by R. Herbert | Mar 8, 2015 | Growth
Scripture: Philippians 3:12 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”
Something to think about: So often in life, we tend to judge success in what we do by how far we have climbed up the ladder (or the climbing rope!) we are on. But, of course, if we are on the wrong ladder or rope, it doesn’t make a lot of difference in the last analysis. In this scripture, the apostle Paul extends that thought to remind us that even when we are on the right climb we must never be satisfied with how far we have come. If we were given greater abilities and opportunities, perhaps more will be expected of us. But beyond our own lives, whatever we may have accomplished for good, God can always do more through us if we continue to press on.
by Staff | Jan 25, 2015 | Growth
From: Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear by Max Lucado, Thomas Nelson, 2009.
“Seek first the kingdom of wealth, and you’ll worry over every dollar. Seek first the kingdom of health, and you’ll sweat every blemish and bump. Seek first the kingdom of popularity, and you’ll relive every conflict. Seek first the kingdom of safety, and you’ll jump at every crack of the twig. But seek first his kingdom, and you will find it.” ~ Max Lucado
What do I seek first? Do any of the points Max Lucado mentions in this paragraph resonate especially for me? It’s good to have goals in all areas of life, but what is my primary goal – and how do my other goals fit into it? Do any of the other goals conflict, and how can I make my secondary goals support what I seek first?
by R. Herbert | Nov 9, 2014 | Growth
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
The apostle Paul would certainly have agreed with that little saying. As someone who went from being one of the greatest persecutors of Christianity to one of its greatest servants, Paul knew, perhaps more than most of us, what a difference “changing the way you look at things” can make.
Paul came to see very clearly how conversion and coming to faith changes the way we see things entirely. Notice what he wrote to the Christians in Corinth regarding this change:
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16).
Here, Paul shows how we begin to see not only God, but one another in a different light, to see with love rather than lust, jealousy, resentment, hatred and all the other ways in which our human nature, left to itself, can twist our view of the people around us.
But changing our viewpoint doesn’t just stop at initial conversion. It is an ongoing process. There are many times in the ongoing path of growth and transformation that we begin to feel that perhaps we should change in some way or do something we have not been doing. It is as if we feel a continuing pull to make the change, but we are not entirely convinced in our own minds that we want to do so. Perhaps we are not sure we want to give up something, or we are unsure of what the repercussions will be if we make some important change.
It’s at times like these that we need to remember that often we have to change before we see why we needed to change or realize that the changed situation is in fact better. There is nothing mystical in this – it just means that we need to step out and act, and then we begin to see the situation differently once we do. That’s when “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change“ comes in to play. Once we begin to turn from something we are coming to see is wrong, the more we stop wanting whatever it was. Once we begin to view a person we had disliked with an attitude of love, it’s surprising how often they seem to change for the better. And once we try doing something we may have feared or not wanted to have to do, we may find ourselves very happy that we did.
The important thing is to remember that spiritually we cannot wait until we see things differently – we must change, and then the different view develops naturally. It is very much like the situation Mark Twain described when he wrote: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” When we change, we change the way we see things – and it really is amazing how those things then change.
by R. Herbert | Oct 5, 2014 | Growth
When explorers Lewis and Clark conducted their historic mission through the American West, they took with them many small mirrors which they traded and gave as gifts to the native Americans they met. One native warrior later described these mirrors as “things like solid water,” and the Indians considered them quite wonderful as they gave much better reflections than looking into water could do.
Today people everywhere take mirrors for granted, but not every mirror gives an accurate reflection. Even apart from the type of distorting mirror that is used in carnivals, there is actually quite a range of reflection accuracy in normal commercial mirrors – as you can often see by comparing several together.
Nevertheless, despite imperfections they may have, we all need mirrors occasionally to check on ourselves as we go through life. Sometimes we need a spiritual mirror too, and there the level of reflection accuracy becomes much more important, of course. But when it comes to taking a look at our own characters and spiritual condition, it’s amazing how often many people will settle for mirrors which can’t really be trusted to give an accurate reflection. We all fall prey to this to some extent. When we ourselves attempt to judge how we are doing spiritually, we run the risk of getting an inaccurate reflection as Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, because “The heart is deceitful above all things…” and it’s that human “heart” or mind that twists things so constantly that we simply can’t trust its judgment. Even if we turn to friends and fellow believers to get input on issues regarding our character and behavior, the “reflection” we get from them may be distorted by friendship, too.
The truth is there is only one spiritual mirror we can trust and that is the one God provides us in His word. It’s a particularly effective “mirror” because it works two ways. First, the word of God doesn’t pull any punches. We can always trust it to “tell it like it is” because its reflection goes much deeper than our surface selves: “For the word of God is… sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates … the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). That’s a non-distorting reflection we can trust one hundred percent. It might be discouraging at times to see a true reflection of our inner nature, but there is another, more positive way the word of God acts as a mirror for us which does change the reflection to our advantage. The more we look into the mirror of the word, the more we clearly see the nature of Christ himself – an image to which we are striving to conform as Paul tells us: “We … beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image …” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
So God provides a mirror that we can trust when it comes to seeing things we need to change and fix – and also provides us with a mirror that gives us a clear image to aim for as we change. It’s really not that complicated: a reflection of what we need to avoid and one of what we need to be. The only caution is that we mustn’t forget to regularly check the mirror we are given and to act on its reflection, as the apostle James wrote: “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do” (James 1:22-25). That’s a mirror we can trust – all we have to do is use it regularly.
by R. Herbert | Sep 24, 2014 | Growth, Overcoming, Tactical Notes
You know the feeling. You are about to do or say something, or you pause in a chain of thought, when you suddenly tell yourself that something is not right, that it may not be good to continue with the thought, word or action.
There is nothing mystical about it, but this moment of hesitation, this quiet voice of self-restraint is something that everyone experiences at some point, just as the apostle Paul wrote that it was something that affected Christians and pagans alike (Romans 2:14-15).
We may call this our conscience or use some other term. Some say it is God speaking to them, others that it is just the result of learned social behavior. In the Middle Ages many people thought it was an angel whispering in their ear. Albert Einstein called it an “inner voice” and others have called it an “inner light.” But no matter what we call it, or where we feel it comes from, it is an established fact of human psychology. We are not talking about hearing voices in one’s head – just a feeling or awareness that some action or response isn’t good or right. It’s like an internal warning system that is suddenly sounding in our minds. The problem, of course, exists when we turn down the volume and stop listening to that alarm. Typically, before we act in error, our conscience warns us to stop. If we choose to ignore its warning, or begin to think up rationalizations why we need not heed this feeling, the alarm will turn off and the urging of our conscience subsides – only to return later to condemn us if we go ahead with behavior we knew was not right.
The apostle James wrote about this progression between the awareness of something wrong and the results of tuning out that awareness: “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15). The beginning of this chain is the still small voice that, if rejected, temporarily disappears. The amazing thing is that this is something we all understand, yet something that we so often don’t act upon. Yet the battle for good habits and right living is almost always fought at this point – at the very beginning of the trajectory. If we ignore the restraining call and proceed regardless, we invariably end up, as James affirms, in sin.
As a result, it’s possible that one of the greatest things we can do in overcoming wrong and growing in doing what is right in our lives is to train ourselves to listen to that voice and immediately act on its guidance. To listen and stop immediately has been called, in theology, the obsta principiis – the determination to “resist the beginnings,” because, as we have seen, that’s where the real battle is always fought at the moment the alarm sounds. Again, there is nothing mystical about this, it’s simply a matter of acting immediately on what we know is right. But the key lies in understanding that every time we ignore the inner voice of restraint and go ahead with what we wish to do, say or think, we actually move further away from where we really want to go in life. Every time we stop at the first “sound” of that alarm we move further toward our real goals. We need to train ourselves to listen for that inner alarm, learn to recognize it and to stop in our tracks. Counter-intuitive as it might seem physically, if we want to move forward further and faster spiritually, we need to stop more often.
by John Birch | Sep 18, 2014 | Growth, Strategic Articles
Perhaps the most difficult concept for the original hearers of the teachings of Jesus to understand was that of the Kingdom of God. Doubtless because of that fact, and its centrality in his message, Christ gave his disciples more parables on the Kingdom than on any other subject.
Many of those parables are short but full of meaning and t
oday we have uploaded an article by John Birch on one of them: “The Growing Seed: Mark 4:26-34“– which explains an important aspect of how God develops His Kingdom.
As John states in his article, the parable uses a simple analogy with which people who lived close to the earth would be especially able to relate, but no matter where we live it’s an analogy we can understand and by which we can grow. Be sure not to miss this exposition of the parable of the Growing Seed, here.
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