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Hope Has 3 Essential Ingredients

Hope Has 3 Essential Ingredients

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Could hope be one of the most underrated virtues? Hope makes the list of God’s top three virtues along with love and faith (1 Corinthians 13:13).

The greatest virtue is love. But where would love be without faith or hope? Love would have nothing to deliver; it would be an empty promise–much like worldly love. Fortunately, love always hopes.

A believer can hope for something, but God-given faith makes it a reality in the heart. If you hope for a hamburger, faith makes it so real you can taste it before you ever take a bite.

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

Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Hope is an energizing longing for something good. Faith strengthens you with confidence that it is yours. Love makes faith and hope possible because of God’s goodness.

Hope focuses on God’s amazing promises–specifically the ones that we can’t see come to fruition immediately. As Christians, we hope in God’s promise of eternal life. By faith, we possess eternal life and yet we continue to experience death and suffering for a time.

God is the source of everything good, but what else must be present to live with more hope? For you to thrive, hope’s recipe needs at least these three ingredients:

  1. An Attitude of Freedom
  2. An Attitude of Surrender
  3. An Attitude of Trust

Hope Requires An Attitude of Freedom

A slave with no chance of being free one day can’t begin to hope. Thankfully, you are no longer a slave. Christ has set you free.

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

Galatians 5:1 NLT

Freedom brings peace to hope. To fear is to live in the reality of a hopeless slave. You can’t be peaceful and fearful at the same time. As you recognize you are free, you should experience more peace. You are not a slave, so you can stop thinking like one.

In what ways are you still acting like a slave? Your cage door is open. Are you living as though you are trapped inside? Fear prevents many from leaving a cage with a wide-open door.

Hope Requires An Attitude of Surrender

Surrender acknowledges that God is the ultimate source of good. To have freedom without surrender is to live with the delusion that you are self-sufficient. Hoping in yourself alone doesn’t produce assurance–it’s wishful thinking at best and a fatal gamble at worst.

You might think that freedom and surrender are mutually exclusive, when in fact they support each other perfectly. Surrendering to God and His reality produces true freedom.

If you are not surrendering to God, then you are living in an alternate reality of idolatry. You might feel free initially, but eventually, you will realize you are living in a cage as a slave. An astronaut that leaves a spaceship (without a source of oxygen) for open space is free in one way. The astronaut will survive for a brief time, but this reckless choice leads to death not life.

In this case, the one who surrenders to the confines of the spaceship lives to roam the universe or return to Earth. You can be a slave to righteousness and remain free.

Hope Requires An Attitude of Trust

To be able to surrender to God, you must first trust Him. Trusting God allows you to surrender to Him; surrendering to God produces true freedom. With true freedom, you will experience a powerful, unwavering hope that nourishes your soul.

To hope you must trust God will keep His promises to you.

Trusting is difficult in an environment that is corrupt and decaying. It’s easy to slip into agreeing with hopelessness and distrust. It’s easy to mistrust God and fear. But none of it is mandatory.

Even though evil exists in our world and it betrays God and humanity, we have a choice to trust. When you are lost, this verse will guide you home–into God’s arms.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
    do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
    and he will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

Our own understanding is limited and can be faulty. God is saying there is something more true about trusting in faith than trusting with evidence and proof. Even so-called facts can be faulty. How many people believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth before additional facts disproved it?

God’s understanding is never wrong. Trust God because He is your good parent. Look beyond your immediate environment and trust Him no matter what is happening around you.

As you go about your daily life making decisions, keep your spirit open to hearing God’s will. When you trust that He will direct you, you don’t have to hesitate to act. God is holding your hand. Don’t hold back all that God made you to be.

Love provides faith. Faith allows you to trust. Your trust leads to surrender and freedom. Then you’ll have real hope.

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Last revised October 31, 2020

Fulfillment Is Determined By Your Focus

Fulfillment Is Determined By Your Focus

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What would bring you the most fulfillment? If you could pursue it, should you pursue it? The answer depends on what you believe will bring fulfillment.

Think about a time when you purchased something that delivered much less satisfaction than you first imagined it would. Who or what can you blame? Was it the slick salesperson? Was it hyped-up advertising? Or perhaps it was your deep longing for fulfillment that you blindly projected onto the purchased item.

Life Often Lacks Fulfilllment

Put your hope in Christ instead of what happens to you, because:

This earthly life doesn’t have any guarantees… but God’s promise of eternal life does come with guarantees.

You might not deserve God’s love… but you have it and can never lose it.

You might disappoint God… but you are never a disappointment.

You might feel lonely… but you are never alone.

You might feel unwanted… but God made you for a purpose.

You might live with a chronic sense of shame and worthlessness… but God assigned you great value simply by creating you as unique in His image.

You might feel powerless… but the greatest power in all existence lives within you if you believe in Jesus Christ.

You might be down… but you are not out. If you don’t have everything you want in this life exactly the way you want it, that is perfectly alright. You can’t find any real fulfillment in anything this world offers (1 John 2:15-17).

Fulfillment Mostly Comes From the Next Life

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

2 Corinthians 4:17 NIV

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Romans 8:18 NIV

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

1 Peter 5:10 NIV

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 NIV

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:4 NIV

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

James 2:5 NIV

All of these scriptures point to one significant meaning: don’t put so much emphasis on what happens to you in this life. The more you are willing to give up in this life, for the cause of Jesus Christ, the more your reward will be in heaven (Matthew 19:29). The more you cling to what you can gain in this life, the more empty-handed you will be in the next life (and the emptier you will be in this life).

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!

Luke 6:20-22 ESV

Allow your deepest hunger, your deepest lacking of fulfillment, to drive you to God for the only true fulfillment (John 4:14).

More on Pursuing Fulfillment
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Relax Into A Reliable God

Relax Into A Reliable God

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God is reliable but not predictable–He does not change in shifty ways (James 1:17). Have you ever lost something important and then felt a sickening panic when you couldn’t find it? Ever felt like you misplaced God? Nothing is lost if you know what you are looking for, where to find it, and how to detect it.

In the Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo has a moment when he can’t find The Ring. He looks all over for it and works himself into a frenzy. But then after only a few minutes, he finds it in his pocket (where he left it).

When you’ve lost something important, a few anxious minutes can feel like an eternity. When this happens, more than a physical sensation is involved. A spirit of fear can take hold. You can almost touch it like you are walking through a dense cloud of it. Before you know it, you can believe you are doomed.

God is Reliable (He’s not hiding or lost)

In Luke 15, Jesus tells several parables about us being lost and the rejoicing that happens when we repent and move toward God. While Jesus never worries or panics, it is clear that He misses us when we become distracted with life and forget about Him.

From our perspective, isn’t it usually the other way around? We think we know where we are and we declare that God is missing.

I can’t feel God anymore. God, are you there? It doesn’t feel like you are there. Don’t you care that I’m suffering?

This reminds me of Mary when her brother Lazarus died. “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). She is hurting and disappointed. But she knows that God’s presence makes all the difference.

God is Reliable (but you might not feel His presense)

When God is present, it is first a spiritual experience and second an emotional experience. If you find yourself all alone in the sense that you can’t feel God’s presence, you might be tuned to the wrong channel.

If you only go looking for God with your feelings, you might miss Him. He’s always there, but you can’t always feel Him. You can read the Bible and know He will never abandon you. But I’m talking about something different.

When Jesus left us, He sent His Holy Spirit to be with us.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.

John 14:16-18 NLT

God is Reliable (your salvation is secure)

God will never leave you. If the Holy Spirit is a deposit to guarantee your salvation, then it isn’t possible to lose your salvation. There are definitely times when circumstances can convince you God is gone. The enemy is a deceiver. He wants to mislead you so you will become discouraged and stop living for God. You can’t lose your salvation, but you can “misplace” it.

God is right there “in your pocket” but if you panic, you won’t be able to sense Him. If you are blinded, God could be right there with you but, if you panic, you can blind yourself to His presence and stray into a dangerous mental state. If you can’t seem to see God and can’t believe He is with you, check if your eyes are covered with lies (real eyes realize real lies).

As believers, we can sense God’s presence without necessarily feeling God’s presence.

I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent.

Anonymous

The next time you feel like God is absent, try reaching out with your spiritual senses. Affirm God is with you spiritually. Then ask the Holy Spirit to teach you about God’s truth and love.

This post is part of a series on eternal security. You can read the introductory post: eternal security means full assurance of salvation.
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Have Mercy On Me

Lord Jesus Have Mercy On Me

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When I get stressed I sometimes pray the Jesus Prayer to help me focus on God more than my concerns: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me (some people add, a sinner).

I first heard about the Jesus Prayer through a friend who uses it for his personal meditations. According to Wikipedia, it first came into use around the 5th century BC and is based upon three separate scriptures. The prayer definitely brings to mind the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector in Luke 18:

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

Luke 18:13 ESV

The parable focuses on dependence upon God. It’s a humble plea for forgiveness. The prayer’s references to Jesus and Son of God emphasize God’s strengths amidst our weakness.

Because I know Jesus saved me from my sin already, I don’t repeat this prayer to secure my salvation. God hears all our prayers the first time. Repeating the prayer helps me focus on God’s presence in the moment of my concern.

I can struggle with how to best use my time while I’m still on earth. Am I focusing on what matters most? Will I have enough time to accomplish my goals? I realize God knows what is best; where my goals differ from His, His goals are more important. But this knowledge alone doesn’t remove all of my stress.

The prayer helps me focus on surrendering my life into Jesus’s hands. Praying this way reminds me that He is in control. The more I’m able to do this, the more relaxed I become.

Would you like to strengthen your connection with God? Connecting with God can help put your worries to rest. Repeating the Jesus Prayer can create a unique focus. The main goal is not to see all your wishes come true. Instead, the focused prayer, when used the right way, becomes worship. Whenever you worship God, you are automatically more relaxed.

When you repeat the phrase multiple times (sincerely and pausing in between each time) it’s impossible to not come away with a sense of Jesus’s position of power and your position of vulnerability. The moment this happens, you can release your burdens to the One who has all things under control.

Alternate Uses

You can customize the Jesus Prayer according to your immediate need. I recommend you start with the original phrase and then consider various changes to move deeper into prayer. When you are ready for something different, try emphasizing words or shortening the prayer. Eventually you might try substituting different words.

Emphasize Key Words

Focus on one or two words at a time. For example, if you emphasize Lord, you can begin to examine how Jesus being Lord influences how you feel about your concerns.

  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

Focusing on the name Jesus Christ allows for more intimacy. You are calling the God of the universe by His personal name. When you experience God’s care for you, that’s personal.

Son of God emphasizes that Jesus comes from God and is God. But it also alludes to Jesus being the son of man, which emphasizes that Jesus is our human priest who is perfect and can sympathize with our weaknesses.

Emphasizing mercy is also helpful when you want to acknowledge and confess your sin. “Have mercy on me” is an intimate plea to experience God’s love and forgiveness.

Remove Key Words

Next, try shortening the phrase to discover different meanings. Each of the following has a different feel to them than the longer version.

  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.
  • Lord Jesus Christ.
  • Lord Jesus.
  • Lord.
  • Lord have mercy.
  • Son of God have mercy.

Substitute Key Words

Swap out a word to create your own meaning. For example, instead of “have mercy on me”, you could say, “strengthen my spirit.”

  • Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, grant me wisdom.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, your will be done in my life.
  • Lord Jesus Christ, my savior, have mercy on me.
  • Jesus, be near to me and save me from my troubles.
  • Jesus, I surrender all of me.
  • Jesus, forgive me for all of my sins.
  • Lord Jesus, have your way with me.

You can’t go wrong by focusing on powerful truths about who God is. In case you are wondering, repeating specific words doesn’t grant you any special or magical powers. But, there is power in prayer and in the truth of the scriptures.

You can trust a powerful God who also cares enough to relate to you in your weakness. The brevity of the prayers allows you to focus on the spiritual connection so you can relax your heart and mind, instead of filling your mind with many words and many worries.

Speaking of which, here is another type of prayer from me to you:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26 NIV

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Box Your Concerns And Give Them To God

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The last few months have been especially stressful because of the various global crises we are all facing. In addition, each of us has our personal struggles. It’s overwhelming.

As Christians, we live between the truth that we will have trouble in this life and the truth that God comforts us during our struggles. Jesus had a lot to say to His disciples in the weeks before His death and resurrection.

A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:32-33 NIV

Jesus knew that even His closest followers would be disturbed by his capture and crucifixion. They lost it and deserted Jesus. But, He prepared them well by explaining everything ahead of time. More importantly, He sent the Great Comforter in His place.

What can you do when you feel stressed beyond your limits? If you don’t manage your feelings well, you’ll end up reaping destruction. If stress isn’t addressed in a healthy way, the stress stays on you and in you. Then your body can end up bearing the cost of the stress. Or, you can hurt others out of your anger.

Any extreme response to difficulty doesn’t help much and usually makes the situation worse. The extremes I’m talking about are either:

  1. Denial of the problem which requires complete isolation from the problem. This is over-compartmentalized.
  2. Over-reaction to the problem which inevitably involves retaliation instead of reconciliation. This is under-compartmentalized.

Both options miss the best approach which is to face the problem and embrace the problem at the right time and under the right circumstances. When people reconcile they can’t get everything they want. Most people would choose to erase the harm if that were possible. Since it isn’t, there has to be a way to work through it. The working through it involves both:

  1. Letting go of what has already happened. It can’t be changed. What’s done is done. This usually involves a lot of sadness.
  2. Taking steps forward to make needed changes that are reasonable for all involved. This might involve some anger. But it needs to be anger that motivates positive change.

Are you feeling overwhelmed? When I’m counseling others, I like to assign exercises that help people find the most direct way to grow emotionally and spiritually. Here is an exercise to try:

  1. Think of a concern you have.
  2. Now imagine a box big enough to hold it. Put your concern in the box. Close it up and label it with a description.
  3. Think about what remains. If you’re still concerned about something, go to step 1. If you sense everything is boxed up, move to step 4.
  4. Thank God you made it to step 4. Seriously! If you made it this far, then for the moment your life has some sanity.
  5. Ask yourself what is left. If your concerns are put aside, there’s probably some good things left. Thank God for the good things.
  6. Ask God to take the boxes for safe keeping. He might destroy some boxes. Others He will hand back to you at the right time so you can work through your healing. Then, at other times, God will give you a box of blessings.
  7. Acknowledge that God is in control. Approach the boxes of concern at a pace you can handle.

Hopefully, when you finished boxing up your concerns, you found the truth remaining. You are significant and loved.

How does it feel to have your concerns separated from the truth of who you are? Problems put into perspective aren’t as big as we imagine them to be. That’s because God is bigger than any problem you can imagine. God doesn’t fit in any box, but there’s always a box big enough for your concern.

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Faith Hope and Love

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What is the difference between faith, hope, and love? Why would it matter to you? It matters because you need all three for a healthy spiritual life.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

So, love is greater, but faith and hope are important too.

Faith and Trust Fit Together

If you have faith, then you must be trusting in Jesus Christ. To trust in Jesus Christ must mean you have a vibrant faith.

But, faith comes before hope:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1 NIV

You could hope for something, but lack the faith (the confidence) that it will come to pass. That kind of hope is essentially worthless (it isn’t biblical hope). You can hope it doesn’t snow tomorrow, but nobody is going to promise you that it won’t snow.

If Jesus never promised us anything, there would be no need for hope. Faith would be enough.

Hope and Future Events Fit Together

Hope is the excitement around an anticipated event. When you have faith in Jesus, you’re able to trust His promises. You’ll have hope that what He says will eventually come true.

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

Romans 8:24 ESV

So, you trust a person and you hope in a promise. Through faith we have hope that carries us along to the finish line. What about love?

Love Makes Faith and Hope Possible

If Jesus wasn’t full of love, He wouldn’t have provided the way for us to trust or hope in Him (Ephesian 2:8-9).

Love is the greatest because it involves action with the greatest effort and risk. Love would sacrifice everything.

Anyone can hope. Many people believe in something. They trust and have faith. Few truly love.

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Knowing The Truth Will Set You Free

Knowing The Truth Will Set You Free

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Knowing Jesus is different that knowledge about Jesus. If you want to know the truth, you first must ensure your source is reliable. The Bible is the truth, but only the Holy Spirit can correctly interpret it for you. Any other source has the possibility of being tainted.

If you want to know the truth intimately, you must also go to the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ). He is the only one who can provide an accurate experience of God. You need the Spirit’s power to know God.

All knowledge comes from an experience of something. In Ephesians, Paul makes a distinction between knowing Christ’s love (primary knowing) and knowing facts about His love (secondary knowing). The primary is far superior to the secondary.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesian 3:14-19 ESV

Primary Knowing is Relational

To really know someone you need a direct and intimate experience of them. This is also called heart knowledge. Strong’s concordance defines the word know (#1097 ginóskó) as to come to know, recognize, perceive especially through personal experience (first-hand acquaintance). Because it’s focused on personal experience, it can mean knowing someone intimately, even sexually.

Secondary Knowing is Factual

To know about someone you only need someone to pass along their knowledge to you. This is also called head knowledge. Strong’s concordance defines the word knowledge (#1108 gnósis) as a functional (“working”) knowledge gleaned from first-hand (personal) experience. It’s a derivative knowledge–being only as accurate (reliable) as the relationship it derives from. Therefore, you can think you know the truth about something, but what you know can be incorrect if the person (or experience) is unreliable.

You can also know a fact but not have an experiential belief that it is true. This is how the devil can know that Jesus is God, but not have a saving faith (James 2:19).

Secondary Lies Are Factual

All lies are wrong, but some lies are worse than others. Some people lie to protect themselves. They use words that hide the truth. They hide facts about who they are or what they’ve done. While this blocks intimacy and erodes the relationship, it doesn’t necessarily harm you.

Primary Lies Are Relational

When someone lies to you, about you, and you believe them, you are deceived in the worst way possible. You end up believing something false about yourself. So, as you can imagine, this significantly damages your self-image and self-worth. It also hurts your relationship with God because you trust another’s opinion of you more than God’s opinion (I write more about this in my book To Identity and Beyond).

Can you see how easily any of us can become confused? Much of our lives are based on misleading experiences. We believe the experiences which propagate lies because we generally trust the people in our lives.

To be healthy emotionally, you need to identify the lies you believe and work to correct them. As a Christian counselor, this is my main objective. I want my clients to have life-transforming experiences.

To completely eradicate a lie, you need to know the truth at all levels. Factual truth is important. It allows you to speak, teach, and testify about the truth. But your communications will be mostly hollow until you gain the intimate, experiential truth. The truth must come to you direct from the source. Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). When you know the truth this way, you will be truly free (John 8:32).

Learn more about how to eradicate lies with life-transforming experiences.
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Nothing Is Impossible

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Soon maybe an asteroid will collide with Earth. Soon maybe people will walk on Mars. These would be historical, once in a lifetime events.

I don’t believe in chance. You can’t witness a once in a lifetime event by dumb luck. What you experience, when you experience it, has a purpose. God has your life planned out, but your every step counts (Proverbs 16:9, 19:21, 20:24; Psalm 37:23; 139:16; Jeremiah 10:23)!

When you forget your way and all else fails, the Gospel never fails. You can completely lose at life, but be the supreme winner (Matthew 10:39).

Nothing is impossible… for God (Luke 1:37). An angel of God said this speaking of the virgin birth. When life seems hopeless… when only a miracle will do… God is more than capable.

When you’re guilty, wrong, suffering… when you’re at your worst… when you’ve reached bottom… you’ve reached the bedrock of the Gospel. You need not sink any further.

Where the Gospel is concerned, nothing is impossible. You can return to the event of Jesus’s sacrifice and receive cleansing and forgiveness. You can always start over refreshed. Every day can be new.

Don’t Give Up

You need to understand your past, so you can learn from it and find healing, but you need not let your past hold you back from God’s best for you today.

If you give up, you might miss what God is doing. Now is the time to stay alert (1 Peter 5:8). Wait expectantly. Your waiting and watching is not in vain. All that God promises will be fulfilled. Be prepared for once in a lifetime moments.

Consider the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). Five were wise and five were foolish. Five were prepared and five were lazy. God can change your circumstances at any moment. Are you ready?

If you live expectantly everyday, you can start to see everyday as a once in a lifetime moment.

Future posts will expand on the idea that with God, nothing is impossible.

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Man desiring to be powerful, looking to God for help.

Be Powerful Without Being Self-absorbed

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The quickest way to be powerful is to develop healthy doses of humility and confidence. If you lean too far in one direction then life becomes unbalanced and can lead to a world of hurt and trouble. But, healthy humility and confidence result in joy.

How does joy related to power? To answer this, I first want you to consider the following four possible combinations of humility and confidence:

  • Self-loathing: a false humility without much if any confidence means harmfully low self-worth. This person actively rejects the truth about who God is and who He made them to be.
  • Self-deprecating: a helpful amount of humility without enough confidence leads to questionable self-worth. This person is healthy when they have a lighthearted ability to laugh at their mistakes. However, their negative self-expression can also come from a poisoned self-image.
  • Self-confident: a helpful dose of humility and confidence means self-care without arrogance. This person lets God be God while also feeling good about who they are.
  • Self-absorbed: too little humility with too much confidence results in an inflated sense of importance. This person becomes overcompensates for their low self-worth by focusing too much on trying to feel powerful. Increasing focus on self becomes a dead-end at self-loathing. An unhealthy preoccupation with self misses out on what God has to offer.

People become self-absorbed when they look only within themselves to heal their brokenness. In futility, people try to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. But, the power that originates anywhere except from God promises only the illusion of confidence.

For example, if self becomes everything and God is minimized, then God isn’t in His rightful position in our lives. We’re not really going to succeed – maybe we’ll succeed with financially or something – but overall for God’s kingdom and his purposes we won’t be succeeding.

Be Humble So You Can Be Powerful

The world says you must be strong and independent to be powerful. But an “I can do it all by myself” attitude fails to activate God’s power.

Do you want to be full of your own power or full of God's power? You can be humble, confident, and full of God's power. Why settle for only what you can muster without God? Share on X

God says to be powerful, you must be weak enough to accept His help. A healthy weakness is a vulnerable dependence. Depending upon God activates His power.

Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT

Be Confident So You Can Be Powerful

If you focus too much on God, if that’s possible, and minimize yourself then you can develop self-loathing where you don’t feel like you’re much of anything. Self-loathing is simply another form of arrogance that blocks God out of your life.

God’s power isn’t going to shine through you then. You need to have a right view of yourself so that God’s power will rest on you and work through you.

Be Joyful So You Can Be Powerful

The joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10). How can you experience joy if you carry the heavy load of bitterness toward your own spirit?

Passively waiting for God to make you powerful doesn’t work. To be full of power, you must actively allow God to fill you, which also means keeping yourself empty of substitute fillings. Being filled with the Spirit means having great joy in God.

So be very careful how you live, not being like those with no understanding, but live honorably with true wisdom, for we are living in evil times. Take full advantage of every day as you spend your life for his purposes. And don’t live foolishly for then you will have discernment to fully understand God’s will. And don’t get drunk with wine, which is rebellion; instead be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 5:15-18 TPT

How Can We Be Powerful And Not Self-absorbed? How Can We Be Confident While Also Humble?

If we want to be powerful, we must be joyful. If we want to be joyful, we can’t live rebelliously independent from God. We must stop living with the habits of self-deprecation and self-absorption. The antidote for poisoning shame is to look to God for help.

Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.

Psalm 34:5 NLT

So we should go for everything. We should do all that we can – shoot from the moon so to speak – but also keep that in check by accepting whatever God provides or doesn’t provide in our lives.

He may have a different plan than the one on our minds, and it may take some time to figure out what that is, but it doesn’t mean we should just be sidelined and sitting back and waiting for something to happen either.

We should take the truths in the Bible that God has given us and run with them as best as we can. But ultimately it is up to God to author our success.

The inspiration for this post came from a conversation I had with Kidron Tirey.

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Are You Addicted to God?

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What is your ‘why’ that drives you out of bed every morning? If you’re relying on something other than God and His calling, you’re missing out on God’s best.

I spent the first twenty years of my life on the outside looking for some sense of meaning. I was desperate to find something more powerful than the emptiness of day-to-day life. When I became a Christian at twenty, I finally found my answer.

You can do better than what the world has to offer. You can start each day with motivation that originates from deep within you.

You can do better than caffeine

Caffeine stimulates, but it doesn’t connect you to your Creator.

Everyone has a purpose. Some people are aware of their calling. But too few invest the continuous effort required to reject the lies the world offers and grow into their God-given identity. Play the long game.

Playing the long game means looking at life with long-range vision. What is happening today is never the end, but only the beginning. Each day has its purpose but also builds towards a bigger plan tomorrow.

You can do better than boring

Life is boring without God. But God’s plan unfolds in new ways every second of the day.

God didn’t waste a second of Jesus’s life. He had a purpose and a strategy for everything He accomplished. Jesus lived up to His identity and fulfilled His deepest longing. Now He calls you to find your passion and advance God’s kingdom.

To advance God’s kingdom, you must be connected to Jesus. Apart from Him, you can’t accomplish anything of spiritual worth (John 15:5). When you are enlightened by God’s Spirit, you have the power to advance God’s purposes.

You can do better than random

Life is mysterious. God doesn’t reveal everything about His plans, but He wants you to seek and find spiritual insight.

God knew you before you were born. You have a destiny to pursue. Your identity doesn’t change, but how you see yourself changes over your lifetime. Pursue your identity and enjoy abundant life.

Abundant life comes from participating with God in His work. You can’t have life to the fullest without participating in spiritual growth. God’s plan for your life involves your spiritual growth and helping others with their spiritual growth.

You can do better than worrying

Short-term solutions provide a false hope. Then, you’re back to worrying about where to find your next fix.

God is the perfect fit for the receptors in your brain. He’s better than drugs or medicine. When you’re connected to Him, you experience a transcendent peace. God wired you to connect with Him.

Don’t be afraid to ask God to speak encouragement to you. I don’t always feel great about life. There are plenty of distractions. When you feel discouraged, that’s a perfect time to revisit your ‘why’. Ask God why you should continue when life isn’t going the way you hoped it would.

You can have passion for living and become unstoppable

Being addicted to God means you have at least tasted that God is good (Psalm 34:8). Life can be challenging. You won’t be able to do everything right all the time. But in your heart you know you can return to God’s goodness. Once you’ve tasted God, you realize nothing else comes close to satisfying like He does.

Are you waking up to who God is? Can you see His reality?

You are unstoppable because you have access to God at all times. God’s kingdom is real and your participation counts.

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, think about what motivates you to keep doing what you need to do. Can you sense what is at stake if you give up?

Many things satisfy earthy desires. These aren’t necessarily wrong. But…

You can do better.

God, awaken our spiritual senses to You. Reveal more of who you are. Help us not forget there’s more to this life than we can see.

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Never Give Up

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Have you ever been tempted to give up? Maybe you’ve encountered failure after failure or disappointment after disappointment. No matter what you do or how hard you try, your efforts don’t bring the results you hope for.

But guess what? Past results don’t predict future results with any certainty – not when God is involved. Abraham and Sarah were too old to have a child, but God made it happen according to His promise.

Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt but they didn’t reach the promised land for 40 years. God fulfilled His promise when Joshua took over after Moses passed away. Yet, consider that the Israelites were enslaved for 400 years prior to God starting the delivery process. That’s multiple generations of suffering. That’s plenty of time to give up and some of them did grumble and give up, but you don’t have to.

Giving up is pretty much the same as giving in to the enemy. When Christians are tired and discouraged we can easily stop fighting for what is good.

God is never too late. What hasn’t happened yet, isn’t yet required. God holds every decision in His control.

Are you questioning whether God will allow your dream to be fulfilled? If your dream is godly, then I have a better question for you. How will you pass the time until God ordains your dream to bear fruit? What is the least amount of fear you can live with while you wait? Are you under crushing fear because you doubt God knows how to run the universe (or your life).

When negative events come out of nowhere, it’s easy to anticipate more negatives. Why? Because no one likes surprise losses. If you expect something negative, then you have some semblance of control over it. But if a negative occurs unpredictably, you no longer feel safe. If a negative event happens randomly, what will prevent another one from happening again, and then again?

The problem with this line of thinking is it leaves God out of the equation completely. Just because God doesn’t prevent something bad the first time, doesn’t mean He will continue to let you suffer (1 Peter 5:10).

If you lose heart, you’ve lost everything. You can always recover, but to do so requires that you reignite your faith. You may not have realized your dream in your expected timeframe, but God has the power to complete the impossible. What is impossible for man, is yet possible for God.

What can we conclude then? God’s timing is more important than our timing. When we are believers, we know God cares for us, so we also know whatever happens, no matter how difficult, we can never lose a dream that God can’t find and restore.

Our lives are significant, so we must always work for, and ask for, good things. However, we must also be prepared to accept delays and setbacks. As we grow in faith, we grow in acceptance of what God provides. He provides the right amount – not too much and not too little.*

Your efforts count. Never give up. You can make a difference in other’s lives that has eternal significance. Don’t give up doing good.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

No matter what happens, never forget that you and God are on the same team. God and you ultimately have the same goal. You perform good works that will advance God’s kingdom (Ephesians 2:10).

* If you would like to explore this idea further, read my book, To Identity and Beyond.
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Are You Interpreting the Bible Correctly?

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A casual reading of the Bible can lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes the consequences can be trivial, but at other times they can be severe.

Any contemporary Bible version is a translation from the original text (usually in Hebrew or Greek). A translator must interpret the source language to determine what is the best word choice in the destination language.

To better understand a passage, it’s helpful to read multiple versions of a passage in context. Ask, “what meaning did the original author intend?” Sometimes, it’s not so obvious. But we have the Holy Spirit to help us gain the best meaning. We also have each other as believers to help with understanding.

Proverbs 18:2 isn’t too complicated, so it’s an easy place to start. Consider how the meaning becomes more clear by reading multiple versions.

Fools find no pleasure in understanding
    but delight in airing their own opinions.

NIV (Proverbs 18:2)

Fools have no desire to learn;
    they would much rather
    give their own opinion.

CEV (Proverbs 18:2)

So far we can see that “understanding” and “to learn” can be substituted for each other. That’s not too profound, but let’s look at two more.

A fool does not care whether he understands a thing or not; all he wants to do is show how smart he is.

GNT

Senseless people find no pleasure in acquiring true wisdom,
for all they want to do is impress you with what they know.

TPT (Proverbs 18:2)

With these next two, we get a couple of new phrases. I like how the GNT shows the idea of not caring about understanding which allows hasty actions and a lack of patience. We also learn that a fool is senseless.

A rebel doesn’t care about the facts. All he wants to do is yell.

TLB (Proverbs 18:2)

The last one (TLB) is more of a paraphrase translation. But can’t you just picture someone airing their opinions by yelling? You can imagine the fool in action. This gives me a picture of someone who doesn’t necessarily make sense, but who probably believes that whoever is louder is more right. Verse 1 supports that idea.

People who do not get along with others are interested only in themselves; they will disagree with what everyone else knows is right.

GNT (Proverbs 18:1)

So, fools will stick to their folly even in the face of mounting evidence against them (see also Proverbs 23:9 and 26:4).

Proverbs 18:1 is more complicated than verse 2. In fact, based on some commentary I read on BibleHub.com and BibleGateway.com, it’s possible to interpret verse 1 as encouragement to separate from others.

And, if you believe or know by the Holy Spirit that you have found the truth, then you should stubbornly hold to your convictions, even in the face of many dissenters (see Romans 16:17-18).

However, the positive interpretation is wrong if you stubbornly hold to a false belief. A fool will place his own opinion above the truth. A fool doesn’t really care about truth. Most commentaries agree that Proverbs 18:1 is interpreted correctly as a warning to not find yourself in the wrong camp, rather than (in this context) as an encouragement to defend your opinions.

You need discernment to understand what the Bible says. Without a connection with God, you could end up misinterpreting and misapplying a verse. Ask, what do I know to be true? Ask, what have I already learned? Ask, what do other parts of the Bible say? Ask, what situation is in front of me (someone who is behaving well, or someone who is senseless)?

Next week, I’ll continue to explore this idea with verses 3 and 4.

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Is Control Healthy or Unhealthy?

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Do you think of control as a positive or negative? Your answer probably depends on who is in control. Is it you, someone else, or God?

All else equal I’d prefer to be in control. But I’m probably better off when I trust God because He is both good and in control.

When Control is Unhealthy

There are many different ways control plays out in our lives. Are you in-control, out-of-control, God-controlled, or self-controlled? Any of these could be positive or negative, depending on the perspective you choose.

Control is unhealthy when you force or manipulate from a place of fear. Relying on your own ingenuity apart from God doesn’t usually work well. Doubting God but acting anyway didn’t turn out well for Moses (Numbers 20:10-13).

This kind of control is unhealthy in at least these two situations:

  1. When you hold onto something too hard
  2. When you hold onto something too long

Holding Too Hard

Some things in life are delicate. A death grip doesn’t work. If you turn to something or someone in desperation, you might cling too quickly or too intensely. Your relationship with God or others will probably suffer.

Don’t make anything, including your own way of doing things, more important than God intended. Using food, alcohol, sex, grades, status, money, people – anything really – beyond God’s intended use is destructive. You might harm the thing, the other person, or yourself.

Holding Too Long

Some things in life are temporary. A permanent grip doesn’t work. Some things you can’t control; you have to let them go. You can try to force something temporary to be permanent, but that’s probably going to destroy it. You’ll suffer a loss either way.

You have to know when to cut your losses. Accept what you’ve already lost. Move forward to the next good thing to come into your life. Recognize the good things you already have.

When Control is Healthy

God is in control, so control can’t be all bad. Control is healthy when motivation to act comes from love and faith.

There are certainly situations when a lack of control is unhealthy. Control in this context is acting when it is the right thing to do. Passivity would be sinful (James 4:17). Control is healthy in at least these two situations:

  1. When you act like God
  2. When you cling to what is good

Act Like God

Some things in life are forever. Protect what is valuable. Step into the situation and be responsible. Have the discipline (self-control) to do what is right. Self-control is the same as letting God be in control and aligning yourself with what He wants (Ephesians 5:1-2).

When God’s Spirit is in control, the law doesn’t apply.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

Cling to What is Good

Some things in life are worthy. A wimpy grip doesn’t do them justice. Pursue and lay hold of whatever is good. Consider for example: wisdom, a wife, and a mature faith (Proverbs 4:7; 18:22, Philippians 3:12).

Your faith is valuable; don’t trade it for anything. To increase healthy control you must also decrease unhealthy control.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Romans 12:9 NIV

Control can be understood as either right action or wrong action. The next time you have the opportunity to act, check yourself: Am I acting in love and faith? Is what I’m about to do helpful or harmful?

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Surviving On The Fringe

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Are you on the fringe? Fringe means “to be on the outskirts.” That can be good or bad depending upon what it at the center.

Last week I wrote about feeling on the outskirts of God and what He is doing in the world. But what if we flip that around and define fringe as being on the outskirts of what the world is doing? Then being on the fringe would be a good thing.

Jesus lived on the fringe while He was on earth. The leaders at the time expected Him to join them in their agenda. But Jesus certainly lived as if not engrossed in the world:

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31 NIV

If you find yourself depressed and anxious about what is happening in the world, maybe you are too deeply engrossed? What is too engrossed? This means living as if this life is all there is. If it were all there is, you’d have to put your full hope in it. You’d have no other choice.

If you are holding too tightly to this world, you’re going to feel discouraged. You’re going to be worried because this world in its present form is passing away. But, there is another option besides hoping in this world.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has separated you out from this world. He’s brought you to the fringe. He’s sent you into the world to help it, not to be engrossed in it (1).

Don’t love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you cannot love the Father. Our foolish pride comes from this world, and so do our selfish desires and our desire to have everything we see. None of this comes from the Father. The world and the desires it causes are disappearing. But if we obey God, we will live forever.

1 John 2:15-17 CEV

Jesus had no place to lay His head (Luke 9:58). Of course, this doesn’t mean that He never slept lying down. It means He didn’t ever settle down as if this was His permanent home.

Sure – it’s okay to own a home and live in it. More important that where you live is how attached you are to your life in this world. It’s impossible to be completely satisfied with this world. If you try to find your life somewhere in the world, you will feel empty and disappointed.

But if you join Jesus at the fringe, you will find your life and you’ll be in good company. You can be on the fringe and not feel lonely.

If you’ve been engrossed in the world, it takes time to detach from it. At some point you have to let go of the world.

Have you ever lost something and become focused on finding it? What if you can’t find it? Eventually you have to move on. If you spend your life consumed with what you’ve lost, your life will be compromised. It won’t be all it could be.

Imagine what it feels like to let go of what you’ve lost and move on. That’s what you need to do with the world. The world isn’t as great as you thought it was. That’s good or bad depending upon how you look at it. If you can give up on finding your ultimate happiness in it, you’ll end up content and peaceful.

(1) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/lets-revise-the-popular-phrase-in-but-not-of
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How To Live With Rejection

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Confidence is the antidote to rejection. It’s easy to think that confidence is only something other people can have. But you can have it too. The secret to confidence is to stop trying to be something you’re not.

Living with the excruciating pain of rejection is hard. Some people would rather be physically beaten than be emotionally beaten.

Does anyone in the world like you? Does anyone want to spend time getting to know you? Does anyone appreciate you? Does God? If you answer these questions “no” then you are living with the oppressive feeling of rejection.

Rejection, though it feels real, is more of an illusion than a reality, if you know Jesus. God knew you before you were born. Jesus redeemed you from all sin that separated you from God. God accepts you exactly as you are.

But this doesn’t mean you won’t struggle with rejection. You have experienced some rejection and you’ll experience some more. To gain confidence, you must learn to not care about the rejection that others direct your way.

Rejection can easily become a downward spiral. None of us knows who we are as much as God knows who we are. The more you’ve experienced rejection, the more you’ve probably gone into hiding. The more you are in hiding, the more people are rejecting the false you (because you are keeping the real you out of sight). But it will still feel like people are rejecting the real you, so you end up hurting more and hiding more.

There is no good reason for anyone to reject the best parts of you that come from God. Therefore, rejection has to do with being misunderstood rather than being defective. I would guess people with obvious disabilities experience this all the time in a much more direct way. How frustrating it is to be judged superficially. How frustrating to be judged instantly and only based on your performance in one moment rather than your potential.

How much have you become your own worst enemy? If you struggle with rejection, you struggle to understand who you really are. If you’ve stopped wanting to know the real you, it will be difficult for others to see you (as in “I see you” from the movie Avatar).

God sees your potential. Your potential comes from your heart, from who God made you to be. He sees you at your best even when you look your worst. You have the best qualities that God placed in you.

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7 NLT

If you struggle with low self-worth, you might be quick to focus on the negative part of this verse. You might be thinking, “But God rejected Eliab, so that means He most likely rejects me.”

God has the right to choose whoever He wants for what He wants to accomplish. God can’t make everybody king. Just because you are rejected for one thing, doesn’t mean you are completely rejected. God will reject you for everything He doesn’t have planned for your life. But this also means He accepts you for all the good things He has planned.

So don’t worry so much about rejection. You’ll probably be rejected 99 times out of a 100. But it’s that 1 out of 100 that matters. You only need 1. Cling to the truth that God accepts you as you are, for the purposes He has for you. Ask God to help you understand your purpose and forget about what He hasn’t chosen you for.

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4 Signs You Were Neglected

4 Signs You Were Neglected

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Your parenting style probably says a lot about your emotional development. If you were neglected, you might overcompensate by overindulging your child. Or, because you lack internal resources, you might repeat your neglect with your child.

The lessons we learn as children are hard to forget. We might not have been able to prevent our own pain, but there is at least a chance we can help our children to avoid the same pain.

This can be an adaptive approach to life, as long as it doesn’t cross over into extremes. How will you know if you are overcompensating for your own childhood neglect? Here are four motivations to watch for:

1) You Were Neglected So You Spoil Your Child

Have you ever thought, “I want to give my kids what I never got”? It’s fine to want to improve upon your childhood. You might be able to provide a lot more than you ever received.

Overcompensating looks like attempting to prevent your child from ever lacking anything. Everybody needs to experience the reality of life’s difficulty at some point. You can allow your children to feel reality without neglecting them.

If you have thought, “I want to prove I can do better than my parents did,” you might be caught in unforgiveness. One thing you should know is that no amount of making your child feel better is going to heal your emptiness. Keep giving, but seek the attention you need for yourself.

2) You Were Neglected So You Can’t Tolerate Your Child’s Discomfort

Have you ever thought, “I don’t want to discipline my children because I don’t want to be mean”? Giving your child what they want instead of what they need might seem generous but it is actually selfish.

For example, your child might want more candy but need to eat healthily and brush his teeth. I remember how strange it felt to deny my child a treat. I believed my child wouldn’t be able to handle not receiving what seemed good.

Even if your giving is helpful for your child, it can’t do much for you. Giving to others feels good, but it can’t heal. Healthy giving usually happens the other way around. You can be a healthy giver after you learn how to receive what you need but didn’t get.

3) You Were Neglected So You Neglect Your Child

Have you ever thought, “I don’t know how to play with my child”? If you didn’t receive enough attention, giving to others is challenging.

One, you lack modeling. You might simply not have enough experience to know what is the right behavior. As you receive, it equips you to give to others.

Two, you need to feel your own desire to play before you can play with your child. Numbing yourself to your needs is one way to cope with neglect. But it gets in the way of connecting with your child.

4) You Were Neglected So You Make Your Child Your Top Priority

Have you ever thought, “My spouse can go without my attention, but my children can’t?”

Certainly, children need attention. The younger they are, the more they need it consistently. So there are times when a dependent child must be your top priority. But I am thinking of an all-or-nothing pattern.

Some parents find it extremely difficult to ever put their children lower in priority than their spouses. If you identify with being a child more than an adult, you could be susceptible to favoring your child. If your pain is great enough, you could even favor your child over your spouse without being aware of how unhealthy it is.

In all of the four examples, the driving motivation is the parent’s own emptiness. A need unfilled is an extremely powerful motivator. It is so strong it can convince parents to rationalize some outrageous behaviors, unfortunately.

Parenting is hard work and no parent is perfect. Even if you’ve done better than your parent, you probably fall short is some ways too. Fortunately, children are resilient, especially when God is working in their lives.

Since you were a child at one time, you are resilient too! Resilient doesn’t mean you can thrive without getting what you need, it means you won’t be able to easily give up on your desires. Your needs are preserved even through difficult times.

It is time to consider your needs. You can take care of yourself even if you were neglected.

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Know Your Priorities To Increase Life Satisfaction

Know Your Priorities To Increase Life Satisfaction

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What good are priorities? They:

  • Prevent aimless wandering through life.
  • Provide a focus for the energy God gives you.
  • Enable a meaningful way to resolve conflict.

If you don’t know what you want, life becomes an exercise in trial-and-error. That’s not necessarily bad the younger you are. But over the years, you should develop a greater sense of what life is about.

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Lewis Carroll

When you finally know what you value, you can aim your life in a specific direction. Then, the bonus side-effect of having priorities is an unshakable hope. Before you can experience the fullness of hope, you have to learn how to prioritize.

Priorities Reduce Painful Mistakes

Have you ever walked through a room at night without the lights on? If so, you know what it feels like when your toe connects with an object you thought wasn’t there. Figuratively speaking, it’s also possible to be walking through life without the light.

Priorities are like a window that exposes the desires of your heart. You can see what is going on inside your soul. When your priorities are right you are walking in the light. That’s what Jesus is saying in Matthew 6:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Matthew 6:19-23 ESV

Priorities are values which naturally lead to specific goals. For example, if you value time with family, you might set a goal to increase your time together each week. If your values are really yours (not someone else’s imposed on you), you will be more likely to reach the goal you’ve set.

Values can be superficial, or meaningful and deeply fulfilling. For example, if you value money (prioritizing it above other things), that can be superficial if you store it up and never accomplish anything meaningful from it. But your value of money can also be fulfilling and lead to savings which can be used for good in a time of need.

Priorities Provide A Path To Contentment

After you know what you want, the next step is to learn how to be okay with not getting what you want.

As you mature emotionally and spiritually, your ability to manage life’s difficulties become easier. For example, if you believe you need to go on a vacation at a specific time and place in order to feel happy, and circumstances prevent it, you’ll have a hard time not feeling depressed or angry.

Fortunately, you can “trade up” your values. You can learn to value more than just what will provide an immediate reward. Like Paul, you can learn to be content in all circumstances.

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13 NIV

Isn’t it amazing how Paul can essentially be indifferent about whether he has little or an abundance?

It’s good to learn this skill. You can’t fully learn contentment without developing a greater trust in God. How much do you believe that what He provides for you is sufficient under all circumstances? Ask Him to bless you with this ability.

Life satisfaction is really about joy. When you are joyful, you can be indifferent about your circumstances. The truth that God is real and He rewards those who pursue Him is enough to keep the joy flowing in your heart. Ask God to give you a supernatural understanding of how real He is.

Read more on resolving conflict.
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Emotions Are Never Sinful

Emotions Are Never Sinful

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Emotions can reveal sin but they never stand alone as the source of sin. Emotions can lead someone to desire to sin but there is nothing wrong with feeling them. Emotions are messengers. You’ve heard the phrase, “don’t shoot the messenger,” right? A messenger can bring good or bad news, and you should welcome both, as long as the message contains no lies.

Emotions Are To The Heart As An Instrument Panel Is To The Plane

A pilot needs to know the plane’s altitude, airspeed, and direction. The pilot could look out the window to gauge these values, but the plane’s instrument panel, if it is working correctly, will be more accurate. Knowing that your plane is 400 feet off the ground, traveling at 200 MPH, and pointed toward the ground wouldn’t be good news, but it would certainly be helpful to know.

Emotions Are To The Heart As Smoke Is To Fire

Emotions are a byproduct of the heart. Your heart (the core of your life) is the source of all your emotions. Your emotions provide a window into the condition of your heart.

Smoke depends on burning material. Without fire, there would be no smoke. It’s possible to observe or collect smoke only when material burns. Smoke is a byproduct of burning material.

Your heart is the source of your emotions like fire is the source of smoke. Emotions come from your heart to bring you a message. If your heart is well, your emotions will be too. But if your heart is sick, you will feel negative emotions (unless you work to suppress them).

Jesus talked about false laws (such as ceremonial washing) that cannot defile us. He made a point that evils deeds start in the heart.

Peter replied, “What did you mean when you talked about the things that make people unclean?” Jesus then said: Don’t any of you know what I am talking about by now? Don’t you know that the food you put into your mouth goes into your stomach and then out of your body? But the words that come out of your mouth come from your heart. And they are what make you unfit to worship God. Out of your heart come evil thoughts, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, vulgar deeds, stealing, telling lies, and insulting others. These are what make you unclean. Eating without washing your hands will not make you unfit to worship God.

Matthew 15:15-20 CEV

Will And Behavior Can Be Sinful But Never Emotions

Emotions indicate the status of your heart. The “bad news” you receive from your heart can be painful. But it’s only what you decide (with your will) to do (your behavior) with the pain that can be sinful.

The choices you make, whether in your heart, mind, or body, can be sinful. You can hold onto bitterness (heart) without acting on it. You can think vengeful thoughts (mind) without acting on them. You can strike someone with the intent to harm (body). All three of these are sins, but what about feeling angry? Is it sinful?

If you hold onto anger it becomes sinful but the original impulse is only a neutral indicator. What will you do with your anger? Welcome your angry feeling so you can better understand the condition of your heart.

Thinking of anger (or other emotions) as sinful can lead to suppressing it instead of understanding and addressing it. The reasoning goes like this: Anger is sinful. I’m angry. I need to get rid of the anger. I’ll ignore it. Now that I don’t feel angry, I’m no longer sinful. While this avoids a sinful outburst for the moment, unless the source issue of the heart is addressed, the anger will surface at a later time and likely cause even greater destruction.

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

Proverbs 4:23 NIV

To guard your heart try this reasoning: Anger is an indicator. I’m angry. I want to understand what is happening in my heart. I know when I address the pain in my heart, I won’t feel angry anymore.

More thoughts on feelings by Matt. And, some more.
Emotions are a gauge, not a guide.
Is anger sinful?
Picture colored by Matt!

Take Advantage Of Defensiveness

Take Advantage Of Defensiveness

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Imagine a conversation caught in an endless loop of defensiveness and blame-shifting.

Person A: Why are you yelling at me?

Person B: I’m not yelling. You’re just too sensitive.

Person A: I’m not too sensitive. You don’t realize how loud you’re being.

Person B: Well, I’m not raising my voice. You’re being unreasonable. I’m only trying to explain why your vacation ideas won’t work. Why can’t you admit when you’re wrong?

Person A: Vacations aren’t about right or wrong. They are something we should both enjoy. You obviously don’t care how I feel. Now I remember why I don’t like going on vacation with you.

Person B: Fine. You’re impossible to please. You take the vacation you want and I’ll go on mine. That’s the only way we’ll both be happy.

Who hasn’t responded with defensiveness? Being “defensive” is neither good nor bad. But adding the “ness” indicates a general pattern of over-protection that prevents people from feeling emotionally close. You can guard against negativity and lies, but you can also guard against I feel shame and I don’t want to be known right now.

A Healthy Defensive Protects You From Harmful Attacks

When you feel threatened, it’s okay to throw up your defenses. Usually, it happens automatically before you’re even fully aware of the danger.

Danger can be a genuine threat that will cause harm but it can also be a false perception. If you experience a situation that reminds you of a threat you’ve had to endure, you can perceive an innocent situation at the same threat level. It’s even possible to be so worn down by stressful experiences that a person can hold onto a generalized level of fear almost all the time. Another word for this is burned-out or it could even be Post Traumatic Stress.

If you take a piece of plastic and bend it, it will start to heat up and weaken. If you do it too much, it will snap. That same thing can happen with us when we experience too much stress in too short a time.

That’s why it is so important to be patient with others. You don’t know what threats they’ve faced. You probably don’t intend to harm anyone, but your behaviors could raise someone’s threat level.

An Unhealthy Defensive Prevents You From Receiving Love

Being defensive is such a natural response that it can be difficult to realize you’re doing anything wrong. Unless there is a real threat that you know you can’t handle, defensiveness blocks you from getting what you want. The good things you want from life will come to you as you learn the right time to be vulnerable.

It’s hard to ask for what you really want when you’re afraid that you’re not going to get it. Maybe you’ve had a string of times you’ve been forgotten. Maybe you’re convinced by now that your desires don’t matter. Whatever the reason, defensiveness might serve to protect you from further disappointment, but it will also protect you from that love you desire.

Now, what would a healthier version of that conversation look like?

Person A: Why are you yelling at me?

Person B: I’m don’t think I’m yelling. Am I being too loud for you?

Person A: When you speak like that I struggle to want to stay in the conversation with you. I can’t handle it. It’s too stressful for me. I don’t feel like you care how I’m feeling.

Person B: This seems like my normal voice. I’ll try to speak more calmly. I want to plan our vacation. I have to admit though, I can’t stand the idea of laying around all week at the beach. I’m concerned I’ll be miserable and I won’t have any fun. That isn’t going to help our relationship.

Person A: Vacations are something we should both enjoy. You don’t seem to realize how stressed I am. Camping out is always so much work. It’s certainly not relaxing.

Person B: Yeah, we’re both stressed. I suppose we could split up. You could go to the beach while I go camping. But that won’t work very well because the whole point is that we need to spend more time together. What if we found a place that has a beach and good hiking nearby?

Whenever you become aware of defensiveness, look for ways to turn it around using vulnerability.

Read more about how to Improve Your Communication.
Image by Bingo Naranjo from Pixabay

4 Steps to Self-Forgiveness

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How to Forgive Yourself

Forgiveness is hard work. It is especially hard to forgive when you are still living with the effects of an offense. Yet, there can be an even worse place to be. When you are the offender, you have to live with something irreversible you did to someone else. What if you feel blocked from experiencing true forgiveness for what you have done? These four steps will help you forgive yourself.

1 – Identify What was Lost

It is important to look at what has happened. This is the same as the first step in forgiving others. Identify how reality is different – what could have been? Identify what is lost as a result of your actions. Accept responsibility for what you did. Initially this may be hard to do and you may actually feel worse. But it is a necessary step because there is no going back to the past to undo something, there is only moving forward.

2 – Express Remorse and Repent

It is appropriate to feel sorrow or remorse for a short period of time. This is an essential part of handling a loss. Even if the primary loss was someone else’s, you have lost something too. Until you can forgive yourself, you will lack some degree of security. Spend some time being aware of your feelings. Express feeling sorry for what you have done. This could be journaling, talking, or perhaps even yelling or some other method to expend your energy (all of this done without hurting anyone). Accept what was lost as lost. Spent an appropriate amount of time grieving. This might be anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months.

3 – Trust in God’s Goodness

Surrender your fate into God’s hands. Ask God to forgive you. Trust in God’s grace and mercy for both the offended and for you. Trust that God is able to make up for your mistake in a way that only God knows is best. Pray for the person you offended. Pray that God will bring them to a better place than before you hurt them. Even if this is not God’s will, this is a good heart attitude. The offended will not be able to return to their pre-offense state, but God will make it right. God may bless the offended person sooner, or the offended person may continue to suffer for some time. Either way pray that the offended can sense God’s presence and find peace and acceptance of their new reality. If God does not appear to make up for your mistake, trust that God is in control and knows something you do not.

4 – Lighten Your Load

Be willing to be a part of God making it right. Make restitution if possible (but only if the offended wants this). Having done what you can do to make restitution, leave the rest to God. Drop the weight. Cut the strings. Leave the luggage. Stop punishing yourself. Walk away from it. Allow yourself to pursue enjoying your life again. Get on with your life. Rejoice that you are forgiven. Having learned from your mistake, be a blessing to others. Be ready to forgive others in the same way you have received God’s forgiveness. If you continue to struggle to forgive yourself, realize you have not fully received God’s forgiveness. Return to the gospel message and receive complete forgiveness. Start life anew with a blank canvas.

Reflections

  1. Do you struggle to forgive yourself in any way?
  2. What is standing in the way of you completely receiving God’s forgiveness?
  3. Are you still too hard on yourself? What would you say to a friend who is struggling with self-forgiveness?

Resources

Nehemiah 9:17

“But you are a God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.”

Read on Bible Gateway

1John 2:1

“If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”

Read on Bible Gateway

From the Song “What Sin?”

The heaviest thing you’ll carry
Is a load of guilt and shame.
You were never meant to bear them
So let them go in Jesus name.
Our God is slow to anger
Quick to forgive our sin
So let Him put them under the blood
Don’t bring them up again.
Cause He’ll just say,
What sin, what sin?

Further Reading

Marriage Missions

Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen?

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Can you trust God when bad things happen?

Why God allows evil is an important question. But a better question is: What attitude should I have when I encounter evil? I love Habakkuk’s attitude. Despite what is happening, he expresses an unwavering faith in God.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
    nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the deer’s;
    he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

There is a lot of disturbing happenings going on in our world right now. Following are my thoughts on how to hold onto faith when bad things happen.

Even for those of us not directly affected by the recent Dayton / El Paso / Gilroy shootings, we all may feel anxious. How can I cope with feeling like this is going to happen to me?

From a faith perspective, ultimately God is in control. There is little we can control (apart from having God’s help). Someone could play it completely safe by staying home, but then their house could catch fire. Difficult and even horrible events can and will happen. We cope by trusting in God’s long-term plan. A near-sighted look at a tragedy will bring anxiety and despair because in the short-term our lives are fragile.

What are the best strategies for coping? Should I turn off the news?

If someone is easily upset by the news and would become desperate then yes, they shouldn’t watch it until they can better put it into perspective. The chances of dying in a tragedy are minimal. Life is short. Do we want to spend it worrying about what might happen? If we do, this probably reveals that we place too much importance on what happens in this life.

Productive coping will move someone to positive action, not leave them trapped in anxiety or despair. Coping is always a temporary measure until the solution is available.

How can Christians make sense of senseless violence? Why would God let this happen? What comfort can you offer me?

To fully cope with evil requires a worldview shift. Jesus said to expect violence and difficulties. Even though it is heartbreaking, we shouldn’t be surprised. Evil exists. People can be easily influenced by evil. There is a reason to despair (without God). Life is difficult because everyone suffers to some degree and everyone dies in the end.

In the biggest picture, senseless violence is a wake-up call that life is short. Place your hope in God and the next life He has prepared for those who believe. Until someone reaches a saving faith in Jesus Christ, they are spiritually dead or perhaps I could say asleep. Without a wake up call, no one would seek God.

God allows evil to show the profound contrast between good and evil. In times of senseless violence, choosing goodness, choosing God should be easier. I don’t see a third option. The person who lives a cushy life unaffected by difficulty won’t see the real danger coming. A person dying of cancer needs to know their diagnosis. The comfort I can offer is that God says He will make everything right eventually. In the next life, we won’t have to deal with evil and suffering. But for now we need to realize, “the world is dying of a cancer.”

One step towards healing/coping is to try to find meaning. SandyHook parents advocate for gun control. Survivors may say “I want to be part of the solution to prevent/change what’s at the root of the problem that led to violence.” Will finding meaning like this help me heal?

Even though our ultimate hope must be in God and the next life, God leaves us here to govern the world. We should do that well with all goodness. We should do all we can to push back evil. But the evil we need to be concerned with first is spiritual not physical. People who participate in a mass killing must of course be stopped and they must face consequences for their actions. However, the ultimate problem is a spiritual one. Finding the maximum meaning in this life is still less than the least meaning you can find in the next life.

People need spiritual renewal, hope and truth more than they need gun control. To the degree people are well on the inside (mentally and spiritually), the chance of them aligning with an evil agenda is minimized. Gun control that takes guns out of the hands of people who are suicidal or homicidal is good. But if that’s all we do, we will only have a false sense of security. Evil will find another way as we learned with 911.

True security only comes by a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Even though I’m a Christian, I still struggle at times with anxiety or depression, but it doesn’t balloon out of control because I know that God is good and He will make everything right one day soon.

I talk about the idea of good and evil and how knowing your true God-given identity is the antidote to anxiety and despair in my book, To Identity and Beyond.

Image by Foto-Rabe from Pixabay