Day One, First Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up…; Even the most devout person can loose sight of the fact that they aren’t the only one in need of an encouraging word. A psychologist friend tells me that when he has a counselee who is discouraged, he often assigns him the task of finding someone else who is discouraged and building that person up. This, he says, does two things. First, it helps his counselee change the negative focus from his problems to finding creative and positive ways to help the other person. Second, it brings the counselee back in touch with what it means to be truly alive—giving of ourselves to help others.
Day Two, Psalm 37:7; While today’s text specifically refers to situations where we get upset because of other people’s conduct, the first part of the verse provides a general principle that is applicable to dealing with the everyday ups and downs of life. The value of learning to relax has been proven by medical research. Our text advises us to practice relaxation, we are to be still. That means to simple sit quietly momentarily emptying our minds of our frustrations, concerns and plans. But this text prescribes that the child of God take relaxing the mind a step further. We are to “be still before the Lord”. In other words, fill your mind with visions of God’s wonderful creation, thoughts about his goodness and blessings. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.
Day Three, Exodus 33:14 My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest;
We all have dual identities because we are known by many different titles--father, mother, grandfather, business person, pastor, teacher, carpenter, shop worker, husband, wife, friend, acquaintance, the list is endless. This dual identity that we all live with means that at different times of the day we have a different level of consciousness. For example, when a businessman enters his office, his consciousness of his role as a father or deacon recedes into the background as his consciousness of his business and its affairs takes center-stage in his mind. If the telephone rings during a busy day and one of his grandchildren is on the line, for a few minutes his consciousness of being a grandfather emerges as business recedes. Each of us switch from level of consciousness to another many times during the day. But there is one level of consciousness that we need to cultivate and make sure we never allow it to recede so far back in our minds that we are ever without it hovering in the background. That is our consciousness that when we are spiritually attuned, God is with us and is willing to lead and guide us in all our decisions and affairs. When we take the time to raise our spiritual consciousness as we go through our busy day, we find it is less stressful and tiring.
Day Four, Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you; We all face times in our lives when it seems that the waters of trouble are about to overwhelm us and the flames of adversity lick at our very being. Some question why God would allow his children to face troubles and adversities. The difficulties of life come from various sources; sometimes God wants to show us a better way, at other times God lets us taste the consequences of our bad decisions before acting on our behalf, and then there are the times God allows us to face misfortunes because it can strengthen our faith and resolve as our minds work our way through them. Regardless of the source of life’s difficult days, we have this assurance God will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
Day Five, Psalm 44:7,8 You have saved us from our foes…In God we have boasted continually…; How often do we take God’s goodness and actions on our behalf for granted? Have we not often simply considered ourselves lucky when a bad situation turned out right? Aren’t we all guilty at times of patting ourselves on the back when we emerge from some major crisis unscathed? In a sense, we all tend to disconnect our faith from our good fortune. Maybe it would do us all good to take more time to see the hand of God in the coincidences of life and learn to follow the Psalmist lead and boast in God continually.
Day Six, Romans 14:17, 18,For the kingdom of God is…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. The word "serves" means we have a part to play, a job to do. Therefore we are to strive (work hard) to live right, not be ruled by our emotions, and be joyous individuals. When we do this, we not only have God’s approval, but people will be drawn to us because we exhibit the character traits that build trust and create goodwill.
Day Seven, Joshua 1:9 Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.; How we should approach life? We should approach it full of faith. When we approach life with a bedrock faith in God, in our God given abilities and in the rightness of what we are attempting to do then we have an inner strength of resolve that gives us courage and overcomes fear and disappointment as we climb our mountains or walk through our valleys.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
January 11 through January 17, 2010
Day One, be renewed in your mental attitude, Ephesians 4:22,23 (Berkeley Version); One of the greatest lessons we need to learn about life is that who we are isn’t nearly as important as who we think we can become. That is the thrust of our scripture lesson today, you can become a new person but you must put forth the effort to do some renovations. Paul realized that while we are saved through Christ work, we have a personal responsibility as people created with free choices to move forward toward becoming more like Christ, so he tells us to be “renewed in the spirit of our mind.” The Greek word we translate “renew” means to renovate or remodel our way of thinking. The key to spiritual growth and victory (as well as every endeavor we undertake) is to renovate our attitude and remodel our thinking!
Day Two, As a man thinketh, so is he, Proverbs 23:7 (KJV); The Good Lord gave human beings the capacity to think. The thoughts we think are the gatekeepers of our soul because they determine how we view ourselves, our problems and our opportunities. The way we habitually think forms the convictions we have and our actions are based on them. In order to renovate our minds and fully experience the joy of being a child of God, we must daily fill our minds with big, powerful thoughts of faith and hope.
Day Three, The kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. I Corinthians 4:20, Several years ago, I knew a man who had a vast knowledge of personal evangelism. He had attended seminars and training classes, he was even called upon by various churches to teach classes in “soul winning”. Imagine how surprised people were when they found out that he had never put any of his knowledge to practical use, he had never attempted personal evangelism except during training courses! Our text for today states that the kingdom of God depends on power, not on talk. It is easy to talk about lofty ideals and high and noble aspirations but unless we develop and use our mental and spiritual powers to make them into realities, we are failing to fully realize the kingdom of God in our lives.
Day Four, The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1; Fear is one of the most debilitating problems people face. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of starting over, fear of attempting something bigger than themselves. Fear can paralyze our thoughts and our actions. Fear can cancel out faith and keep us from following what we believe deep down to be God’s plan for our lives. In cases such as this, fear is nothing more than normal caution that has been exaggerated by the mind as it magnifies the possible negative consequences. Negativity is in itself a form of darkness and Psalm 27:1 reminds us that Christ provides us with not only light to shine in the darkness, but the deliverance and place of security we need to move ahead boldly by faith.
Day Five, Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets, Luke 5:4,5; The difference between the success or failure of any endeavor often rests on which part of Peter’s response we choose to follow. How many times have we been discouraged by apparent lack of progress in some area of our lives (career, spiritual growth, personal improvement, family, etc) when we get an idea to try something a little different and we’ve elected to dismiss it rather than explore the possibilities? But we’ve also had experiences where we were discouraged, got an idea that gave us a new approach, decided to try it and had success. As we go through the day, God often leads us through insights and ideas. Naturally, we must be sure they conform to Christian standards, but once we’ve done that we need to be willing to say, “I’ve tried everything, but if you say so, I’ll give it one more try.” The results will amaze you.
Day Six, Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually, First Chronicles 16:11; This is a spiritual prescription for endless power, insight and peace. If taken as directed the user be able to offset the feelings of helplessness and fear that accompany so many of life’s problems and perturbing situations. When we continually have the strength of the Lord and his wonderful presence with us then nothing can get us down for extended periods. But we have a responsibility, we must seek for the Lord’s strength and presence, and we must continually seek it. We do this by living constantly in awareness of his presence and seeking his guidance in everything we do.
Day Seven, See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse…Deuteronomy 11:26; One of the most wonderful truths about God is that he ultimately has confidence in us to make right decisions. After the events around a certain tree in the Garden of Eden, God could have elected to turn human beings into robots who were incapable of making wrong choices. But he didn’t! God had enough confidence in our ability to think and reason that he left humankind with a free will. Yes, we often make bad choices, some of them lead us into trouble or even sin, yet we are capable of making good decisions and God believes that if we take the time to weigh our options we will see that just about every decision has within it a blessing and a curse. In order to make good choices we need to be aware of the blessing and curse contained in our every decision.
Day Two, As a man thinketh, so is he, Proverbs 23:7 (KJV); The Good Lord gave human beings the capacity to think. The thoughts we think are the gatekeepers of our soul because they determine how we view ourselves, our problems and our opportunities. The way we habitually think forms the convictions we have and our actions are based on them. In order to renovate our minds and fully experience the joy of being a child of God, we must daily fill our minds with big, powerful thoughts of faith and hope.
Day Three, The kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. I Corinthians 4:20, Several years ago, I knew a man who had a vast knowledge of personal evangelism. He had attended seminars and training classes, he was even called upon by various churches to teach classes in “soul winning”. Imagine how surprised people were when they found out that he had never put any of his knowledge to practical use, he had never attempted personal evangelism except during training courses! Our text for today states that the kingdom of God depends on power, not on talk. It is easy to talk about lofty ideals and high and noble aspirations but unless we develop and use our mental and spiritual powers to make them into realities, we are failing to fully realize the kingdom of God in our lives.
Day Four, The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1; Fear is one of the most debilitating problems people face. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of starting over, fear of attempting something bigger than themselves. Fear can paralyze our thoughts and our actions. Fear can cancel out faith and keep us from following what we believe deep down to be God’s plan for our lives. In cases such as this, fear is nothing more than normal caution that has been exaggerated by the mind as it magnifies the possible negative consequences. Negativity is in itself a form of darkness and Psalm 27:1 reminds us that Christ provides us with not only light to shine in the darkness, but the deliverance and place of security we need to move ahead boldly by faith.
Day Five, Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets, Luke 5:4,5; The difference between the success or failure of any endeavor often rests on which part of Peter’s response we choose to follow. How many times have we been discouraged by apparent lack of progress in some area of our lives (career, spiritual growth, personal improvement, family, etc) when we get an idea to try something a little different and we’ve elected to dismiss it rather than explore the possibilities? But we’ve also had experiences where we were discouraged, got an idea that gave us a new approach, decided to try it and had success. As we go through the day, God often leads us through insights and ideas. Naturally, we must be sure they conform to Christian standards, but once we’ve done that we need to be willing to say, “I’ve tried everything, but if you say so, I’ll give it one more try.” The results will amaze you.
Day Six, Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually, First Chronicles 16:11; This is a spiritual prescription for endless power, insight and peace. If taken as directed the user be able to offset the feelings of helplessness and fear that accompany so many of life’s problems and perturbing situations. When we continually have the strength of the Lord and his wonderful presence with us then nothing can get us down for extended periods. But we have a responsibility, we must seek for the Lord’s strength and presence, and we must continually seek it. We do this by living constantly in awareness of his presence and seeking his guidance in everything we do.
Day Seven, See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse…Deuteronomy 11:26; One of the most wonderful truths about God is that he ultimately has confidence in us to make right decisions. After the events around a certain tree in the Garden of Eden, God could have elected to turn human beings into robots who were incapable of making wrong choices. But he didn’t! God had enough confidence in our ability to think and reason that he left humankind with a free will. Yes, we often make bad choices, some of them lead us into trouble or even sin, yet we are capable of making good decisions and God believes that if we take the time to weigh our options we will see that just about every decision has within it a blessing and a curse. In order to make good choices we need to be aware of the blessing and curse contained in our every decision.
Monday, January 4, 2010
January 4 through 10, 2010
Day One: Mark 1:1, “The beginning…” I’ve been writing articles, columns, speeches, sermons, booklets, etc. for 45 years. Like most other people who are writers and speakers I know that figuring out how to start a talk or article is usually the hardest part. I usually know what I want to say, the idea of want to convey, the end I want to achieve. But those critical first few seconds or minutes cause me to often stare at a blank computer screen. The same holds true when we set a goal or decide to make a change. We know the outcome we want, but have trouble getting started. No doubt the writer of this, the oldest known gospel had the same problem. I can see this fellow, knowing what he wanted to say but puzzling over how to open his work. Finally, he simply wrote, “The beginning of...” In life, as in writing sometimes it is better to simply say, “The beginning of (my diet, my job search, etc) and get started. Someone has said that beginning is half the battle.
Day Two: Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the good news…” According to psychologist and sociologist people respond best to good news because it provides a ray of hope, encouragement and empowerment. Experts tell us that often the key to change management in businesses, churches and organizations is to present the change as being good news (it will make things easier, reduce expenses, increase security, etc). This same principle holds true in our personal lives. Always couch your goals and ambitions as being good news. How do you do that? By listing (and reviewing) all the good that achieving it will provide for you, your family or your career.
Day Three: Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Those who teach public speaking and/or writing usually advocate grabbing people’s attention as soon as possible. This can be done through a provocative statement that speaks to their interest, or by piquing their curiosity. It makes them want to read on or to listen. It also creates anticipation and often excitement about gaining new information (news teasers are a good example). This writer's audience had heard so many conflicting things about Jesus these words no doubt created this sense of interest and anticipation. What does that have to do with helping us toward our goals for the coming year? Simply this, be sure you are really interested in the “good news” about what you are trying to accomplish. You do this by making sure you are really sold on the benefits it will bring your life. Remind yourself everyday not only of that good news, but the ultimate reason of making the effort.
Day Four: Mark 1:2,3, “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah…” We all know that the past is prologue for the future. Industrial psychologist tell us that by linking new skills with things we have learned to do in the past people learn to master them much quicker. The same is true with trying to reach new objectives. If we can link them with similar goals that we have accomplished in the past then we find it easier to have the confidence to move forward because “I did that, so I can do this” becomes our mantra. Coupling that with power words of faith from the Bible empowers and inspires us. The writer of Mark used this concept when he linked his message with the trusted words of two prophets, Isaiah and Malachi.
Day Five: Mark 1:4, “John the Baptist appeared…” As children of Almighty God, we know, at least intellectually that when our goals are right our Heavenly Father brings things together at the right time, in the right place with the thing we need the most. In some cases it could be a person we meet who gives us the “right idea” or encouragement. At other times it might be something we “happened” to read. Or it could simply be that he gives us ideas (counsel) that guide our actions.
Day Six: Mark 1:5, “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him…” A former associate minister to the late Dr. Charles Allen, the famous pastor of First United Methodist Church in Houston (at that time the largest church in that denomination) said that on many a Sunday morning Dr. Allen would sit in his study and ask, “What if nobody comes today?” No doubt John the Baptist felt that way each day. Just like many of us as we start moving toward what we know we should be doing we wonder whether all that we’ve done thus far will see results. It is our job to “follow” our God given dream, to pursue that goal that we feel God has put on our heart, when we do that results will come. True, they may not be in the form we expected but whatever the final result we can know that He will be glorified.
Day Seven: Mark 1:7, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming…I am not worthy to…untie the thong of his sandals.” My father was a minister for over 65 years. He loved to tell young ministers about his third sermon. It seems that his first two had gone really well (or at least the folks convinced him that he was another Billy Sunday or whoever back in his day). Anyway, he took the pulpit with the past compliments of people ringing in his mind…and to quote him, “fell flat on my face.” With head hung low he stepped down from the pulpit after the service. One of his mentors came up to him and said, “Bob, if you had gone into the pulpit the way you came out, you’d have done a great job.” It is easy to “believe our own press releases” when we start achieving our objectives. Every time I read is verse, I wonder if perhaps we was talking as much to himself as to the crowd—reminding himself of who he was and why he was doing what he was doing.
Day Two: Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the good news…” According to psychologist and sociologist people respond best to good news because it provides a ray of hope, encouragement and empowerment. Experts tell us that often the key to change management in businesses, churches and organizations is to present the change as being good news (it will make things easier, reduce expenses, increase security, etc). This same principle holds true in our personal lives. Always couch your goals and ambitions as being good news. How do you do that? By listing (and reviewing) all the good that achieving it will provide for you, your family or your career.
Day Three: Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Those who teach public speaking and/or writing usually advocate grabbing people’s attention as soon as possible. This can be done through a provocative statement that speaks to their interest, or by piquing their curiosity. It makes them want to read on or to listen. It also creates anticipation and often excitement about gaining new information (news teasers are a good example). This writer's audience had heard so many conflicting things about Jesus these words no doubt created this sense of interest and anticipation. What does that have to do with helping us toward our goals for the coming year? Simply this, be sure you are really interested in the “good news” about what you are trying to accomplish. You do this by making sure you are really sold on the benefits it will bring your life. Remind yourself everyday not only of that good news, but the ultimate reason of making the effort.
Day Four: Mark 1:2,3, “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah…” We all know that the past is prologue for the future. Industrial psychologist tell us that by linking new skills with things we have learned to do in the past people learn to master them much quicker. The same is true with trying to reach new objectives. If we can link them with similar goals that we have accomplished in the past then we find it easier to have the confidence to move forward because “I did that, so I can do this” becomes our mantra. Coupling that with power words of faith from the Bible empowers and inspires us. The writer of Mark used this concept when he linked his message with the trusted words of two prophets, Isaiah and Malachi.
Day Five: Mark 1:4, “John the Baptist appeared…” As children of Almighty God, we know, at least intellectually that when our goals are right our Heavenly Father brings things together at the right time, in the right place with the thing we need the most. In some cases it could be a person we meet who gives us the “right idea” or encouragement. At other times it might be something we “happened” to read. Or it could simply be that he gives us ideas (counsel) that guide our actions.
Day Six: Mark 1:5, “And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him…” A former associate minister to the late Dr. Charles Allen, the famous pastor of First United Methodist Church in Houston (at that time the largest church in that denomination) said that on many a Sunday morning Dr. Allen would sit in his study and ask, “What if nobody comes today?” No doubt John the Baptist felt that way each day. Just like many of us as we start moving toward what we know we should be doing we wonder whether all that we’ve done thus far will see results. It is our job to “follow” our God given dream, to pursue that goal that we feel God has put on our heart, when we do that results will come. True, they may not be in the form we expected but whatever the final result we can know that He will be glorified.
Day Seven: Mark 1:7, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming…I am not worthy to…untie the thong of his sandals.” My father was a minister for over 65 years. He loved to tell young ministers about his third sermon. It seems that his first two had gone really well (or at least the folks convinced him that he was another Billy Sunday or whoever back in his day). Anyway, he took the pulpit with the past compliments of people ringing in his mind…and to quote him, “fell flat on my face.” With head hung low he stepped down from the pulpit after the service. One of his mentors came up to him and said, “Bob, if you had gone into the pulpit the way you came out, you’d have done a great job.” It is easy to “believe our own press releases” when we start achieving our objectives. Every time I read is verse, I wonder if perhaps we was talking as much to himself as to the crowd—reminding himself of who he was and why he was doing what he was doing.
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