Month: January 2017

January 31 – What Is “Acceptable?”

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There seems to be two ways to look at most things in life. What we accept and what we don’t. It just boils down to those two options. Whether you are looking at fixing a house, disciplining your children, or detailing your car, it’s important to know what is acceptable to you, preferably based on God’s Word.

I remember a time when you could eat off the floor of my little Honda Accord when I was 18 years old. Well, God has provided a new and better little Accord, but frankly, you couldn’t pay me to eat off the floor now! I have experienced a shift in my priorities!

Take time to decide what is acceptable to you in the important areas of your life. Is it “acceptable” to live in a miserable marriage, or do you have a part to play in fixing it? Is it “acceptable” to raise children who run around crazy and disrespect you? Is it “acceptable” to spin the gerbil wheel for eighty years and miss your God-given purpose?

 Know that what you decide, as it coincides with God’s way of doing things, will literally change what you see and experience. Pray and ask the Father to guide every quality decision and He will help you begin the small changes that must take place in your heart.

Jen 🙂

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7

 

January 30 – The “God-Kind” of Nature

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Not long ago, my son showed me where a mother ringneck dove had built a nest in a tree close to our home.

She was so beautifully camouflaged by the branches and leaves I could barely see her. There was something very “Genesis” about this momma and her nest. Nobody had to tell her what to do; instinctively she found the proper location, at the proper time, to do what she was created to do.

In my estimation, that’s so simple, we almost need help to misunderstand it. The activities of the birds and the fish are seasonal reminders to those who choose to pay attention. A Creator crafted all that exists to function according to supernatural specifics.

Many of us call that “nature.” And if that Creator thought enough of doves and dolphins to give them built-in “honing devices” to operate in certain seasons, surely He has not forgotten us! On the contrary, there is more than ample evidence surrounding us that is literally shouting His love for us.

So the next time you take note of the many minnows teaming in the streams, or the robins singing their morning song, remember…you, too, were created to do that thing only you can do. It’s your “God-kind” of nature.

 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:20-21 NKJV

Biblical Meditation: Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.

 

January 29 – He’s Just My Dad

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When I was a kid, there was a popular 7-UP commercial featuring the welterweight boxing champ of the day, Sugar Ray Leonard. The soft drink company capitalized on the father-son relationship between Ray and Ray, Jr., his son.

The climax came when a group of young boys came through the boxing gym, spotting Sugar Ray in the ring. After recognizing him, they shouted, “It’s the champ!” And Little Ray came back with a simple, “Naaah, it’s just my dad.” What an impression that made on my ten year-old mind.

At the heart of every person is a child longing to know their daddy better than anyone else does. And that little person also wants to be the one who says to the whole world, “Hey, if you want to meet my pops, you’ll want to follow me, because he’s my dad.”

This, in a nutshell, is the beauty of Christ. Through Him, we can waltz right in and take a seat in the lap of the Creator of the Universe. To the world and all that’s in it, God is often known as the Invisible, All Powerful One. But to Christ, He is Abba (another way to say Daddy!).

For all who have discovered the marvelous Christ-connection to God, He is your Papa too. And that places you in a privileged position; you are “Junior” to the world. Now, while the masses seek a glance of the One True God, you can help them out. Yes, He is God, and yes, He is awesome. But to you, He’s Dad!

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. John 1:18

Biblical Meditation: Romans 8:15-17 Message This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

 

 

January 28 – Embarrassed Eyes See Dimly

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Recently, I was going over the account of Israel’s first king with my children and all of a sudden, there it was. God miraculously peeled back the invisible curtain and revealed a truth I had never considered in all the times I have recounted this historical event.

The scene starts with Prophet Samuel giving King Saul some clear-cut instructions from God (I Samuel 15). But instead of obeying, Saul took the liberty to modify the command to fit his own pious plans. Later, when Samuel returned and confronted him, he denied any wrongdoing and justified his actions without even flinching.

And it wasn’t until Samuel told him that God had rejected him as king that he finally said, “Ok, what I did was wrong and I’m sorry, but Samuel, please don’t make me look bad. Come back home with me and acknowledge my victory before all my people (my paraphrase).”

 As I wove into my child-like embellishment all the other times Saul had done a “half-baked” job of obeying God, I saw it. This would-be king was so afraid of falling flat on his face, his vision was impaired. Every order he received was sifted through an internal grid of “no matter what happens, I can’t look bad.”

He cared more about being embarrassed before the masses than he did about being embraced by the Master. Wow! Then I stopped, and reminisced over times in my own life when I was guilty of the same kind of short-sightedness. Ouch!

I admit, I have never relished being the back-end of cruel jokes and jeers. So much so, that as a kid, my parents had to drill into me the absolute necessity of telling the truth. Back then, I would waste no time fabricating or falsifying a few key facts to avoid looking bad.

Even now, it is daily time with God that helps keep my heart delicate and non-deceptive when it comes to obeying His wishes, regardless of how it might make me look before the crowd.

I pray this is not your struggle. I hope when it comes to being embarrassed you are untouchable. But chances are, I am not alone. And if that’s the case, my encouragement is the same as what I offered each of my children (as I took a dose myself).

Acknowledge the tendency before God and ask Him to raid the cupboards of your heart in search of this “vision thief.” Ask Him to set your sight “aright.” That way, you and I don’t wake up one day to find ourselves paranoid and alone, thinking everybody is out to get us (like King Saul). To obey is better than sacrifice!

Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD your God.” I Samuel 15:30 NKJV

Biblical Meditation: Ecclesiastes 5:1 Keep your foot [give your mind to what you are doing] when you go [as Jacob to sacred Bethel] to the house of God. For to draw near to hear and obey is better than to give the sacrifice of fools [carelessly, irreverently] too ignorant to know that they are doing evil.

January 27 – This Thing Called the Body

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 When it comes to Christianity, I struggle sometimes with the “how comes.” Why are there so many fragmented pieces? Why is there so much duplication and yet, limited unity? And why, if our Savior and Lord came and healed the sick, prospered the poor, fed the hungry, gave sight to the blind, and opened prison doors for the captives, why do we struggle so in doing the same?

In all honesty, there are many times I get so caught up in this type of thinking, I lose sight of what God taught me years ago. During a time of “wandering through the why’s,” I asked God for help with some of these questions. And instead of answering me in an audible voice, He led me to the prayerful words of Christ in John 17.

There I saw the Lord prophetically praying His will for those who would one day be known as Christians. He knew unity and harmony would be a feat that only His Father could muster. There would be so many from different walks of life, with so many mindsets. That is why it is a sign of maturity when we choose to pray as Christ did for the Body of believers instead of critiquing and criticizing its shortcomings.

This morning I was moved by the thought of this great Body, more than a billion strong world-wide, united through prayer and harmoniously representing Christ in its manifold languages and flavors! There is nothing like it in the entire universe! So I commit once again to pray for her and play my role. And may the world feel the weight of Christ’s love for them through our obedience.

I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. . John 17:23

Biblical Meditation: Psalm 2:8 Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Your possession.

 

January 26 – Stay Hungry

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We squint at absolute truth. It is so pure; our minds struggle to contain it.

Truth, real pure truth, does not rely on reason. It doesn’t have to make sense. It is the truth whether it is ever accepted by anyone. Truth need not jockey for a place. Because the truth is the truth, places and people will ultimately be examined under its lens.

When Christ told Nicodemus the truth about the Son of Man (Himself), Nicodemus had no file for it. “The Son of Man must be lifted up; that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” But His statement was the truth, nonetheless.

And this Nicodemus, a great teacher of the Jewish people, pondered and wondered on this truth for many mornings and evenings. Maybe he never truly understood it, but yet he continued to stand under the truth-laden messages of Christ until Christ was “lifted up” on the cross. Perhaps then he caught a glimpse. Who knows?

My prayer for us all is that we may so hunger for truth that we become willing to ignore the abundance of what we do know for a sliver of what we cannot comprehend. Because when this occurs, our pursuit of God will take orbit.

And just as I envision it might have been for Nicodemus, Christ will gently develop room within us to contain what often cannot be explained, in order that it might remain. Oh, that we may hunger!

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. John 3:14-15

Biblical Meditation: Psalm 119:160 The sum of Your word is truth [the total of the full meaning of all Your individual precepts]; and every one of Your righteous decrees endures forever.

 

January 25 – Fueled By Gratitude

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Take a moment and recall an event in your past that could have destroyed your life. Most likely you had some ownership in the matter, but found yourself out of control.   What a scary place to be!

One such occasion comes to mind for me. I was barely sixteen. It was the summer of ‘86 and my buddy Greg had just got his new wheels. His dad had restored a late model Mustang and it was “sweeter than candy.”

So on a Sunday evening after church Greg took me and two other friends joy-riding. After playing some video games we headed home. As we crossed over the overpass and approached the turn-on ramp Greg lost control of the car. Because of our excessive speed, the car went air-born, flipped, and rolled into oncoming traffic on I-35!

It happened around 8:00 pm and traffic was thick, but no one hit us. The three passengers (including me) came away from the wreck unhurt. But Greg went to the hospital that night, unconscious. He suffered several injuries to his neck and head but thankfully he survived the tragic event.

For all practical purposes, all four of us got a second chance on life. We didn’t know it then, but now it’s very evident that there are many people who would have been directly affected by our demise.

Now that’s quite a serious example, but that’s what gratefulness is really all about. It means always being ready to count your blessings. It’s recognizing that things could be a whole lot worse and making the very best of the life you have right now.

To drive this home, take a look at this idea from a God-perspective out of the Message Bible: We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.   Ephesians 2:3-6

 God is ultimately the One who is responsible for all the blessings we enjoy. So, our daily thanksgiving is a necessary part of healthy living. “Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

January 24 – The Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

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 I was “truth-challenged” as a kid. My “make-believe muscles” were super-keen. It was fun to take a story and stretch it as far as I could. But, I found out eventually that I didn’t want the results of that kind of living.

I’ll never forget my first major wake-up call. I was in the sixth grade. During recess, several of the boys and I had a healthy game of football going when all of a sudden one of the new “tough girls” decided she wanted to play.

Things went fine until some of the boys starting being inappropriate with their tackling. Next thing I knew, I was in the office with the rest of the boys. The young lady had run to the principal saying she had been attacked. I knew that I hadn’t touched the girl, but who was going to believe me?

I was known for stretching the truth, especially if there were consequences to pay. Thankfully, I had parents who knew me and my mom started digging until she got to the bottom of the matter. But that day, something changed for me. I still had more growing to do in the area of my “yes being yes,” but I realized people will judge you by the standard you set. The you they know comes from the seeds you sow!

 If Christ is the Lord of your life, you have His nature of truthfulness living on the inside of you. But because you live in a world that thrives on lies, you have to cultivate a true heart by attending to true thoughts and actions. Feeding on God’s promises and precepts and His Word will establish a trustworthy foundation on the inside of you. If you are training up your children, this is an especially important area on which to work.

Here are five “I Wills” from the Character First curriculum that put truthfulness in a “doable” perspective: I WILL always tell the truth, I WILL encourage others to tell the truth, I WILL not cheat or steal, I WILL admit it when I am wrong, I WILL not exaggerate to make things seem different than what they are.

Embodying a lifestyle of the whole truth can only come by the help of God. Let our prayer today be one derived from hearts who love to be beacons of true light in the earth. For others to learn to trust God, they must be able to trust us!

 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Biblical Meditation: Psalm 15:1-3 LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman.  

January 23 – A Well-Planned Encounter

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One of the greatest concerns of many Christ-followers I know is the spiritual condition of their friends and family.

Determining whether a person is a citizen of the Kingdom of God and has truly accepted Christ as Lord and Savior of their life can be difficult at times. And what do you do when you have that family member who has flat-out decided they are an atheist, God is a joke, and they are going to live their life however they want? Pray for a well-planned encounter.

 The Biblical account of the Samaritan woman from the town of Sychar bears invaluable insight. First, this lady had a need that drew her to a certain place. She was out of water and without it she would not be able to function.

In essence, her life depended on it. And even though the place she drew her water was familiar to her, the need for water gave her common ground with another wise stranger.

Little did she know that morning that she, a Samaritan woman, would be discussing matters of water with a Jewish man around the local well. Here are some revelatory words to the wise: This woman has some real tough issues going on in her life. She had a “chance” encounter with an unfamiliar face, yet, in a very familiar place, around a subject she could embrace.

In my estimation, these three elements produce the perfect atmosphere for a person to have ears to hear in a way they’ve never heard before.

So, don’t waste time worrying about why your loved ones seem so closed to the gospel. Start praying they will have a “well encounter” at the proper time.

Then when they call you out of the blue and start telling you about this great person who told them all this neat stuff you’ve been trying to tell them for years, don’t blow it!

Be ready to rejoice with them because in your heart you will know God answered your prayer!

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” John 4:5-7

Biblical Meditation: Hebrews 13:5b AMP …for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! Assuredly not!

January 22 – Ears to Hear

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Mr. Alexander wouldn’t let me off the hook. I had a habit of making excuses for my irresponsible actions.

I realize now that my behavior stemmed from a reluctance to obey authority. It wasn’t blaringly obvious, but it fueled my occasional tardiness and lack of excellence in the classroom.

When I would walk through the door to Mr. Alexander’s office, ready to give an array of excuses for being late, he would say, “Close the door and read the sign.” The sign on the back of the door read:

EXCUSES

Excuses are tools of incompetence

that build monuments of nothingness

Those who are good at excuses

are seldom good at anything else.  After having to read that sign in my teacher’s office more than a hundred times, I began to see some real change in my habits. I wasn’t “cured” overnight, but I did begin to take responsibility for my actions.

Mr. Alexander would say, “When you make excuses for poor behavior or for lack of obedience of a command, you are seeking to persuade the other party to be okay with your behavior and lack of consideration of their time. “ Wow.

Obedience is crucial in every arena of life.

It is one of the highest forms of responsible living. We all have a higher authority we must submit to, and ultimately, as a believer, God is that authority. But if we can’t obey those who are in natural authority over us, chances are we aren’t following God very well either.

Take time to do a self-examination of your attitude. You might even ask your spouse or a close friend to help you (if you are really brave). Are there areas in your life where you are making excuses for disobedient behavior?

If you find anything, don’t let shame beat you up. Just tell God you apologize and ask for His help. Start practicing by “letting your yes be yes and letting your no be no.” (Matthew 5:37) The following “I WILLS” from Character First help enforce an obedient attitude:

 I WILL obey my authorities immediately

I WILL have a cheerful attitude

I WILL complete all that I am expected to do

I WILL not complain

I WILL go the extra mile

When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice. John 10:4 The Message

Biblical Meditation: John 15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command.