Mark 9:30-32 "...But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him"
Here Jesus talks about the ultimate sacrifice which will calls for great commitment, his death, everything such as counting the cost, suffering for the Gospels sake, humility, is all here. The disciples were still in the mindset of Jesus as a king with pomp and military power, they wanted to see that picture. And so when he spoke of these 'other' things, they dared not discover it was true. Is this not the same for us… we make the bible and its words work for us, choosing what we will to make a point etc, making it speak what we want it to say, not reading what it says. When it comes to our defense of the way we dress, the music we listen too and the lives we lead, we cling to philosophies s of this world and not the Word. We pick out verses of prosperity and acceptance, we don't read the whole, and when we find verses about counting the cost, being set apart, living a holy life, humility, not causing your brother to stumble… we apply them to other things. Oh but never the way we dress, the appearances we give, the things we give our time to, what we allow to enter our minds or personal sacrifice beyond the 1st world's prepackaged 2k 2week tour to Africa.
The gospel needs to reach into every part of your life and heart. Right this moment I'm not about to address the specifics of how you live your life, how you dress, the appearances you give, the music you listen to. But I want you to open your hearts to is this. Never defend your lifestyle against what the Word speaks, don't choose the way you or your friends want it to be. Don't live in the bubble of your immediate culture and pressures. But in humility, come to God and his word with a broken spirit and a contrite heart, ready to let him mold every part of your life.
Because friends, brothers and sisters it breaks God's heart when a preacher get us up and preaches a sermon on something like music and the attitude of the people is not "Lord if this is your will I will follow it", but rather "if that's God, then I'm out of here". I'm not saying what the preacher might have said was either right or wrong, but your heart should be ready that if it was right, you would follow God wherever he leads. I see a people who will only follow God if his precepts fit with their concepts and ideas; as they meet God and start off the wide path which leads to death, onto the narrow path which leads to life, the path starts to narrow more as then go, when it reaches a point where they start to be challenged or remotely feel uncomfortable they simply stop, build a church and worship there every week, and to themselves they justify it by the fact they have found others who are prepared to do the same. But really, the path keeps going. Will we ever really understand what it means to give everything?
People, as psalm 51:17 says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart. May your goal and reason in every part of your life always be to honor God and to hold back those stumbling to the slaughter, to render a pure witness, to not let your brother stumble, to seek a purity of purpose.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
I Take Responsibility For My Life
"There are great risks in being the master of one's own life, but failing to take them on leads to the most shallow of existences."
“Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.”
~Henry Drummond
“There are really only two dimensions to the concept of attitude -- you either behave as though you are a victim of circumstance, or you take full responsibility for your situation. “
It has been my greater observation of late that the greatest reason people fail (or never achieve) in this life (myself included) is not that they tried and didn't make it, but that they failed before they tried. It’s called excuse and its substance rests in a single place…
Blame
The single reason so many people never went where they could or stayed where they should.
From the simple task of finding work out of school to being a friend or becoming president, the moment you blame anything or anyone you just defeated yourself. It’s a problem we humans have of taking the easy way out, if we can say there's no work because the economy is down and to many other people are looking then we don't have to try hard to find any, if we can say there's a problem with the relationship because they messed up we don't have to admit any wrong, if we say we can't become president because we don't have a good enough education or enough money or enough intellect, then we don't have to try and become president.
And so many of us (humanity) whilst we have gone far, never have gone as far as we could.
In love, be it romantic or family, if there was ever heart ache and we feel the need to blame we never move on, blame has the same effect as hate, its like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die, they won't, you will. It is when we follow God's lead and forgive that all pain heals.
And in all these situations the more we blame the more we don't go anywhere and the more frustrated we become and the more we blame and/or the more 'contented' we become with our present stagnation, our nature is always to justify our actions.
By writing this I don't mean to be cynical or negative, but I mean to encourage myself and anyone who reads this, to ever be more aware of the limitations we place on lives through blame, we oft do it in so many contexts we scarce even recognize we do. May we not blame, may we not make excuse, and may we pursue life to the full! For as we look through scripture we see many cases where blame could have been laid on others (Joseph comes to mind) and many cases where blame was laid (perhaps Adam and Eve) and it is always when the truth is upheld and they move forward in God's love that great things happen!
Where are those who will stand up and take responsibility for every aspect of their life, both success and failure? Who will trust God and live their lives with all the strength and courage He gives us?
May we be those who will
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though chequered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat" Theodore Roosevelt
"It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” -George Eliot
“Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.”
~Henry Drummond
“There are really only two dimensions to the concept of attitude -- you either behave as though you are a victim of circumstance, or you take full responsibility for your situation. “
It has been my greater observation of late that the greatest reason people fail (or never achieve) in this life (myself included) is not that they tried and didn't make it, but that they failed before they tried. It’s called excuse and its substance rests in a single place…
Blame
The single reason so many people never went where they could or stayed where they should.
From the simple task of finding work out of school to being a friend or becoming president, the moment you blame anything or anyone you just defeated yourself. It’s a problem we humans have of taking the easy way out, if we can say there's no work because the economy is down and to many other people are looking then we don't have to try hard to find any, if we can say there's a problem with the relationship because they messed up we don't have to admit any wrong, if we say we can't become president because we don't have a good enough education or enough money or enough intellect, then we don't have to try and become president.
And so many of us (humanity) whilst we have gone far, never have gone as far as we could.
In love, be it romantic or family, if there was ever heart ache and we feel the need to blame we never move on, blame has the same effect as hate, its like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die, they won't, you will. It is when we follow God's lead and forgive that all pain heals.
And in all these situations the more we blame the more we don't go anywhere and the more frustrated we become and the more we blame and/or the more 'contented' we become with our present stagnation, our nature is always to justify our actions.
By writing this I don't mean to be cynical or negative, but I mean to encourage myself and anyone who reads this, to ever be more aware of the limitations we place on lives through blame, we oft do it in so many contexts we scarce even recognize we do. May we not blame, may we not make excuse, and may we pursue life to the full! For as we look through scripture we see many cases where blame could have been laid on others (Joseph comes to mind) and many cases where blame was laid (perhaps Adam and Eve) and it is always when the truth is upheld and they move forward in God's love that great things happen!
Where are those who will stand up and take responsibility for every aspect of their life, both success and failure? Who will trust God and live their lives with all the strength and courage He gives us?
May we be those who will
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though chequered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat" Theodore Roosevelt
"It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” -George Eliot
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thoughts on Feelings vs Commitment
Suppose you are seated in a small room with no ventilation. An oil burning stove has been consuming the oxygen for some time. Gradually you become so drowsy that your brain is barely able to think. You do not feel like moving from your chair. Especially, you do not feel like getting up to open a window or a door. Yet your feeling against moving is a danger sign that you must make yourself act immediately to get more oxygen into the room or you will never move again.
Have you ever been in a mood not to pray, or not to read your Bible? Certainly you have, so have I. Should we take that feeling to be true and follow it? Listen, prayer is the breath of the body. Our mood not to pray and study is a signal that we had better make ourselves do it quickly because your spiritual life is being threatened. That is the time to force ourselves into the closet, onto our knees, and as we pray, the spiritual desires begin to return. Very soon prayer is restored as a joyful, fulfilling privilege.
But unless you break that spell of 'following your feelings', you will never know the joy of commitment, the faith that comes from breaking through times of feeling like you don't care, coming out the other side and being so glad you hung on through it all to that moment of truth when you knew you did.
If you were married (or if you are married) and you had a bad day where you didn't feel like spending time with your husband/wife, would you trust those feelings and assume it didn't matter? I think not, if you really loved her/him it would spark something inside of you to say 'whoah' I need to spend time on this, I need to reconnect.
If right now, or for you it may have been some point in the past, you knew and trusted God completely, he was real in a real way to you, his evidence was evident to you. Hang on to that moment, there will or may now be times in your life you won't feel that way. But choose not to live by your feelings of the moment, trust what is true and seek it out earnestly if you find yourself at a place where you feel nothing towards it.
Keep it real; hold fast, trust to the agape love of God, you won’t regret it.
(note: some paragraphs etc taken from ‘Alone in the Crowd’ by Joe Crews).
Have you ever been in a mood not to pray, or not to read your Bible? Certainly you have, so have I. Should we take that feeling to be true and follow it? Listen, prayer is the breath of the body. Our mood not to pray and study is a signal that we had better make ourselves do it quickly because your spiritual life is being threatened. That is the time to force ourselves into the closet, onto our knees, and as we pray, the spiritual desires begin to return. Very soon prayer is restored as a joyful, fulfilling privilege.
But unless you break that spell of 'following your feelings', you will never know the joy of commitment, the faith that comes from breaking through times of feeling like you don't care, coming out the other side and being so glad you hung on through it all to that moment of truth when you knew you did.
If you were married (or if you are married) and you had a bad day where you didn't feel like spending time with your husband/wife, would you trust those feelings and assume it didn't matter? I think not, if you really loved her/him it would spark something inside of you to say 'whoah' I need to spend time on this, I need to reconnect.
If right now, or for you it may have been some point in the past, you knew and trusted God completely, he was real in a real way to you, his evidence was evident to you. Hang on to that moment, there will or may now be times in your life you won't feel that way. But choose not to live by your feelings of the moment, trust what is true and seek it out earnestly if you find yourself at a place where you feel nothing towards it.
Keep it real; hold fast, trust to the agape love of God, you won’t regret it.
(note: some paragraphs etc taken from ‘Alone in the Crowd’ by Joe Crews).
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