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Prioritize To Avoid Hardship

Prioritize To Avoid Hardship

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Money is not evil, but the love of money is. Foolish people will prioritize money above more valuable treasures like peace, contentment, and joy. Which would you rather have, significant wealth or prevalent inner peace?

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

1 Timothy 6:10 NIV

Prioritize Needs Over Wants

Have you ever heard the phrase, “All I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten?” A common list includes tips like:

  • Share everything.
  • Don’t hit people.
  • Clean up your mess.
  • Say you’re sorry if you hurt somebody.
  • Warm cookies and cold milk are comforting.

There’s something to these tips. What if we went even further back? All I need I learned as a child under two years old. I can think of five essential needs:

  1. Mom’s milk
  2. Clean diaper
  3. Place to sleep
  4. Being held and talked to
  5. Stimulating activities

What would be the adult version of these things?

  1. Healthy diet
  2. Good hygiene
  3. Place to live where you feel safe
  4. Unconditional love: affection, encouragement, and discipline
  5. Interesting things to satisfy curiosity, an opportunity to grow, and make a difference.

Everything else is optional. But so many people prioritize imitation needs above real needs. The wants usually provide flashy but short-lived fulfillment. Prioritizing wants over needs significantly downgrades life and introduces worry because you can’t ever get enough of what you want. But you can be satisfied with what you need.

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

1 Timothy 6:7-9 NIV

What are examples of wants that are not needs, but might imitate them?

  • A fancy car (or maybe any car)
  • A big home
  • Streaming entertainment
  • Designer clothing
  • An elaborate vacation
  • Alcohol

None of these things are a sin by themselves. But likewise, none of these ‘wants’ are essential ‘needs’. Or, put another way, there are a lot better achievements to put at the top of your list. When you prioritize any of the above, consider what you lose. It’s not a good trade.

Prioritize Spiritual Needs Over Earthly Wants

Why do so many people have their priorities mixed up? They believe the needs are unattainable, or perhaps not worth the effort, so they prioritize the more readily available, but cheap substitutes. Jesus encourages us to look beyond these wants, and even basic physical needs, to deeper spiritual needs. What God wants is better for us.

Why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow. They don’t work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn’t as well clothed as one of them. God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a fire tomorrow. He will surely do even more for you! Why do you have such little faith?

Don’t worry and ask yourselves, “Will we have anything to eat? Will we have anything to drink? Will we have any clothes to wear?” Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these. But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well.

Matthew 6:28-33 CEV

One need we all have is being clean. I mean that physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. Feeling ‘dirty’ can be intolerably unpleasant. How much caked-on guilt have you accumulated over the years? It can become overwhelming and self-destructive.

Perhaps you’ve made a mess of your life and you feel terrible. Try asking God for help to clean up your messes. Ask God to create in you a clean heart. That’s a prayer He is always eager to answer. That clear conscience allows energy for joyful living unlike any ‘want’ you can imagine.

Learn more about desires and fulfillment.
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Last updated 2023/11/12

Increase Your Faith

Increase Your Faith

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Reading time: 3 minutes

“I’m not sure I have enough faith to make it through this.”

“Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5).

“I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

When you go through a personal crisis your faith is tested. Your friends might say, “just have more faith.” Taken as a cliché, it’s not only not helpful, it can be annoying. But as you’ll see, where you focus makes all the difference.

Seek Genuine Faith

Just have more faith is all about your effort–as in you’re not trying hard enough. If you hear “have more faith” and groan or feel even more discouraged, you’re focusing on a powerless effort devoid of God. You might feel cynical: Why should I try if it feels like God has abandoned me? But this won’t be fruitful because your focus is on yourself.

Now, let’s consider Have faith in God which is all about God. It’s genuine because God is the focal point. Genuine faith looks, sees, believes, and trusts. It’s not about how hard you’re trying.

For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.

John 6:40 NLT

This shifts the focus from what is impossible for us to do, to what is possible for God to do. The ability to believe connects us to God, giving us eternal life. God intentionally divides people into two groups (consider John 10:1-16 and Matthew 25:31-46). The only significant difference between the two is that God’s people undergo a transformation from spiritual death to spiritual life made possible by seeing and believing. Being born again forever changes a person. That’s what it means to have eternal life.

Your primary work is to believe in God. This means something different than “have more faith,” which is useless when it lacks belief. With genuine faith, you believe and are able to walk forward in the power of what you believe (see James 2:14-26 for more on this).

Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

John 6:29 NLT

Belief Comes From God

God is at work in believing process.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

Ephesians 2:8 NLT

For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.

John 6:44, 47 NLT

The power is in the believing. What should you believe? Your primary work is to believe God is who He says He is. God is good. God is your source of eternal life.

How to Increase Your Faith

I want more faith, don’t you? You can’t run a marathon or even to your street corner without food. Likewise, you can’t finish a spiritual race without a vibrant faith.

To strengthen your faith, you feed on God’s words. You meditate on God’s truth. You consume God’s words and allow them to become a part of you. How positive and hopeful you are depends on how much you reinforce your belief in the Good News about Christ.

So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Romans 10:17 NLT

If you’re a believer, then you have faith already, but for it to do you much good, you have to exercise it regularly. Get your running clothes out of the closet and put them on.

Take the time throughout your day to be aware of your belief: I have faith. I believe. I can see and hear God. God is real. God is my help. I trust God. Then move forward confidently with all you have going on in your life. God is with you.

For more on increasing your faith, consider:
Faith as Spiritual Vision
www.desiringgod.org
www.crosswalk.com
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Last updated 08/20/2023

Earnest Rest Reveals God's Favor

Earnest Rest Reveals God’s Favor

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Rest makes it possible to perform at your highest level. You probably do your best work when you are relaxed and “in the zone.” Have you experienced this kind of rest? Would you like to learn to enter into the rest God intends for you?

Find Rest By Finding Your Sweet Spot

God made you with an identity which is the place of optimal functioning. This sweet spot is where the least amount of effort still produces the maximum output. Hitting your sweet spot is an honorable goal. God intends for you to feel the pleasure of acting from the center of who you are. If you want to know God’s favor, first you must be free to be yourself.

Sometimes the sweet spot is elusive because of sin and the curse. They cloud and distort who you are. Sometimes you have to do what you don’t particularly want to do. Overcoming the curse requires hard work. The goal isn’t to eliminate your effort, but instead to optimize your effort. You put in your effort while relying on God to carry what you were never meant to carry.

Find Rest By Compartmentalizing Obligation

Do you know what it feels like to pursue what you want instead of what you must (because of obligation or responsibility)? God created the sabbath so you can experience unpressured living at least one day out of seven. The lift you gain from one day of rest can carry into the other six days.

Who are you when you’re under obligation? How do you fill your day to meet the demands of life? Don’t miss this: You’re probably not optimally in touch with your true identity while under obligation. That’s because obligation implies some amount of stress and that changes everything.

Who are you when you’re not under any obligation? Then, how do you live? This is what you can accomplish during productive play. Restful living means entering into a natural high by functioning at the level of God’s highest purposes for you. This is true recreation — an effort that recovers more energy than it spends.

Find Rest By Playing

Fulfilling obligations is necessary. But playing is as important as working. What do you think of when you think of playing? Productive play does not involve low-functioning activities that allow passive living. Your brain can be fully engaged and relaxed during play.

Whatever you do should have a purpose. Some activities can seem like they have no eternal significance, but if they rejuvenate you, they have value. For example, consider watching a movie. What value do you gain from it? Does it uplift or strengthen you? Does it help you to better understand life? Or does it drain you or lead you into sin?

To play is to relax. Some people can’t stop working. Their play is only work in disguise. When you practice relaxing, it will help you when you are under the stress of responsibility. You’ll be able to work more efficiently when you are under stress.

Restful living will be different for each person. What activities bring you more energy as you participate in them? In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” Even though he’s exerting himself completely he has entered God’s rest. He’s burdened with running, but not burdened with debilitating anxieties.

When God’s power is available genuine play is possible. That’s because He does the heavy lifting. Jesus said:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

Have you ever felt God’s pleasure? You enter God’s rest and He is right there with you expressing His excitement for who you are. God is your cheerleader. Allow His cheers to propel you forward.

Learn more about play.
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Last Updated 2023/10/15

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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The Wisdom Of Proverbs 18:4 Is Deep

The Wisdom Of Proverbs 18:4 Is Deep

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Reading time: 3 minutes

There’s no doubt that wisdom is priceless and the Bible is the source of all wisdom. A misunderstood Bible verse can cause a life of unnecessary confusion and suffering. The Bible teaches us who we are and who God is. Both are the foundations for understanding how life works. Errors in understanding will have serious consequences.

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who obtains understanding.

Proverbs 3:13 (God’s Word Translation)

What happens if the Bible, the very source of truth, isn’t interpreted correctly? When you don’t understand a Bible verse, do you skip over it or do you stop and search for a way to better understand it? A wise person will prioritize gaining understanding. Difficult passages of the Bible make sense when you make an effort to understand them.

What Exactly is Wisdom?

Proverbs 18:4 defines wisdom as a “rushing stream.” But is that all it means?

The words of the mouth are deep waters,
    but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream.

NIV (Proverbs 18:4)

What is this verse saying? Is it saying that words coming from a person are deep but wisdom is simple (shallow?) like a rushing stream? That doesn’t make sense to me, or it’s confusing at best. To me, it seems to be saying that a person’s thoughts are complicated but God’s truth is simple. While there is some truth to this, that’s not the full meaning behind this verse.

As a new Christian, I read the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. I like it because it translates many difficult passages into more understandable English. But, for Proverbs 18:4, the NIV leaves me scratching my head.

In the post Are You Interpreting the Bible Correctly? I talked about how using multiple versions of the Bible can help you find a more accurate meaning. Let’s see how that helps.

Wisdom is Understanding

Since I became a Christian nearly 30 years ago, many new translations have been developed. This is good news because any one translation has its biases. In considering Proverbs 18:4, the NIV seems to lean more towards a word-for-word translation (like the ESV). It stays closer to the original wording but in this case, lacks readability.

Words of wisdom
are a stream
    that flows
    from a deep fountain.

CEV (Proverbs 18:4)

A person’s words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as a flowing stream.

GNT (Proverbs 18:4)

The CEV, GNT, and other translations omit the “but” and instead find harmony within the verse. The deep fountain and bubbling brook are one and the same. These translations clearly present a positive meaning. Words of wisdom come from a deep place, but they can be expressed in understandable and meaningful ways. When checked against common sense, it sounds right.

The TPT version, even though more of a paraphrase translation, amplifies the meaning further. It adds the idea of wisdom coming from “the one with understanding.”

Words of wisdom are like a fresh, flowing brook—
like deep waters that spring forth from within,
bubbling up inside the one with understanding.

TPT (Proverbs 18:4)

The TLB combines it all together into one concise thought.

A wise man’s words express deep streams of thought.

TLB (Proverbs 18:4)

A wise person can find ways to express his deep thoughts in ways that others can understand. I summarize verse 4 as a wise man’s words gush from a heart of understanding (see the Pulpit Commentary verse 4). Finally, I conclude that Proverbs 18:4 means that deep words come up from within a person of understanding ready to be applied to life. The deep represents a person’s experiences; the brook represents applicability to life in the moment.

From here we might go on to ask, how does a person find wisdom and obtain understanding? How do you know you have understanding? What are the fruits of understanding something? Wisdom is essentially recognizing that God has all the answers. Sometimes people gain it directly from the Holy Spirit and sometimes it comes through personal experience and reflection (lessons learned).

Learn more about wisdom.
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Last Updated 2023/09/03

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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