on this idealized version of love that you fail to see the person in front of you for who he or she truly is.

This illusion of love can also prevent you from seeing the red flags or warning signs that may indicate an unhealthy relationship. You may ignore your gut instincts, dismiss any concerns, and believe that things will work out in the end if you’re mesmerized by love’s potential. You can become so invested in the fantasy that you lose sight of the reality.

To Really Fall in Love, Become Disillusioned

The desire for love can cause you to reject the reality that you and your partner are flawed and imperfect beings. You may place your partner on a pedestal and hold him or her accountable for your emotional well-being, disregarding your partner’s needs and limitations.

Your unmet emotional needs can serve as a catalyst for disillusionment. When you enter into a partnership, you often bring with you a set of expectations and desires, hoping that your partner will fulfill them. These needs may vary from person to person, but they can range from wanting emotional support and validation to seeking constant attention and affection.

Relying solely on your partner to meet all of your emotional needs can create a recipe for disappointment. No one person can be everything to you, and expecting your partner to be sets you up for failure. While it is important for a healthy relationship to provide emotional support and meet certain needs, it is equally vital to recognize that each individual has their own limitations and cannot fulfill every desire.

When your emotional needs go unmet, it can lead to feelings of loneliness, frustration, and even resentment. You may start to question the strength of your connection, wondering why your partner isn’t fulfilling your expectations. This disillusionment can create a rift in the relationship, eroding the foundation of love that seemed strong at one time. This can lead to relationship recycling–giving up on the current person in your life to find another that can keep the illusion of perfect love alive.

Instead, go with the disillusionment because it prepares you to see reality. Understanding that your partner is a flawed individual, just like you, enables you to approach your partner with more understanding and acceptance. It allows you to have realistic expectations and to appreciate your partner’s unique qualities, instead of constantly comparing him or her to an unattainable ideal.

Fall in Love with Jesus Before You Fall in Love

Jesus is our all-knowing, all-loving God who can provide the comfort, understanding, and unconditional love that we long for. In this way, He embodies the qualities we desire in a partner.

Knowing God is the perfect person can lead you to expect your partner to live up to impossible standards. Because you have such a desire for love, it is normal to expect that someone should be capable of loving you. If you emerge from childhood without having experienced enough love, you can unconsciously shift your expectations to your partner. You might know that God is loving, but project your idealized image of Him onto your partner, expecting him or her to provide the love, patience, and understanding you desperately need.

Instead, fall in love with the reality that God is the ultimate source of love. He makes others’ love for us possible. Allow God to love you through other people besides only your partner. Seek support from outside your relationship, such as from friends, family, or therapists, to fulfill certain needs that cannot be met by only your partner.

When you fall in love, the initial infatuation is not enough by itself to prevent heartbreak. Only relationships infused with God’s love have the strength to go the distance. By knowing Jesus as the source of love, you can liberate yourself from relationship recycling and discover genuine contentment.

Learn more about God’s Love.
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Avoid Taking Actions Personally

Avoid Taking Actions Personally

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Taking actions personally means placing too much emphasis on another’s words or behaviors. The hurt you experience makes it easier to become offended. Taking actions personally means that you are allowing another’s behavior to get to you. Their words become harmful to you. Taking actions personally means you feel invalidated. To be invalid means to be wrong or weak.

It’s possible to be wrong in a factual way. I thought it was too hot outside, but you are right, it’s actually pleasant. Even though being wrong in this way can be hard for some people, it doesn’t usually result in becoming offended. It’s also possible to feel wrong in a personal way. I failed to recognize my daughter is sad; I am defective. That feeling of being defective is shame. It cuts to the core. It is a state of not feeling accepted or wanted for who you are.

Taking Actions Personally Creates Rejection

Rejection isn’t fun. It can be quite disorienting and debilitating. It can cause self-doubt to fester. Without the internal strength to discount negative, painful messages, people can become defensive. Being defensive means attempting to manage the pain through some form of counter-attack or deflection. I don’t know how to defend against this, so I will go on the offensive to shift the focus away from me. While you can see that defensiveness has a purpose (to protect), it, unfortunately, often ends up inflaming an already tense situation.

Taking Actions Personally Increases Conflict

How can someone else’s struggle give life to (trigger) your personal struggle? It happens when you allow another’s words to become an offense. To work through conflict, it’s important to see clearly how this happens. The focus shifts from another’s problem to your problem. Instead of one wounded person, there are now two. Two upset people dramatically increase the likelihood of an unhealthy argument.

A wounded person feels threatened. There is danger. The greater the threat, the more resilience is needed to prevent a deeper wound. The less confidence people feel in dealing with an attack, the greater their sense of desperation. People in great distress will more likely act impulsively. They might subconsciously hold to it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Taking Actions Personally Reveals Vulnerability

It can be a tactic to expose people and use what is learned against them. This can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more offensive a message, the more energy is needed to resist it. The more defensive energy put into resisting, the more the energy is directed back to the other.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly. The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.

Proverbs 15:1,2,4 NIV

Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses.

Proverbs 10:12 NLT

The opposite of offended is validated. Instead of giving others what they don’t need (destructive words), try giving others what they do need. Instead of returning rejection with more rejection, offer acceptance. This doesn’t mean letting someone walk all over you or take advantage of you. You should maintain healthy boundaries at all times. However, it’s possible to have boundaries and offer words that bring healing instead of harm.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 4:23, 12:18 NIV

When tempted to take actions personally, consider your need for validation. God is the richest source of validation. What He says about you matters more than anyone else. When you are triggered, seek Him with all your heart so you can experience true security. God’s love for you is immovable, constant, permanent.

Learn more about conflict resolution.
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