Five Paths to Encouragement

Five Paths to Encouragement

by | Dec 8, 2019 | Encouragement, Tactical Articles

The Bible has much to say about encouragement – and shows that it is something even the strongest individuals of faith need  at times (Moses, David, and Elijah, to name only three). The Scriptures also show that there is a difference between being encouraged in physical things (Proverbs 13:12, etc.)  and the kind of spiritual encouragement we all need from time to time in the Christian walk (1 Thessalonians 5:11, etc.). 

When problems and difficulties fill our lives, spiritual encouragement can sometimes seem distant, but our new article shows five ways to find it.  You can read the article in our Tactics section, here.

Blessings and Honor

Blessings and Honor

by | Nov 24, 2019 | Gratitude

There is a sobering but meaningful verse in the Book of Malachi regarding the blessings we have been given. In this scripture God says: “If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name … I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings … because you have not resolved to honor me” (Malachi 2:2).

​Notice that Malachi does not say God will necessarily take away our blessings, but that our behavior leads to those blessings becoming curses. Why would this be? Malachi’s words allude to the great “Blessings and Curses” narrative (Deuteronomy 11) in which God reminded ancient Israel that faithfulness and obedience to His laws would result in individual and national blessings – whereas turning from God would lead to many resultant curses.  The prophet’s words also have a specific reference to the priests who had become corrupt and were not honoring the God they were supposed to serve – but the principle is one that can apply to all of us, in our marriages, families, careers or finances.

The Bible shows that we can lose blessings or see them become curses for a number of reasons; the Old Testament may even be described as a book of the giving and losing of blessings – from Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden to the expulsion of Israel and Judah from their homelands. Many of the Old Testament prophets elaborate on this theme (see for example, Malachi and Haggai), but it is not just an Old Testament concept.  The New Testament also shows we can lose God’s blessings – the fact is stressed throughout the Bible.

Look at a few examples.  We can lose blessings by putting them – the physical things themselves – before God. We don’t necessarily do this by making idols of them, but sometimes just by focusing on them to the point that our character suffers and our spiritual lives decline.  This idea is found in the words of Solomon: “A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent” (Proverbs 28:20) and Jesus: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).   We can miss the point of these scriptures if we think this only applies to avaricious greed and not to letting such things as desire for promotion in our careers or “trying to make a comfortable living” come between us and God. It’s a matter of focus.

We can lose blessings or have them become curses by being unwilling to share them where we can (Romans 15:27, 2 Corinthians 9:9). We can also lose blessings by taking them for granted (Hebrews 12:17).  In all these ways, and others, we can fall into the trap that Malachi warns of – that our focus is not on honoring God by keeping him first in our lives.

It’s something we can think about this Thanksgiving season. Is our focus on the blessings or on the One who ultimately gives them?  Our Thanksgiving should perhaps be about more than just  enjoying our blessings – and the big game of the day. Psalm 50:23 tells us that “Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me” and the principle of offering sacrifices of thanks certainly applies to the Thanksgiving holiday. But Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity not only to give thanks for physical and spiritual blessings, but also to remind ourselves to live our thanks by honoring God, as Malachi urges us to do. ​

A Shortage of Good Women?

A Shortage of Good Women?

by | Nov 17, 2019 | Difficult Scriptures

Scripture in Focus: Ecclesiastes 7:28
 
“while I was still searching but not finding – I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all” (Ecclesiastes 7:28).
 
On the surface of it, the author of the biblical book of wisdom called Ecclesiastes seems to give women a pretty bad rap. While this writer – probably the wise King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:12) –  admits there are few good men to be found (“I found one upright man in a thousand”), he seems to have been unable to find a good woman at all!

But is that what this verse is really saying?  There are actually a number of possibilities that the verse is not putting women down at all, and we will look at three of these individually.

First, we should notice that the writer is referring to himself in the first person in saying “While I was searching … I found …” This is important as the book is giving the writer’s personal experience from its  introduction almost to its conclusion. He continually stresses his own personal reactions and feelings – as when he writes: “I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me” (Ecclesiastes 9:13).  As a result, it is perfectly possible that the writer is simply talking about his own experience rather than making a statement about all women everywhere.  The fact that he was a king might make this more likely, as we will see next.

Second, the Hebrew word translated “woman” (ishah) can mean wife as well as woman and the phrase “to find a woman” can mean to look for and find a wife. If that is the meaning in this verse, the king evidently could find an occasional man who made a good friend, but was unable to find a good wife. 1 Kings 11:3 tells us that Solomon had one thousand wives and concubines, but it is entirely possible that most of these women were striving to win position or favor for themselves or their families.  As someone who admittedly was primarily seeking pleasure in life (Ecclesiastes 2:1, etc.), he may have cut himself off from women who he would have respected more. From this perspective Ecclesiastes 7:28 is simply applying the fact that money  (even kingly riches) cannot buy happiness in the realm of marriage.

Yet another possibility can be seen in the fact that the Hebrew word translated man in this verse (adam) can often mean “human.” If that was the intended meaning, the writer could simply have been stressing that his experience was that only one in a thousand people were good individuals – though admitting that his “sample” consisted entirely of men and no women.

There are even other possibilities for the original meaning of this verse, but we can see from the three mentioned here that whatever the writer of Ecclesiastes meant specifically, he need not have been putting down all women.  It is more likely that he was complaining of his own sad experience based on his own particular circumstances.  Additionally, if the author of Ecclesiastes was indeed Solomon, we should also compare this verse with the many proverbs of Solomon that do show a high regard for women (Proverbs 12:4; 18:22; 19:14; 31:10; etc.). 

How Do We Please God?

How Do We Please God?

by | Nov 3, 2019 | Discipleship

​The more we grow spiritually, the more we desire to please God; but how do we most effectively do that?  The New Testament mentions a number of ways in which we should please God – that we cannot please him without faith (Hebrews 10:38), without “walking in the Spirit” (Romans 8:8), etc. But in his letter to the Colossians, the apostle Paul makes a statement that summarizes the many answers to that question (Colossians 1:9-12).  Paul tells us he prayed that believers “… may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way…” (vs. 10, emphasis added), and he then follows this thought by speaking of four specific ways that, taken together, please God in “every way.”

Paul’s statement is almost startling in both its reach and its simplicity. No other passage in the New Testament claims to tell us how to be completely pleasing to God, so we should look very closely at the characteristics the apostle tells us fulfill this goal.  The four things are:

1. Bearing fruit in every good work (vs. 10). Paul makes it clear throughout his epistles that although good works do not save us, God expects us to produce good works as a result of being saved (Titus 3:8, 14, etc.).  Throughout the New Testament the expression “good works” primarily refers to works done to help others (Hebrews 13:16, etc.), but it also includes our obedience to God (1 Thessalonians 4:1, Hebrews 13:20-21, etc.). We should also notice Paul’s stress in Colossians 1 is not that “some” good works will please God, but that we are urged to “every good work” – to as many good works as possible! 

2. Growing in the knowledge of God (vs. 10).  Paul next cites our ongoing growing in the knowledge of God and his ways as being central to our ability to please God. It is only as we come to know God that we can learn to properly love, fear, trust, and obey him (Psalm 147:11). Knowledge itself is of no use without application (1 Corinthians 13:1-2), but growing in knowledge can enable us to better grow in good works (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The first two points  Paul gives for how to please God correspond directly with the apostle Peter’s summary admonition that we should “…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18, emphasis added). Paul also stresses these same two characteristics elsewhere in his writing (Philippians 1:9), but in Colossians 1 he goes further to add two more points that we need in order to fully please God:

3. Being strengthened by God (vs. 11).  This is not strength for its own sake, of course, rather  “… that you may have great endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:11, Ephesians 3:16, etc.). Given what Paul says in this verse, there is no question that this strengthening is actually something God must do in us: “being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might,” yet we must make this possible by asking God’s help and trusting him in faith to supply his strength. In that sense, this characteristic includes the quality of faith itself, as the basis of our strength, endurance and patience (Hebrews 11:6).

4. Giving thanks to God (vs. 12). The final characteristic that Paul tells us is pleasing to God is deep gratitude on our part: “… giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” In fact, thankfulness is a theme to which the apostle returns numerous times in this short epistle (Colossians 2:7; 3:15, 17; 4:2) – in this way reinforcing our understanding of its importance in God’s eyes.

So Paul’s four summary characteristics of believers who truly please God are not what many of us might guess. Humanly, we might suppose that never-failing obedience, great sacrifice, frequent or long periods of prayer, or any number of other things that relate to our own lives might be what please God. But Paul’s four characteristics do not focus on our lives – they are all primarily outward looking toward others and God himself.    
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Perhaps we should not be surprised that the things Paul says greatly please God are all expressions of our love for others and love for God.  That is basic enough, but the four specific characteristics Paul enumerates are worthy of our careful study – if we want to please God, they are among the highest goals for which we can aim.

First Responders vs. First Responses

First Responders vs. First Responses

by | Oct 27, 2019 | Overcoming

The men and women who constitute our first responders – the police, fire, paramedics and other public servants –  selflessly accomplish an untold amount of good for which we all can be grateful. The majority of those first responders have answered a call in which they put others before themselves and they are often the most trustworthy people we can find.

But this blog post is not about our societies’ first responders, but our personal “first responses.”  It is a fact of human psychology that our first responses in many situations are often anything but trustworthy. Think about this for a moment. If someone were to suddenly insult you, throw a rock at you, or to kick your new car, what would your first response be –  to immediately retaliate verbally or in some other way?  For most of us the answer is probably yes – whether we would eventually calm down and restrain ourselves or not.  Perhaps there are a few people whose first responses to negative or provocative stimuli are always calm and rational, but I have not personally had the honor of meeting any of them.

What I do know, and what you probably have found as well, is that in all too many situations in life, no matter what our level of sincerity or dedication to our beliefs, our first responses are often not our best responses. People often talk about “trusting our first instincts,” but like it or not, our first reactions to problematic situations and stimuli are usually those hardwired into our human nature and almost always wrong.  Anger, denial, justification of our behavior, shifting of blame, and countless other negative first responses are the stock-in-trade of human psychology.

So whenever the potential for a problem occurs or some kind of interpersonal difficulty actually arises, we do need to focus on our responses and not just let them happen.  There are several things we can do in this regard.  Consider the right responses involved in a physical emergency situation. First response organizations advocate three essential steps at such times:  (A)ssess the situation, (C)all for help, (T)alk to people who have been affected, calm them, and address their needs.  These three “A.C.T.” steps can be utilized spiritually in our interpersonal relations just as much as they can be used in physical situations –  a fact we see frequently in the wisdom found in the Bible’s book of Proverbs.

(A)ssess the situation: Our first responses are often the wrong ones because we follow human impulses without considering their outcome.  Many statements found in Proverbs urge us to avoid that.  For example, “the one who acts hastily sins”  (Proverbs 19:2 Holman) refers to the need to assess situations carefully before acting, and “do not answer a fool … answer a fool” (Proverbs 26:4-5) likewise counsels us to remember that different responses are needed in different situations. We must assess first, but once it is clear that we have a problem, we should move to the next step.

(C)all for help:  First responders urge people to call 911 or their local emergency number to get help as soon as they see what the problem is and confirm the seriousness of its nature.  When it comes to getting our spiritual responses right, as soon as we realize we have a problem, prayer should likewise be our first call. Proverbs assures us that “The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous” (Proverbs 15:29), and this especially applies in any spiritual emergency situation where we need help to respond in the way we should. God is the ultimate first responder and as Christians we should make it a habit to seek his help in quick silent prayer, whenever possible  before our interpersonal problems escalate.

(T)alk to people who have been affected, calm them, and address their needs: This emergency situation technique can certainly be utilized when we are faced with difficult interpersonal situations. Being aware of the natural prevalence of wrong first reactions in our own lives can help us to be mindful of the need to help others through their own first reactions.  We do this by first working to calm them rather than reacting in such a way as to make the situation worse.  Proverbs makes this point very clearly: “A gentle response diverts anger, but a harsh statement incites fury. The wise speak, presenting knowledge appropriately…” (Proverbs 15:1 ISV).  Just as a first responder will work to help with people’s needs in a physical emergency, we can also focus on the needs of the other person with whom a problem has developed rather than concentrating on our own hurts and  perceived needs.
  
These may all be basic approaches to working with situations such as arguments, accidents, misunderstandings, and other problems that may occur in our lives, but their simplicity makes them all the more effective if we can learn to utilize them.  First responders urge us to “A.C.T.” when physical problems occur that are of an emergency nature.  In the sphere of everyday interpersonal problems, remembering the  acronym “A.C.T” can also help us –  before our problem circumstances get to the level of a spiritual emergency!