Joy Archives - Page 10 of 14

October 4, 2021November 25, 2021

Being Different

As Christians, we know that once we commit of lives to Christ, we become members of His family and are assured an inheritance in His Kingdom. We know that we will spend eternity with Him. We know that our lives here on earth are fleeting; they are but a whisper through eternity.

James 4:14, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

TODAY

But today is all we have. Today we have to face the dragons that are determined to devour us. No matter how much hope we have in our future, today is still today. We have never experienced eternity. We have no vision or memory to give us courage. We have a promise which we know to be true, but what about today?

Revelation 12:12, “Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

I get overwhelmed with today. I have issues, my friends have issues, and my country has issues. Many of these issues seem to multiply over time. Some of us, or our loved ones, are dealing with Illnesses or depression that will not go away. Many of us see social trends that are both harmful and, even worse, normalized. Some of us have fractured relationships that we hold so dear. At times, today is a tough place to be.

Psalms 54:4, “Surely God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul.”

Someone reminded me this last week that in every situation, I have two choices; I can let it devour me, or I can lean into it. I can fight it on my own, risking it overwhelming me, or I can give it to Christ to see how He will use it for His kingdom. I can dig in my heels, stiffen my back and wait for the full force of it, or I can embrace it, asking Christ to intervene.

There is nothing in your life that God has not foreseen. There is nothing that He can not use for His glory. There are no surprises, no unexpected events, and no actions beyond God control.

Jeremiah 32:17, “Ah Lord God! It is You who made the heavens and the earth, by Your great power and Your outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for You.”

BECOME A LIGHT

I am old enough that I stopped asking God, “Why?”. I now ask Him, “What’s next?”. I often see the cause and effect, but there are so many situations in my life that I don’t fully understand. In those situations, the reason why becomes superfluous. Knowing why won’t change the day. The real question becomes, what do you want me to do next? What do I do in the middle of this darkness? God does not ask me to find a light; He asks me to become a light.

John 1:5, “But if any of you lack wisdom, let them ask God who gives to all generously and without reproach and it will be given to you.”

This approach may seem counterintuitive. When we need someone to reach down into our lives to help us stand, God, asks us to extend a helping hand to others. Everything we go through in life is not isolated to us. We are not the only ones affected; others become collateral damage—other people in our life hurt with us. Our testimony is how we react in hard times. Are we Victims or Victorious? Is the God we worship passive or active? Are we different because of the hope we have in Him?

Psalms 16:3, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do and He will establish your plans.”

Hard truths are not easy to understand. Living the Gospel requires us to be different. That difference does not come naturally. It is born and nurtured through our faith that God has been, is, and always will be there for us. We have never experienced eternity with Christ, but we have seen what He had done through us when we were open to His lead. That history is what we use to guide us to Him in times of uncertainty and trouble. That is what makes us different. You have the full force of the Holy Spirit that lives in you.

2 Timothy 1:7, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.”

It takes courage to be different. But being different in a fallen world is not a bad thing. On the contrary, bringing compassion, grace, and love to those who hurt with you is the best way to heal your wounds.

Job 42:2, “I know You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”

September 28, 2021March 6, 2022

My Testimony

Psalms 107:4-6, “They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.”

THE STARTER’S GUN

I was kind of late to Christianity. Although I was baptized at a young age, it was more because I was a joiner. By the time I left High School, I was the president of the Baptist Youth Fellowship at my small church. These things can happen in small communities; the one who raises their hand gets the job.

I went to college not because I had a life plan but because it was the next step. I worked full-time during college; my goal was to get a diploma, not an education. If you don’t know what you want to be in life, what is the point in getting too educated on stuff you may never use? Sorry parents, there are a lot of kids in college with this plan.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games, exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way, as not without aim.”

THE TURN

After college, I packed up all my stuff in a Chevy Vega and headed 750 miles south to get a job; I didn’t know a person in town, had no business connections and had no direction. I was working on the next step in life; I got a diploma now get a job. A man has to eat. At this point, life was just a series of checkmarks. Next on the list was marriage and family. There wasn’t any real passion or objective to being alive. I was insanely insecure, insanely angry, and insanely driven. This mental state was a tightly joined lethal cocktail. My insecurity drove my anger which forced me to overachieve. I look back on it now, and it seems so illogical, but it all made sense at the time. The good news for me was that I was an ambivert, you know, the guy that fits well in a social environment but has to go home to hide. I could mask all of my daily issues and feed them when I was alone at night.

The weird thing was that I thought this was all normal; it was just life. Everyone was fighting to get ahead. But it was a formula for disaster; still, I didn’t see it. Even when I was in the lifeboat watching the last of the ship as it dipped below the waves, I thought, this is life; everyone has problems. A wrecked marriage and a pacemaker at thirty, stress was the fuel. Stress kept me focused; it fed the anger to be someone.

Jeremiah 12:5, “… you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out,”

THE STRETCH

Finally, I had to agree that this approach wasn’t working. I couldn’t keep it up for a lifetime. There had to be better way. Back in childhood, there was this book that was supposed to have the answers. So I got a copy, it was the Bible; I started to read. I wasn’t looking for salvation; I was looking for a better life. Up to this point, life was a sprint that turned into a marathon; I wasn’t prepared for it. I read the Bible from cover to cover eight times. Every time I learned something new about how God made me and the way I needed to live my life. I was convinced God existed; Christ was still a little iffy.

Proverbs 4:13, “Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.”

I started going to church. Over time there grew a desire in me to become something bigger than just me. I began to question my existence. Just why was I driven to achieve, and what exactly was I to achieve? Then I read the book “A Case for Christ.” From both a historical and factual standpoint, it was almost impossible to deny Christ’s ministry. He had to be who He said He was; what did that mean to me?

My conclusion; I was dead in my sin. Christ did die for my sins. He did raise from the dead. Salvation was real. I rededicated my life to Him. With that rededication, I am a new person in Christ no longer driven by anger and insecurity; I was created in the image of Christ. But I was still internally driven, still focused on worldly standards. It was still easy to separate my Christian beliefs from my material efforts. The scoreboard was about using everything God had given me to become a better me. I started out embellishing my worldly resume, then I turned to embellishing my spiritual resume.

THE FINISH

I remember the day that I finally saw God’s truth. I was on the way to the airport in the early morning. I traveled five days a week almost my entire career; it was a typical Monday morning. A friend had given me a tape of a one-person play called “The Bema.” The essence of the play was to answer the question; What have you done for Christ since you knew Him? My answer was simple, nothing. It has always been about me; it went from me-pleasing-me to me-pleasing-God. But I was still the center of the story.

2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in good works”

The epiphany was that it has never been about me. Everything God created, myself included, is for God’s glory, not mine. Everything I have, had, or ever will have belongs to Him; I’m just a caretaker of those things. I bring glory to God by taking what He has given me and serving others. This concept was a pivot point. This was the point in my life that I started to become the man God had always created me to be. This was the start of a life worth living.

Isaiah 40:31, “but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.”

Since then, I have tried to be more outward-focused. I want to see the opportunities God is giving me to serve others through Him. By the way, it took me several years to consistently give Him glory for what I was doing. I would serve someone, but I would forget to tell them that it wasn’t me but Christ in me who had served them. The first step in sharing the Gospel is living the Gospel. I’m getting better at a lot of things; I still have further to go.

Life is a marathon; within that race you can find a calming cadence provided by Christ that guarantees that you can finish the race confidently. My focus is not the road ahead, but the God of the Universe that created me to not only run the race but run it with hope and joy that the race is not in vain.

Hebrews 12:1-3, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

September 21, 2021September 17, 2021

Living on Purpose

Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

On a grand scale, our purpose is clearly defined in Acts: We are to be witnesses to what Christ has done for us. We are to demonstrate to others what it means to live in Christ. We are not just to teach the gospel but to live it out every day in our lives such that people want to know why we are different.

Acts 1: 8, “But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.”

UNIQUENESS

This overarching purpose is what gives direction to who we are. Each of us is created uniquely to be a witness in a specific way. As the world is made up of many people exhibiting various personalities, skills, knowledge, experiences, and cultures, so should the body of Christian witnesses. There is no formula for who God has called you to be outside of the instructions laid out in the scriptures. Comparing ourselves to anyone else is to limit our impact. Our impact for Christ is as unique as we are.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6, “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”

When chasing our purpose, we sometimes spend too much time deciding the worldly nature of our purpose. We focus so much on trying to be someone that we lose sight of the fact that we are to declare His glory in whatever we do. Although we are called through the spirit to chase a specific occupation or career, what we display every day is our faithful witness.

1 Chronicles 16:24, “Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples.”

Your job, business, or skill may be the tool that God uses in your life to demonstrate His glory, but it is the way we live out our lives that is the real purpose. Every interaction we have in every situation is an opportunity to show others the difference between the way others live and how Christians live.

1 Peter 4:10-11, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

There is no direct analogy between success and kingdom impact. We like to think that being successful is one of the best ways for people to see how God has worked through our lives. The real-life problem is that most people are attracted to God through adversity. Nonbelievers want to see how we act when things are not going as we planned. Can we be as sure of our faith when we don’t know the path ahead?

Luke 6:28, “bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

SERVANTHOOD

Servanthood is the hard part of our purpose. It is getting down into the dirt and demonstrating that we are willing to be a servant even when being a servant is demeaning. Can we be supportive of a co-worker that just stole your idea? What about the passive-aggressive peer who wants your promotion? Then there is a PTA member or the Subdivision Board member that has let their authority go to their head? There is not a moment in our lives when we are not under someone’s control. Most of these people are nonbelievers. How do we model Christ to those who don’t know Christ?

Titus 1:16, “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work”

I love the ideation aspect of figuring out what God planned for me. I love to see how he uses my experience and opportunities to shape my future. There is this satisfaction in knowing I am on the right path. But in all of this, I must remember that every action in my life has a purpose. It is not just the mission I have been sent on, but every day I wake up.

Holding the door open for someone is works. Showing gratitude and appreciation is works. Letting someone have the closer parking space is works. Paying for a stranger’s cup of coffee is works. Take the time to listen to someone attentively rather than monopolize the conversation is works. Give someone an inspiring book is works. Put your phone away when in the company of others and do not keep checking it is works. Tell someone you do business with how much you appreciate him or her is works. Good works abounds all around you.

Strive to make every moment count. You earn the right to share the Gospel through the way that you live your life everyday. Don’t let hypocrisy stand in the way of someone’s salvation.

FINAL NOTE

James 1:22-25, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

September 7, 2021September 3, 2021

Word of the Year – Post Truth

In 2016 the Oxford Word of the Year was “post truth”. Post truth is defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.

IRONY

This really struck me as ironic. Ironic in the sense that 2016 we hadn’t come close to the dystopia currently on display today as it concerns post truth. In 2016 we were infants to this concept. After feeding on it for five years we have become raging pre-pubescent adolescents. The future of truth is bleak at best, and may fall out of our consciousness at worst.

This subject, this concept, this “ideology” is evident all around us every day. I was having dinner with a group of good Christian friends and the obligatory anti/for-mask/vaccine debate broke out. Everyone at the table was convinced (in a compassionate loving way) that they knew the truth. They each had their respectable sources and facts. They each had their gospel references. But yet they were on two sides of the same argument. Apparently God is both adamantly for and against all things related to COVID. These disagreements are creating wedges in the truth of the Gospel. The Gospel isn’t a reference tool to win a temporal argument.

James 1:26, “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.”

Rod Dreher wrote an interesting book entitled “Live not by Lies, A Manual for Christian Dissidents”. In it he spends the first half of the book relating the histories of all of the “isms”; Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism, Communism, Socialism, Marxism, Progressivism, Capitalism etc. He writes about how people gravitate to these ideologies based on the existence of an ideal state where everyone is cooperative. He goes on to say that the reality is that we live in a fallen world and the ideal state does not exist here on earth. Ideologies come and go, they all have a shelf life. They are all flawed by the human existence.

There is only one eternal Kingdom, that is the Kingdom established through Christ.

Romans 12:2, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

SHOW AND TELL

As Christians do we tell but not show? Do we live based on emotions and worldly beliefs, while telling people of the power of God’s redeeming grace? Do we live in fear that the other side is going to win, all the while professing faith that God is in control? Or do we speak of the reforming grace of God’s word, while living it?

Most, not all, emotional bias have a foundation in fear. We fear that something will happen that will harm us or our loved ones. This fear grows into a belief that there is only one true protection from our fear. That protection, be it a person, place, or thing, becomes what we desire most. That desire starts to overshadow reality. We now have a fear that what we believe is in our best interest might not be in our best interest. This implicit bias drives us to sources that confirm or reaffirm our pre-existing position. We want to feel safe.

So ask yourself, is your fear based on worldly temporal issues or divine issues? Do you live your life avoiding contemporary fears created by current events or do you fear the eternal implication of your convictions? A health fear of the Lord is a fear worth having, all others will pass away.

GOSSIP

Proverbs 16:28, “A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends.”

Are your conversations based on the steadfast word of God or the latest emotion driven opinions? Temporal politics and cultural attitudes will pass away, but God’s word will survive forever. People DO live what they believe. Look at someone’s life and you will see their convictions. People do not live a lie, they live the truth as they see it. What does your life show about you?

Patrik Bendas, son of the Czechoslovakian anti-communist Christian dissident Vaclav Bendas, states “When we look at what is happening in America today, we see that you are building walls and creating gaps between people, for us, we are always willing to speak, to talk with the other side to avoid building walls between people. You know, it is much easier to indoctrinate someone who is enclosed within a set of walls.” When we become hardened and opinionated we are actually fertilizing the ground that will eventually grow division.

Philippians 4:8, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

We should approach every conversation with grace and compassion designed to build someone up, not create a new fear.

GRACE

Good news is that as a Christian you have been saved by Christ grace. You have nothing to fear. Most contemporary issues are just that, contemporary. Years from now we will see that we overstated their implications. If we hold true to God’s word and seek Him when in turmoil, we will be held safe in the palm of His hand. There will be hard times, and some of those hard times will change us, but God’s love will remain steadfast and sure.

Ephesians 4:29, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”

Live a life worth living.

August 24, 2021August 24, 2021

My Last Day in Toknok

As I sit in my room on the last day of my trip to Kyrgyzstan, I have mixed emotions. These are incredible people. Materially their world is not horrible compared to places like central Africa, but it is not close to Europe or other developed countries. The biggest challenges they have are non-material, it is spiritual, emotional, and cultural.

I had dinner the other night with three incredible young ladies; two were college-educated, and the third was in college. All three of them were exactly the type of person you would want working for you. They were intelligent, positive, and driven to make something of their lives. Their challenge was that they lived in a world that did not value that. They lived in a post-Russian, Muslim, male-dominated society that did not value educated, independent women.

All three of them were faced with the prospects of either leaving their family and country to pursue their dream or staying where they were and living someone else’s. For them, life started with hard choices. For them, life started with a deep dive into the black pool of uncertainty. Even the prospect of meeting the right man and raising a family required moving away; there are not many Christian men their age. They are not the first nor the last to face this dilemma.

This is the discussion we had, and you can scold me for an older man advising young women.

I have never lived a day in their lives. I have never walked a mile in their shoes. I have never been raised in a culture that puts a constraint on what a person can be. The only experience I have is the Word of God that says He has a plan for us. It is a plan to prosper. He has made us unique creatures explicitly created to use all He gave us to glorify Him. If they compromise on that belief, they compromise on the joy, fulfillment, and impact for His Kingdom that he has written for them.

All this week, we have been teaching hard lessons. We have spent our time telling new business owners the hard truth of managing their businesses. These are Christian business people living in a predominately Muslim world. These are hard lessons because they do not conform to the rules of the world. These hard lessons teach us to do what is right, not what we have a right to do. They tell us that we should love those who hate us, serve those who despise us, and give to those in need that do not value us. Through this, we glorify the One who made all this possible. We do it not as a command but as a form of worship.

We have to apply this teaching to incredible young people with their whole lives in front of them. I am incredibly excited for them and, at the same time, worried and concerned. These young spirits full of energy and hope are the story of fairy tales. They are the forgotten maiden searching for their prince. They are the heroin of God’s story for humanity. Yet like all great stories, it has to start with hard choices.

The sadness is that when I come back, and I will, there can only be one sad ending or another. These young women will have chased God’s vision for their lives, and I may never see them again. Or they will not, and I will see a shell of the person they could have been. My selfish prayer is that God’s plan for them will be revealed in a way that brings us both joy.

August 24, 2021August 5, 2021

Sabbatical

I am taking a little sabbatical from posting. I am about to go overseas for a few weeks on back-to-back mission trips and need the time and energy channeled toward those endeavors. I’ll start posting again in September. Thanks for reading and enjoy some of my previous posts.

Traveling Partners – “We have a traveling partner; He is always with us. He will never abandon us. Not everyone has this.”

Lessons in Love – “Love can make your brain forget to breathe.”

Impossible to Unbelievable – “God wants to take you from the mundane to the impossible to the unbelievable.”

A life Worth Living – “The reality is that God puts people in our lives as part of His plan for us. Through them, He can speak to us.”

Psalm 1:1-6, “Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God.

Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night. They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.

But evil people are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away. Sinners will be condemned by God and kept apart from God’s own people.

The righteous are guided and protected by the Lord, but the evil are on the way to their doom.”

July 28, 2021July 28, 2021

Losing our Identity

John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

One of the biggest struggles with most humans is identity. We are constantly bombarded with messages concerning what the world thinks of our image; intellectually, occupationally, physically, environmentally, or politically. Moreover, the advent of the internet and social media has caused this internal struggle to magnify. As a result, even the most secure among us have difficulty, at times, feeling uncomfortable in our own skin.

THERAPEUTIC IDENTITY

One of the significant outcomes is postmodern thinking; you have your truth, and I have mine. I gravitate to only the media that supports my point of view; I become more comfortable in my skin. Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist coined the term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” They defined it as “God exist and only wants us to be nice and to be happy.” Christians fall into this trap. Philip Rieff stated it this way in “The Triumph of Therapeutics,” man no longer sees himself as a pilgrim on a meaningful journey with others, but as a tourist who travels through life according to their own self-guided itinerary, with personal happiness the ultimate goal. Many people have become so overwhelmed by the caustic and bombastic environment we live in that all they want is harmony and peace, and they are willing to give up truth to get it.

John 16:13, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

A Therapeutic Culture makes it a great sin to stand in the way of the freedom of others to find happiness as they wish. This therapeutic culture is the author of ethical and gender identity politics. It demonizes dissidents by marginalizing them as people who do not care for the rights and freedoms of others. Dissidents that seek truth do not believe in a just society; they put their view of truth above the truths of others. Dissidents set themselves up to be judges.

1 John 4:6, “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of falsehood.”

Happiness has the right identity. Happiness is being the right person, for the right person, in the right way. All of this is defined by the individual. The book of Judges ends with this statement “each man did what he considered right.” The good news is that we are not the first generation to deal with this problem.

TRUE IDENTITY

Milosz, and others, define ketman as a false stance adopted by a person “in order to find himself at one with others, in order not to be alone.”. Many of us assume ketman as a survival tool in our increasingly divergent society. We feel that we cannot openly state our views because of the social backlash that might permanently impact our lives. Once we are “canceled” as a source of information, any truth we might speak becomes null and void. To stay away from that future, we employ ketman.

2 Timothy 2:15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

Our identity is in Christ and Christ alone. This concept is a fundamental building block of who we are. Because of the current state of affairs, it is imperative we reinforce our identity through bible study, Christian community, and worship. We will never be able to defend the Gospel in and of ourselves; we need the power of the Holy Spirit. God made you according to His will that you might glorify Him. As a friend of mine reminds me, “God don’t make no Trash.” Through the Holy Spirit, you have all that you need to maintain your true identity. You have to stand firm in that resolve.

HOW DO WE PROCEED?

“A man convinced against his will is of the opinion still” – Dale Carnegie.

You cannot browbeat a person into permanent change. You can get them to acquest at the moment, but they will stray when your back is turned. We need to build relationships that create an environment of permanent change. We do this by listening. You cannot accurately address the concerns of others until you understand their problems from their point of view. I guess that you will find one of the most prevalent root causes is the lack of a positive identity. People have lost what it means to be created in God’s image.

Love conquers all. Even though we may have disagreements with others’ versions of the truth, we need to treat them with compassion and respect. We do not want them to remain in a state of sin, but they have free will. Patience is in order. They have moved to a position that their happiness is more important than truth. They need to understand that they can have both.

At a societal level, we need to combat the encroachment of postmodern therapeutics into our society. We need to be active at all levels attacking the issues, not the people; stay on topic. You will be demonized; it is part of the strategy; remember, “in your anger do not sin.” Please do not stoop to their level. Instead, engage the Holy Spirit at every turn. We are not the first to fight this battle and we will not be the last. In God’s economy it is about winning people to Christ, not overcoming worldly issues.

And always remember:

Romans 8: 38-39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

July 13, 2021July 12, 2021

How do I Compare?

This one thing I know; God has created you as a unique person with a unique purpose. God makes it perfectly clear why you and I exist. We are created to glorify Him in all that we do. He doesn’t give us vague parables, lofty words, or hidden text. He states it outright.

Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them”

Ephesians 1:4, “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love”

Galatians 1:15, “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,”

God created each of us to do the will of God for a specific purpose. We are each formed uniquely to serve a unique purpose that God created no one else to achieve. Every cell, nuance, and fiber of our being is specific. We might know people more intelligent than us, prettier, more outspoken, more discipline, more together, but they are not asked do what God has asked us to accomplish.

We are set apart to be holy and blameless and consecrated for His purpose. There is nothing God forgot to give us.

MEASURING PURPOSE

I was part of a panel of speakers that talked about purpose. As I listened to the other speakers, I was humbled and a little jealous of who God made them and what they had accomplished. Their lives were full of purpose, directed by God, to achieve great things. They had compassion, grace, and wisdom. I was last to speak; their testimony left me feeling shallow and lacking. But then there was this thought:

Ephesians 1:11, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,”

For all of their greatness, for all of the things they have and will accomplish for Christ, they are not asked do what God has asked that I should do. I am not sitting in the second chair. I am not an extra on the movie set of life. I am not here to fill space until Christ returns. I am here to glorify God in a way that is unique to me.

I don’t want to go down a rabbit trail here, so I will say it once and move on. There is a complex interaction created by God that grants free will while still embracing predestination. The word commonly attributed to this seemingly impossible contradiction is Antinomy. To understand how God manages this contradictive construct is to know the mind of God. I don’t, so I accept that I don’t. There are a number of opinions on this issue and I am not the one to sort them out.

Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

God has predestined you and me to achieve great things, knowing our weaknesses and compensating accordingly. God is all knowing, he knows the decision we will make, of our own free will, before we do. Even if we chose not to be obedient, He knew and planned accordingly. Don’t let this distract you from your mission.

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

COMPARING WITH OTHERS

2 Corinthians 10:12, “Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”

When you look at the world around you, you can’t help but start to compare yourself with what you see and hear. You can’t help but let worldly standards erode the Godly standard under which He created you. You see the accomplishments of others and wonder how you will stack up. You are unique; they are unique—each of us with a specific purpose. We cannot compare ourselves to others and come away unblemished. There will always be someone better at something. Everything we accomplish will be superseded by those who follow.

Galatians 6:4, “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.”

STAY STEADFAST

Each of us must understand that we are created precisely the way God intended; to serve Him, not man. With the fall in Garden of Eden we inherited a sin nature. When you feel inadequate, know that it is not your potential you should reevaluate but your direction. If you feel inferior to others, see that they have their purpose, and you have yours. You cannot be them; they cannot be you. You are not asked to reach the people that God has put before them, and they are not asked to reach the ones God has for you.

If everyone had the same path, we would all have the same attributes. But that is not how God works. He wants us to be individuals; God wants us to be different. God wants us to do our part, not be part of someone else’s. God has a great future planned for you, filled with hope and prosperity.

Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Tag: Joy